EDITORIAL                   269
                                                           
necessity, is not needed as a bread winner. The school room,
the playground, with such tasks added as are necessary to
train him in habits of industry and usefulness, is his proper
sphere.
     Capt. W. E. French, U.S. A., is stirred to write "A New
National Hymn" against traffic in the toil of children:

             "The child's sob in the darkness curses deeper
              Than the strong man in his wrath."

           Look! there's a child in the fields at play-
           Fetter it quickly, drag it away-
           God! don't you know we must make it pay?
           Hasten! lest onward the young feet stray
           Into the open doors of the school,
           For we must keep it a fool, a tool,
           Lest it shall see through our manly game-
           Coining a girl's toil, minting her shame,
           Crushing the manhood out of a boy,
           Turning to sadness the children's joy.

           Seize it while young, ere it learns the truth;
           Crush out its beauty, its strength, its youth;
           Set it to work at spindle and loom;
           Fade the red rose of its baby bloom;
           Hide it in soul-killing sweat-shop room;
           Sink it down deep in the mine's dark tomb;
           Fit it for crime or the brothel's doom;
           'Twas marked for toil from its mother's womb.

           Drag it away from the mother breast;
           Snatch it away from its poor home nest;
           Starve it and maim it and break its heart,
           But make it labor in mine and mart,
           Till each spoiled drop of its childish blood
           Shall swell the tide of our golden flood,
           And Christian men take their lawful toll,
           In cash, from sale of a baby's soul.

           Herod-the fool!--put babes to the sword!
           Had he no mills that he could afford
           To lose the profit on infant lives?
           Had he no factories, shops, or dives
           Where he could work them until--until
           He killed them slowly, as Christians kill?

     This agitation on behalf of the mill and factory children
(all white) is bound to react in favor of the black children of
the South.




			

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 29, Num. 3

Editorials

Volume:  29
Issue Number:  03
Page Number:  260
Date:  01/1913