Plainfield High School - Milestone Yearbook (Plainfield, NJ)

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THE ORACLE. 9 Child Labor, a Disgrace and a Menace Valedictory Essay by Esther Crampton Child labor is a disgrace to the nation. That is a fact acknowledged by everybody except, perhaps, a few selfish manufacturers. But it is not only a disgrace, it is a menace to the nation’s welfare. It is a disgrace, for it is a slaughter of the innocents; a menace, because it is slowly poison- ing and corrupting the sources of the future life of the American people. What is it which is happening to millions of little children in this civilized land—children who should be in school, developing their minds, and out of doors developing their bodies in healthful exercise? Go with me first to the South and then to the older industrial centers of the North. In North Carolina, poor, half-starved little children, almost babies some of them, work in the sweltering cotton mills all day long and during the rush season even a great part of the night. Never resting, running from one part of the machinery to another, closely watching the threads, in order to mend the broken ones—when the day’s toil is over there is for them no healthful night’s rest. The threads dance before their weary eyes and restful sleep is impossible. Poor, tired, heavy-eyed little workers— is it any wonder that after a sleepless night they lose their nimbleness? There is a cry. The whirring machinery is stopped. It goes on again, in a moment. This is merely an incident in the day’s work. But a little child, scarcely. nine years old, perhaps, is maimed for life! No more use now to the mill, she is cast adrift upon the world, broken in body and in spirit, before her life should well have begun. A physician accom- panying a friend thru one of the mills shook his head sadly as they gazed around at the worn, shrunken bodies, often deformed thru lack of proper exercise. ‘In four years,” he said, “most of these children will be dead and others will be in their places.” In the New England mills, conditions, if not as disgraceful as in the South, are bad enough. Mr. Spahr tells us that he found hundreds of children at work there, but to his surprise apparently no men over forty or forty-five. The strain is so great that at the age of forty-five they are worn out and no longer useful. The great coal strike a few years ago called attention to the appalling conditions in Pennsylvania. Thousands of boys under fourteen were em- ployed in the coal mines in direct violation of the law of the state. Mr.

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8 THE ORAGELE: Roy Cliffton Whitall, Salutatorian Roy Cliffton Whitall, the salutatorian, has been with the class all four years, and he, too, has-maintained a high standing in scholarship. He has taken prizes at every commencement for the past four years, and his work in mathematics has been particularly creditable. He is one of the brightest boys in the school and does comparatively little study outside of school. For the past two years he has worked afternoons in a local stationery store. He is a quiet boy, but well liked by all his classmates and is popular in general among the student body. Mr. Whitall will enter Stevens Institute next fall. The honors this year carry more honor than in previous years because the class of 1908 is one of the largest classes to be graduated from the Plain- field High School, and the average standing in scholarship of the seniors is proportionately above that of any other class in the school. Percy La Barre Mygrant and Donald Cameron Mortimer were next highest for scholastic honors. “Never has there been such a class as 1908 in the school and it will be a long time before there will be another class that can beat them.’—Mr. Samuel B. Howe, Jr. “T shall be very sorry to see 1908 go; yours is such a nice class.’’—Miss Mary i. Perry. “My one regret is that I have not been able to see more of the class of 1908—it is such a fine class——Miss Laura Smith. “Everything comes the way of 1908—even the gods favor them.”— Mr. James D. Macnab. “There has never been a class in P. H. S. that has conducted itself so well in the trying days after their work was over as 1908. —Mr, Ira W. Travell.

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10 TELE ORAGIEE: Owen Lovejoy says, “For nine hours a day these little fellows toil in the breaker, bending over a stream of coal which pours out a cloud of dust so thick that the light cannot penetrate. They are responsible for the exact separation of all slate and rock—depending often entirely on the sense of touch. They endure the incessant rattle of deafening, gigantic machinery. They suffer the stifling heat of summer at one season and the bitter blasts that sweep those mountain tops at another. They are conscious that the “boss” stands behind them with his stick to prompt to duty if the natural exuberance of childhood breaks out in playfulness, or if backache induces a moment of forgetfulness. They must learn to control the nausea caused by swallowing quantities of coal dust and by the feeling that one’s throat and lungs are never clean!” These are experiences which men, perhaps, must endure in order that we may be supplied with this necessity of life, but to expose a child to such hardships is a crime that makes one wonder if we are living in a Christian country! But let us come nearer home, to our own State. Excellent as New Jersey's Child Labor law is, it 1s defective in not forbidding the employ- ment of boys at night work. A visit to the glass works of Southern New Jersey reveals the need of more stringent legislation. During the long hours of the night, in a low, badly ventilated shack, before the blast furnace, in the blistering heat, stands a glass blower. At his feet crouches a little boy busily employed in opening and shutting the hot molds. Near him stands another boy quickly breaking off the hot glass from the blow- pipe. Then another boy takes the glass from the mold and heats it so that it can be shaped by still another weary youth, who in turn gives it to another, who carries it out to be packed. All is hurry, bustle and confusion, with five boys doing this tiresome work, which simple machinery could ac- complish in less than half the time. What a life! With not a moment for rest; cursed by their masters for the slightest fault; with body wearied by the continuous toil and nerves strained as they hurry to avoid the cruel blows and no less cruel curses, these little chaps wear out their lives in unceasing toil. After being exposed for hours to the excessive and un- natural heat, they go home in the chill damp of early morning to rest—no, not to rest, but to fall into a stupor from sheer exhaustion, only,to be rudely awakened by the noise and confusion which the early morning always brings in the working sections. So their life drags on, until they are too old to