The Writings of Carl Schurz/From Thomas Wentworth Higginson, April 5th, 1883
A Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune writing of the condition of the Departments says of the Women there employed, “ill-health and physical weakness cause a high average of absences among them, which interfere with the regular work.” I should be very glad, if you are willing to give it, of a brief answer, from recollection, to these two questions:
1. Is there a higher average of absence among the women so employed?
2. Is not any loss through physical weakness, as compared with men clerks, balanced by gain in the steadier habits of women in other ways? I had supposed so.
I only ask for a very brief answer and should like to use it publicly.
The inference drawn by the Tribune writer (April 1, 1883) is that the proportion of women “will have to be diminished.” (I think the writer is a male clerk.)