Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1909-06-24
THE HOPE OF THE NATION.
Paper Read by Mrs. ". B. Greear, of Hon.
akeT, Va, Before The Recent Meeting
of The WOman's Home Mission
Society al IazeWeII.


the distressing conditions incident to the
lives of our working poor when he wrote:
1--WE weave in the mills and heave in
the kilns,
We seive mine-meshes under the hills,
And thieve much gold from the DEVILS
bank tills,
To relieve, o. God! what manner of
ills?
The beasts, they hunger, and eat and
die;
And so do we, and the worlds sty.
Hush, fellow-swine: why nuzzle and
cry?
Swine-hood hath no remedy,
And the kilns and the court-tongued
mills say, Go:
There's plenty that can, if you can't,
we know.
Move out, if you think you're under
paid.
The poor are prolific, we're not afraid
Trade is trade
But even he. in his realistic dreaming.
scarce foresaw the harvest of destruc-
tion that this generation has brought
forth in the sacrifice of helpless children
to trade. And l wonder how many peo-
pie today realize that the lives of multi
tudes of beautiful children are being
hampered, misshapen and DESTROYED IN
the manufacture of coats and hats,
bread and cake, the furnishings of
homes, and the tens of thousands of
other commodities that trade keeps up
on our markets.
These little ones, because of the low
wage for which they work, are allowed
to enter all kinds of manufacturing es-
adjustments. When they should be in
school, or following childish pursuits in
earth's free, pure air, they are shut up
In various kinds of mills and factories,
to breathe dust and lint, or to inhale
noxious fumes and gases until their
brains are stupefied, and their lungs
are clogged and diseased. Being kept
constantly at one kind of work and hab-
itually in one position, as standing, sit
ting or STOPPING; or being required to
use one part of the body constantly to
the exclusion of the other parts. their
bodies become crooked and unevenly de-
veloped. Overwork and no recreation
renders them grown old and tired of life
before childhood is passed. Working at
night has its destructive effect more
surely upon the constitutions of children
than upon grown people. They are ex-
posed to all the dangers of factory life,
and statistics prove that the deathrate
from accidents is far greater among
children than adults. which statement
Is but an axiom since children cannot be
master of as much precaution as is
needful to preserve life among danger
GUS machines.
Look at their pale. tired faces, their
sunken chests, their crooked backs; see
the crowds of them in the hospitals and
almshouses, deformed, diseased and
mangled; note that thousands of them
fill premature graves from tuberculosis
and other diseases and accidents brought
on by the life they live; consider these
facts and ask yourself: Is it fair that
these little ones should be required tc
pay their rightfil physical development
as the price of insufficient food anC
scant raiment for few months OIL
years?
But if this childhood struggle for
bread did not injure the physical well.
being, its effect upon the intellectual
life of the child is just cause for bitter
complaint. No educational advantages
In childhood make an ignorant, narrow
minded, superstitious adult, incapable OF
independent thought, and incapacitated
for any vocation above that of the most
menial toll, and this only in the narrow
lines taught him in the factory in which
fate in childhood placed him. Is it faiI
that fate be allowed to deprive chilc
of the free preparation that makes hin
a good citizen in his own country?
Passing the destruction of physique
and the dwarfng of intellect, it is
scarcely needful to mention the awfu
effects morally that come from the ut.
ter absence of home training, the neg.
lect of church advantages, and the ex.
posure to the vices of street and factory
life. And what is the final result? II
is this: race of weaklings, physically
intellectually and morally, makes an IN
secure foundation for a nation. AnC
who is it that forms the greatest pei
cent. of the teeming millions that con
stitute our nation? Is it the rich anC
powerful, the educated or renowned, Of
is it the poor and the ignorant? AnC
which of these classes is increasing
most rapidly? Visit the mountainou.
parts of our country, note the cabins il
the hollows, each with its group of neg
lected little folks growing to maturity
Go then to the slums of our cities an,
observe the crowds of them eking out
miserable existence in the tenements
Pass on to our ports, and behold ther