Still more disappointing was the indifference of the other firms to their outcast position.

Far from evincing a desire to earn a place on the White List, they cast aspersions on a "parcel of women" who were trying to "undermine business credit," and scouted the very idea of an organized feminine conscience.
"Wait until the women want Easter bonnets," sneered one merchant.

"Do you think they will pass up anything good because the store is not on their White List ?" Clearly something stronger than moral suasion was called for.

Even as far back as 1891 a few women had begun to doubt the efficacy of that indirect influence, supposed to be woman's strongest weapon.

What was the astonishment of the merchants when the League framed, and caused to be introduced into the New York Assembly, a bill known as the Mercantile Employers' Bill, to regulate the employment of women and children in mercantile establishments, and to place retail stores, from the smallest to the largest, under the inspection of the State Factory Department.
The bill was promptly strangled, but the next year, and the next, and still the next, it obstinately reappeared.