in life are those the acquirement of which normally means cost and effort. If a man or woman, through no fault of his or hers, goes throughout life denied those highest of all joys which spring only from home life, from the having and bringing up of many healthy children, I feel for them deep and respectful sympathy—the sympathy one extends to the gallant fellow killed at the beginning of a campaign, or the man who toils hard and is brought to ruin by the fault of others. But the man or woman who deliberately avoids marriage, and has a heart so cold as to know no passion and a brain so shallow and selfish as to dislike having children, is in effect a criminal against the race, and should be an object of contemptuous abhorrence by all healthy people.

Of course no one quality makes a good citizen, and no one quality will save a nation. But there are certain great qualities for the lack of which no amount of intellectual brilliancy or of material prosperity or of easiness of life can atone, and which show decadence and corruption in the nation just as much if they are produced by selfishness and coldness and ease-loving laziness among comparatively poor people as if they are produced by vicious or frivolous luxury in the rich. If the men of the nation are not anxious to work in many different ways, with all their might and strength, and ready and able to fight at need, and anxious to be fathers of families, and if the women do not recognize that the greatest thing for any woman is to be a good wife and mother, why, that nation has cause to be alarmed about its future.

There is no physical trouble among us Americans. The trouble with the situation you set forth is one of character, and therefore we can conquer it if we only will.

Very sincerely yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

PREFATORY NOTE

A portion of the material in this book appeared serially under the same title in Everybody's Magazine. Nearly a third of the volume has not been published in any form.

CONTENTS

By MRS. JOHN VAN VORST
Chapter Page
I.[Introductory]1
II.[In a Pittsburg Factory]7
III.[Perry, A New York Mill Town]59
IV.[Making Clothing in Chicago]99
V.[The Meaning of It All ]155
By MARIE VAN VORST
Chapter Page
VI.[Introductory]165
VII.[A Maker of Shoes at Lynn]169
VIII.[The Southern Cotton Mills]215
[The Mill Village]
[The Mill]
IX.[The Child in the Southern Mills]275