In no instance did the speaker mean that the woman referred to did not work at home—only that she did not work for wages. She might slave, do anything and everything at home, but so long as she did not work for wages she was in a higher class—a lady. So besides demanding a larger share of capital accruing from their work, Labor is demanding that the stigma be taken off work. As I see it there is but one way to accomplish this—for every woman as well as every man to be, or to have been, a wage-earner. CHAPTER XXV THE END OF THE TRAIL Work of itself is not hard. It is the conditions under which most work is done that makes it a hardship. Work under good conditions is exhilarating. There never was a time in all my four years in the underbrush that the work itself palled on me. It was the conditions under which I was forced to work that made it objectionable. One of my chief reasons for liking my work as an inspector of dog licenses was that I was a free agent, not bound by any hampering conditions. Each inspector was given his or her district, instructed as to their power and limitations under the law, and sent out to get results. Never once did the manager of the A. S. P. C. A. tell me that I must do a given thing in a given way. The few times that I found myself facing a problem about the handling of which I was in doubt, when I appealed to him he gave me advice; advice, never instructions. I was always a free agent at a living wage. Though the wage could never be called generous, especially for a man with a family, it was sufficient for me to live on in a rooming-house or a tenement-flat, and pay for a five-hundred-dollar Liberty bond. At the time that I left I was receiving one hundred and four dollars and car-fare per month—quite a raise in four years for an untrained woman who began on six dollars the week. What we know as labor unrest is caused as much by the conditions under which workers struggle as the amount of wage so grudgingly paid them. The untangling of both those knotty problems is in the hands of our women. On the way they untangle those two knots, as I see it, hangs the fate of our country, the United States as we know it to-day—whether it lasts fifty years or fifty centuries. Now I know by actual experience what conditions were before this country entered the World War. I watched the improvement that followed—larger windows made in dark rooms to improve light and ventilation; when this was impossible workers would be moved into better quarters. I saw lofts that had not known a broom or wash-pail for years swept and garnished as though for a celebration. One reason for this was the coming of the girl who didn’t have to work for her living—the war-worker. I had managers tell me: “You’re an educated woman—ah—ah—Why, to tell the truth, I’m afraid you wouldn’t be happy here. Our loft is not—not what we’d like it to be. Not very clean, you know.”