The old world and its ways

by William Jennings Bryan

Another world problem is to be found in the effort to fix woman's place in the social economy. No one can travel around the world without noting the wide difference that exists between the treatment of woman in different countries. In the Orient she has, until comparatively recent years, occupied a very inferior position. In no respect has the influence of the west upon the east been more marked than in the elevation of woman. Even in Japan, where for half a century the ideas of America and Europe have found vigorous growth, woman's position is not yet equal to man's. The education of boys received attention before the education of the girls, but the girls' schools are now multiplying in number and in attendance. Traveling in the country one still sees the blackened teeth, it formerly having been regarded as the proper thing for a woman to make her teeth black after marriage, but among the young generation the custom is unknown. In China woman has not only lagged behind man in education, but she has been subjected to a torture known as foot-binding which is to be found nowhere else. Societies are now being formed to discourage the practice, but it is sad to learn how slowly this reform has grown. In both Japan and China plural marriage, or what has been equivalent to plural marriage, has been common. The man has been allowed to take unto himself as many wives as he could support without asking the consent of former wives—a practice which seems strange to those who have been brought up to regard the marriage vows as mutually binding and to consider man and woman as standing upon an equal plane when entering upon the relation of husband and wife.

In India child marriage is one of the worst customs that has afflicted these unhappy people. Girls have been given in marriage when only nine or ten years old, and a widow of twelve or thirteen is not unusual. Remarriage of widows is not permitted under Hindu custom, suttee, or the burning of the widow, formerly being regarded as the proper thing. In both India and Arabia the women are still veiled and excluded from the society of men. It is difficult to estimate the loss that has come to society from the failure to recognize the mutual stimulus which man and woman find in co-operation in the work of civilization.

Even in Europe woman's position is not as good as it is in the United States, although in the Christian countries her rights are more respected and her good influence more appreciated. Max O'Rell, the witty French lecturer, used to say that if he was going to be born a woman he would pray to be born in the United States. It was a happy expression, for surely there is no other country in which so high an estimate is placed upon woman or where she more fully shares in both the joys and responsibilities of life. For the superiority of her position she has Christianity and education to thank; Christianity has ever recognized woman's equality with man and education has fitted her to be a real helpmate in life.

A third question which one meets everywhere is the labor question. In Europe it is a question between labor and capital and the laborer is organizing for the advancement of his welfare. The guild and the labor organization have long sought to enlarge the laborer's share of the joint profit of labor and capital and to improve the conditions which form his environment. The efforts of these societies have mainly been directed, first, toward the improvement of sanitary conditions; second, toward the shortening of hours; and, third, toward an increase in wages. It looks like a reflection on mankind in general to say that laboring men should have to ask legislation to protect their lives while at work. It would seem that employers would of their own accord regard the safety and the health of employes as of paramount importance, and yet it has been necessary even in the United States to compel the building of air-shafts in mines and to force the use of safety appliances on railroads and street car lines, and in the operation of machinery. Still more strange is it that it should be necessary to fix a minimum age at which children can be employed. The very sight of little boys and girls working in factories at the expense of their physical growth and their mental development is so revolting that one can hardly understand how such legislation can be necessary, and yet throughout Europe and the United States laboring men through their organizations have been compelled to fight for the protection of the children of the poor. In Asia the inauguration of factories has not yet been followed by the protection of the children.

Reforms advance in groups. It is seldom that one real reform is achieved alone, so the limitation of hours of labor has, as a rule, accompanied legislation for the protection of children and for the improvement of sanitary conditions in mines and workshops. Those who now enjoy an eight-hour day can remember the nine-hour day and the ten-hour day, but can hardly recall the days of twelve or fourteen hours. In the factories that are starting up in the Orient long hours are the rule, and with long hours there is the attendant degradation of the toiler. The demand for the eight-hour day is an international one and the laboring man is gradually winning his fight, partly by an appeal to conscience and partly by proof that the highest efficiency is inconsistent with long hours.

In the raising of wages two factors have been at work—the labor organization and the higher efficiency that has come with more universal education. The educated workman can earn more than the ignorant one and he soon demands a compensation commensurate with his services.

The labor saving machine, too, has played no unimportant part in increasing the workman's compensation. It has raised the quality of the work done and has brought into use a higher grade of skill than was formerly employed. While the labor saving machine is by some regarded as antagonistic to the welfare of the laborer, no farsighted observer can fail to note that it has increased rather than diminished the number employed at the work into which it has been introduced, while it has developed a higher skill which, in turn, has secured a higher compensation. The handling of a railroad locomotive requires more skill than the handling of a freight team, and the engineer commands higher wages than the teamster. The railroad by vastly increasing commerce has multiplied the number of persons engaged in the handling of passengers and freight, and it has at the same time improved the character of the work done and raised the intellectual standard of those employed. The same result has followed in other kinds of work. It might be stated thus: labor saving machinery, as it is called—although it might more properly be called labor-multiplying machinery—has created a demand for a higher grade of labor; universal education has supplied this demand, and the labor organization has secured for these higher grade laborers larger compensation and more favorable conditions.

One thought has grown upon me as we have traveled, namely, the dignity of labor. In no other country is so high an estimate placed upon the wage-earner as in this country. In the Orient there was, until the advent of western ideas, an impassable gulf between the prince and his people, and there is even now in a large part of Asia a gulf so wide that one who toils with his hands cannot look across it. The royal families have lived by the sword and they have forced from those beneath them a tribute sufficient to support themselves and their armed retainers. The masses have been the prey of the governing classes, no matter what tribe or family held the throne.

In Europe the extremes of society have been brought nearer together, although there is still a gap between the aristocracy and the masses. This gap, however, is constantly decreasing, education and popular government being the most influential factors in bringing about this result. With education now more and more within the reach of all, the poor boy is forcing his way to the front in business, and with his fortune thus acquired he is leveling rank. In the political world, too, the champion of the weak and the oppressed is making his influence felt and his political power is opening before him doors which until recently were closed. In France deputies, senators and even presidents have come up from the people, and in England a labor leader, John Burns, has fought his way into the cabinet. Who will say that the European laboring man is not making progress when labor's foremost representative in Great Britain becomes the guest of the king?