"Girls, we ought to organize for them that comes
after us."
IV
THE WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE
One of the least encouraging features of trade unionism among women
in the United States has been the small need of success which has
attended efforts after organization in the past, especially the lack
of permanence in such organizations as have been formed. In the brief
historical review it has been shown how fitful were women's first
attempts in this direction, how limited the success, and how temporary
the organizations themselves.
It is true there is an essential difference between the loose and
momentary cooeperation of unorganized workers aiming at the remedying
of special grievances, and disbanding their association whenever that
particular struggle is over, and a permanent organization representing
the workers' side all the time and holding them in a bond of mutual
helpfulness. Most of the strikes of women during the first half of the
last century, like many today, sprang from impatience with intolerable
burdens, and the "temporary union," often led by some men's
organization, merely dissolved away with the ending of the strike,
whether successful or not.
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