First, The absolute necessity of bread.
Second, A natural ability, physical and psychical; and an attraction inherent in the ability.
Third, An absolute want of the moral nature.
Having treated these in turn, I propose to show you what practical opposition man offers to her advance; what fault lies in herself; how much more numerous are the occupations open than is generally supposed; and what social obstructions have prevented her taking advantage of them.
In this connection, I shall speak of those women who have opened a way for their sex; and shall offer to you certain plans of action, by which, it seems to me, the convenience and the happiness of the employer and the employed may be materially advanced, especially as regards our own city. Like a wise child, who from his fretful pillow takes the pill first, and the conserve afterwards, I shall open the most painful branch of my subject in this lecture, and turn from it as soon as the needed impression has been made.
I ask for woman, then, free, untrammelled access to all fields of labor; and I ask it, first, on the ground that she needs to be fed, and that the question which is at this moment before the great body of working women is "death or dishonor:" for lust is a better paymaster than the mill-owner or the tailor, and economy never yet shook hands with crime.
Do you object, that America is free from this alternative? I will prove you the contrary within a rod of your own doorstep.
Do you assert, that, if all avenues were thrown open, it would not increase the quantity of work; and that there would be more laborers in consequence, and lower wages for all?
Lower wages for some, I reply; but certainly higher wages for women; and they, too, would be raised to the rank of partners, and personal ill treatment would not follow those who had position and property before the law.