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Show Urgent Need for Eight-Hour Law for Women Engaged in Industrial Pursuits By WILLIAM L. BODINE, Chicago School Official. Thousands of wives in Illinois are forced to work in order to support sup-port and educate children left behind by fathers who desert and leave their families at the mercy of the world. Wife desertion is one of the greatest causes of juvenile delinquency. If the hours of working mothers could be shortened, they would have more time to attend to home duties, and keep better vigilance over their children outside of school hours. If eight hours is long enough for a man to work it is long enough for a woman to work. The overworked and underpaid woman means the underfed child. The underfed pupil often becomes the pathetic victim of mental retardation. retarda-tion. The backward boy at books means the forward boy in truancy. It fceins a travesty on justice to see able-bodied men quitting work at the end of eight hours, while frail women must work two hours longer foT lie bread of life in this slate that gave Abraham Lincoln, the great emancipator, to the world. |