Without Representation

By Mrs. A.J. Wilder, Mansfield, Mo.

In answer to the call sent out by the State College of Agriculture, the park in Mansfield was filled with a crowd of farm folks and town folks to listen to the address of the man from the college who was organizing farmers' clubs thru the county. As I looked around at the people, I thought what a representative gathering it was. Judging from the appearance of the crows, the women were as much interested in the subject of food production as a means of national defense as the men were, for fully as many women as men were present and they were seemingly as eager to learn from the speaker anything that farmers could do to increase the food supply. A farmer's club was formed after the address but the women took no part in the organization nor were they included in any way. As arrangements were being made for a meeting of the club, some one near the speaker said, "The women must come, too," but it was only after a broad and audible hint from a woman that this remark was made and it was so plainly because of this hint, instead of from a desire for the women's presence and co-operation, that it made no impression.

At the first meeting of the club, the following week, there were only two women present. Quite likely it was the women's own fault and if they had taken part as a matter of course it would have been accepted as such, but it seems rather hard to do this unless we are shown the courtesy of being mentioned. We will get over this feeling in time no doubt ad take the place we should, for a farmer may be either a man or a woman and farmers' clubs are intended for both.

Everyone knows that women raise the poultry and Missouri receipts from poultry products are more than from cattle, horses and mules combined. If farm women refused to help in the work of the farm how much difference do you suppose it would make in the output of dairy products?

What would happen to the "increase in production," if the women did not cook for the harvest hands, to say nothing of taking care of the hired help the remainder of the year?

A man in authority at Washington urges farm women to increase their power of production and all along down the line, agricultural colleges, farmers' club organizers, domestic science lecturers and farm papers join in the urge.

"Raise more garden truck; increase the egg production' caponize the cockerels and keep them until they will yield more meat to the fowl when killed; feed the calves and let them grow up instead of selling them for veal." (Who feeds the calves?) "Can; pickle; preserve and dry fruits and vegetables; let nothing go to waste from the garden or orchard."

As one farm paper says, "The women and children can do it!" "Eliminate all waste from the kitchen! It is conceded that it will take more time and work to  do all this but it is a patriotic duty and will increase the farm profits." Why shouldn't farm women's work be recognized by state authorities and others in other ways than urging her to more and yet more work when her working day is already somewhere from 14 to 16 hours long?

There is a woman's commission of the Council of national Defense and under this commission committees are being organized in every stat for the purpose of co-operating with the National Woman's Trade Union league of America. The league is fighting to protect the women and children who are working in factories and in the cities. It asks that the American people demand the 8-hour day, the living wage and one day of rest in seven.

But mark this! These things are for women and children working in the cities. They are not intended to extend to the women and children on farms. There is not as yet, so far as I know, any committee to co-operate with the farm women in obtaining for them either an 8-hour day or a living profit and if they are denied an active part in the farmer's clubs they are the only class of workers who are absolutely without representation.

Did the farmers' club organized in your neighborhood recognize the women and if so in what way? We would all be interested to know. Write to me and tell me about it!

Mrs. A.J. Wilder. "Without Representation." Missouri Ruralist (July 5, 1917): 8.  CLICK HERE to see this article as it originally appeared in the Missouri Ruralist.

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