Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 4, 1911
Carrie W. Allen on Child Slaves of the Cotton Mills, Part I
From the International Socialist Review of March 1911:
[Part I of II.]
THE shrill scream of the factory whistle smites the chill morning air at the dawn of each new day, and obedient to its hideous call, a ghostly array of anemic children, rudely awakened from sleep, gulp down a bit of food and stumble sleepily to the factory door.
This pitiful multitude of children, whose days are completely swallowed by the cotton mills, keep up their incessant dance from one spindle to another, or from one loom to another, dizzily watching the ten, twelve or fifteen shuttles play hide and seek among the labyrinth of threads.
So much has been written about these youngest victims of capitalist greed, the children of the cotton mills, that were we not misery hardened, were we not blinded by brutal toil, long ago an awakened working class would have united to wipe this iniquity out.
And yet, the workers are not to blame that the forced struggle for existence has limited their vision and stupefied their imagination.
One little child set in the midst of a crowd, because in his person misery is visualized, makes a more eloquent appeal than the story of all the thousands of children whose lives are crushed by the cruel millstones of industry.
