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

Page 22 text:

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

Page 21 text:

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

Page 23 text:

of society have worse than murdered them. What will citizens of this kind do for our nation ? What can they do? There are many difficulties to he met in the attempt to emancipate child slaves. In order that this can be done, cases of poverty must be provided for, and local societies must he encouraged to raise and administer scholarship funds given as a pension to the child under the legal age, who must assist in the support of the family. The question of child labor is not a state affair but a national one. The reason why the states will not deal with it, is because they are controlled by these great and powerful manufacturing and mining interests which are the very ones who are responsible for the very existence of the evil. It would be useless for one state to have a good child labor law unless every other state had an equally good law; because the manufacturers and mine owners in the states where there were no laws would have a great business advantage over the manufacturers of a state where this law was enforced. One of the most important aids in stamping out this great evil is in arousing public sentiment. If we could only touch the hearts of the people! In any large city you may see a woman beautifully and richly dressed and in her arms cuddled up safe and warm an aristocratic, beribboned dog. But near by you may notice a little newsboy with ragged clothes Muttering in the cold, fierce wind; worn shoes, thru which show his little naked feet, asking for help. But she turns away, not even noticing him as her whole attention is devoted to the dog. This is only one of a thousand such examples. In the large cities, hundreds of children fall fainting in the streets from starvation while dogs are fed and cared for with a tender solicitude, which these little ones never knew. The future of this nation depends upon the citizenship of the generations to come; the children of to-day are those who later will shape the destiny of our land, and we cannot afford to neglect them. “How long, we say, how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand to move the world on a child’s heart,— Stifle down with a nailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, () goldheaper, And your purple shows your path! But the child’s sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong man in wrath!” —Guli Orvis.