Page 52 - 2023-bfw-TLC-4e

other southern state. North and South Carolina in the great industrial states are enfranchised, 2
and Georgia place no restriction upon the work we shall none of us be able to free our con-
of children at night; and while we sleep little sciences from participation in this great evil. No
white girls will be working tonight in the mills in one in this room tonight can feel free from such
those states, working eleven hours at night. In participation. The children make our shoes in
Georgia there is no restriction whatever! A girl of the shoe factories; they knit our stockings, our
six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the knitted underwear in the knitting factories. They
bobbins, may work eleven hours by day or by spin and weave our cotton underwear in the
night. And they will do so tonight, while we cotton mills. Children braid straw for our hats,
sleep. Nor is it only in the South that these things they spin and weave the silk and velvet where-
occur. Alabama does better than New Jersey. For with we trim our hats. They stamp buckles and
Alabama limits the children’s work at night to metal ornaments of all kinds, as well as pins Section 3 / Developing Sophistication in an AP ® Argument Essay
eight hours, while New Jersey permits it all night and hat-pins. Under the sweating system, tiny
long. Last year New Jersey took a long backward children make artificial flowers and neckwear
step. A good law was repealed which had for us to buy. They carry bundles of garments
required women and [children] to stop work at from the factories to the tenements, little beasts
six in the evening and at noon on Friday. Now, of burden, robbed of school life that they may
therefore, in New Jersey, boys and girls, after work for us.
their fourteenth birthday, enjoy the pitiful privi- We do not wish this. We prefer to have our
lege of working all night long. work done by men and women. But we are
In Pennsylvania, until last May it was lawful almost powerless. Not wholly powerless, how-
for children, thirteen years of age, to work twelve ever, are citizens who enjoy the right of petition.
hours at night. A little girl, on her thirteenth For myself, I shall use this power in every possi-
birthday, could start away from her home at half ble way until the right to the ballot is granted,
past five in the afternoon, carrying her pail of and then I shall continue to use both. What can
midnight luncheon as happier people carry their we do to free our consciences? There is one line
midday luncheon, and could work in the mill of action by which we can do much. We can
from six at night until six in the morning, with- enlist the workingmen on behalf of our enfran-
out violating any law of the Commonwealth. chisement just in proportion as we strive with
If the mothers and the teachers in Georgia 5 them to free the children. No labor organization
could vote, would the Georgia legislature have in this country ever fails to respond to an appeal
refused at every session for the last three years to for help in the freeing of the children.
stop the work in the mills of children under For the sake of the children, for the Republic
twelve years of age? in which these children will vote after we are
Would the New Jersey legislature have dead, and for the sake of our cause, we should
passed that shameful repeal bill enabling girls of enlist the workingmen voters, with us, in this
fourteen years to work all night, if the mothers in task of freeing the children from toil!
New Jersey were enfranchised? Until the mothers 1905

Here’s one way we can paraphrase Kelley’s argument in this speech:

It should not be legal for children to work at night and the laws will only change once
women are given the right to vote.
109

Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample. Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.
03_sheatlc4e_40925_ch02_058_111_4pp.indd 109 8/9/22 2:54 PM