Unit 3: Selection Vocabulary 3

In June 1903, Mother Jones went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—the heart of a vast textile industry.

Barefooted little girls and boys reached their tiny hands into the treacherous machinery to repair snapped threads or crawled underneath the machinery to oil it.

The marchers sang and carried flags, banners, and placards that read “We Want to Go to School!” “We Want Time to Play.” “Prosperity is Here, Where is Ours?”

She told him how these poor mill children lived, appealed to him as a father, and asked him to meet with her and the children.

“I believe he can do something for these children, although the press declares he cannot.”

Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
“even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night.”

Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony -hushers,
“even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night.”

Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
“even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night.”

In Philadelphia, Pa., there are ninety thousand (90,000) textile workers who are on strike, asking for a reduction from sixty to fifty-five hours a week.

These little children, raked by cruel toil beneath the iron wheels of greed, are starving in this country which you have declared is in the height of prosperity—slaughtered, ten hours a day, every day in the week, every week in the month, every month in the year, that our manufacturing aristocracy may live to exploit more slaves as the years roll by.

In Philadelphia alone thousands of persons will wait upon your answer, while throughout the land, wherever there is organized labor, the people will anxiously await an expression of your sentiments toward suffering childhood.