"When I was in Alabama 13 years ago, they had no child labor law," wrote labor activist Mary Harris Jones, better known as Mother Jones, in 1908. "In Alabama 13 years ago, women ran four or five looms. Today, I find them running some 24 looms. This is the Democratic south, my friends -- this is a Democratic administration. This is what Mr. Bryan and Mr. Gompers want to uphold." The "Gompers" that Ms. Jones judged to be insufficiently concerned about the subjugation of labor was Samuel Gompers, the 10-year-old who was taken out of school to become an apprentice...