Kelley of Nazareth

In her speech about child labor in front of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Florence Kelley achieves a dual-pronged purpose; she makes a call to action for the injustices of child labor and elicits the woman constituency to support her cause. Once upon a time, children were not forced to work arduous hours of labor, and Kelley acts as a Gatsby in trying to restore this past that seems so distant and unobtainable. And while the scope of her audience is wide-ranging, not everyone is included; she targets specifically the women in order to accentuate the point that the action of women is needed, not the repressive nature of man which ultimately is the root of all of the injustices that Kelley is illustrating. Her speech is enhanced by her masterful use of rhetoric, as shown by her effective persuasive form of speech, such as the cataloging of the states which violate the rights of children, ranging from "Alabama....Georgia... [to] Pennsylvania" (Kelley) and her use of irony in highlighting the "pitiful privilege" and "little beasts of burden" (Kelley). Her speech, through the portrayal of the harsh reality of children "working all night long" (Kelley), creates a delirium of stark reality; this delirium which she creates causes her listeners to see metaphorical pink elephants, in which this alcoholic delirium of suffering children is actually a reality. Kelley represents the master of persuasion: she is able to use any form of rhetoric to create stark images and convince listeners of her purpose. Kelley is a parallel to Jesus the Messiah, in which she brings the word of truth and God to her listeners in order to allow to see them the true light which the world should be seen; additionally, she is a martyr, in while Jesus was crucified, Kelley is killed in the eyes of the legislators, so while she makes her points open to the public, she loses support from the lawmakers.