File:Arena magazine - Volume 40 (1908) (14768626235).jpg

Identifier: ArenaMagazine-Volume40 (find matches)
Title: Arena magazine - Volume 40
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: B.O. Flower (ed.)
Subjects: Progressivism -- United States liberalism reformism social reform Christian Socialism Gay 90s political commentary Benjamin Orange Flower Progressive era social gospel
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f healing. I thought of the sixty thousand such children he mentioned, scattered over theUnited States, criminally neglected; mostof whom are left to die, or to grow upstunted and deformed, as well as tospread broadcast the contagion of theirmalady. I thought of the thousands uponthousands of other children in New Yorkcity, weak and ill-fed—but not yet dis-eased, stifling in the back-tenement dis-tricts, with never a breath of pure, freshair, nor a glimpse of the sea so close thatit laps the very shores of the great islandcity. I thought of the misery of the fac-tory children in different parte of merica,.unprotected by the state, driven by thegrim taskmaster, Poverty, to drag out alife that is woree than death. I seemedsuddenly to hear a chorus of thee chil-drens voices calling from across theocean, to see myriads of little handsstretched vainly out for help, and my faceflushed with righteous indignation, tothink that America should fall so far Digitized by Google An Awakening. 465
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•AN AWAKENING.—BATHING IN THE MOUNTAIN BROOK. short of little Switzerland, in caring for its future citizens and rulers. Was there, indeed, no way out of their misery, I asked myself—was no response being made to their cry? I recalled vaguely that great movements were goingforward for the protection of children,and for their rescue from vicious sur-roundings. But suddenly it occurred tome to stop generalizing on so vast a scale,and to bring the subject nearer home;to lay less emphasis on the failure ofAmericans in general, and more on thefailure of one young American in par-ticular, whom I at least, without injustice,might call to account. What interest orpart had I taken in helping on this work,I asked myself; when had I ever lifted somuch as my little jeweled finger to saveone of the least of these little ones ?Was it possible, for instance, that myown indifference could in any slightestdegree be held accountable for the blight- ing of one small life? And was myindifference the re

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