If we were as anxious as citizens to secure opportunity for the men and women who make up the great army of average workers, self-supporting but at cost of struggle often too severe, as we are anxious as philanthropists to ease the burden and protect the weakness of the more backward members of the industrial army, the current of upward movement of all in gainful occupations would be stronger and more socially helpful.

The family is most of all concerned with the minimum wage of adult men who marry and have children.
=The Attitude of Women Toward Labor Problems.=--The family is concerned next with the attitude of women who are wives and mothers, or daughters partially supported from the family purse, toward the whole area of industrial problems.

It may be always right, as it is often necessary, for married women, even when mothers of young children, to earn in the outside labor world.

It is, however, always a social crime for women who try simply to piece out an insufficient family income to do it in ways to bring down or to keep down wages in the specialty of work they take part in, especially to bring down or keep down the wages of men in that specialty of work.

It may be best (it usually is) for young daughters to earn wages even if they do kinds of work which in the labor market will not secure a return adequate for full self-support.