The Spokane press. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.) 1902-1939, 1907-09-24
BY gibson GARDNER

BY gibson GARDNER
WILKESBARRE, Pa, Sept. "a
have just been through the coal
breakers at colliery No. 5 of the
Lehigh Valley & Wilkesbarre Coal
Co., near this city.
A breaker is a towering wooden
structure, full of coal dust and
groaning, roaring, laundering ma
chinery. To the unaccustomed
senses it is a hell of noise, darkness
and dirt.
l had noticed as l approached
what looked like smoke floating to
the windward from the building.
This was banding dust. 1t was
everywhere, inches deep under foot.
From the top of the 150-foot
black, shaking structure my guide
and | worked our ay down. Car
load after carload Of coal could be
heard being dumped into the hop
per at the top, affOrding grist for
the crushers and rollers, through
which 1t came until separated into
six sizes, all sifted, sorted and
cleaned.
About two-thirds of the way down
we found the breaker boys.
Here they were, each sitting on
a board laid across chute down
which the coal came pouring, hold
ing the coal in check with his feet
and picking out the slate with his
little blackened and bruised hands.
At this place there were about 20
boys.
Their backs were bent; miners
lamps were burning in their caps,
the dust being so thick they could
not see. Each face was a mask of
coal dust in which the mouth was a
moist red crack, and the eyes
looked out with strange accen-
tuation of their white.
had seen photographs Of break
err boys, always grinning. These
boys were not grinning. They
were not sitting for their pictures.
The eyes of two bosses were on
them. They looked up furtively
and went on with their picking
YEARLY, oh, how YEARLY and
hopelessly! A one-legged man and
a one-armed man were their boss
es. Further on l saw a youth in
charge of a gang and he was also
MANNED. There was something
grewsomely suggestive in all this
absence of hands, arms and legs.
And those boys were practically
all under the legal age. would
stake my sanity that there were
more boys under than over IA years
of age working at picking slate in
brakear No. of the Lehigh &
Wilkesbarre Coal Co. on this Sep
TENDER day, 1907. did not question
them, but l looked them over care
fully and saw what anybody can
see and What any fair-minded per-
son would admit: that the boys
were children who ought to be in
school.
The system which puts them in
the colliery instead of in the
school Is another thing. l propose
to talk of that in another article.
HS punt hCit 10 thut tuG WY .
in this breaker. above 60 of them,
little, bright-faced, intelligent
American boys. condemned to toll
like galley slaves, eight hours a
day, in darkness, and choking coal
dust; condemned at an age when
they should be playing ball and
studying their readers, robbed of
their youth, of their health, of their
strength, and of their chance to
knows better and a wider world,
and so robbed In order that mil
lions may be added to the millions
of men who have more millions
than they need; unnecessarily
robbed. their young lives cruelty,
heedlessly coined into dollars,
which in turn corrupt and debase
political system whose laws no
longer a FRACTION. have become a
travesty and a disgrace before all
the world.
And colliery No. is but sam
pie of the rest.
IT'S long enough for little chaps