100 years ago in Spokane: Women workers get boost from editorial

The Spokane Daily Chronicle’s editorial page addressed the complaints of some union men – and men in general – that women were taking jobs from men and driving down wages. The paper was not sympathetic to this argument.

“Women’s place in industry has been widened by the war. It will never return to the old limits. The task to be faced now is not to drive her back to her kitchen or her schoolroom, but to protect her and her fellow-employees in safe, new fields of usefulness.”

The editors added that “when a woman does a man’s full work in mill or factory, she should not be paid one cent less than the man.”

From the feminism beat: Next to the editorial, the Spokane Daily Chronicle ran a poem by Jack Burroughs, titled “The Feminist.”

The poem concluded: “Yes, the Feminist has slapped the wrist / Of the antiquated order, / She’s full of fight and she’s sitting tight. / So we men must soon accord her / The Praise she earns when net power turns / The tide of her sex’s battle. / For the Feminist is no maid o’ the mist / There’s sense in her line of prattle.”