And when the day comes (may its coming be hastened!) that women are even only as extensively organized as men are today, the organization of men will indeed proceed by leaps and bounds. It will not be by arithmetical, but by geometrical progression, that the union will count their increases, for it is the masses of unskilled, unorganized, ill-paid women and girl workers today, who in so many trades today increase the difficulties of the men tenfold. That dead weight removed, they could make better terms for themselves and enroll far more men into their ranks. What increase of power, what new and untried forces women may bring with them into the common store, just what these may be, and the manner of their working out, it is too early to say.
But the future was never so full of hope as today, not because conditions are not cruelly hard, and problems not baffling, but, because, over against these conditions, and helping-to solve these problems, are ranged the great forces of evolution, ever on the side of the workers, slowly building up the democracy of the future.
APPENDIX I
This document, which is the contract under which a union waitress works, is typical.
AGREEMENT
Between the Hotel and Restaurant Employés' International Alliance
Affiliated with the American and the Chicago Federation of Labor.
This contract made and entered into this 10th day of April, 1914, by and between the H.R.E.I.A. affiliated with the American and Chicago Federation of Labor of the City of Chicago, County of Cook and State of Illinois, party of the first part, and:
Chicago,
Illinois, party of the second part.
Party of the first part agrees to furnish good, competent and honest craftsmen, and does hereby agree to stand responsible for all loss incurred by any act of their respective members in good standing while in line of duty.