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2

Standing and waiting, men sitting and waiting, the man and boy going wearily into the long empty perspective of a railroad track. Against a background of the typical stark, unlovely company house, I have placed in close proximity, waiting men and discarded machines.

[[left margin]] Child Labor [[/left margin]] 
The panel to the left depicts the insecurities of childhood, the little girl of the mills opens doors to show us breaker boys working in a mine. The crippled boy issuing from the mine symbolizes the perils of child labor. To the right a homeless boy is seen sleeping in the street; another child leans from a tenement window.

[[left margin]] Old Age [[/left margin]]

The panel to the right shows the insecurity of dependents - the aged and infirm woman, the helpless mother with her small child.

Thus, the three panels of the east wall:-

If this is in any way inadequate it can be either elaborated or condensed. I think of the work in pictorial terms, and therefore I may well have neglected some aspect of it in presenting it verbally.

We will discuss it Monday or Tuesday.

Yours very truly,

Ben Shahn