Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1915-12-09
fRy Owen B. LoueinxA

Il o. l.
Can address delivered at the Stat
Conference of Charities and Corree
lions. Wheeling, Nov. 23.)
II Is not only true regarding ideal
of our institutions, our ethical an,
aesthetic motives, but it is also tru,
of practical business relations-what
ever Injuries the potential possibilitie,
OF the next generation, is an iniur,
as well to business enterprises ant
prospects of the next generation.
1t is the duty of statesmen and wo
men to try to associate the variou,
agencies for good in the community
Let us get away from the old ides
| that one evil can stand alone or be
cured alone, or that one sin curses
society, the rest being incidental
Evils interlock- 1t is impossible tc
eliminate one while others thrive.
Perhaps can best illustrate my
point by asking these questions:
Why do we have this burden on
society? Why do we have this bur.
den Of poverty, inef1ciency, or paup-
erism, of ignorance, of vice, of crime
Why are there people applying in in.
creasing numbers for charity? Why
are generations coming on unfit for
problems facing them?
I sometimes think that if the Great
Teacher Of generations ago were to
speak today he would say that the
man who puts a stumbling block in
the way Of child should rather have
Ia mill stone hanged about his neck
and should be drowned in the depths
of the sea.
For instance, the State of Ohio has
invested twenty-five million dollars in
institutions for delinquents and defec-
tives, and is levying appropriations
every year to perpetuate these insti-
tutions, in order to take care of the
constant stream of evil doors pouring
toward their doofs thus saving many
and serving the community.
But we have this flood coming on
constantly. Why is it perpetuated?
Perhaps it is because we trust too
much to agencies of poverty, wretch
edness, (improvised) to inefficient
schools and churches that we find the
mill stone hangs on our neck.
If we could have a fair chance for
all children in one generation, we
would have world hard to recognize.
We need to think of these evils, in
their relations, one to another, as
links in an endless chain. You have
seen it in your own community. We
have it in New York ignorance, in
efficiency, child labor, casual employ
ment. idlenkss, drunkenness, low
wages, bad Houses, intemperance, in
dustrial accident, industrial condi-
lions. poverty, ignorance. etc-there
is no place to begin and none to stop.
Catch the endless chain at any point,
examine any link, fasten an inef1-
Gent man at any point, let him drag,
and he will suffer all have indicated
involved in some link of the chain.
The father leaves school at too
early an age;s he starts out to work
an inefficient workman, ignorant, no
or meager education. Be-
ing an inefficient, poor, ignorant boy,
into industry at too early an
age, he is put at the most meaning
less job, paid the lowest possible
wage and cannot ask for better job.
Maybe he is paid more than he is
worth. He works at this monotonous
task without developing efficiency or
becoming more useful. When bust
ness is dull, he is the first to be dis
charged, and the last one to be taken
back. Being unjustly unemployed he
first joins the ranks of the ''out-of-
works" He next joins the ranks of
the chronic unemployed. If he is
taken on to work, it is at meager
wage; lives in the poorest house in |
town, not because he chooses it, but
the house our children are born in
depends upon the wages Of the fam
lily. Poorest house, least ventilation, |
poorest sanitary convenience. AS a |
result sick or apt to be sick. His
work offers the maximum hazard and
least protection. Not fit for another
place. By and by, he is prematurely
old, broken down industrially, and
when children come on, they are sent
out to work because the father can
not keep them in school. He must
remove his protection and let the
children shift for themselves.
And so child labor, ineficiency,
ETC., the endless chain rolls on. II
you abolish child labor you do not
abolish all the problems Of the CHART
able world. Cutting out one link
makes the chain that much shorter,
and easier to control.