Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1913-04-02
WINNING ORATIONS IN
JUDGE MILLS CONTEST
Delivered by Lancaster High
School Students, March Fl
First Prize, SIS, Won by Miss Mae
Brockert; Second Prize, $3.50, Won
by Miss Elma Knox.

For several years past The Herald
has published in full the orations
awarded first and second prize whsp
delivered at the Judge Mills Contest,
held annually in this city. Follow
ing that custom we print herewith
those by Mae Brockert and Elms
Knox at this years contest.
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.
Let him who is skeptic on the
question of child labor, let him who
SCOTS at the worth of the lower
classes, stand some morning at six
O'Clock before the door of mill when
the night shift gets off, as for instance
in Admission, Alabama. In the lag
gard procession that files up the in
cline toward the settlement you Will
be greatly impressed with the cheer
fulness of the mill hands. Why
the old mill keeps US company.
protested one pale, thin woman clad,
in black. The fine films of cotton
had settled all over her garments
where they rested like a shroud en-
veloping one whose weary limbs
would find rest at last In death Be-
hind her trudged long legged, bare
| footed boy who gave his age az
thirteen. On being asked why he
worked nights, he replied, why.
you get as much in five nights as you
do in six days - Behind them was.
child hardly four years old. Tumbl
! ing along by his mothers side, he ap-
peared like spirit, like creature
bred in cave. his flesh bleached, his
eyes dszed by perpetual darkness.
He's only helping me, the mother
explained He makes a dollar and
twenty cents a week. I've got three
and myself to look out for since my
husband died. - The faces of all
presented masks of withered flesh
DARK eyes gouged out of pale, swollen
brows. all the ugliness visible which
deprivation and toll Can practice Oh
the human countenauce. Do not these
chiliren's lives spe for themselves;
do you not hear their $. ne cry of
the children2 Wi -hildren of.
the mills. are of tiny
pilgrims. victims and
ignorance. robbed b. ne
burdens TOO early . lie
shoulders denud they
march forward on a
fortitude and de- ,nr.s - which
make their cry less a c0T,nl4ia
a summons.
There are at VIC I'd
States over MILL --f Il
dren between the "a
fifteen; twenty five per all the
textile operatives III are
under 16; two the 13
are doing night work in onsyIVania :.
ninetytwo Thousand Il az
this age or youn York
state. These thou hildrep
seem like one of ~ ele-
ments in great rganiza-
tion. An army of Ill ireu
greater in numher 90 army Of
soldiers with whic aer Russia or
japan flooded Nj ia, are daily
marched to the Factories and
sweat shops here IL america. and are
either Killed ortright or forever
ruined The conf ned losses of the
Russian and Japan Sc war were not Sc
great as the number of American
children who are worked to death
or made degenerates every year in the
mills, mines and sweat shops of our
own country.
A committee probing the labor
situation, wa astonished to find a
child of thrIe at work One of the
party asked the child how long be
had been employed. Ever since I
was, +" was the simple response
Ever since was. =" What a search
light that throws upon industrial con
ditions. What poverty it lays bare,
what greed it exposes This incident
did not take place in crowded Italy
nor in commercial Germany, bat
right in New York state.
The mill hands suggest the groups
of aged men one sees about an old
peoples home. moving slowly as if in
pain, speaking only occasionally to
each other as if they had no reason to 4
recall the past or invoke the future
Oh, sad little groups. and how unlike
children
How are they designated on the
pay rolls of the great mills7 What
are they called by employers? Not by
the name of children. but they are
called hands. Their hands and what
they can do with them, are all that
attract the manufacturer. For him
the rest of their little persons from.
the youth that is repressel within.
CONTINUED on 9th page.l Ila.zm