Oakfield High School - Oak Leaves Yearbook (Oakfield, WI)

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RALPH B. RANDALL HUGH O. WORTHING GU LI ELM A ORVIS CLARYA L. GORDON

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victims outright l ut did not leave an ever increasing number of human beings with degenerate nerves, broken bodies, stunted minds and dwarfed souls as child labor is doing in this Republic. Let us imagine ourselves for a short time in the anthrac ite coal regions of Pennsylvania. Here twelve thousand little boys, ranging in age from nine to fourteen years, are working in the coal breakers. Outside, the mountains are clothed in deep green, above, the fleecy clouds seem to fall like soft coverlets upon the distant hills, but these little, dwarfed, deformed images know nothing of these beautiful surroundings; their lives are spent in the darkness of the mines. Here they sit bent over their tasks eight or or nine hours every day. Their backs ache with the stoop as they throw the slate and rocks aside. During the first weeks of their labor, their hands are cut and torn, yet they do not complain. One of thousands of instances which illustrate the fate of the breaker boy is given in the story of “ Little Peter Swamberg.” This little boy while working, caught his arm in the belt of the scraper line, which tore it from the shoulder. At the age of sixteen, this boy was left to fight his way in life with an empty sleeve, no pension from our government, not one cent of recompense from the rich corporation for which his right arm was sacrificed and not even the thanks of a busy world. Still his region goes on feeding its little boys to the coal breakers, to have bodies maimed and minds dwafed. “He sorted shards in the breakers. Till his fingers were bleeding and raw; He tended the whirling spindles Till his dim eyes scarcely saw. All night where the molten bubbles Are blown, his sweat must roll. And sometimes it killed his body. And sometimes—alas—his soul. Then a people woke in terror And cried aloud for men. With a past of unmatched glory They would do great deeds again. So, standing poised on the bodies Of these fallen little ones. They stretched wide hands to heaven And cried, ‘ Where are our sons' ’ He answered, the God of Nations, With a sword in his terrible hand. T gave ye sons for the rearing up Of men to maintain the land. Ye bound them to crosses and slew them Oh, ye for whom Christ died Know not that the men you pray for Are the babes you have crucified.’ ” From the coal mines let us go into a dirty, filthy, damp cellar in almost any of our large cities. Here we will find, perhaps hundreds of small boys and girls at work making paper bags at four cents a thousand.

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W hat if they never saw the blue sky by day or the stars by night, so long as they go on making this endless supply of paper bags which are so neces-sary to our well-to-do merchantsi Some will say. it is not hard work no, it is not, for the paper comes already cut in size and shape; one turn of a quick hand folds an end or a side, one sharp, little blow from a punv list and the bag is complete. But think how many blows that tired, little hand makes in a day; and the bag when finished is worth the two hundred and fiftieth part of a cent. Let us go from the cellar to a large cotton mill and watch the children as they pour out. on their way home; their clothes are covered with fine, white dust and little Hakes of lint. Could we but see into their lungs we would see that they were filled with that poisonous dust, for they inhale it all day long. Perhaps there is no form of child labor in which worse conditions exist than in the manufacture of artificial flowers. Millions of American women wear these flowers on their hats, with never a thot of how they are made. They do not see the bloom stolen from children’s cheeks to paint their roses; neither do they read on the petals of the violets, how the light has been taken from childish eyes. Twelve dozen of these adornments must be made for nine cents. Many such examples could be mentioned; but in summing them up, we may say— wrapping cheap candies in Philadelphia; making cheap cigars in cellar factories in Pittsburg; making artificial flowers in New York; rag sorting in filthy cellars; making paper bags, pasteboard boxes and cheap picture frames—these are only a few of the occupations of these little children. One may say that child labor is a remedy for poverty but it is not. It is a cause of it. There are thousands of instances where the father absolutely refuses to work, as soon as his children are old enough and spends his time in the saloons, living upon the scanty wages of his wife and children. The results of child labor are many. W1 at is the cause of the high percentage of crimes that are committed in the I'nited Matesi We will answer child labor. Over two-thirds of the number of children who have gone to the reform school, or who have been turned over by the courts to the care of officers, have come from the children engaged in the street trades and it is true that these trades serve as a preparatory school ft r crimes. Consumption is contracted by ten per cent of those who work in mills, chests are caved in, backs are bent as if in old age, cheeks are hollowed, eyes are sunken, dull brainsare formed; but none of the perils of the body nor all of them combined, equal the moral perils of child labor. To kill a boy or girl by giving him too heavy burdens to bear is cruel but killing the soul is far more terrible. That is what child labor does for thousands of children each year. Wliat kind of citizens will these children make ( Each child of this class knows that he is inferior in body, mind and soul to his fellow citizens. They feel that they have been robbed in some way—not robbed of money or property, but robbed of life, of health, intellect and spirit. Even if they are not educated, they do know that a system of industry and a state