P. S. Well Mom it is the next day and I have just got back from the Elite Beauty Parlors and my God I have sure had a time I don’t know if I will ever go back because we have had a strike and who do you think was the leader of it of all people in this world your own Mamie Riggs and what do you know about that? I will tell you the story right off.
It was Florabelle that begun it I call her Floradumbelle but she is got good business sense all the same and she says to Hattie Schoenstein, “My landlady has raised the rent on me a dollar a week and what am I going to do must I go without my lunches?” And Hattie that I have called Hotaire she says, “And the madame has raised the price of a manicuring twenty-five cents but what good does that do us?” And that is no hot air either Mom.
And then Adaire Huggins she says, “Why shouldn’t we get a raise when everything else is being boosted?” And I says, “I am with you girls,” and they asks me will I be the one to do the talking because they seem to think I am good at it because of my political experience which they suspect I have had though of course I have not told them and they have not found out who Mr. Edgerton is.
Well so we go to the private office but it is not so private because Madame Lafferty lets out a yell and she says, “What you ask me for more money and when I am on the verge of bankruptcy because the landlord is holding me to this lease that was made in war-time?”
“Us girls is got to live too,” I says, “it is war-time for us right now.”
“I can get a plenty to do your work for less,” she says. “And they will be girls that will fix their hair like I tell them to and they will behave like ladies and not be having the telephone ringing all day so that my customers do not know whether I am running a beauty-parlor or a date-ranch.”
Well of course I know that is a slam at me and I am hot and I says, “All right ma’am,” I says, “and you go and find them slave-girls right off because I am a free-born American citizen and I am through,” I says, “and come on girls let’s get out.” And with that we turns into the parlors and there is the customers with their fingers half done and their hair half waved and we shouts to the girls, “It is a strike we’ll have a dollar extra a week or we quit!”
And they all puts down their things and they shout, “Strike! Strike!” And the madame she yells, “Out with you you bunch of hussies!” And we grabs our things and out we troop and there is a customer coming in and we says to him it is a gentleman, “This place is closed but two blocks down the street you will find a beauty parlor where they pays a living wage to their hands,” we says.
And of course he don’t go in so I says, “We will picket the old she-devil,” and we begin walking up and down and out she comes rushing without her hat on and she gets the copper on the corner and brings him up and she says, “Drive these hussies away from my door they are ruining my trade,” she says.
Well the copper he grins kind of good-natured and says, “Move along now girls.” And I ups I and says, “Officer this here is a strike,” I says, “and we are picketing this place.”