“ In America we are more refined in matters of this sort. We do not ostentatiously sell our children into slavery. There is no public market as there is for flowers, cattle, or vegetables. We would revolt at the very idea.
Yet, who can see the children trooping home from the factory, carrying their little dinner pails, their faces sad and wan and pinched, without wondering who has sold them to this service? Their puny bodies are converted into human machinery. They are but so many cogs in the remorseless wheel of industry. ”

“ Slaves to the wheel, they have no opportunity of mastering a trade or handicraft. The conditions under which they work are too often demoralising. Young girls are allowed to mingle promiscuously in the workshops with grown men. They are not paid "living wages," but are informed that their time during the evening is their own. Their minds, being unoccupied during the monotonous working hours, are not improved. The tawdry attractions of the nickel theaters and the penny arcades afford the only relaxation that they know.
Ohio, tardily enough, has passed an efficient child labor law. ”

“ They are not expected to develop skill. Their little lives are consecrated to dull routine; the endless spinning and grinding and hammering of the modern workshop. They do not enjoy even the open air and the freedom of movement of the children on the Bavarian and Tyrolean farms. Their days and years are regulated by the factory whistle and the time clock. ”