On the way they untangle those two knots, as I see it, hangs the fate of our country, the United States as we know it to-day—whether it lasts fifty years or fifty centuries.
Now I know by actual experience what conditions were before this country entered the World War. I watched the improvement that followed—larger windows made in dark rooms to improve light and ventilation; when this was impossible workers would be moved into better quarters. I saw lofts that had not known a broom or wash-pail for years swept and garnished as though for a celebration.
One reason for this was the coming of the girl who didn’t have to work for her living—the war-worker. I had managers tell me:
“You’re an educated woman—ah—ah—Why, to tell the truth, I’m afraid you wouldn’t be happy here. Our loft is not—not what we’d like it to be. Not very clean, you know.”
“What about your regular workers?” I asked him.
“Oh, they’re different. They’re used to it.”
At a munition plant in Hoboken the manager of a department jumped at me as an applicant for work. He was going to “place” me at once, and sent to the office for a pass. The employment manager happened to be in a “cranky” mood, or so the department manager explained to me, and said he could not issue a pass until he had me investigated. I left with the understanding that an investigator would see me that afternoon, and the manager urged me to report early the next morning ready for work.
The investigator did see me that afternoon, and because I answered her questions truthfully she learned that I am a college graduate. The next morning the employment manager issued me a pass without question, but when I returned to the office of red-haired Mr. Black, the department manager, he had changed his mind.
“Why, you’re a college graduate!” he exclaimed, leaning forward in his swivel-chair and looking for all the world like a big frog ready to hop. “You wouldn’t be happy here a day. You just wouldn’t stand it.”
Out in the passageway I chanced upon the girl who had conducted me to Mr. Black’s office. When I told her that he had refused to give me a job she stared, then nodded her head.