My name is Esther and I'm 17 years old and I came to America in 1892 to work in a textile mill making cloth. As the daughter of a poor farmer I was getting no where just working in the fields getting no pay with only enough from the farm to sustain my poor parents and me. Then I heard there were new opportunities in America, lots of land (some free) and industries that needed workers that paid well. I finally could have my own money and buy things like a new dress, and if I saved enough I could travel on the train to new places I've never seen. Well my dreams have been shattered, I work in the factory at least 10 hours a day and 6 days a week sometimes 7 so when I get home I'm so exhuasted I'm too tired to eat and go right to bed. Cause I'm not eating properly I've lost weight and I keep getting sick so what little money I save goes for medicine, At work we hear every once in awhile where another worker has died of an illness we think is due to overwork and exhaustion. It's scary!
the apartment I live in is so small 1 room and no ventilation with 1 tiny window and it smells of everyone's cooking and garbage, nothing like the fresh air on the farm. Some of us girls talked about organizing like the Knights of Labor that died in 86 and we also heard of the AFL getting better wages for their workers. Striking would be out of the question cause we heard about the 200 railroad strikers killed in Pittsburg and someone else told us about the Hay Market strikers4 killed and 4 hanged and in Homestead, Penn. more killed. Our boss must have heard us talking because he said if anyone wanted to protest they'd be fired so we all stopped our talking since we all need what little money we get even though our wages have been reduced.What really bothers me is when my boss makes rude Jewish jokes at my expense but I'm a little better off than the poor colored girls he slaps and makes very bad remarks about. The WASP girls have it a little better than us Jewish and colored girls. I work lots of hours but I never have any money. I never got my new dress. And I miss my parents.

Danielle makes a good point,that not all homeless people are drug addicts. But for other reasons they can also be homeless and therefore putting people into categories and class statuses isn't fair and we all have the right to liberty and freedom. I agree.

Social Darwinism is based on Darwin's theory of evolution of natural selection. Darwin's theory is the fittest will survive so the liberal reformers felt natural selection kept the poor where they belonged and there was no need for any social agencies to help the poor. Yale Professor William Sumner said freedom was acceptance of inequality. Social Darwinism also felt people who couldn't advance themselves was from a lack of character and that the poor should just stay out of debt and educate their children in marketplace principles and not look for aid. Today a lot of people say just get a job and pay your bills and you won't have to be on welfare. This is my own evaluation of this theory. I was on welfare with 2 children. I went looking for a job at many places. I was interviewed and when they heard I was on welfare some had the audacity to say to my face we don't hire welfare cause they're lazy.That really killed what little self esteem I had. Some said they wouldn't hire me cause with children I was better of on welfware to get the medicaid because they didn't have an insurance program. So no I don't find Social Darwinism theories valid. They were afraid they would lose some of their money to support a social welfare system.

From what I read Israel and the Gaza Strip are fighting each other for control over this area. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Isreal called a truce but didn't say for how long. Hamas's defense is they're trying to end a blockade that deprives coastal territories of fuel, water,electricity,and medicine. I don't understand why Israel is depriving these people of these necesseties of life. Another comment is about our new President Obama and I wish him well and this is a great moment in U.S. history of our first black President. But I am concerned cause I remember President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy's assinations. I hope President Obama is very well guarded.

It must have been very hard for the South to give up their way of life. But they had to somehow rebuild their country. Their plantations were destroyed and also machinery destroyed. One master and his wife had to live in a slave cabin which must have been very degrading but they got a taste of what a slave had to put up with. And why did they give the freedmen Sherman land if they were just going to take it away from them anyway.