which to organize their protest, the forces of righteousness were rallied. Churches regardless of denominational differences, with the exception of here and there one preacher deceived by the false propaganda so prevalent, lined up against the forces of evil that were threatening. one of the basic institutions of our American civilization. Not a single denomination, except the Seventh Day Adventists, co-operated with the antimorality league of commercialized vices.

The Catholic Citizen, the Wisconsin organ of the Roman Catholic Church, met the "Anti-Blue Law” attack with the following editorial, which is the best short exposition of the fallacies of “blue” propaganda :

"Sunday is not so decently observed at present in many American cities. We can improve the observance of the Sabbath. Therefore, if there should be a blue Sunday movement in that direction, why should we worry? The result of such a movement will not mean a Puritanic Sunday, but rather a check upon the tendency toward a Continental Sunday. And that will be a good thing. Therefore let us not join ourselves with the publicans and sinners who are just now raising an outcry against a blue Sunday. WE HAVE NO COMMUNITY OF INTEREST WITH THOSE WHO PROFITEER ON SABBATH DESECRATION."

The Senator who led the fight against legalizing commercialized Sunday sports was a member of the German Lutheran Church. The Evangelical Synod of North America, in their convention held in Milwaukee, sent in one of the strongest resolutions opposing this proposed weakening of the Sunday law.

Business organizations lined up for continuing the prohibition of Sunday sports, protests against any change in the law being sent in by such organizations as the Wisconsin Retailers' Association, the Wisconsin Market

men's Association, the Master Barbers' Association, and the Mail Carriers' Association, identified with the American Federation of Labor. Three hundred and forty

petitions came in filled with names protesting against any change in the Sunday law, and 150 church congregations petitioned by vote, and literally thousands of letters and telegrams were received, all for maintaining the law, with commercialized amusements closed on Sunday like other business.

When the Czerwinski Anti-Sunday amendment was finally voted upon, twenty-one were for killing it to nine for its passage-six of these nine from Milwaukee."

In achieving the Wisconsin victory practically all churches had fought together for the American Sabbath as against the Continental Sunday of commercialized amusements. Labor unions and business associations had with equal zeal lined up for protection of their right to the Rest Day, refusing to be deceived by the Sunday profiteers who are always pleading that

We suggest for the promotion both of civic study and State legislation that in each State some one offer a prize open to all senior law students for a paper of not more than five thousand words that shall show most clearly on what lines of welfare legislation that State excels other States, and in what lines it falls below: 1. Has the State a prohibition enforcement law as good as any? If not, what State has a better law, and in what details? 2. Has the State a law equal to the best against dope selling? 3. Has it a "red light" injunction law as good as Iowa's? 4. And as good a removal law for unfaithful officers? 5. What States are better in anti-gambling legislation? 6. In laws against pugilism? 7. In anti-cigarette laws for minors? 8. What State gives Sunday rest to a larger proportion of the people? 9. What States have better censorship of immoral movies? 10. What States rank higher in laws on child labor? (We treat this question as a national issue in another talk, but the decision of the U. S. Supreme Court in 1922 that this reform must depend on State law until the National Constitution is amended, makes it important to stir up the States that are below the national standard set in the law Congress passed but which was found invalid. The National Child Labor Committee (105 East 22nd Street, New York City) on August 25, 1922, gave us a black list of 28 States and the District of Columbia below that standard. These backward States are the following (Child Labor Committee will furnish details): Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania; Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming. In the other States, though their laws are not quite so unjust to childhood, there is great room for improvement. Every child in the nation up to 16 years of age should be free to study in school hours, and should also be free from night work.

clerks and workmen need Sunday sports, as if labor and business could not speak for themselves. They never ask repeal of Sunday laws. Labor and business in Wisconsin refused to be "easy marks" in the hands of those who urged it would do no harm to let sports do business seven days in the week. No other issue was involved. They knew that in Continental Europe letting into the tent the camel's nose of commercialized amusement had brought in his heavy-laden hump of Sunday labor and Sunday traffic. In short, a State predominantly German Lutheran in population, in a State-wide fight, had patriotically stood for the Sabbath of their adopted country, the Holy Day of Freedom, in preference to the Continental Holiday, workaday, devil's day, despots' day, anarchists' day.

LET US CONTINUALLY KEEP IN MIND AS A MOTIVE TO NERVE US FOR HARD CIVIC BATTLES, THAT WE ARE FIGHTING TO PASS DOWN TO OUR CHILDREN THE INHERITANCE OF LIBERTY UNDER LAW THAT OUR FATHERS BEQUEATHED TO US IN TRUST FOR ALL GENERATIONS AND FOR ALL LANDS.

WE ARE AT OUR VERDUN, WITH A MIGHTY LEAGUE OF

COMMERCIALIZED VICES FIGHTING MORE DESPERATELY
THAN EVER TO BREAK DOWN OUR AMERICAN IDEALS IN
THE INTEREST OF FOREIGN LUST AND GREED.
FOR THE

SAKE OF OUR HOMES LET US VOW TO GOD, WHOSE AID WE
SEEK, "THEY SHALL NOT PASS."

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN

By Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Greatest Appeal-Still Unheeded
Against Child Labor.

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
And that cannot stop their tears.

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;
The young birds are chirping in their nest;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows;
The young flowers are blowing toward the west-
But the young, young children, Ŏ my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!

They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their looks are sad to see,

For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy-

Go out, children, from the mine and from the city— Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do

Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty—
Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!
But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the meadows
Like our weeds anear the mine?

Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
From your pleasures fair and fine!

"For oh!" say the children, "we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap-

If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep,

Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping-
We fall upon our faces, trying to go;

And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring,

Through the coal-dark underground,
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round."

Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,
Grinding life down from its mark;

And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, Spin on blindly in the dark.

They know the grief of man, without his wisdom;
They sink in man's despair, without its calm—
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christendom,
Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm-
Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly

The harvest of its memories cannot reap—
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly:
Let them weep! let them weep!

They look up, with their pale and sunken faces,
And their look is dread to see,

For they mind you of their angels in high places,

With eyes turned on Deity;—

"How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world on a child's heartStrike down with a mailed heel its palpitation,

And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?

"Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,
And your purple shows your path;

But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper
Than the strong man in his wrath!"