Lancaster High School - Mirage Yearbook (Lancaster, OH)

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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?

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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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MIRAGE 23 During the year 1901, the age limit was fixed at fourteen years, and each child must secure a peimit; but many parents are imbued with the idea that when a child arrives at the age of fourteen, re- gardless of its preparations for the duties of life, it must at once go to work. Large numbers of permits are issued in this way the very month that the child arrives at the required age, and many on their birthday. Parents over anxious to place their children at work, will argue against and even abuse those whose duty it is to issue the permits. The educational test requires at least the elemen- tary knowledge of reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar and geogra- phy. Many times the child is unable to perform the simplest sum in arithmetic, and it is plain to be seen, that the pittance resulting from the child's labor is the prevailing motive for employment at this early age. The state of North Carolina has not attempted any legislation regulating child-labor, notwithstanding the fact that there are em- ployed in its cotton and woolen mills three thousand boys, and over four thousand girls, whose period of labor ranges from ten to twelve hours per day. The western states furnish varicus assortments of laws. In California, no child under the age of ten years, is permitted to go to work in any factory, workshop or mercantile establishment. In Colorado, it is unlawful to employ a child under the age of fourteen years unless it has attended school at least twelve weeks during the year. Such laws as relate to child-labor, like most of the labor laws in the revised statutes of the various states, are so held up by provisos that they are of little effect, even when an attempt is made to enforce them. Many people do not believe that any laws should be passed, regulating any of the social, or industrial affairs, which can be settled by our own common sense, and by mutual agreement. But let us consider one instance of child-labor, that of a minor who was a cripple, having been in a mine accident, who had a daughter fifteen years of age, at work in one of the silk mills, on $2.10 per week for full time and another little girl of thirteen, receiving $1.80 per week. These children were compelled by the necessity of the parent to work out their young lives in this manner for those pitiful sums; two lives for $3.90, in a civilized community. What would be our estimate of a man’s character, were he to stop in the walks of life to rob a child of candy or pennies? Yet