The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1909-09-06

i A "shed" isn't factory. \
That's why Sherman can hire chill.
dren.
Sherman, vice president of the
United States, has taken advan
tage of ruling of the New Yorl
attorney general that great,
pleased the great, heartless, pros
porous canning companies of New
York when 1t was rendered eigh
years ago.
"Why we stay within the Law
when we hire children between 1.
and 16 years DID," Stanton Sher
man said, after had presented t,
him the charge of Miss Kelly
backed by what 1 myself knew.
"But Miss Kelly says the fac
tory law doesn't permit children
to work in factories" I suggested
Florence Kelly is a crank like
the rest OF the reformers," said
Mr.. Sherman.
Now listen to the self-satisfying,
notwithstanding explanation OF
why the vice president of the
j United States allows children to
/ work for him.
"About eight years ago. 'ex-
planned Stanton Sherman, "a labor
commissioner by the name of Te-
cumseh Sherman, who was no rel
alive IL mine, obtained a ruling
| from the attorney general that if
children under 10 worked in sheds
where there was no machinery,
they might be granted employ
men, because sheds aren't. fac
tories."
| in SHEDS, for all the laws says
against it, children may bend their
weak backs in toll; may strain the
sweetness and childish beauty out
of their tiny faces in the race for
blood-won pennies; may spend in
grinding labor the hours which the
schol board has set aside for va
cation and which God intended
them to use in play.
| In SHEDS they toll, therefore,
right alonside the canning factory
And the energy given them to use
in play is being used by James
Schoolcraft Sherman, vice presi-
dent of the United States, in get
ting more money into his own
pockets.
! The law can't reach the Sher-
man brothers.
What could a policeman do, for
instance, in the case of Alice Aus
tin?
She was breaking off the ends OF
string beans, when l saw her,
squatting beside her mother in the
Sheds"
i Her tiny fingers were lacerated
!, and the nails were worn down with
her work.
| The camera man photographed
her. The factory superintendent
saw the camera and entered the
Ished. l saw him hurry away and
II give orders to the foreman, Johr
Kennett.
Il In a moment Kenneth went tt
where Alice and her mother were
working.
Stop working" he said to the
lgirl. go on out"
, She looked up at him, puzzled
but finally unwound herself, shook
cramp out of her legs and went
away.
He doesn't pay me-" said Alic>
afterward. "But / go there every
day and help mamma. She gets the
pay for what l do.
II don't know why he told me
to go away. He never did that be.
FORE"
There isn't any vacation bright
mes sin the face of 11-year-old
Alice Austin. But there is no law
that will help Alice, except it be
be this law of God: "It were bet
ter for him that a milestone were
banked about his neck and he be
cast into the sea than that he
should offend one of these little
ones"
Alice's name isn't on the fac
tory payroll. She works in a
shed instead of a factory" The
policeman can't protect her.
No one of the laws that James
Schoolcraft Sherman has helped
make in Washington can aid Alice
and the others of her kind.
What hope have we of a good
child labor law" asks Florence
Kelly, when the vice president of
the United States himself allows
children to work In his factories?i'
4 Miss Kelly is wrink. They don't
work in his factories" They work
in his Sheds"
| OF New Hartford, where the
main Sherman company factory is
Situated, there are 395 school chill
dren.
Within the past year permits DO
labor yere granted to over 10 per
cent of these children, between the
ages of Ia and Is, by DR.. A. p.
Clark, health commissioner of the
district. Some of these children
work in the cotton mills there
abouts; a few of them work in the
canning mills. ~
James Schoolcraft Sherman isn't
in facor of more strict child-laboI
laws. If he were he would practice
the spirit of stricter laws In his
four canning factories.