The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1900-09-13
YEXING PROBLEMS CONFRONTING
OUR ADVANCED CIVILIZATION,
PAPER READ BEFORE THE PRISON CHAUTAUQUA CIRCLE
BY MEMBER OF CLASS F.

makes the stupendous wealth of this
nation. Visit the coal and iron mines,
the stupendous plants of complicated
machinery where the coal is consumed
and the ore is converted into iron and
steel for use. The cotton plantations
and spinning plants and mills where
the cotton is worked into cloth, then
visit the factories and sweatshops
where it is made into garments for us
to wear; or allow yourself to wonder
out into the dreary wastes miles away
from fellows of his kind where the
shepherd pursues his lonely, arduous
vigil tending his focks. Then follow
his sleeps woolly fleece to the
mills where it is woven into
fancy fabrics for ladies and gen.
tlemen to cloth themselves with. Yes,
visit the toilers, the producers of our
wealth, view and cogitate and moral
lze upon the penurious wages those
toilers receive in proportion to the
amount of their labor, and notice the
little animal existence they exc out
after their long hours of daily toll.
Let me take you on short tour of
inspection to a place only a few hun
dred of miles from here, to the Illi-
nois Steel Company's plant in South
Chicago where is located the largest
steel rolling mill in the world and it is
also one of the roomiest and best con-
ditioned plants of its kind. There can
be seen hordes of laborers, mongrel
breeds of humanity imported from the
overcrowded parts of Europe, drudg-
ing day and night eleven and twelve
hours at stretch among the most ap-
palling of dangers and at heavy bur-
dened labors, for the mere pittance on
the average of from ninety cents to a
dollar and quarter day. Those la
borers as rule have wife and family
of small fry to support, and in addition
they invariably use tobacco and intoxi-
eating liquors, land their lot is certain
ly enough to drive any man to drink)
which is another heavy drain upon
their small stipends. While the men
are toiling in the mills, the women and
children are skulking about the rail-
road yards endeavoring to steal coal
and other materials to be used as fuel
to cook their scanty meals with. They
are such a pest to the steel and rail-
road companies that special detec-
tives are maintained to protect the
companies from their stealing pro-
pensities. There is a we'll equipped
hospital within the grounds of the
plant supported out of wages of the
employees $50 cents per capita month
[ believe) where those injured are con-
veyed for treatment, and many a man
is taken there severely hurt, often
never to come out alive. This breed
of hapless humanity are typical repre-
sentatives of the class employed in the
menial capacities by all the big iron
and steel companies, the Standard Oil
Company and hundreds of big con-
Germs employing cheap labor, only their
condition is often much worse, if such
is possible.
[ would fain take you to the Union
Stock yards in Chicago and show you
these same lowly beings at their CORY
occupations, performing tasks so re-
pulsive that the average man of intel
lect cannot witness with apathy
There, as the myriad minded bard has
so dramatically framed the thought:
81 could tale unfold, whose lightest
word would curdle thy blood and
make it to freeze in its veins, make
thy two eyes like spheres to start from
their sockets, make thy knoted and
combined locks to part and each par
ticular hair to stand on end like quills