The Plight of Child Laborers
ACCORDING to the Chicago Record-Herald, there are in this country, as shown by census returns, no less than 1,750,000 juvenile toilers, all compelled to work for a living. They form a part of the ten million people in the United States who, in spite of “national prosperity,” are in almost hopeless poverty. The Herald says:— They form more than six per cent of the total number of workers in this country, the boys outnumbering the girls three to one. When it is remembered that children are largely employed in the more menial forms of unskilled labor, it will be seen that they are much more apt to be exposed to unsanitary and unhealthful conditions than are the adults. They are also less able to enforce demands for more favorable conditions in the few instances where they are intelligent enough to see the necessity for them. They constitute a helpless and pitiful army of toilers, poorly paid, robbed of childhood, and stunted in physical, mental, and moral development—a reproach to our civilization.