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CHAPTER III.
IN THE OHIO COAL REGIONS.
LARGE MEETINGS IN CANTON –WEALTH OF THE COUNTRY AND POVERTY OF THE MASSES COMPARED- EXHAUSTED AND RESPONSIBLE LABOR PAID 12 ½ CENTS PER HOUR- CHILDREN HUNTING FOR NUGGETS OF COAL. –MEETING IN MASSILLON- ONE0HALF THE WORKING POPULATION IN COMPULSORY ILDNESS- ONE-THRID OF THE WHOLE LIVING ON CHARITY –USELESSNESS OF THE BALLOT IN THE HANDS OF WAGE-SLAVES –INTERESTING MEETING AT NAVARRE TO MANSFIELD- THREE SUCCESSFUL MEETIND IN COLUMBUS.
TAKEN FROM "THE ALARM" OF FEBRUARY 20, 1886
Comrades: since my last report in the Alarm I have addressed several large mass-meetings of working people in the state of Ohio. Two mass-meetings were held in Canton on Friday and Saturday, February 5 and 6.
Canton is a railroad center and manufacturing town of about 20,000 inhabitants, in stark county, which rates third in the list of the wealthiest counties in the state of Ohio. Nevertheless, right here in the midse of this superabundance of wealth, string men, their wives and children, are homeless, starving, and freezing. Bear in mind, Canton is located in the third wealthiest county of this State; its soil is unsurpassed; its coal, stone , water, natural gas exists in unlimited quantities and unsurpassed qualities; the climate the most healthy- yet, in the presence of this natural wealth, we find in this little city 200 families of able-bodied men to whom, being compelled to be idle, the authorities have to give charity to prevent them from begging, stealing, or starving! Five hundred other families
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