The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1918-07-06
LABOR PRESS AvER1ED
CHILD LABOR DISGRACE

From the Cincinnati Chronicles:
The United States had not entered
into the world conflict more than a
few weeks before there were emis-
saries in our midst who would have
committed greater crime against
the children of the United States than
have the Hun hordes in Europe COM
mitted against the devastated coun-
tries that have felt their scorching
and devastating breath.
Some governors, some legislatures
| and legislators listened to the oily
tongues of the enemies of the land,
! and, under the plea of patriotism and
! loyalty, inaugurated processes by
! which old established laws having to
| do with the conservation of child life
! should be trampled under the heel Of
profiteering and profiteers. They met
| their Armageddon!
! Without single exception, the sew
! eral hundred labor papers throughout
| this broad land simultaneously grid
! ed up their loins and entered the fray
| to prevent the rampages of the child
labor baiters.
Those labor papers, representing, as
they did, the loyal element of labor,
that element which has done SO much
to assimilate and educate the millions
| of foreign born men and women into
a great melting pot" of better citi-
zenship, threw down the gauntlet to
the American kaisers ana defied them
to abrogate the child-labor laws upon
| the statutes of the several states.
AT. the peril of your life, you shall
not pass" was the rallying cry from
east to west and from north to south.
eve will go into this world conflict,
and. when we do, the bone and sinew
of the land will bring democracy for
all the world; but you shall not take
our children and grind their bones into
shot and shell: you shall not rob them
of the heritage for which we go to
war; you shall not stunt their souls,
their intellects, their right to sunshine,
by compelling our children to enter
the jaws of living hell"
! Thus. figuratively speaking, did the
bona fide labor press of the United
States hurl into the camp of the kais-
critics the def: you shall not pass
to massacre our children"
Unspeal<able have been the crimes
committed by the Huns against the
| devastated countries of Europe. And
| yet, under the guise of patriotism and
necessity, there were men high in the
official world in the United States
who would have in one full swoop,
made the greatest republic on earth
shambles that would make even
those of devastate Belgium appear as
elysium.
! Organized labor stood as a rock,
and the labor press unbucl1led it's
| sword, hardened it's muscles, and
| let it be known that if they were
going to fight the battles for a world
! democracy their children should not
| be spitted upon the bayonets of the
| ollar-seeking dollar idolators
And thus, through the labor press
! of the land, was there averted even
| a greater crime against childhood
than has been the portion of those
who have felt the hand Of rapine and
| murder in devastated Europe.
When historians finally write and
| record the events of this world war;
| they will not have made that record
complete until they write down how
it was that the labor press prevented
| the sacrifice of millions of children
before the United States had really
entered the world fray.
With the espionage act in working
order. those who vociferously voiced
the thought of the murderous ele-
ment of Europe subsidized and today,
| after a little over one year in the war,
! it is to be doubted if one Of those Hun
agents, occupying official positions,
would dare to advocate the placing of
little children in the cannons mouth.
One year ago they advocated that
very thing.