192 



THE NEXT GENERATION 



In 191 2 Mr. Claxton wrote : " I have seen children under 

 ten years of age working their lives away in the mills. Their 

 pale faces haunt me still. I saw little boys eight years old 

 drinking black coffee at midnight to keep awake until the 

 end of their shift at four or five o'clock the next morning. 

 Then they went out of the hot, steaming, noisy mill into the 



Boys of Fourteen working in the Breaker of a Pennsylvania 

 Coal Mine 



They work in this position for nine hours a day, at an average wage of $4.50 a week. 



Their work is to pick out pieces of slate and stone from the coal as it moves through 



a chute over which they sit. (From H. M. Todd) 



cold air of the morning to their homes, probably for a little 

 fitful sleep and a joyless day, only to come back at night and 

 grind again through the long dark hours." 



Mrs. Florence Kelley describes the work of small boys 

 " in the greatest canning factory in this country, just out of 

 Chicago." They sit for " fourteen hours a day on a shelf in 

 mid-air, every boy crooking his back and compressing his 



