20 April 1914 - The "Ludlow Massacre." In an attempt to persuade strikers at Colorado's Ludlow Mine Field to return to work, company "guards," engaged by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and other mine operators and sworn into the State Militia just for the occasion, attacked a union tent camp with machine guns, then set it afire. Five men, two women and 12 children died as a result.
3 June 1918 - A Federal child labor law, enacted two years earlier, was declared unconstitutional. A new law was enacted 24 February 1919, but this one too was declared unconstitutional on 15 May 1922.
25 June 1938 - The Wages and Hours (later Fair Labor Standards) Act is passed, banning child labor and setting the 40-hour work week. The Act went into effect in October 1940, and was upheld in the Supreme Court on 3 February 1941.
Title: One of the little girls in Richmond Hosiery Mills. Location: Rossville, Georgia
Title: Noon hour, May 19, 1909. Boys working in Great Falls Mfg. Co., Somersworth, N.H. Location: Somersworth, New Hampshire.
Title: One of the tiny workers in Richmond Hosiery Mills,. Location: Rossville, Georgia
Title: 15-year old boy who says he works some for the railroad. Location: Mountain Grove, Missouri / Lewis W. Hine.
Title: Noon hour, Cape May Glass Co. N.J., One of the small boys. Location: Cape May, New Jersey.
Title: Young girl working Brookside Cotton Mills. Not the smallest. Location: Knoxville, Tennessee
Title: Three Boys Shoveling Zinc Ore from Car Into Wagon, Near Big Bonanza Mine, Aurora, Mo. Youngest boy is Robert Nichols, next larger is Hobart Crawford. They both go to school and work on Saturdays. The other boy works every day. Location: Aurora, Missouri.
Title: Maple Mills, Dillon, S.C. Johnnie. Said, "Aint got no last name," when asked for it. 8 years old. Beginning to "help sister spin." Location: Dillon, South Carolina.
Title: Dangerous Noon-hour Recreation. Doffer boys and others from Pacific Mill. Location: Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Excerpt from Railway Carmen's Journal (1916)
The most dramatic incident in the annals of labor unionism in America was when the chiefs of the four railroad Brotherhood's and the 640 other executives of the railway employes of the whole United States met with the President of the United States for the settlement of the demand for the eight-hour day. The climax to that incident came when the President of the United States announced the principle for which trade unionism has fought-that the eight-hour day is not a subject of arbitration; that the eight-hour day is fundamentally right and a necessary part of the economic and Industrial law of the United States. The President pronounced "the law higher than the Constitution" when he thus declared the extra-legal judgment of the whole people of the United States.
The solidarity of the labor movement was illustrated in this great fight of the railway workers for the eight-hour day as it never has been before. Back of the absolutely united demands of the railway operatives were the solid ranks of the millions of other organized workers of the United States, represented by the head of the American Federation of Labor, Samuel Gompers.
That great exhibition of the power of organized labor standing solidly together was equalled by the exhibition of weakness of the men who nominally control the railways as "owners." First the managers who were called before the President, and then the presidents of the railroads who appeared before the public's chief executive, proved their utter dependence upon the few financiers who have no interest in the railroad business except to make profits out of it and to manipulate stocks and bonds.
Another result of tremendous significance was to prove what a sham and what a hypocritical thing "arbitration" is, as the railway owners use that phrase. At the same time that they were demanding arbitration of the eight-hour principle, their chief spokesmen were saying that the eight-hour principle could not work and would ruin any road that installed it-this in face of the fact that many roads have installed it without ruin, and in face of the fact that many of the roads that have not installed it have been wrecked by financial misdeeds. But where these railway managers and presidents gave their hand away was the proof they gave that they had nothing to fear from arbitration-that if they got their usual "arbitration" they felt absolutely assured that they would not have to put in an eight-hour day.
The attitude of these men who nominally control the vital transportation business of the United States is that they are the "strikers," striking not for principle, striking not for the betterment of the railway business or for those engaged in the railway industry, but striking for the personal interests opposed to public welfare and to the industrial justice due the men who run the trains.
The use of coercive power to get unorganized and underpaid railway workers to protest against the rightful demands of the organized railway workers was another spectacle that proved to the conscience of the nation the essential right and necessity of workers being organized into effective unions. The hypocrisy of the railway owners was there again illustrated, in their assumption that they were standing out against the Brotherhoods in the interest of the other railway workers, when they admitted in another breath that to grant the demands of the Brotherhoods would inevitably mean that they would encourage other railway workers to demand and receive wages, hours and conditions of work that the Brotherhoods had wrung from them.
In the difficulty that the President of the United States is now having with the errand boys of Wall street financiers, the people realize as never before what organized labor is up against when it seeks justice and fair dealing in its right to work and to live. The power that controls the great public service of transportation sets itself against the power not only of the workers, but of all the public, as represented in the government at Washington. That power is not in the hands of men who know the railroad business and know what transportation ought to be; but it is in the hands of a few "captains of finance" who know no more about the railroad business than they know about the rights of labor. It is in the hands of such men as Mr. J. P. Morgan, who, when asked by Chairman Walsh of the Commission on Industrial Relations whether he thought $10 a week for a dock worker was enough, replied, "Well, if that is all he can get and he takes it, I suppose it is enough."
It has been proved in this still pending spectacle that neither industrial efficiency nor regard for the public welfare rests with those who own the railroads and assume to control them. It has been proved on the contrary that this efficiency and this regard for public welfare rests with the railway workers, with the men who know how railways could and should be operated, and who do the actual work of transporting the freight and passengers over the 225,000 miles of the American railway systems.
President Wilson is having his second encounter with the stubbornness of those irresponsible grabbers of wealth and natural resources who assume to dictate the lives of their workers. The Rockefellers refused curtly to permit the President's intervention in the Colorado strike-and all the horrors of that strike, culminating in the Ludlow massacre, followed.
In this later controversy involving a more definitely public service the President has lined himself up with the solid labor movement of the country demanding the enforcement of a fundamentally right principle. He has sensed and expressed the economic conscience of the nation. And whether those who control temporarily the great arteries of trade for selfish interests instead of for public interests acknowledge the justice of the President's position and the justice of the railway Brotherhoods' position, that justice will certainly prevail.
The fight of the railway Brotherhoods has made the eight-hour day in American industry a certainty In the near future.
The enactment of the Federal Child Labor law by this Congress will free nearly three-fourths million children from industrial slavery. It is a long step toward freeing nearly one and one-half million other children who labor, but the product of whose labor does not enter into interstate commerce.
In 1827 a union organization of workers in the city of New York declared that no child under 16 years of age should be permitted to work in gainful industry. That was the first recorded effort to abolish or to avoid child slavery in the United States. The evil was then only a little one comparatively. But in the nearly one hundred years from that first effort to the day President Wilson and Congress emancipated the children, the evil grew until it cast as black a shadow over the republic as the black shadow of negro slavery. The foul immorality of mankind's "feeling upon its young" aside, the estimated three-quarter million children in factories, mines, quarries and sweatshops reduced the standard of living and of wages in nearly every worker's home. The material danger to the republic and to industrial security was that every child worker or potential worker was a competitor for the job of its father and the jobs of other fathers.
Jerome Jones, labor editor and president of the Southern Labor Congress, says: "There is a strong connection between child labor and low wages. There is no doubt in my mind but that if the mills had to pay as much for child labor as for adult labor there would be no more child labor problem. The child is thus brought into competition with adult labor, and what is the result? Both child and adult get starvation wages."
Raising the standard of child life means raising the standard of all industrial life. Justice to the children will necessarily mean more justice to the grown wage earners of the nation.
If it has been true through any cause- the cause of greed, or of panic, or of business Incompetence and "shiftlessness" that the children would starve If they did not labor, then the wages of the father must be enough at least to equal the combined wages of the family. The poverty in the vicious circle of poverty and child labor must vanish. The beneficent circle of education must widen.
The fight of nearly one hundred years now brings a great victory, won by the American labor movement, by the National Child Labor Committee, and by President Wilson. The tribute which workers throughout the nation willingly pay to the President is voiced by the commendations and the rejoicings of their spokesmen.
Labor and the nation as a whole have made a splendid advance.
....The photos from "wanswheel", are shocking reality of what was, even in our country....Pretty difficult to look at, and think about.
Thanks for Child Labor Laws, and Collective Bargaining Unions following about the same time or later.
Looking at those pictures, gave me a bad feeling in the stomach of what was, somewhat "normal", in times past.
Thank God we've moved out of that {in this country}....Perhaps there may be some still happening in some small corner of our production or Cottage Industries.
Quentin
Modelcar ....The photos from "wanswheel", are shocking reality of what was, even in our country....Pretty difficult to look at, and think about.
Wanswheel has provided us a service. Unfortunately, it is a lesson that many have forgotten or never been taught.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
So what is the lesson exactly?
This seems muddled.
What about growing up doing chores on the farm? Not a good learning experience?
(Not talking about abuse here).
If you have to ask "what lesson?" or confuse child labor abuse with working on a family farm, the lesson was not learned.
Burton W. Folsom is a history professor, yes. One should know, however, that he is a professor at the small ultra-conservative Hillsdale College, so it is understandable that he would engage in ahistorical revisionism, as opposed to the "canned history" and "hateful rhetoric of 'evil capitalist robber barons'."
Well, let me state what I think the lesson is that is being implied in this thread:
The lesson that has been framed around this issue is that repressive and dangerous working conditions are a natural consequence of capitalism unless unions and/or government prevents capitalism from inflicting these horrors upon society.
That is one way of looking at it. The other way is that capitalism offered employment with its risks, and anyone was free to take it or leave it. The fact that children took jobs and were deprived of a carefree childhood may be seen as unfortunate. Likewise, the fact that men took jobs on the railroads and were exposed to great physical danger may be seen as unfortunate. On the plus side, children matured quicker when they took employment. This has always been somewhat of a hedge against the all too easy outcome of maturing too slowly. The children also added to the family’s standard of living. The photos are meant to portray the horrors of child labor, but they fail to communicate that message. The children in the photos appear to be confident and content with their lot in life.
As Greyhounds mentioned, child labor ended with a law. But I do not believe that it is a proven fact that it would return if the law were repealed, as is implied by the agenda that capitalism naturally produces evils such as child labor, dangerous working conditions, and robber barons. Capitalism is not just a one-way street that sacrifices all the good of their employees to save cost. Saving cost does add to profit, but unhappy employees reduces profit.
So there are two ways of looking at this. Which way is correct? Or is the truth somewhere in between? That is why I asked what the lesson was.
[quote user="Bucyrus"
The photos are meant to portray the horrors of child labor, but they fail to communicate that message. The children in the photos appear to be confident and content with their lot in life.
[/quote]
I have listed some of Bucyrus' thoughts....and I'll just make a few comments to them:
In the first paragraph, I agree with the statement but I must add "possible" in place of the "natural" wording.
In the photos....I don't take the "confident and content" wording as to what I see in the children shown.
Knowing some of the history, and considering that, I see a child in each photo thinking of getting home, and wondering what he / she might have to eat....and no thought of having fun, just regimented to this awlful routine....Later, he / she might start to think, if it will ever get better....
Well said, MC!! If 100 people looked at those photos, it is hard to imagine that more than 1-2 would conclude those children are "confident" and "content with their lot in life." Makes one wonder what observation B would make if the picture were of slave children picking cotton? And I wonder if revisionists such as G or B would think that the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation were necessary to have ended slavery, or could the "market" have accomplished that task, much the same way that Sen. Rand thought the Civil Rights Laws were unnecessary?
The idea to build a tunnel from south Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan first surfaced in the late 1920s, but if Robert Moses had his way there wouldn't have been a tunnel at all. Moses originally wanted to build a bridge in the area but the idea was dismissed after First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt objected, saying a bridge would ruin views and destroy parkland.
http://www.mta.info/mta/news/releases/?agency=bandt&en=100519-BT13
Would Elanor Roosevelt build a tunnel instead of a bridge for the intercontinental railroad?
Though I don't condone forcing children to do labor I am for letting them do it, with the understanding they can quit anytime they choose. I can't help thinking that the end of children being allowed to work led to the rise of the welfare entitlement syndrome gripping this country today.
Today's kids have grown up with the belief that everyone owes them everything and then become enraged when they don't get what they want. These kids then grow up demanding free health care, a good paying job that requires no effort and a cushy retirement at a young age. They demand "someone" give them all of these things and that someone is usually the government.
I'm sorry, but you can count me among the few who think people should work for what they want.
Pat.
schlimm Burton W. Folsom is a history professor, yes. One should know, however, that he is a professor at the small ultra-conservative Hillsdale College, so it is understandable that he would engage in ahistorical revisionism, as opposed to the "canned history" and "hateful rhetoric of 'evil capitalist robber barons'."
Yes, here it is. If you can't deal with the facts, attack the source. What did Folsom write that was incorrect? You don't say. Out of context? You don't deal with that either. You do throw labels around such as "Ultra-Conservative" along with unsubstantiated allegations such as "Ahistorical (is that a word?) Revisionism."
I suggested people should read the book and think about it. That apparently upsets you. "The Myth of the Robber Barons" by Folsom is available on Amazon for around $10.00. If someone is interested enough in this subject they can buy and read the book. Then they can think about it. Why does that upset you?
Moving on to other responses to my post, I expressed a great admiration for a great American, John D. Rockefeller. John D. "Refined Oil For the Poor Man." He literally gave the average American good light at night by making kerosene for lamps available at affordable prices. Before him it was candles. He did a lot of good with his money. He donated it to such things as medical research, establishing the University of Chicago, education for African Americans, etc. You can look it up.
A response to this was to cite the incident in Ludlow, CO. Innocent people died there and the incident is inexcusable. But it was John D. Rockefeller Jr. who was involved. (Remotely) By then he was the grown son of the man I expressed admiration for. Using the actions, however remote, of a grown man to smear and discredit his father is a reach. Probably a desperate reach.
Here are some thoughts on John D. Jr. from PBS.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rockefellers/peopleevents/p_rock_jjr.html
Finally, about the pictures of child workers. They're emotionally powerful. But you can't be ruled by emotion, you have to think and reason.
What would those young girls have been doing if those clothing mills weren't there? Why would their parents send them to work like that? Would those girls otherwise have been enjoying a happy childhood in good health, well nourished, interrupted only by need to get a proper education?
Not likely. Children had been working since the beginning of mankind. The families simply could not afford to have non productive members. Everyone in the family had to earn their keep, and they had to earn it starting at an early age. The young girls would have been working at something else if the clothing mills weren't there. The clothing mills were simply the best option. It wasn't what we'd call a good option. But it was what was available.
My point was, and is, that the only time the average person has been able to escape this misery is when he/she is in a free market capitalist economy that creates enough wealth so that children are not required to work. And can have good health care to keep them alive.
That's what I'm saying. To avoid the misery shown in the photos the average person needs wealth. That wealth has to be created. It is created by commerce. Commerce works best in a free market economy. Some folks don't like that fact.
They get very upset if I suggest you read a book and think about it.
Greyhounds,(stated in an earlier post),"...Your point about capitalism creating the wealth to end child labor is an excellent counterpoint to the canned argument that child labor was one of the examples of the inherent evils of capitalism..."
Greyhounds (Further stated)
"...Finally, about the pictures of child workers. They're emotionally powerful. But you can't be ruled by emotion, you have to think and reason..." (added emphasis, mine,samfp)
"...What would those young girls have been doing if those clothing mills weren't there? Why would their parents send them to work like that? Would those girls otherwise have been enjoying a happy childhood in good health, well nourished, interrupted only by need to get a proper education?
That's what I'm saying. To avoid the misery shown in the photos the average person needs wealth. That wealth has to be created. It is created by commerce. Commerce works best in a free market economy. Some folks don't like that fact..."
Greyhounds made, I think what is a key statement in this quote:"...the pictures of child workers. They're emotionally powerful. But you can't be ruled by emotion, you have to think and reason..."
Further it was I think, Bucyrus who used the term " ruthless' to describe the period of the 19th and early 20th centuries. They were ruthless times and it took brashness to control the raw country of the United States. The historical facts define what we were and were we came from and how far we had come.
Families had large numbers of children, Farmers literally grew their own family work forces. The death rate from diseases and health issues took their tole. I've seen cemetaries in East Tennessee where a family might have interred a half dozen siblings due to the lack of medicines and doctors, and the rough lifestyle of the times. The Clinchfield RR was purported by some to have been built over the bodies of countless men ( black, white, and immigrants) as it fought its way through the mountains. Wages were low, mostly due to the times. Basics were costly on the value of the then current wage structure. Railroad tickets were low compared to the miles traveled by rail. Child labor was used because parents needed the extra incomes those employed children brought in. Manufacturing and mining and factory work was dangerous and ill rewarded for the risks taken. Orphan children worked to survive, without parents.
In this day and time we are hard pressed to understand what was facing those individuals who were living in those times. My own experience was provided by an experience in St. Louis, Mo in 1970. I was delivering to Malinkrodt Chemical Co. and was present for the retirement of a gentleman who had started there when he was 7 years old. He was put to work carrying a water bucket and dipper for the workers to drink out of . He was retiring with fifty-five years service. He was moving to Florida for retirement. I was told he had gone to school at the Plant, he was taught by co-workers, and on retirement he was worth plenty. He had invested in St.Louis real Estate and owned several whole blocks in the Downtown area. Extreme example? You bet, but he had done what it took to realized the 'American Dream.'
Child Labor when viewed within our context of life experience is harsh, and ruthless, but it was what was done by folks during those times to survive. Slavery, both black and white (indentured servitude) was harsh, cruel and ruthless, but without it we could not have become a commercial power and survived. We fought the Civil War to settle that outcome, and we have grown and changed with time. American History is the experience of the harsh realities needed to survive in harsh times. One has to wonder what history will say in another one hundred and fifty years. How will current generations be judged by their following generations?
Yardmaster01 Though I don't condone forcing children to do labor I am for letting them do it, with the understanding they can quit anytime they choose. I can't help thinking that the end of children being allowed to work led to the rise of the welfare entitlement syndrome gripping this country today. Today's kids have grown up with the belief that everyone owes them everything and then become enraged when they don't get what they want. These kids then grow up demanding free health care, a good paying job that requires no effort and a cushy retirement at a young age. They demand "someone" give them all of these things and that someone is usually the government. I'm sorry, but you can count me among the few who think people should work for what they want. Pat.
Let me guess - you walked uphill both ways to school in the snow with no shoes, right?
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Differences in attitudes and beliefs. Some make rationalizations for child labor. Some on here believe slavery was necessary. Some believe commerce creates wealth. Perhaps some of us still believe that child labor was flat out wrong, slavery was morally evil and that the people create wealth.
schlimm Differences in attitudes and beliefs. Some make rationalizations for child labor. Some on here believe slavery was necessary. Some believe commerce creates wealth. Perhaps some of us still believe that child labor was flat out wrong, slavery was morally evil and that the people create wealth.
Schlimm, You say that some here believe that slavery was necessary. Can you point out where someone here expressed the belief that slavery was necessary ? I don’t recall anyone here expressing that view. ******* Sam, Just incidentally, I don’t recall saying that the past was ruthless, as you attribute to me. ******* People talk about revised history, as if there were a single accurate history. I would submit that in a very large way, aside from recorded facts and figures, history is in the eye of the beholder. Most people in the modern era almost always look at history as being harsh and miserable, even without considering the obvious hardships such as the Civil War, for example. They believe people in the past were not as smart as people today. These people in the modern era naturally see history through a dark lens because the modern goods and treasures they are attached to are absent from history. So when they look at history, they feel the sting of loss and deprivation. I believe that the majority of people simply don’t relate to history. They worry about the future and fight their way through the present. Once things move into the past, the battle is over. The past can safely be dismissed and forgotten. The past is nothing more than a graveyard of old battles that took place in the present. It is not a reality. That is why teaching history is a hard sell. However, there are some people, perhaps 5%, who actually enjoy looking at the past, and do so with a sense of nostalgia. The true historians are among this group. They see the past with the same cognition as most people see the present. They are open and sympathetic with the past, and often regard it as the time and place where most things were right before they all went wrong. The affinity for the past appears to be a naturally occurring trait rather than something they learned. So, you might say these people are wired for the past. The majority, however, mostly have disdain for the past. So the past is in the eye of the beholder. For example, if you start with the belief that it is abusive for people to have to work hard for something they should be entitled to, then child labor looks like child abuse. Some feel that these photos of the child labor era are repulsive to look at because of what they represent. I contend that they do not represent the same thing to everybody, including the subjects that posed for them so long ago. I think what you see in the photos depends on your pre-existing viewpoints concerning principles such as entitlement, victimization, individual responsibility, etc. Some regard the child labor era to have been as unspeakably horrible as the era of slavery. Some feel the photos are proof of the horror, and that they depict children as victims of it. I don’t see that in the photos. Sure there was an ugly side to child labor, as there was with many things, but I don’t think you can make that point by the photos alone. The photos will confirm that if you already believe it, but objectively, the photos don’t convey it. Earlier, I said the photos generally portray the children as confident and content with their lot in life. If you believe that they could not have possibly been content because of your idea of what their life was like, then you will find it impossible to see them as content and confident. This was posted earlier, but take another look at it. I was going to post this photo some time ago because I think it is interesting. It is an exceptionally high quality photo. As little Johnnie X strikes a pose with an ACL ventilator car, he looks quite confident and content to me. http://www.shorpy.com/node/4395?size=_original
Schlimm,
You say that some here believe that slavery was necessary. Can you point out where someone here expressed the belief that slavery was necessary ? I don’t recall anyone here expressing that view.
*******
Sam, Just incidentally, I don’t recall saying that the past was ruthless, as you attribute to me.
People talk about revised history, as if there were a single accurate history. I would submit that in a very large way, aside from recorded facts and figures, history is in the eye of the beholder. Most people in the modern era almost always look at history as being harsh and miserable, even without considering the obvious hardships such as the Civil War, for example. They believe people in the past were not as smart as people today.
These people in the modern era naturally see history through a dark lens because the modern goods and treasures they are attached to are absent from history. So when they look at history, they feel the sting of loss and deprivation. I believe that the majority of people simply don’t relate to history. They worry about the future and fight their way through the present. Once things move into the past, the battle is over. The past can safely be dismissed and forgotten. The past is nothing more than a graveyard of old battles that took place in the present. It is not a reality. That is why teaching history is a hard sell.
However, there are some people, perhaps 5%, who actually enjoy looking at the past, and do so with a sense of nostalgia. The true historians are among this group. They see the past with the same cognition as most people see the present. They are open and sympathetic with the past, and often regard it as the time and place where most things were right before they all went wrong. The affinity for the past appears to be a naturally occurring trait rather than something they learned. So, you might say these people are wired for the past. The majority, however, mostly have disdain for the past. So the past is in the eye of the beholder.
For example, if you start with the belief that it is abusive for people to have to work hard for something they should be entitled to, then child labor looks like child abuse. Some feel that these photos of the child labor era are repulsive to look at because of what they represent. I contend that they do not represent the same thing to everybody, including the subjects that posed for them so long ago. I think what you see in the photos depends on your pre-existing viewpoints concerning principles such as entitlement, victimization, individual responsibility, etc.
Some regard the child labor era to have been as unspeakably horrible as the era of slavery. Some feel the photos are proof of the horror, and that they depict children as victims of it. I don’t see that in the photos. Sure there was an ugly side to child labor, as there was with many things, but I don’t think you can make that point by the photos alone.
The photos will confirm that if you already believe it, but objectively, the photos don’t convey it. Earlier, I said the photos generally portray the children as confident and content with their lot in life. If you believe that they could not have possibly been content because of your idea of what their life was like, then you will find it impossible to see them as content and confident.
This was posted earlier, but take another look at it. I was going to post this photo some time ago because I think it is interesting. It is an exceptionally high quality photo. As little Johnnie X strikes a pose with an ACL ventilator car, he looks quite confident and content to me.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/4395?size=_original
B: You claim no one said slavery was necessary? Here's the quote:
"Slavery, both black and white (indentured servitude) was harsh, cruel and ruthless, but without it we could not have become a commercial power and survived."
Although I can imagine you will claim no one said "necessary," the phrase above is saying exactly that.
schlimm B: You claim no one said slavery was necessary? Here's the quote: "Slavery, both black and white (indentured servitude) was harsh, cruel and ruthless, but without it we could not have become a commercial power and survived." Although I can imagine you will claim no one said "necessary," the phrase above is saying exactly that.
No, I would not dispute what the phrase means. I agree that it means slavery was necessary. I just had not recalled anybody saying anything like that. I will review the thread, since I am curious as to who said it and what else they said. I do believe slavery was morally wrong. But I also believe that the contention that we could not have become a commercial power without it is absurd.
I just took a quick look over the whole thread, but it jumps all over the place, and I could not find that quote about slavery being necessary. Could you tell me what page and post it is in?
schlimm ................... Some believe commerce creates wealth. Perhaps some of us still believe ...................... that the people create wealth.
................... Some believe commerce creates wealth. Perhaps some of us still believe ...................... that the people create wealth.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Again...just a comment: My view of child labor, is not based on the few photos we've looked at on this post.
As a Christian, I base my opinion on what the civilized world certainly must believe. "Child Labor" was, is...morally wrong under any circumstances.
Commerce: an interchange of goods or commodities, especially on a large scale between different countries (foreign commerce) or between different parts of the same country (domestic commerce); trade; business.
So although commerce represents a part of the process of business, labor is the necessary and largest component and first principle.
Perhaps you'd say it's just a difference in semantics, but leaving out labor from the creation of wealth and attributing it to commerce, with no mention of labor, resources, etc. is significant.
Bucyrus I just took a quick look over the whole thread, but it jumps all over the place, and I could not find that quote about slavery being necessary. Could you tell me what page and post it is in?
Top of this page, last paragraph.
Modelcar Again...just a comment: My view of child labor, is not based on the few photos we've looked at on this post. As a Christian, I base my opinion on what the civilized world certainly must believe. "Child Labor" was, is...morally wrong under any circumstances.
My only point about the photos was that they were being used to portray the horrors of child labor. I would not be surprised if that is why the photos were taken. In any case, I do not believe they convey anything abhorrent. Oddly, they seem to convey contentment. They do convey the fact that young children were in the workforce.
And I understand your point about child labor being morally wrong, but why exactly would it be morally wrong? If there were abuse, and servitude associated with it, I would see that as morally wrong. But as has been mentioned, children on farms often worked as hard as possible. Would that be morally wrong? I just wonder where the line is drawn and why. Young people are often encouraged to get some kind of work experience before they are legally old enough to be hired by industry.
Something is terribly wrong when intelligent people can't see anything morally wrong with the sort of "child labor" portrayed in the pictures. They were not pictures of children working on a family farm. The latter kids, even engaging in hard work, also went to school. The kids in the mines and factories did not as a rule get educated and were exploited to keep wages low.
In 1908 the National Child Labor Committee employed Lewis Hine as their staff investigator and photographer. Hine travelled the country taking pictures of children working in factories. Hine also lectured on the subject and once told one audience, "Perhaps you are weary of child labor pictures. Well, so are the rest of us, but we propose to make you and the whole country so sick and tired of the whole business that when the time for action comes, child labor pictures will be records of the past."
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?fa=displayed%3Aanywhere&sp=1&co=nclc&st=grid
Greyhounds, I did not post in response to your endorsement of John D. Rockefeller.
Mike
schlimm Commerce: an interchange of goods or commodities, especially on a large scale between different countries (foreign commerce) or between different parts of the same country (domestic commerce); trade; business. So although commerce represents a part of the process of business, labor is the necessary and largest component and first principle. Perhaps you'd say it's just a difference in semantics, but leaving out labor from the creation of wealth and attributing it to commerce, with no mention of labor, resources, etc. is significant.
Oh, I mentioned labor. It's a very necessary part of commerce. But then, so is capital. And raw materials, And knowledge. Neither element is more important than the other. They're all necessary.
Look at it in this context: Take something basic like wheat. To make it useful and valuable it has to be moved out of the field and to a mill where it can be turned into flour for bread making. Labor by itself won't do that. What do you propose? Someone carrying the wheat grains in their hands while walking barefoot to a flour mill? Because that's what you've got without the other three elements of commerce.
A much better way is to use a truck. Now the truck (capital) is useless without a driver (labor) and the driver is useless without the truck.
Neither the driver nor the truck is any good without fuel (raw material).
Neither the driver nor the truck nor the fuel will do any good without knowledge. Someone has to know that they need to buy a truck, hire a driver, and buy some fuel. Then they need to know to send the driver/truck/fuel combination to the wheat field and deliver the wheat to a mill. (Your basic transportation management.)
All the elements are necessary to conduct commerce and create wealth. Since they're all necessary, none of the elements can be said to be more important than another one of the elements.
Adam Smith said that you needed three elements to produce something. 1) Labor, 2) Capital, 3) Raw Materials. I've seen modern economists such as Walter E. Williams add #4, knowledge.
For people to get out of misery they need wealth. Wealth is produced by commerce. Labor is a part of commerce, but it is not only element of commerce nor is it more or less important than the other elements. You don't like those facts because of your political ideology. I don't care. It's reality.
zugmann Yardmaster01: Though I don't condone forcing children to do labor I am for letting them do it, with the understanding they can quit anytime they choose. I can't help thinking that the end of children being allowed to work led to the rise of the welfare entitlement syndrome gripping this country today. Today's kids have grown up with the belief that everyone owes them everything and then become enraged when they don't get what they want. These kids then grow up demanding free health care, a good paying job that requires no effort and a cushy retirement at a young age. They demand "someone" give them all of these things and that someone is usually the government. I'm sorry, but you can count me among the few who think people should work for what they want. Pat. Let me guess - you walked uphill both ways to school in the snow with no shoes, right?
Yardmaster01: Though I don't condone forcing children to do labor I am for letting them do it, with the understanding they can quit anytime they choose. I can't help thinking that the end of children being allowed to work led to the rise of the welfare entitlement syndrome gripping this country today. Today's kids have grown up with the belief that everyone owes them everything and then become enraged when they don't get what they want. These kids then grow up demanding free health care, a good paying job that requires no effort and a cushy retirement at a young age. They demand "someone" give them all of these things and that someone is usually the government. I'm sorry, but you can count me among the few who think people should work for what they want. Pat.
No. I had a childhood with just about everything anyone else had. I'm also in a union and have served on our executive board and this has given me insights into the vast bureaucracy of people pushing paper around in circles to justify their jobs. I had a chance to do odd jobs as a kid that would be outlawed today and believe I'm the better for it. If it's OK with their parents, let the kids work.
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