When we discuss the lives of girls let us be a little more liberal; let us not think of a piece of bread; let us not think of a sandwich... let us th… - Pauline Newman

As a worker in the factories for years and as an organizer of working women for five or six years, as one who has come in contact with the working women in the factories during strikes, in organizations and out of organizations, I favor a minimum wage for working women and minors.

A working woman is a human being, with a heart, with desires, with aspirations, with ideas and ideals, and when we think of food and shelter we merely think of the actual necessities to cover her body and to feed her. But what about the other things? Have we thought of providing her with books, with money for amusements, and when I speak of amusements I do not speak of the five cent picture shows, I speak of amusements that a girl should go to — a good drama or refined vaudeville — few think about that. Have you thought about a girl providing herself with a good room that had plenty of air, proper ventilation, in a somewhat decent neighborhood. Do you think of all these things when we speak of a minimum wage? Do you want a girl to have a nice comfortable room?

The things we liked most of course were the things that more or less selected or symbolized our own feelings of conditions and life in general. For example, I recall that we liked Thomas Hood's "The Sound of the ship" Now, nothing could come closer to the way we felt than that particular poem. We also read and managed an interest in that other one, "The Bridge of Sighs" also by Thomas Hood. Later, we found "The Masque of Anarchy" by Shelley, and of course in addition to that there were the Jewish poets, like Rosenfeld and Edelshtat. They were magnificent in their writing, in their poetry depicting the life of the people in the shop. There was one writer who I got to know later very well, who wrote a thing just called "Sketches," of conditions and of people in the different shops and naturally in the needle industry in New York. He was magnificent, and we loved everything he wrote. For that, we found time. Now, whether all of us found time, I don't know, but I do know that quite a number of us tried to find an interest outside the job.