struggle, that they overlook all human relations and obligations. Wealth they must have, and that quickly. Children are worn out in the process? No matter. Homes are wrecked and the community made poorer by the loss of some of its best bone and sinew? No matter. Look at our ledger, look at our cashbook, look at our undivided surplus! Look at them,—and then behind them.
Such employers are in the smallest minority, yet when they exist in a competitive industry, their competitors must do as they do or go out of business. Morris Hillquit once said, in the course of a speech:—"If Jesus Christ came on earth to-day and established a coat shop on Hester Street, he would be forced to do one of two things,—either to exploit his workers or to go out of business." The same thing holds good for child labor. The meanest, hardest, cheapest employer sets the pace. One such can force nineteen others to provide for their employees the most rigorous of working conditions, or fall behind in the race for business.
It is to protect the children from this class
