No such
extended consideration is necessary to indicate from what source the
young slaves in the child-labor factories come. They come from large
impoverished families--from families in which the older children must
put their often feeble strength to the task of supporting the younger.
The immorality of bringing large families into the world is recognized
by those who are combatting the child-labor evil. Mary Alden Hopkins,
writing in Harper's Weekly in 1915, quotes Owen R. Lovejoy, general
secretary of the National Child Labor Committee, as follows:
"How many are too many? ... Any more than the mother can look after
and the father make a living for ... Under present conditions as soon
as there are too many children for the father to feed, some of them go
to work in the mine or factory or store or mill near by. In doing
this, they not only injure their tender growing bodies, but
indirectly, they drag down the father's wage ... The home becomes a
mere rendezvous for the nightly gathering of bodies numb with
weariness and minds drunk with sleep." And if they survive the
factory, they marry to perpetuate and multiply their ignorance,
weakness and diseases.
What have large families to do with prostitution? Ask anyone who has
studied the problem.
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