The Samuel Gompers Papers

In the Legislature of Massachusetts, before a committee of that body, about ten years ago, the secretary of one of the manufacturing associations declared that if the fifty-eight-hour bill were enacted into law, limiting the hours of labor of a child to fifty-eight hours would strike at the heart of his industry, but I told him that an industry that depended for its success upon the life and blood and sinew of young and innocent children ought to be destroyed.

You have a child labor bill before you. It is a progressive measure. It is a measure which, if enacted by the Legislature of Indiana, will do more than any other one act it can pass to place the state at the head of the glorious states of the Union. I have seen committees come before legislatures with petitions from children, with petitions of the fathers of the children. The children must be protected against the greed of their parents, as well as the exploitation of their employers.

Last night coming here to Indiana, I had a dream, a dream that I died and was transported to the Great Beyond. And there was St. Peter at the gate. There was just one man before me; the wicket was open, and this man asked his name. He said that it was Smith. I don't know whether it was Smith of Evansville or Kalamazoo, but he answered that it was Smith. Then followed this conversation: "Oh, you are one of those employers who have gotten rich upon the labor of young and innocent children?"

      "Yes, but I bought a great window once, as a memorial in a church."

      "Yes, but you have exploited young and innocentchildren; you have denied them the right and opportunity to grow up in God's sunshine."

     "Oh, yes, St. Peter; but I have endowed three beds in the hospital."

     "Yes, I know you have."

      The door opened and Smith stepped inside.

      "Oh, this is an elevator. How far does it go up?"

      Said St. Peter, "This elevator doesn't go up." And then I awoke. I can never think of men who grind the innocent souls of children into dollars, but what I have that fateful dream.

[From The Samuel Gompers Papers, Vol. 8, pp. 180-183]

WEB Accessibility