Lancaster High School - Mirage Yearbook (Lancaster, OH)

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MIRAGE 21 i CHILDREN OF LABOR | + ------------------------------------------------------------------------- t By HELEN BENNER. t 4 4 • 4 4 5 5,,§ $ 4 5 $ 5 »W 4 5» M 5 5 ‘i $ S $ $ M M 5, $'‘$,4 $ i,4 i 4, 5 ,§» i 4 4 5 4‘ S S YEARS ago, the women of Rome were invited to display their jewels before a large audience. When these assembled brilliantly arrayed, and exhibited their jewels and precious stones, the people stared in wild-eyed astonishment. Presently one woman stepped forth, wearing no jewels, but placing her two sons before her, presented them to the audience saying, “these are my jewels.” Now should we wonder that in after years these two boys became the two great men who led the Roman empire? Thought- fully and intelligently they were reared, educated and cared for by their mother until they were fit to take up the cares and responsi- bilities of life and the nation. Thus must a nation educate, uplift and protect its children if it hopes to obtain a firm basis in the future. Children are one of the potent elements of happiness in the world today. Page after page of history is devoted to the children of the past. Poetry of the past and present time deals with the prattle and songs of child-hood. Even the great teacher of men, when he walked on earth, did not forget the little child at his feet. “For of such is the kingdom of heaven.” What would the home be today without the child? Take the child from literature and from the home and what is left? Now let us learn to appreciate their value and not ruin their young lives by pushing them into the noisy, busy world of industry and labor. Child-labor of the past and the present are twro different problems. In the first instance the child is sent into the mills the mines ani the factories for the purpose of learning a trade. For then the mach- inery was more simple and conditions not so bad. And the boy when he had gained sufficient knowledge of his books was placed in a shop along with several older men, from whom he was to learn their trade. People passing the shop looked and exchanged a friendly greeting or stopped to chat by the door. Work was not so pressing as to demand constant attention and never ceasing labor. Nowadays this same child is sent into the hives of industry to become an integral part of the machine and as such, is looked upon with no personal regard whatever, beyond what his productive capacity will bring forth.

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20 MIRAGE in tbe National Congress was a very feast for one who could enjoy a good joke cleverly turned. The grim humor of that old reprobate, whom Carrie Nation said should apologize for being out of the fn- forno, with one thumb in his vest sarcastically proclaiming himself the “Beelzebub of Congress,” is but one of many sublimo—rediculous situations in the Insurgent struggle. Also while we paid $100,000 to Cook for the Pole, nevertheless, he indirectly furnished gratis a volume of mirth that has greatly added to our length of days. When big affairs like those are lacking to woo us from our morbid selves, the professional Joke-man turns to the things of nature and endows animals and insects writh personalities and speech. To illustrate—two flies lit on a man's head. The man was not very bald, but yet he hadn’t the hair he used to have. And as the two flies walked side by side down the part, the daddy fly said to his grandson: “My boy, I remember when this avenue was only a foot path.” Lack of time forbids my continuing this analysis. If the world is a vale of tears, it is our own fault. The Omnipotent surely never meant it to be so. Humor—good and wholesome—should not be a thing set apart. Like art, it should be a part of our every day's activity. The humor, however, must be clean; it must net be at the expense of an aged person or of sacred things, nor must it hold up to ridicule a physical deformity or misfortune of another. No one loves a grouch. He can’t be trusted, for he is dishonest with himself when he cheats himself of the joy of living. The sour view is defective; the comic view is perfect because it impales the inevitable on a smile. So let’s smile our way through this world. A laugh will force the failure to his feet, will make the growler grin, so says the god of happiness, his name is Billiken.

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22 MIRAGE However, the attention of the working men should be called to the evil which will arise from the homicidal step they are taking in forcing their immature children into the labor market. Undoubtedly the working men are largely at fault in this matter. They not onlv permit, but insist that their children should leave the public schools to go to work. They are thus not only perpetrating a crime, but they are imperilling the safety of the republic by stunting the mental growth of their children and forcing upon the community a large class of illiterates. Under modern conditions these children become the employees of a large corporation at an early age and their whole environment is that of a particular class. They derive their sustenance from the mill or factory and in turn as consumers are fed by the corpor- ation. Finally they are buried in a corporation grave-yard. Instances are cited wherein the employment of the father and mother depends entirely upon the number of working children to be obtained in the family circle. A weaver made application for work and was refused from the fact that he was a single man. The next applicant was a man with a wife and five children and they were all employed at once. They were valuable to the employer from the fact that the entire family were workers as well as consumers. Large numbers of boys are employed in the roaring, dirty coal breakers, picking the slate from the coal and yet this labor could be largely dispensed with by the introduction of the automatic slate- pickers, should the coal-operator see fit. It may be possible that the flesh and blood machines are cheaper than the automatic ones and are so held by the coal-operators which would account for their limited use. Breaker-boys at the coal mines receive from five to ten cents an hour, and the majority about eight cents—these boys are from twelve to fifteen years old. Accidents to the boy mine-workers are of daily occurrence—many of them of a fatal nature. Do not imagine that little girls are forgotten in the Anthracite villages and towns any more than they are elsewhere—for they too have their monetary value as wealth-producers and consumers, and various silk-mills have been established which employ them. When we consider the poor wages paid to girls, the dreadful physicial strain and oftimes deformity that the work in these hives of industry causes, when the girl’s mirror tells that she is budding into womanhood, that she is pretty and the soul wearing work along the clashing, and clanging of machinery, will spoil her face, ruin her health, cripple and distort her bands—is it any wonder that some of these pretty ones prefer an easier—a worse life?