Hellraisers Journal: Review of John Spargo's "The Bitter Cry of the Children,” Enslaved at Ages 4 & 5!
Capital has neither morals nor ideals; its interests are always
and everywhere expressible in terms of cash profits.
Capital in the United states in the twentieth century calls for children
as loudly as it called in England a century ago.
-John Spargo
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Friday March 16, 1906
From The New York Times: "The Children of the Poor," Part II
In its March 3rd edition, the Times published an in-depth review of the newly published book by John Spargo which documents the suffering of the millions of children who are born and reared in poverty within our great American prosperity. Yesterday we present part one of that review, entitled "Children of the Poor." We conclude the article today with part two.
CHILDREN OF THE POOR [Part II]
-----A Passionless but Terrible Description of
Their Condition in This Country.*
-----
CHAPTER III. of the book deals with "The Working Child." It is probably the most awful in the book. "Children have always worked," says the author, "but it is only since the reign of the machine that their work has been synonymous with slavery." The policy of laissez faire was responsible for the "inferno of child torture" of nineteenth century England, says Mr. Spargo, and that policy has its advocates in the United States to-day.
When the cry of laissez faire is raised, despite the fact that children of 4 years of age are found at work in the canning factories of New York State, and little girls of 5 and 6 years are found working at night in Southern cotton mills, it is not too much to assume that only a vigilant and constantly protesting public conscience protects us from conditions as revolting as any experienced in the black night of England's orgy of greed. Capital has neither morals nor ideals; its interests are always and everywhere expressible in terms of cash profits. Capital in the United states in the twentieth century calls for children as loudly as it called in England a century ago.
If all the people of this great Republic could see little Annetta Fachini, 4 years old, working with her mother making artificial flowers, as I saw her in her squalid tenement home at 11 o'clock at night, I think the impression upon their hearts and minds would be far deeper and more lasting than any that whole pages of figures could make. The frail little thing was winding green paper around wires to make stems for artificial flowers to decorate ladies' hats. Every few minutes her head would droop and her weary eyelids close, but her little fingers still kept moving-uselessly, helplessly, mechanically moving. Then the mother would shake her gently, saying: "Sleep not, Annetta! Only a few more-only a few more." And the little eyes would open slowly, and the tired fingers once more move with intelligent direction and purpose.
The mill children, the glass factory boys, the mine boys, are studied by Mr. Spargo. One comes across unexpected facts in his book; for instance he measured the distance run-not walked-each night by a "carrying boy" in a glass furnace; it was twenty-two miles! It was a glass factory owner who said to Mr. Spargo that while he knew machinery was as good as boys he did not care to "bother with machines so long as he could get boys."
"The manufacturers of America to-day would have no difficulty about securing machinery, much of it already invented, if the employment of children should be forbidden. But, generally speaking, they will not of themselves make the change." Mr. Spargo alludes in passing to "the State of Pennsylvania alone-the State which enslaves more children than any other," and one wonders if there is any relationship between that fact and Pennsylvania's position as the eldest child of Republican protection, if indeed there is any connection between the child slavery described in this book and the operation of the tariff. Is it too much to say that there is? It is the protected manufacturers who most loudly demand that their industries shall be exempted from such child labor laws as there are-who in New York demanded the right to employ children of four years of age, in the South have had the laws repealed which forbade the employment of six-year-old children at night, that sheeting might be made for the Chinese Army.
Mr. Spargo's remedies are many. As regards the babies, they include state or Federal supervision of infant food manufacture; meals for school children, medical inspection of schools, a minimum standard for working children established by Federal law, permitting each State to raise the standard, with special laws for large cities where the ordinary country-made laws are inadequate. These are good suggestions. Even in part adopted, they would abolish much of the wrong and ignorance from which the children of the poor suffer, and would enfranchise millions whose inarticulate cry is repeated in this book.
[Paragraph break, emphasis, and photographs added.]
Advertisement from The New York Times of February 17, 1906:
SOURCE
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-Mar 3, 1906
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A0DE4D7103EE733A25750C0A...
IMAGES
Bitter Cry, Spargo, Little Tenement Toilers, Feb 1906
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=5qSXMJQG6E4C&printsec=frontcove...
Bitter Cry, Spargo, NY Cellar Prisoners, Feb 1906
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=5qSXMJQG6E4C&printsec=frontcove...
Bitter Cry, Spargo, Title etc, NYT, Mar 3, 1906
https://www.newspapers.com/image/20582482/
Bitter Cry, Spargo, Breaker Boys, Feb 1906
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=5qSXMJQG6E4C&printsec=frontcove...
Bitter Cry of Children, Spargo, NYT, Feb 17, 1906
https://www.newspapers.com/image/20459100/
See also:
John Spargo
http://spartacus-educational.com/USAspargo.htm
The Bitter Cry of the Children
-by John Spargo
Macmillan, 1906
https://books.google.com/books?id=5qSXMJQG6E4C
Robert Hunter
http://spartacus-educational.com/USAhunterR.htm
Poverty by Robert Hunter
https://archive.org/stream/poverty01huntgoog#page/n8/mode/2up
Theodore Roosevelt's Great Prosperity Speech
(One such speech.)
-December 5, 1905
http://genius.com/President-theodore-roosevelt-presidential-speech-1905-...
of the rich wrung from the poor.
-Mother Jones
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Fingers to the Bone: Child Farmworkers in the United States
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfEtO00DSvI width:560 height:315]
Babies In The Mill - Dorsey Dixon
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80CBggcgq0w width:560 height:315]
Comments
And here's where Trafficking is HUGE.
When you talk about Human Trafficking, by and large the recipients of the people are large corporations.
Of course, they run it through other companies so it can be easily denied if necessary, but what shocks me is how fewer and fewer "Temp" and "Labor" companies are getting busted for what they're really doing. The labor is too expensive to hire legally for them, (Read: Cuts into the profit margin a few points more than paying a settlement would) so they rely on coercion.
Rage on this topic? Yup. Hurts everybody, and the only people that profit don't need the extra money.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
exactly DMW, the Ruling Class
with all their wealth, they can set up layers and layers of companies to cover up all of their crimes. And on the slight chance that they do get busted, they can count on only receiving fines that eat into their criminal profits by only small amount. Cost of doing business.
& sadly child slavery still exists in this country. Legal and illegal.
Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.-Lucy Parsons