Los Angeles herald., 1906-12-23
WOMAN POINTS TO
CONDITIONS IN AMERICA
THAT NEED REMEDY

CONDITIONS IN AMERICA
THAT NEED REMEDY
l should like to have the privilege
of replying to Mrs. Merritt's article
of the 9th in which she attacks the
condition of the Child wives of India
Do you know, my dear sister, in
your fervent desire to better the con-
ditions of some unknown, far-distant,
unappreciative women in India, women
who would much rather have you
leave them to their own resources and
who do not desire or need your help
do you realize that conditions much
worse than the tabled stories told of
the Zenana exist in our own land of
the free and home of the brave? Do
you realize that for every child wife
whom our missionaries martyrize a
child equally young and oppressed just
as much, an American child at your
very door, is grinding out it's young
life and losing the innocence of child
hood in the hellish confines of an
American factory?
Granted for the sake of argument
that such conditions as the missionaries
state exist in the orient Even then
is it not our first duty to rescue from
this life of slavery, akin to a living
death, the hundreds of thousands of
innocent babes who are forced to begin
their struggle for daily bread almost
before they have outgrown their swad-
ding clothes?
With tear-dimmed eyes our mission
aries rent asunder the purdah and
laid bare to their own Mortified gaze
the awful mysteries thus disclosed
With equal zeal they have penetrated
the inmost recesses of the zenana and
harem and they tell us that the sights
they witnessed were enough to CONCEAL
the blood, But why does their mis-
sionary work cease when they come
within thousand miles of home
Why, when they come home to tell
us of the horrors they have seen do
they not do a little missionary work
| in their back yards and disclose the
atrocities of the textile mill and sweat
shop instead of describing in vivid and
lurid colors the scenes to be beheld
several thousand miles away?
Plenty of Work at Home
If all the missionaries now being
supported in the foreign fields We're
TO be called home and set to work
ferreting out the hideous features of
the child labor problem, the "civilized'
world would stop it's sensitive ears in
horror at the revelations.
Elinor H. Stoy, in an article on child
u, >.
mot less than eighty thousand chill
dren-mostly little girls-are employed
| in the textile mills, where a twelve
hour day is the almost universal rule.
Mrs. McFadden, Jane Adams and
Mrs. Van Worst have seen little chill
dren at work at half past ten at night
who We're so young they did not know
their own ages. In these fine mills in
South Carolina they found little girls
4 or years old at work in the spinning
room. Think, If you can, of a little
girl only s years old so small that
she has to stand on a stool to reach
her work, running a speeder which has
to be replenished and kept in motion
| at the same time. She has also to
clean and oil the machinery by climb
ing under it at the risk of her life and
| limbs. 1t is no uncommon occurrence
for a child's hand to be caught and
crushed to a pulp! III the spinning
room the hair of the children was
white with lint from the frames. They
did not know how old they We're, but
girl standing near said some of them
were 8, some 7.
1.-The number of accidents, the dan
ger to life and limb is appalling. Tired
with the long hours, dazed with the
noise and loss of sleep, is it any wonder
they grow careless of danger from
belts and bands? One doctor-and
there is testimony from many others
said that he had personally amputated
more than one hundred fingers belong
| ing to baby hands. cotton merchant
said that he had frequently seen chill
dren with fingers, thumbs and some
times the whole hand gone, and this
crime goes on.
Children Brutalized
Children are literally being fed to
machinery in mill, mine and factory;
in glass works they are brutalized. in
tobacco factories they fall fainting,
poisoned by the strong odor of the
| tobacco
There are children in the coal mines
of Pennsylvania and other coal pro-
ducing states where the law says that
IA years shall be the legal age at
which child may be given work; but
we find them as young as eyery-
whore, Mill and mine compete with
the school for the children. Certificates
produced by the employers show that
as one of them said with a laugh, All
| these kids must have been born on
the same day; they are always exactly
IA Their real ages are far below the
requirements of the law, which is vio-
lated over and over
ION these breakers where the boys
are employed the dust rises in clouds
that hover over the buildings long
after the days work is done and sc
darkens the place where they work
that they wear miners lamps in their
caps to enable them to see the GOA
at their feet Pathetic little figures
8, 10, II and ~, bending over Their
tasks with aching backs and hands
cut and bleeding. they must learn tC
control the nausea caused by the thick
dust which coats the lining of throat
and lungs and later on results in tuber-
culosis and miners asthma.
Little Ones Are Manned
"Here children sprag cars and tend
chutes, but no record Is kept OF the
number killed or manned for life There
are $4,000 American children in the
! United States who can neither reaC
nor write one fine young fellow OF
IS said I'm a shamefaoed way: Il cam
read; have been working ever since
1 was T.. Everywhere in the competi