Puzzle Paragraph 1

Once upon a time, we slept, unaware of the "pitiful privilege" (44-45) happening between our deep breaths. And as Jesus begged his disciples to stay up with him before his crucifixion, Florence Kelley presses us to do the same: to stay up with her against child labor and fight for women suffrage. Nearly everyone, mostly of women, at the suffrage convention had to be invigorated by Kelley's speech; knowing most of her audience are the caretakers of their families, she uses her pathos to make child labor laws an idea worth supporting. Her rhetoric appeals to her audience's emotions, like her first sentence, the statistic that "we have . . . two million children . . . who are earning their own bread" (1-2). This is plainly backwards. These kids, capable of more than factory work, are the ones supporting their families; they are the ones that keeping their family afloat "while we sleep" (29). Even today, this is overall taboo—a disgrace. Kelley wants us to stop seeing the pink elephants, to think everything is all right as we topple into bed and knock out through the work shift. "For the sake of the children (92), sober up because there is a battle to be fought.