The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-02-05

deed the State will grow richer by pre-
serving the health and developing the
minds and hearts of these children than
il can possibly grow by the creation &C
any values which their puny arms can
win. For the sake of humanity, there
fore, and in the name of the children of
the State it becomes your high privilege
to secure them against the ceaseless
wear of mind and body necessary in the
performance day after day and week after
week indoors, of labor which not hard
in itself, becomes painful to children by
its unceasing regularity"
We also append a letter written by
one Of the noblest women in North
Carolina. She is the wife of one of the
richest men in North Carolina. who is
largely interested as a stakeholder in
cotton mills. He has seen and his wife
has seen the need of saving the children
from working in the mills during their
tender years. Her appeal ought to-and
it will-make profound impression She
writes:
APPEAL OF A NOBLE WOMAN.
To the Editor: The appeal that comes
from all parts of our State in behalf of
the abused childhood. that is allowed
and encouraged to be spent between fac
tory walls. is not one that comes from
the heart alone We know it emanated
there, for where is the seeing man or
woman who can go into our mills and
come out, without feeling sympathy for
the little souls and bodies that spend
their days and some even their nights
over the looms and amid the whirr of
spindles?
The heart set the brain in motion and
now we are beginning to realize that
unless we change conditions decidedly,
we are going to work the greatest harm
to our State through it's citizens of ten
and twenty years hence-those who are
children today.
Morally, mentally and physically have
We been allowing these to be stunted;
almost as one blind. have we stood
alphabetically by and let these conditions
prevail, until now we are beginning to
see that when the new franchise law
goes into effect many who will be entitled
by right of birth to vote, will be de-
barred therefrom through the short
sightedness of those who now have con-
troll of affairs.
1t behooves every man and woman in
the State to do his utmost to see that
their rights are given to the children
At least until it is twelve years OF age
ought every one be excluded from the
mill and factory. Send them to school,
where heart, mind and body may be
trained and then into the sunshine for
the play that will make the work better
and happier when it has to be taken up
Let this cry go up to every man in our
General Assembly, that he do his utmost
and best for the rights of the children
of today, the men and women of the flu
ture.
NJ. w.
Apropos, l request you to publish the
following extract. in point, from Mrs.
Elizabeth Barrett BroWning's beautiful
poem, 1.-The Cry of the Children"
Do you hear the children weeping, O
my brother?
They are weeping bitterly:
They are weeping in the playtime of the
others,
In the country Of the free.
They look up with their pale and sunken
faces,
And their look is sad to see,
For the mans heavy anguish draws and
presses
Down the cheeks of infancy
Your old EARTH" they say, ''is very
dreary,''
90 thaxy "a
weak"
For co." say the children, 1--WE are weary,
And we cannot run or leap"
For all day the wheels are droning, turn
ing,
Their wind comes in our faces,
Till our hearts burn, our heads, with
pulses burning,
And the walls turn in their places.
Turns the sky in the high window blank
and Keeling,
Turns the long light that drops adown
the wall.
Turn the black flies that crawl along the
All are turning, all the day and we
with all.
And all day the iron wheels are droning,
And sometimes We could pray
20, We wheels (breaking out in mad
moaning)
"Stop Be silent for the day.
Ay. Be silent! Let them hear each 9TH
er breathing
For a moment, mouth to mouth
Let them touch each others hands, in a
fresh wreathng
OF their tender human youth
Let them feel that this cold metallic mo-
ton
Is not all the life God fashions or
reveals;
Let them prove their living souls against
the motion
That they live in you or under you, Q
wheels!
Still all day the iron wheels go onward,
Grinding life down from its mark;
And the chiidren's souls, which God is
calling sunward,
Spin on blindly in the dark.
Senator Hoar has done one more thing
to entitle him to the gratitude of the
American people, to-wit: in leading the
fight against the confirmation of Ad-
dicks man as District Attorney in Della