Question. Has the public school system anything to do with the army of pupils who, after six years of study, willingly accept the injustice and hardship imposed by capital?
Answer. The great trouble with the public school is that many things are taught that are of no immediate use. I believe in manual training schools. I believe in the kindergarten system. Every person ought to be taught how to do something—ought to be taught the use of their hands. They should endeavor to put in palpable form the ideas that they gain. Such an education gives them a confidence in themselves, a confidence in the future—gives them a spirit and feeling of independence that they do not now have. Men go through college studying for many years, and when graduated have not the slightest conception of how to make a living in any department of human effort. Thousands of them are to-day doing manual labor and doing it very poorly, whereas, if they had been taught the use of tools, the use of their hands, they would derive a certain pleasure from their work. It is splendid to do anything well. One can be just as poetic working with iron and wood as working with words and colors.
Question. What ought to be done, or what is to be the end?
Answer. The great thing is for the people to know the facts. There are thousands and millions of splendid and sympathetic people who would willingly help, if they only knew; but they go through the world in such a way that they know but little of it. They go to their place of business; they stay in their offices for a few hours; they go home; they spend the evening there or at a club; they come in contact with the well-to-do, with the successful, with the satisfied, and they know nothing of the thousands and millions on every side. They have not the least idea how the world lives, how it works, how it suffers. They read, of course, now and then, some paragraph in which the misfortune of some wretch is set forth, but the wretch is a kind of steel engraving, an unreal shadow, a something utterly unlike themselves. The real facts should be brought home, the sympathies of men awakened, and awakened to such a degree that they will go and see how these people live, see how they work, see how they suffer.
Question. Does exposure do any good?
Answer. I hope that The World will keep on. I hope that it will express every horror that it can, connected with the robbery of poor and helpless girls, and I hope that it will publish the names of all the robbers it can find, and the wretches who oppress the poor and who live upon the misfortunes of women.
The crosses of this world are mostly born by wives, by mothers and by daughters. Their brows are pierced by thorns. They shed the bitterest tears. They live and suffer and die for others. It is almost enough to make one insane to think of what woman, in the years of savagery and civilization, has suffered. Think of the anxiety and agony of motherhood. Maternity is the most pathetic fact in the universe. Think how helpless girls are. Think of the thorns in the paths they walk—of the trials, the temptations, the want, the misfortune, the dangers and anxieties that fill their days and nights. Every true man will sympathize with woman, and will do all in his power to lighten her burdens and increase the sunshine of her life.
Question. Is there any remedy?
Answer. I have always wondered that the great corporations have made no provisions for their old and worn out employees. It seems to me that not only great railway companies, but great manufacturing corporations, ought to provide for their workmen. Many of them are worn out, unable longer to work, and they are thrown aside like old clothes. They find their way to the poorhouses or die in tenements by the roadside. This seems almost infinitely heartless. Men of great wealth, engaged in manufacturing, instead of giving five hundred thousand dollars for a library, or a million dollars for a college, ought to put this money aside, invest it in bonds of the Government, and the interest ought to be used in taking care of the old, of the helpless, of those who meet with accidents in their work. Under our laws, if an employee is caught in a wheel or in a band, and his arm or leg is torn off, he is left to the charity of the community, whereas the profits of the business ought to support him in his old age. If employees had this feeling—that they were not simply working for that day, not simply working while they have health and strength, but laying aside a little sunshine for the winter of age—if they only felt that they, by their labor, were creating a fireside in front of which their age and helplessness could sit, the feeling between employed and employers would be a thousand times better. On the great railways very few people know the number of the injured, of those who lose their hands or feet, of those who contract diseases riding on the tops of freight trains in snow and sleet and storm; and yet, when these men become old and helpless through accident, they are left to shift for themselves. The company is immortal, but the employees become helpless. Now, it seems to me that a certain per cent. should be laid aside, so that every brakeman and conductor could feel that he was providing for himself, as well as for his fellow-workmen, so that when the dark days came there would be a little light.
The men of wealth, the men who control these great corporations— these great mills—give millions away in ostentatious charity. They send missionaries to foreign lands. They endow schools and universities and allow the men who earned the surplus to die in want. I believe in no charity that is founded on robbery. I have no admiration for generous highwaymen or extravagant pirates. At the foundation of charity should be justice. Let these men whom others have made wealthy give something to their workmen—something to those who created their fortunes. This would be one step in the right direction. Do not let it be regarded as charity—let it be regarded as justice.