The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1903-02-07


boy issued a far more vital,
more impressive, more compelling mes
sage to the American people. A stunt
ed little fellow; he is leading a life more
strenuous than anybody who shoots for
sport, writes for diversion and holds
high office purely as a patriotic duty
ever dreamed Of This lad, his father
killed by one Of those accidents which
as snow is in a Dakota winter, works in
a breaker at Scranton. Winter, and
sunmerhe is at his post at seven in the
orning, II and tolls his ten hours daily
Before him all day slides and rulnbles
along a stream of coal and worthless
rock. His eye must be sharp to see and
his fingers quick to grasp and throw
out the slate and other impurities, for
foreman is watching him and his fell
lows, and the discipline Of the breakers
is not merciftl.' If you have a. 13-year-
old boy about the house, look at his
hands and think what the swift thrust
ing, for ten hours daily of those fingers,
into streanl Of Jagged rocks, half
the year covered with snow and ice,
would mean. Look into his bright eyes
and fancy them peering all day through
| a mist Of coal dust that after an hour
or two makes his face like black-a-
moor's-and what it. does to his lungs
the doctors in the Anthracite region tell
with more realism than is indeed here.
Look at his chest and shoulders, which
it is your joy to see expand and develop
to manly proportions, and try to fancy
what shape they would assume if he
sat bent far over at the waist, reach
ing eagerly forward for ten hours daily.
If your imagination is vivid and will
| not recoil from picture Of wretched
and tortured boyhood, you may conjure
up the figure of, a breaker boy, at an
anthracite mine. >D<
+; One Of these boys was called before
the distinguished commission which is.
trying to find the exact line IF justice
between the claims Of the United Mine
Workers and those of the operators OF
| anthracite mines. The lne-is not there,
Of course. It is so far beyond the claims
of the miners, SO far beyond anything
! that<they, in their poverty and simpli-
| city ever dreamed of, that it cannot be
brought-to use the>lawyer's phrase
| within the purView Of this commission.
|
miners demands come nearer justice
than the conditions which the operators
would maintain, the lawyers called this
boy to the stand. -
| Yes, he knew the nature of an oath,
he said. God would kill him if he lied
there. He worked in the breakers.
i It was, hard work His fingers often
hurt and bis back ached. Sometimes
the foreman pulled his; ears if he sat up
to rest his stiffened back, He earned
40 cents day. Working ten hours.
Yes; that was juste4 cents hour. He
had been at school a year or more and
|:could do little; sum like that. Why
Lid: he leave school? His father; was
killed in. the mine and he had to go to
work for his mother. Same minesz=the
father :: worked In? !, Yes: sMarkle's.
What did. he'd with his money? Never
saw any. What! : A Il he got was these
pay checks. s,<,< IS z IF !, =. :" Il i:
Z And then that 1S:year- old { boy pro-
/ duced checks showing Sthatth the Markell
Ecoliery took, week by week, every cent
|++of the 40 cents a. daysth ey paid him and
.Eapplieds it. on s.a debt the dead father
lowed . for the rent & Of the /: company,s
i kovel ia hich he lived & and the father
lied the Markle mine,
}sss *a III:
4 | .,rh essage5 to the American
II peoplesM more ian an thing
II Thead lore Roosevelt presto dent INC
4UnitedH states ha q 20 offer 4 tells Sol
4 finite more hideou han
THAT phicll He'd .arnaie.
zo lint ItS III no III
dinst
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