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"Now, we don't want nuthin' to disturb all this If the fact'ries is crackin' the law a bit, why, it ain't the first time such things has got by the inspector. The fact'ry managers'd like some assurance from ye that ye're goin' to keep yer hands off before they line up the fact'ry hands to vote for ye." Doolittle paused here. George nodded.
"They send missionaries to China," cried the lad further, "but there's no child labor there; they try to reform the 'unspeakable Turk' but there's no atrocity upon the children there; they call the heathen lost, though in the worst an' wildes' tribes the children have a home an' lovin', if savage care; Russia cries shame on what goes on in our fact'ries here, an' even an Indian chief that they were showin' the sights of our great cities to, when asked what had surprised him most, answered, 'Little children workin'."
It is the land of opportunity opportunity for the children to starve, opportunity to suffer, opportunity to die wretched an' to be glad to die. There's no country in the world where children are tortured as they are in the fact'ries of the United States." "Oh, surely it can't be as bad as that," protested Hamilton. The objection only increased the "crusader's" vehemence.
"My machine makes such a racket," she explained, "I always keep finger jobs for company work. There's so many fact'ries nowadays that Keep-at-it is the only sewin'-woman that makes a livin'. You'd be s'prised to see how much Peggy helps me. She can rattle off most as many miles as me on that old machine in a day." "Peggy tells me you are in trouble, Mrs.
There are twenty-five thousand children less than ten years old in the fact'ries of America." "Perhaps the people who could help don't know about it," suggested Hamilton. "They know," the other continued, "but they don't care. They stop their ears to the cryin' o' the children an' talk about America as the land of opportunity.
The big fact'ries mostly have 'em, but there are plenty o' places like this in small towns where everythin' is done on a cheap scale, an' a boy's labor is about the cheapes' thing in the United States unless it's a girl's." Seeing that the glass-blower was being delayed in his task, Hamilton sauntered away, and went back to the place where the "crusader" worked.
Fact'ries are always doing things they hadn't ought to." But Jane was silent and thoughtful, and they were presently lost in the charms of Mary Pickford. The evening papers came out with pictures of Elizabeth Stanhope and her bridegroom that was to have been. Jane cut away the bridegroom and pasted the bride's picture in the flyleaf of her Bible, then hid it away in the bottom of her trunk.
"There were a trifle over a hundred thousand children between the ages of six and fourteen workin' in the fact'ries of America last year. The figures showed that over half of 'em were workin' more'n eight hours a day, that a large percentage were workin' twelve to sixteen hours, an' twenty-two thousand of 'em are at night work."
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