Page:Olive Malmberg Johnson - Woman and the Socialist Movement (1908).djvu/30

 28 holders of the system that furnishes them with a parasite upon whom they in turn prey. The richer and the more lavish and extravagant the master class the better are the pickings that fall to the lackey. They therefore stand firmly by the rich in all their folly and extravagance. They hate the industrial proletariat by nature and instinct as opponents of the class that furnishes them with their lazy good-for-nothing lives. In turn they are most heartily despised by the industrial proletariat. Lackey and flunky have become terms of actual contempt.

Of all the subjects of discussion in the middle class woman's club, this one of the servant has probably been the most difficult to solve. They have lost all patience with the factory and store. It has taken the girls away from the domestic service and made them too "proud" and "independent" to be domineered over by an overbearing mistress. Girls nowadays do not care much to give up their evenings and Sundays and don't want to ask anybody when they can go or when they shall return when the work is once done. In short, it is the employment of women in the factory that has created this ticklish servant problem.

The middle class loves to ape the manners of the plutocracy. They cannot, of course, come up to it on account of the expense. But they will imitate as near as they can. The modern servant is a great obstacle in their way. They have not the wealth with which to buy obedience, cringing and crawling. The servile servant somehow manages sooner or later to get into the family of the rich. The independent servant is a holy terror to the middle class woman. If she is no good the house is turned topsy-turvy. If she is worth while keeping she becomes almost a household tyrant that can neither be domineered or dogged around. Girls are not kept in middle class homes to strut and flunky around. Their serving is no sinecure. They are there to work, they "are hired for it" and expect it. But being able and willing to work they stand not much of a lady's funny work. As a rule they are as ready to go as they were to come, and if they cannot get