The Modern Moloch
An editorial from the Tacoma Times examining the startling surge in child labor and the human cost of industrial 'progress.'
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Despite all the laws enacted to minimize the evil of child labor, and all the agitation directed against it by humanitarians and students of social problems, there does not only not appear to be any appreciable decrease in the number of child workers, but a startling increase noted in the larger industrial centers. According to the New York board of health and charitable organizations, there were just about twice as many children who applied for employment certificates during the closing months of the past year, as sought those certificates during the same period the year previous. Lack of employment on the part of parents, the high prices of the necessities of life, and the inability to provide books, clothing, and food for children to enable them to go to school are causes advanced to explain this extraordinary condition. Radicals in the labor movement are bitter in their denunciation of the growing menace of child labor. They declare that Wall Street is responsible for the panic that threw men out of work and made it impossible for them to support their families without depending upon their children for assistance. Once upon a time, a celebrated Indian chieftain was shown the wonders of New York City. The Indian saw the cathedrals, the skyscrapers, the bleak tenements, and the theaters. 'What is the most surprising thing you have seen?' asked several comfortable individuals who work in Wall Street at working the workers. The latter shifted his red blanket and answered quietly, 'Little children working.'
“What is the most surprising thing you have seen? ... Little children working.”
This 1909 editorial highlights a century-old tension between economic crisis and the exploitation of the most vulnerable. While child labor laws have since transformed the American workforce, the underlying argument—that economic 'panics' force the poor to sacrifice their future for immediate survival—remains a core theme in today’s civic debates on wages and family stability.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.