The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1906-09-20
In the Shadow of the Breaker.

." NHO Oh0uON VI thO
1t is estimated that more than 90, 900
children under fifteen years of sge-a
whole county full Of little chaps hardly
free from thrall Of babyhood-are EN-
ployed in the coal regions Of Pennsyl-
vania. o. r. Lovejoy, field secretary
of the National Child Labor Committee,
describes q recent visit to the coal fields
in the official organ of the Anti Child
Slavery League, the Woman's Home
Companion.
II went to the breaker when / wss
eight years old and it never done me
no hurt" declared the burIy breaker
boss. He yelled his conviction Of the
benefits of child labor close to my ear,
for in the din of the machinery and the
metallic rush OF coal down the dusty
chutes the ears were confused by the
deafening roar no less than were the
eyes by the dense cloud OF cOal-dust
that surged around us. The breaker
boss was kindly man, and the heavy
cane in his broad hand was probably
used less to caress the backs of the riot.
GUS breaker boys bending over before
us than to save his own limbs as he
went from place to place through that
darkened building.
The coal-breaker dominates the an;
thracite region. The most important
object on the landscape, the largest
building, with the most mysterious ma
chinery-the coal-breaker paints the
first deep picture on the mind of the
miners son. From the dawn of his
intelligence he recognizes its power,
and in it his destiny. He may go to
school; he will go to the breaker. The
old theological argument from de-
sign" is valid here to the core. Yonder
is the miners "patch thirty or forty
black, squatty huts, with alleys Of mud
and ccal-dirt winding among them
birthplaces of a hundred boys. Here
stands the great building with over a
hundred narrow boards laid across the
coal chutes-sea for hundred boys.
The plsn is complete A boy is born;
let him hasten through his babyhood.
Can he not see the breaker needs his
labor and the hut his wages
Daughters were unwelcome in many
miners homes until the enterprising
silk manufacturer discovered the waste
human energy and began to plant silk
mills everywhere among the cities and
hamlets of the region. Now the daugh-
ter also has raison d'ehe. But the boys
no boy ever asks, "Shall go to the
breaker, or seek some other way Of
living ?" He simply goes.
The breaker makes no effort to bright
en- its darkness or hush the hideous
roar. In fact, the very mystery and
danger of it are elements of attractive
ness to boy life. The boy sits bent over
his task for eight or nine hours every
day. His back aches with the stoop
and the monotonous swing as he throws
the slate and rock aside, while the coal
runs through between his little feet.
During the first weeks of his labor his
hands are cut and torn, his nails are
broken off, and the pain OF handling
the sharp stones and slate is intense.
But he does not complain. Does q
twelve-year-old boy ever complain Of
what other boys endure? He looks
back afterward with naughty contempt
on the days when he had bleeding flu
ger tips, and much of the suffering of
the new boy in the breaker is from the
rldicule of his "red-tops." But none
of this deters him AT the earliest pos
sible age--in many parts of the region
at nine or ten years, though the law
forbids his employment under fourteen
he is off for the coal-breaker, with OF
without few months in school, and be
is thpnceforward trifing factor in d
gigantic industrial process.