race, and should be an object of contemptuous abhorrence by all healthy people_. _Of course no one quality makes a good citizen, and no one quality will save a nation. But there are certain great qualities for the lack of which no amount of intellectual brilliancy or of material prosperity or of easiness of life can atone, and which show decadence and corruption in the nation just as much if they are produced by selfishness and coldness and ease-loving laziness among comparatively poor people as if they are produced by vicious or frivolous luxury in the rich. If the men of the nation are not anxious to work in many different ways, with all their might and strength, and ready and able to fight at need, and anxious to be fathers of families, and if the women do not recognize that the greatest thing for any woman is to be a good wife and mother, why, that nation has cause to be alarmed about its future_. _There is no physical trouble among us Americans. The trouble with the situation you set forth is one of character, and therefore we can conquer it if we only will._ _Very sincerely yours,_ _THEODORE ROOSEVELT._ * * * * * PREFATORY NOTE A portion of the material in this book appeared serially under the same title in _Everybody's Magazine_. Nearly a third of the volume has not been published in any form. * * * * * CONTENTS By MRS. JOHN VAN VORST CHAPTER PAGE I. Introductory 1 II. In a Pittsburg Factory 7 III. Perry, a New York Mill Town 59 IV. Making Clothing in Chicago 99 V. The Meaning of It All 155 By MARIE VAN VORST CHAPTER PAGE VI. Introductory 165 VII. A Maker of Shoes at Lynn 169 VIII. The Southern Cotton Mills 215 The Mill Village The Mill IX. The Child in the Southern Mills 275 * * * * * LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Miss Marie and Mrs. John Van Vorst in their factory costumes, _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE "The streets are covered with snow, and over the snow the soot falls softly like a mantle of perpetual mourning," 12 "Waving arms of smoke and steam, a symbol of spent energy, of the lives consumed, and vanishing again," 58