erish, restless
way of the new arrival, ambitious to get ahead. To overcome poverty they
must neglect their children. Turned out of the small tenement into the
street, the child learns the street. Nothing escapes his sharp eyes, and
almost in the briefest conceivable time, he is an American ready to make
his way by every known means, good and bad. To the child everything
American is good and right. There comes a time when the parents cannot
guide him or instruct him; he knows more than they; he looks upon their
advice as of no value. If ever there was a self-made man, that man is
the son of the immigrant. But the street and the street gang have a
great responsibility; they are making the children of a hundred various
languages from every part of the world into American citizens."

[Sidenote: A Plain Duty]

How long will American Christianity allow this process of degeneracy to
go on, before realizing the peril of it, and providing the counteracting
agencies of good? That is the question the young people ought to
consider and help answer.

[Sidenote: Child Labor]

But far worse than all else, "the nation is engaged in a traffic for the
labor of children." In this country over 1,700,000 children under
fifteen are compelled to work in the factories, mines, workshops, and
fields. These figures may mean little, for as Margaret McMillan has
said, "You cannot put tired eyes, pallid cheeks, and languid little
limbs into statistics." But we believe that if our Christian people
could be brought for one moment to realize what the inhumanity of this
child labor is, there would be such an avalanche of public opinion as
would put a stop to it. This evil is a new one in America, begotten of
greed for money. This greed is shared jointly by the capitalist employer
and the parents, but the greater responsibility rests upon the former,
who creates the possibility and fosters the evil.

[Sidenote: Alien Victims]

The immigrants furnish the parents willing to sell their children into
child slavery in the factory, or the worse mill or mine--prisons all,
and for the innocent. Into these prisons gather "tens of thousands of
children, strong and happy, or weak, underfed, and miserable. Stop their
play once for all, and put them out to labor for so many cents a day or
night, and pace them with a tireless, lifeless piece of mechanism, for
ten or twelve hours at a stretch, and you will have a present-day
picture of child labor." But there i