The Washington herald., 1912-10-21
GREAT, MINDS AND HEARTS
NEEDED TO WORK OUT THE
PROBLEM OF CHILD LABOR
~ FRANCES sMAFrEn.

Under the new labor Law. Just be-
coming operative In New York STATE.
every child fourteen years old. or
younger, who applies for papers per-
mitting the employment Of . minor.
must pass thorough examination for
physical fitness; and II in the family
history there II q predisposttion to
tuberculosis the law says he shall be
excluded from the confinement and the
rigors of factory work.
But one supposes that through the
exceeding needs OF parents, sometimes
through their avarice, the cupidity OF
employers or negligence somewhere. the
young child will slip through and pay
the usual price of work when the mind
and the body alike are undeveloped.
And. after all. II Is not so much what
one State does or fails to do as what
the whole country does for its children
In factories. sweat-shops., and mines. for
30 long as there 10 single State In the
nation where boys and girls Of seven.
six. and even five years of age are
sent, almost from the cradle, to their
daily toll, there is work for some one
to do in behalf of the child.
And tine worst of II is. when the baby
toll, the child labor. is stopped. the
pitiful fact remains that the small pit
tance earned by the children IL sadly
needed in the home, for these children
come from homes Of poverty, where
money Is reckoned by the pennies. not
the dollars.
An Awful Pity.
And in this connection I recently read
a few abstracts from a debate In the
United States Senate few years ago,
that is, / read until the awful pity of
it made me close the book and weakly
try to forget.
The very first thing that caught my
eye was the story Of little white girl
who was working in q Southern cotton
mill. She was eleven then and had
been at work over a year. When ques-
toned as to her hours of work. her
answer was About twelve a day. !
reckon" And this is the way 1t ran.
There was the first bell at half-past
four-"that's for ringing us up" she
said. Then came the seeond call. the
bell for breakfast. and the young worker
told that only a few minutes were al
lowed before they begin calling us to
prepare for the next warning at twenty
minutes a-past six and at the stroke
of the hour the mill hands were all on
duty, men. wonderland babies. Awak-
ened by the insistent clamor of a bell
at half-past four in the morning. toll
ing from six in the morning to six
thirty at highland just eleven years
old. When she first started In. at the
tender age of ten years. she said that
when the work was over at night 1t
didn't seem like ! ever could get home. y
But she grew accustomed to it.
Did you ever happen to be in a mill
town, where you could hear a noisy
bell ruthlessly calling working folk from
their slumbers at an early hour in the
morning? Memory goes back to an
eleven-year-old girl who heard II for the
first time on q winter morning. and there
In her room. snug, warm and protected.
she could see men and women. yea, and
children. too. hurryfng from all quar-
ters to respond to the last bell. some
where around o'clock. 1t seemed then.
and il has seemed ever since like hor-
rid ogre that never knew any pity.
Cleaned Bobbins All Night.
little mite of a girl not nine years old.
who cleaned bobbins at three cents an
hour Her work began at $50 at night
and she worked through until $50 in
the morning. and her way from home
to mill led across fields that could be
very bleak indeed when the winds were
blowing from the hills.
And there the breaker-boys in tho
coal mines, who sit hour after hour
bending over the coal chutes. picking
out the rock and slate. breathing
through a cloud of thick, black dust,
sometimes breaking or crushing their
fingers, always hearing the incessant rat
tie of machinery and growing old ano
bent long before their time. And this
work, done by boys. is the labor Of
whichs man once said. Il could not do
that work and live" He went to n
breaker to see Just what it meant to be
a breaker -boy-and that was his verdict.
But. then he was not obliged to, by the
stern push OF necessity, and that made a
difference.
As turned the pages, the recitals. all
real experiences grew SO grim and forbid
ding, written all over, as they were. with
the toll of children. that / closed the book
and the shadow has been upon me ever
since.
Those records were made few years
ago, and meanwhile. one by one, new and
better laws have been passed. here. there.
but not everywhere: and II needs great
minds and great hearts to work out the
problem of child labor. For IL laws are
passed. then enforced, and the little ones
cease their toll, there Is the huge question
how will some of the families exist?
For they barely live now. and when the
child is sent from the mill to the school,
where he belongs. there must be some
thing to take the place of the meager
wage he earned.
Indeed. there is need of active work
among men and women alike to solve
some Of the great problems that face us.