The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1908-01-04

OF the court house when he met
poorly clad little waif, whose size in
dlcated that he was not more than six
This baby was upon the sidewalk trying
to sell newspapers. He was crying
from cold, and perhaps hunger.
The thought was unavoidable that
there was great deal of sham about
our pretensions and our efforts to be
humane. In the stores and factories of
this city hundreds Of children are work.
Ing long hours in unhealthful sur
roundings. Doubtless those who made
such fuss about the street car dog
see those children many times every
year and no fuss has been raised about
them. We would not let so unpunished
those who even thoughtlessly cruelty
treat dumb animal, but if defenseless
dumb animals enlist public sympathy,
why is it that defenseless little chill
dren do not appeal to the same sympa
thy? Is it because it costs something
to treat children as we would treat
dumb animals? Is it the element Of
human greed that permits children to
stunt their souls and their bodies IN the
sweat shops of cities or the necessity
of the parents OH one hand and the
cupidity of employers on the other?
Not many days ago report came
from the Monongah mine in West vir-
ginia that the body of an eleven-year-
old boy had been taken from the mine.
There is a law in West Virginia against
child labor. All states have such laws,
but West Virginia did not enforce it's
law for the protection of the young of
the human species, although it may en-
force it's laws in reference to the treat
ment of animals.
The Omaha World Herald, speaking
Of this child miner says:
NO honest man, with a spark of that
heavenly compassion in his heart which
Charles Dickens invoked for Little
Joe,' can read this bit of news without
bowlng his head in shame. Christian
men and women should weep with pity
and bow their heads with shame for
this puny little eleven year old miner,
with gnarled hands and hob-nailed
shoes; this child robbed of his child
hood; taken from the sun light of the
fields and streams and forests, while
yet a baby and plunged into this coal
mine, there to suffer and die; this lit
tie miner was their slave. In their
service he lived and died and all he
has to show for what our Christian
civilization has given him in return for
what he gave is his stunted soul and
starved body. and his grimy face up
turned to the sky. Dickens Little
joe the English waif, whose forlorn
condition so touched the great heart
of the novelist, was a prince a PAM
pered and favored child Of fortune COM
pared with the dead little American
miner of a half century later. A half
century Of progress and this is what
we have to show. Is it strange Social
ism grows; Socialism which hurls it's
challenge in the face Of a system that
has given us this sorry product? Is it
strange that, despite it's fundamental
fallacies. it appeals to the fathers and
of the poor, when it can launch
with justice the terrific indictment
against the capitalist civilization that
the march of it's conquest is stained
with the blood of infants and paved
with the puny bones Of children? Peo-
pie We're poor enough. God knows, in
the dark ages of medieval ignorance,
and in the still earlier days of pagan
ism, but never till modern Industrial
ism joined hands with Christian civ
ilization did they have to send their
children to work as children are sent
today. Ancient greed held it's hands In
pity or shame and spared the child
The greed of today knows neither
shame nor pity. and in children it finds
succulent morsels.'