The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1907-01-31
WASHINGTON
From our Regular Correspondent.

From our Regular Correspondent.
Washington, D. c. Jan. 81, 1907.
Senator Beveridge this week de-
livered remarkable address in the
Senate supporting his bill for the
prohibition of child labor. 1t was
a very remarkable speech and Pc
culiar for a Congressional speech in
that it was illustrated by numher
of photographs. These were taken
in all parts of the country and
showed graphically the child labor
ers and the conditions under which
they worked. Senator Beveridge
said that the institution OF child
labor was perhaps the greatest men
ace from which the country suffer-
ed. The census he claimed showed
that there were 1000, 900 child
bread winners in the country under
fifteen years of age. Of these 7oo.-
900 were employed in mines, mills
and factories, or callings other than
agriculture. He said that the bill
did not aim at child labor on the
farm. Such work might be con-
sidered almost beneficial or at least
not Objectionable. What the bill
did strike, was child labor in the
factories and sweat-shops, and the
way he proposed to get at the root
of the evil was to prohibit the trans.
portation of interstate commerce OF
any goods produced by the work
Of children.
Senator Beveridge presented af-
fidavits showing the prevalence OF
child labor between the ages OF 3
and IS years. He had scores OF
such affidavits citing names, ad-
dresses and occupations, acccmpan-
led in many cases with photog:ap s
and he said that he was presenting
in affidavit form, not the worst and
the extreme cases, but cases that
were typical OF thousands of child
rem in all parts of the country. He
gave instances of little girls from
ten to thirteen years old, kept at
work from nine to twelve hours
day in the cotton mills OF the south,
of boys of the same age employed
in the glass factories where one OF
the. workman said that he would
sooner see his own children dead
than so engaged, and other child
rem in the flax mills at Patterson,
N. J., standing barefooted and
sweat-soaked in the steaming rooms
and then being forced to come out
into the night air Of winter with
out even a change of clothes. Some
of the worst examples that he gave
were of the breaker boys employed
in the coal mines where they were
forced to work crouched over the
travelling coal-belt for ten or twelve
hours a day in ar atmosphere so
thick with coal dust that it was i'm.
possible to see and where they had
to do their work by sense Of touch
alone. Other cases that he men,
toned showed that children on
night shifts had to be drenched
with cold water to keep them awake
while the conditions in the sweat
shops, though they might be nc
worse physically, were morally in
finitely worse.
In commenting on the physical
menace to the nation, Senator Bev-
eridge said that if these children
do not die, but grow up to man
hood and womanhood they become
enemies to society and for his part
he said he did not blame them.
They know that they are not the
equals of their fellows either in
4. body or mind, they are crooked,
dwarfed and weak, with souls
darkeued and vicious. Physicians
testify that the nervous exhaustion
caused by such work breeds c-av-
ing for liquor, tobacco and other
vices. He held that the ruin OF
American citizenship, upon which
alone the success of the country de-
pended, was to- great price to
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