It is plain, then, that many causes are at work to depress the wages
even of skilled workers, far more than can be enumerated here. If this
is true for men, how much more strongly can limitations be stated for
women, as we ask, "Why do not women receive a better wage?" Many of the
reasons are historical, and must be considered in their origin and
growth. Taking her as worker to-day, precisely the same general causes
are in operation that govern the wages of men, with the added disability
of sex, always in the way of equal mobility of labor.

Wherever for any reason there is immobility of labor, there is always
lowering of the wage rate. The trades and general industries for which
women are suited are highly localized. They focus in the cities and
large towns, and women must seek them there. Great manufactories drain
the surrounding country; yet even with these opportunities an analysis
of the industrial statistics of the United States by General Walker
showed that the women workers of the country made up but seven per cent
of the entire population. Eagerly as they seek work, it is far more
difficult for them to obtain it than for men. They require to be much
more mobile and active in their move toward the labor market, yet are
disabled by timidity, by physical weakness, and by their liability to
insult or outrage arising from the fact of sex. Men who would secure a
place tramp from town to town, from street to street, or shop to shop,
persisting through all rebuffs, till their end is accomplished. They go
into suspicious and doubtful localities, encounter strangers, and sleep
among casual companions. In this fashion they relieve the pressure at
congested points, and keep the mass fluid.

For women, save in the slight degree included in the country girl's
journey to town or city where cotton or woollen mills offer an opening
for work, this course is impossible. Ignorant, fearful, poor, and