The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-02-09

be employed to run the machinery in the factories
of the country without considering the moral cues
ton involved. Of course a boy or girl may be
hired for $3.50 to Sc a week while a man would
demand more-how much he could get depending
upon his ability and needs and upon the employ
er's avarlce or generosity.
The reason for employing children is self-evi-
dent-greed for money. A specious argument is
set up by the employees that parents request and
even demand employment for their children in the
mills and factories. 1t is true, no doubt: but the
patry earnings of the children would not he neces
sary to keep the soul and body of the workers fam
lily together, and these requests and demands would
vanish and recur nevermore forever if the employ
ers gave their employees a square deal and the EN-
ploys gave their employers and their own families
the same And in the cases of widows and orphans
gust levy of taxes would provide means by which
they could be cared for not out of charity. but out
of justice, for the community owes living to or
phan children. and substantial care to the women
left with children raise. and the sooner the fact
IS recognized and provided for the better
Another feature contributing largely to this de-
plorable condition which should not be lost sight
of is the criminal debauchery of the fathers and
sometimes the mothers of the child slaves Gen
Grafton after generation have occupied positions i'll
the older manufacturing centers. working from
early childhood and passing out in the prime of
life leaving TO their posterity enfeebled consti
tuition and weakened mentality and consequent
lack OF moral stamina. Intermarriage also prob
ably tends toward moral lack The result in some
instances is shiftessness and drunkenness, an en-
tire absence of home influence which would tend
to any betterment of social conditions, and neces-
sary hustling by the children for food and clothing
for themselves If the factories were closed to such
as these, and provision made for their support,
thievery and crimnality would follow, which would
be even more deplorable than the facilitating in
fluences Of the factory Honesty and decency and
uprightness cannot be egislated into the hearts of
men, but laws tending to better the environments
of human beings also tend toward lettering their
morality. Any law preventing children from work
ing must be accompanied with stringent compul-
sorry education laws and for competent provision
for the support of boys and girls neglected by
morally incompetent parents
peculiar vet indsputable fact concerning the
enactment of child-labor laws is that they always
meet with the same strong opposition which con-
fronts other laws of benefit to wageearners. oppo-
unscrupulous lawyers. Utah has an eight hour law
for smeltermen but after it passed the legislature
it was fought through the courts up the supreme
court where it was finally settled in the workers
favor. Funds to defend the law provided by
the workers who could i'll afford the expense Such
is the history of all legislation for the benefit of
wage earners and it is not unreasonable to suppose
that selfishDess prompts to activity both sides in
the premises But on the one hand it is a broad
minded patriotic selfishness-a selfishness which
would make and save humanity, which would live
and let live while on the other hand it is
greedy selfishness-a selfishness
which would force the worker to ceaseess drudgery
imperil the lives of the children and sap the life
blood of the nation, all to add few dirty
dollars to dividends. all to increase the prosperity
of the already prosperous, and caring nothing by
what means it is accomplished.
Between the blackness of the blot of negro slav-
cry of ante-belum days and the blackness of the
blot of child slavery of the present time there is
out slight choice. We unite with that great body
IF men and women who have agitated this subject
in demanding laws and, more important, in enforc
ng such laws as will effectually stop this crime.
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