Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1906-05-31
CHILD SLAVERY.
Four Cases of the Miserable Con-
ditiOn That COnirOnts Ameri-
can Civilization.

slavery in America is cited by the Wo-
mans Home Companion for June,
which publishes an article from the pen
of John Spargo reciting instances OF
mani inhumanity to man. AS the
movement against child slavery is
along the same lines as the union
movement, no doubt hundreds OF
News readers will give it careful PEI
rusal American people are too liberty
loving to allow the rising generation
to assume heavy burdens at tender
age, and the quicker the lime light of
public exposure of the methods used to
make things cheap at the cost of child
rem lives, the better. II the parents
of children are paid sufficient wages TO
support them there should be no reas-
on for childish fingers to dabble in the
maelstrom of work. The place for the
child is the school, not the factory, and
reversal of this very evident fact is
worldly disaster to all concerned ex-
cept the greedy human who stands
back and rakes in the blood money.
''It was long past midnight when
entered the foulsmelling basement of
the Pittsburg tenement, No. - Blank
Street, where little Esther Silverstein
sat by her mothers side helping her
to make cheap ''stogies. This little
Jewish maiden was born in a Pbiladel-
phia tenement less than eleven years
ago. Her father died of tuberculosis
and the painful cough of the mother
as she works tells all too plainly that
little Esther will sooner or later be
completely orphaned. There are four
younger children, which explains why
little Esther must go to school by day
and then work ten or twelve hours at
a stretch. How long will she be able
! to do it2
cat No. 144 Sullivan Street, on the
lower West Side of New York in an
| IrishItalian slum, lives the Dennison
family. Mary the oldest girl, is ff--
teen, but she has not gone to school
/ long enough in her life to get her
working papers. Angelina IS eleven
and there are three younger boys.
They ali work on artificial flowers, toll
ing from very early in the morning un-
til late at night, for the home manu-
facture of cheap flowers is one of the
badly paid employments. Sometimes
when they are very hungry, Mary gets
a temporary job in Grusset's candy
factory, in Prince Street, near Broad
way. She was working there during
the last slack season in flowers.
''In Syracuse, New York, during the
stress of the last canning season, /
watched little May Mills at her work.
When it was oyer at half past ten o.
clock at night, I spoke to her and
learned that she had worked from sew
en- o'clock that morning. Asked how
old she was, she answered glibly, I'm
fourteen, sir. But when | asked her
to tell me her real age instead of
her make believe age, she answered,
Eight last Friday, sir" Little May,
who is an American child, born of A
merican- born parents, had never been
to school in her life, ""cepts to kinner-
gard n, " she said She is living in a
land of liberty
I'm Columbia, South Carolina,
saw little girl of the purest Ameri-
can stock who was only nine years OF
age, and who looked even less than
that, so puny and frail was she Lit.
tie Annie Ellery had worked all night,
and was YEARLY trudging to her home
when | saw her. | asked her if she
! could read, and for reply she shook hel
head so that the lint of the mill fell
, from her hair and her dress like little
flakes of snow; then she added shyly,
II kin read pictur's though. "
| 81 wonder whether the American
) people could read the true meaning O.
: little Annie's picture if l had one-it'
fearful tragedy of wronged childhood
: "There are no limits to child SLAYER
V. The problem is not sectional, bu'
l national Statistics show-no poor
dull old statistics as we know them
4 but human documents in which every
g unit is an infant soul-Statistics show
i that according to the census of 1901
; there were in that year t. 1852, 1877 child
i rem admitted employed in "gainful oc
cupations' in the United States. Blu
S these figures, it would be easy to SHOW
= are ridiculously, though perhaps no
T purposely, below the mark Man
n thousands of children are working I'M
@ der the protection of certificates, il
: which they are false represented as be
1 ing Of the legal age for employment
I A child of ten or eleven years gets
I certificate, taken out in her name b
|, an older sister, perhaps, in which sh
q is described as fifteen years of age
d She needs to work only a year to be az
IT tually eleven or twelve years old, i
K order to be classed as an adult owe
{ sixteen years of age. There are man
/ thousands of such cases.
y Then there are the thousands
II child toilers in the tenements of OF
i great cities, who are not included
1t our census returns at all. These al
Sc not employed in the strict technics
It sense They work long hours at ardr
d ous tasks. under terrible condition
u but they do not come within the scoJ
of census reports.
mo one knows the full strength
the army of child slaves sure two mi
/ lion or three million little ones, prob
r. bly, many thousands more uncounted
* Alarming as these figures are, the
n are less alarming than the fact that II
Pr evil of child slavery is increasing II
d. latest report of the Pennsylvania sta
r Department of Labor reports gre
in increase in the number Of children en-
at ployed in that state, which bears Il
& unenviable distinction Of emplovil
IL more children than any other. In
Mt single class Of industries in one sta
p the increase was more than s. 600
one year and 20. OO0 I'm eight wears
In New York State the Dauutme
.r. Labor reports an incrtasa of more tl
ten Ter cent. In three wears and mo