Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/109

102 name is legion. The average pay of such men is $1.50 a day, or $9.00 a week. In a modern city one-fifth of this income goes for rent. Setting aside 25 cents a week for light, and 50 cents for fuel, there remains $6.50. A man and his wife and four children, ranging in ages from one to seven years, will thus have less than a dollar a day to pay for clothing, medicine, car fare, and extras. If we allow two-thirds of this $6.50 for food, it will mean that each of the twenty-one meals eaten in the week must be gotten for 20 cents,—a 20-eent meal for six persons.

The words, "greedy and indifferent parents" are often emphasized in speaking and writing about child labor. In the case of the unskilled worker, the parent who sends the children to work at fourteen or even thirteen, is neither greedy nor indifferent. Eliminating the "widowed mother," there is a family necessity, common in every industrial community, which results in the child's being sent to the mill. Here is a clear undoubted case of necessity,—a necessity which is being felt more keenly every day as