Wednesday, January 07, 2015

Today -100: January 7, 1915: Of child labor, Cossacks, and chorus girls


David Clark, editor of the Southern Textile Bulletin, shows up at a meeting of the National Child Labor Committee, a non-governmental reform group still in existence today, and demands to be heard. He says that children employed in North Carolina textile mills are not overworked and under-nourished, as documented in NCLC reports and the photos taken by its photographer Lewis Hine.



Why, Clark says, “I am willing to wager that the children in the mill district, boy for boy, can lick any other class of boys in America.” Also, he says it’s none of the business of people in New York and Massachusetts if 13-year-olds work in North Carolina.

Mexico: “President” Gutierrez’s regime has arrested the brother of “President” Carranza. Promises a fair trial.

NY’s new governor Charles Whitman makes his first annual message to the Legislature. He calls for the abolition of the Dept of Efficiency and Economy, which is efficient and economical of him, and the state Fire Marshal, because everyone’s forgotten all about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, I guess.

German Chancellor Theobold von Bethmann-Hollweg’s son, a cavalry lieutenant, is killed in Poland by some Cossacks, as was the custom.

Last year, Robert Goldman, the son of banker Henry Goldman (of Goldman, Sachs & Co.) married a chorus girl, as was the custom. Because he is 19, his father is suing for divorce on his behalf, evidently against his will, which I didn’t know was a thing. Edith, the chorus girl, is suing Henry for alienation of affections for $100,000. (Update: More details emerge when the case reaches court in March. The young Mr. Goldman met Ms. Ostend when she was performing in “The Belle of Bond Street,” which is kind of perfect. When the senior Goldman found out about the marriage, he “sent his son to a ranch in the West, where he made him work as a cowboy for $40 a month.” And it sounds like young Robert was agreeable to being divorced, after his father’s private dicks found his wife in the company of other men.)


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