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Newspaper Page Text
?nyywwi' CHEAPEST THING IN CHICAGO IS LABOR OF CHILDREN Children are the little morning glo ries of human life. They are blos soms of love and God sends them to redeem the world with fresh beauty. The Rev. Dwight Newell JHillis. The cheapest thing in the great 'city of Chicago is the labor of chil dren, according to figures given the committee on industrial affairs at Springfield yesterday. Wages paid to boys and girls by Chicago business men were cited by Miss Anna Davis of the Chicago pub lic schools. The kiddies who quit school at 14 and start in on their first jobs sell their labor for almost close to nothing a week and they change jobs often. "Sixty per cent of the boys and girls who start in to work at 14 years remain at one job from one to nine months,' 'said Miss Davis. "Out of 258 girls that I have inves tigated, 178 began at $4 a week, 50 per cent less began at $3 and 11 per cent more than $4 a week. "In many cases girls get only $2 a week. And starting at this early age, only beginning their development to ward womanhood, they are subject to heart trouble and tuberculosis. "Two dollars a week is the average wage per week of the child between 14 and 16. Te shifts from job to job and is employed about half the time. "Drifting causes immediate delin quency. Over one-half the boys and girls who pass through the juvenile court are between 14 and Iff, and not in school at the time of their arrest. "Drifting also causes future inef ficiency. We find only 3 per cent of the boys and girls wno leave school at 14 later enter any skilled kind of work." A Lithuanian working girl, Sada Laporte, came before the committee on request of Chicago women and tol da story of what industrial hell in Chicago did to her and is doing to hundreds like her. She said: "I staited to work in a hair dyeing 1 factory in Chicago when I was 14 years old. It was hard work ." "I saw many girls come in healthy and strong, with good looks on their faces. Then the dyes we worked with got into the blood of the girls. It poisoned them. They break down and have to quit their jobs and rest til lthey are able to go to another job somewhere else." CHICAGOGRAMS "Swivel Neck" instead of rough neck is a good name for the so-called man who stands on the corner and rubbers after every girl who passes. The Ladies Home Journal says: "There is no milk in Belgium for the babies." How about right here in Chicago if the milk strike is pulled off? There is one thing about The Day Book's Billy Sunday articles: If they appeal to a person he can read 'em as many times as he wants. If they don't appeal to him he don't have to read 'em at all. Everybody satisfied? Somebody had the nerve to write in and ask: "If "The Most Popular Act ress in the World' should win an auto, would Mary Pickford?" If Longfellow had had Chicago's streets condition in mind he would have written: "Barefoot Boy and Face of Dirt." The Health Board puts out a bul letin every week. Also anxious politicians send out bulletin notices heavy on the "bull." On the night of April 6 it will all be over but the shouting, and there are going to be some folks who won't even do that. o o M'MANUS CASE CLOSED Washington, April 1. Sec. Bryan announced that case of John B. Mc Mahon, murdered by Zapatistas when they took Mexico City, has been set tled by payment to Mrs. McManus of 160,000 pesos or $20,000,