|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: ``In the Valley one hears from townspeople,'' writes the
investigator, ``that pickers make ten dollars a day, working the whole
family. With that qualification, the statement is ambiguous. One
Mexican in the Imperial Valley was the father of thirty-three
children--`about thirteen or fourteen living,' he said. If they all
worked at cotton-picking, they would doubtless altogether make more
than ten dollars a day.''
One of the child laborers revealed the economic advantage--to the
parents--in numerous progeny: ``Us kids most always drag from forty to
fifty pounds of cotton before we take it to be weighed. Three of us
pick. I'm twelve years old and my bag is twelve feet long. I can
|
