vorces reporting children in 1916 for the country as a whole was 42.2% of those granted to wife, as against 27.8% of those granted to the husband. With three exceptions, this higher percent in the case of the wife is true of all the States. The three exceptions are Oregon, Nevada and New York, each of which shows a higher percent of divorces reporting children when granted to the husband, 55.9%, than when granted to the wife, 46.6%".

Table V-Divorces granted in Oregon to Couples Reporting Children:

The greater number of divorces was granted at the petition of the wife, 1,503 being granted to women, 597 to men. The most prominent cause for the thirty years preceding 1916 had been desertion.319 From 1887 to 1906 in a total of 10,145 decrees, husbands received 2,144 divorces, wives 3,443, for this reason. Cruelty stood second in rank, husbands pleading this as a cause in 294 cases and wives in 2,570 cases in the same period; habitual drunkenness was the reason given by twenty-one husbands and 326 wives. Desertion by the wife of the husband still occupied the first place in 1916 among the reasons of the husbands for wishing separation, 54.8% of the divorces going to men on this account.320 Desertion stood in the second place as a reason for 34.9% of those granted to wives, who advanced cruelty as the primary reason in 55.9% of the suits. Another interesting fact brought out in 1916 is that321 divorces which were granted to those who had been married in another state almost equalled the number granted to those married in the state; 279 husbands who received divorces had been married in another state, 293 in Oregon; 612

wives had been married in another state, 813 in Oregon. This ratio held too, in connection with the residence of the libellee; 311 husbands receiving decrees had wives living in the state; 287 had wives not in the state or whose whereabouts were unknown; 857 wives had husbands in Oregon, 646 had husbands living in another state or whose whereabouts were unknown.

To those who believe that the stability of the nation depends upon the integrity of the home, the statistics as to the growth of divorce in Oregon must be dismaying. Oregon allows six causes as a basis for divorce and "cruelty", in many guises, is increasingly prominent; judges apparently attempt to discourage easy divorce, for in several cases they have declared that decrees cannot be granted when both parties are at fault or have "mutually contributed to conditions complained",322 that "incompatibility of temper is not a ground for divorce",323 nor is failure to live happily together. The cruel treatment which entitled the complaining spouse324 to a divorce must be "unmerited and unprovoked", or it must be "out of proportion to the provocation given by the other spouse" 325 In an early case a judge declared that a divorce will not be given when the object of the petitioner is to secure certain property rights.326 Frequently, it has been declared that divorce jurisdiction should be administered in view of the public good as well as of private rights.327

75

WOMEN IN INDUSTRY.

Oregon had been a state for almost forty-five years before a serious effort was made to protect the workers from the disabling results of poorly regulated conditions of work. One reason for this is that the state's interest was agricultural rather than industrial; lumbering, even today, is its foremost industry, standing first in 1919 in the list of Industries Ranked According to Value of Products. The other eight industries making up the group of the first nine under the above heading show the "soil" influence in the commercial activities of the state; flour and grist mills, foundries and machine works, slaughtering and meat packing, shipbuilding (wooden), canning and preserving fruits and vegetables, bread and bakery products, butter and fish canning and preserving 328

Discussing the apparent neglect of labor legislation in the West until recent times, Annie G. Porritt says, "To pass the Massachusetts Labor Code in these states (western) would have been like passing the western mining codes in New England". As there were no mines in New England so there were no cotton mills in the Far West and yet it was "long made a reproach to the women voters that the hours of labor of women and children in factories were not strictly controlled in these states' 329 Early legislation which had a bearing on the working conditions of men and women gainfully employed was passed either from a religious or a protection-to-property view, or other than a protection-to-labor view. A master and apprentices act passed in Oregon in 1849 permitted minors of either sex to be indentured, the male infants to twenty-one years, the female infants to eighteen years, "to serve as a clerk, apprentice or servant in any profession, trade or employment'',330 and was more similar to labor legislation than the act which took its place in 1853.331 The latter was more like a measure designed to assist in the support of the poor rather than one calculated to teach the child a trade, for there was no stipulation in the law that the child should be taught a trade, nor that the term of apprentice or

servantship should be a definite length of time. Children under fourteen might be bound until that age; minors over fourteen might be bound, females until the age of eighteen years or to the time of marriage, and males until the age of twenty-one years. Girls were allowed to marry at twelve years of age when the apprenticeship law was passed; hence the indefinite length of apprenticeship or servantship for both sexes seems to indicate the lack of a serious purpose in the law to ensure to minors proficiency in a trade. The law did require that the contract should provide "for teaching such children to read, write and cipher, and for such other instruction, benefit and allowance, either within or at the end of the term, as the county commissioners may deem reasonable" 332 The phrase "benefit and allowance" sounds suspiciously like an agreement for remuneration of some kind, "either within or at the end of the term", a minimum wage perhaps, for the little apprentice or servant, since it was to be a "reasonable allowance". Another just provision was that "all consideration of money or other things paid or allowed" by the master to the apprentice or servant "shall be paid or secured to the sole use of the minor". One advantage existed in this law for the children concerned, which younger would-be apprentices fifty years later needed and lacked. This was the duty devolving upon parents, guardians, probate judges and county commissioners to defend them from "breach of covenant" on the part of masters, who were made liable to an action in the district court and to damage for such breach. Had this law been operative until recent times, the modern milliner and dressmaker in Oregon, would have had many breaches of covenant to answer for in the almost universal custom (prior to 1913) of hiring young girls as "apprentices" to teach them the trade; the employers' method of instruction until 1913, was to retain them for a year at $1.00 or less a week, use them as errand girls, rippers or basters, or at other simple work, and then dismiss them when they asked for real instruction or a real wage. The law of 1849 was harder if anything, on the apprentice than on the master who was guilty of any gross misbehavior or

refusal to do his duty, for the apprentice might be put in the county jail until "he or she be contented and will serve". The law of 1853 gave the county commissioners power to bind as apprentices or servants, the minor children of any person actually chargeable to their county, and all minor children themselves chargeable to the county.333 The insertion of this section does not alone argue, however, that the law was a measure to assist in the support of the poor, but the failure to stipulate that the child should be taught a trade prevents us from calling it labor legislation.

The first law concerning one-day-rest-in-seven was passed in 1854 from a religious impulse to keep Sunday inviolate, and provided that "no person shall keep open his or her store, shop, grocery, ball alley, billiard saloon, tippling house, or any place of gaming or amusement, or do any secular business other than works of necessity and mercy, on the first day of the week, commonly called the Lord's day or Sunday" 334 In cases of necessity the above provision need not be observed. The penalty for offending was $10.00 which was to go to the school fund. These two measures are the only legislation passed in pre-state days which had a bearing on women employed for wages.

Even though we had no documentary evidence of it now, we might be very certain, that pioneer women bore a full share of the work of establishing civilization in the Oregon County. However, through the efforts of such men as Professor F. G. Young of Oregon University, Mr. George Himes of the Oregon Historical Association, Mr. Fred Lockley, and others, we have preserved some of the evidence which did relate to woman's activities. Unfortunately for our interest, many of the chroniclers and diarists of the pioneer days were men, and hence woman's part in the settlement of the Oregon country, though acknowledged in general terms of appreciation, seemed to be regarded as incidental or taken for granted, perhaps because the actual contributing value of it was estimated too low or not grasped at all. Woman's contribution in the settlement of the Pacific Coast was probably analogous in value to that of the