It was a hot summer day in Pennsylvania around 1885. My name is John Choreow and I am a 12 year old boy working as a laborer in a textile factory. Myself along with hundreds of other children and woman work to make clothing all day under our managers Mr. Roussou and Mr. Locke.
Us as kids work these greasy material machines 8 hours a day for 7 days a week. Our factory is run by water but, the pulleys and belts obtaining all our power often break. The factory is filled with viruses, grease, dirt, dust, and many little rodents and bugs.
We are all too poor to afford a pair of shoes or a new pair of clothes so we work everyday in our dirty clothes from the days past. There is not an hour that passes by without anyone getting hurt or going home seriously ill. Our managers provide no assistance nor food or water.
The problem is we are all too scared to stand up to Mr. Locke and Mr. Rousseau about our conditions as our families depended on this job and us to make money to provide for our living.
We were fed up of these living conditions and couldn't stand another week, day, hour, minute, or even second of working there. The conditions were just too bad.
So one day, myself along with all of the other workers and laborers met together. We created a master plan against the factory owners and managers. We worked day and night coming up with ideas and plans to overrule these conditions and demand better pay.
Finally we created this huge protest that would take place on the main road in the Industrial City. All of us workers will be holding up signs and posters. Our goal for this is too protest for equality among all and support the social contract.
The very next day we started to prepare. None of showed up to the factory for days and Mr. Locke and Rousseau were getting very angry.
Three days had now passed with the factories shut down because none of the laborers showed up. But, we were now ready for our big protest.
We met at 8 am (the time we are supposed to start work on a normal day) at the top of main street and started our march. There was a huge turnout for how many people were protesting. There were individuals along with us that weren't even factory workers they just believed in the same ideas we had. Little did we know the whole town had heard about this protest and they were all here in support against the “higher powers”. This whole thing became so big we got a huge title page in the paper. The headline read “Laborers Demand Rights!”.
We marched all day with angry people screaming and shouting.
One woman bellowed “We Demand Rights!”
As another screamed “Rights among all!”
This protest had grow so much that it wasn't even fully about laborers rights anymore it was totally focused on the Social Contract and the Separation of Powers. People were even fighting for Women's Rights.
Finally after hours of hard work and many lost voices we spotted our bosses casually sitting on a bench laughing at our protest.
“We want a newly cleaned factory and more rights to make rules!” I exclaimed loudly to them.
I got no response except for a little smirk from Mr. Rousseau and a laugh from Mr Locke.
But then, I hear a slight rebuttal from Mr. Locke saying “In your dreams kid.”
That's when I flipped. I was done taking crap from these privileged men and it was not happening anymore.
I walked over there and clocked them both right in the noses.
It made me feel so good to just let my anger out with then right when I turned around two cops hit my knees in with their batons and pinned me to the ground, and cuffing me behind my back.
Before I knew it I was off the streets and in the hard plastic back seat of aan old cop car. They put me in a jail cell in the Police Department and told me they would release me when the protest was over and dealt with.
I sat in there overnight furious that i was not out there fighting for my rights but, I was also having this weird feeling of satisfaction within me because of what I had done to those mad men.
They finally let me out the next morning but, the next day I got a letter in the mail from the local court calling me for a hearing against Mr. Locke and Mr. Rousseau for starting the protest and for punching them both.
Oh ya by the way they both have broken noses!
Ok back to the letter. The court wanted me to be in the courthouse in proper attire the next day by 12 am.
The next day I arrived at the courthouse and the room was completely packed from wall to wall with workers and even managers and higher powers. At the front sat the judge and Mr. Locke and Mr. Rousseau on both sides of him.
As I walked in the judge welcoming me saying “Welcome John please have a seat up here…”
Following that was a huge applause from all of the workers. That gave me a huge motivation to get this thing handled once and for all.
I sat there resting me head on my hands for a good 10-20 minutes.
Finally a loud smack sounded through the room. The trial had started that was the judges gavel.
“Ok John, can you come to the stand please?” The judge exclaimed.
“Sure” I responded.
I walked up to the stand and peered over the crowd and my heart instantly dropped. There was so many people here depending on me.
Before I knew it the judge was starting the trial by telling me to raise my right hand and saying “Ok John, do you hear by swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth?”
I responded with “I do”.
The trial went back and forth between myself and my managers for hours on. We discussed the needs of the workers and what our bosses could do to treat us with more respect and better conditions and how that would benefit everyone even them in the long run.
By the end of the trial Mr. Locke, Mr. Rousseau, and myself had all come with an agreement and changes that would need to be changed within the next month in the factory and that was that.
We all left that room that day new people, Freed People. And from that day on we were never treated lower or worthless to anyone.
Two weeks later this whole story was documented all around America and created a name for itself “The Great Jubail”.