The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-09-28
AGRICULTURAL.
The Farmers and the Factories of
New England.

pie are largely devoted to manufac-
lures. 1t is true that very much has
been lost to the farmers by the folly of
the government in giving away lands
which should have been kept in reserve
for healthy expansion of native pop
ulation. But this country has hidden
high for great population and it has
secured it, and now we are finding that
we have grown too fast, have thrown
away our rich fertile lands, and done
lots of other very foolish things. But
the working men of the east have been
largely supplied with food from the
farms and fields of the west. This dan-
ger has been faced and met, and now
new industrial condition presents it.
self.
About one-tenth of the population of
New England is either directly or in
directly supported by labor in the cot
ton factories. / can we'll remember
years ago when the farmers daughters
used to go from Vermont to work in
the factories. Hundreds and thous-
ands of dollars were brought back by
these women, mortgages were paid off,
homes were bought, and large sums in
the aggregate were put by for rainy
days by the workers in the cotton fac
tories. But changes came about, the
great tides of immigration brought
other workers who crowded out the
Vermont farmers girls from their well
paid employment, so that now you very
seldom hear of any native born girls
going to the factory. But time is al
ways bringing changes and now the
cotton industry of the north is being
threatened with extinction from new
and unexpected source. A great deal
has been said about developing the
south, and one line in which this de-
velopement has been most marked has
been in cotton manufacturing. The
cotton is there, the coal is there, water
power is there, and most important of
all, cheap labor is there. AS a natural
result the cotton factory is coming to
be there, and that too in such way as
to greatly disturb the New England
mills. In fact the southern competi-
ton is affecting the northern cotton fac
tories in much the same way that the
western competition has affected the
eastern farmers. And the wealthy men
who have sneered at the woes of the
farmers are finding out how it feels to
be in the same boat, and 80 too are the
workers in the northern cotton mills.
No one can have any idea of the indus
trial conditions of the south until he
has lived there and become acquainted
with them by seeing and hearing, in
other words, by personal observation.
TO begin with, no colored people work
in the cotton mills. This is a settled
policy l think. White and colored will
not work together, or rather white will
not work with colored, and 30 the col
ored have to 60. Then there are in the
south no laws regulating or restricting
factory labor in any way. This state
ment may be too sweeping, but it is
very nearly correct. Little children
work in the factories, work on full time,
earn thirty to fifty cents day when
they become experts, or well trained to
do their work. Women earn about
sixty to seventy cents and men seventy
to seventy-five cents per day. How can
the north compete with such wages?
Rents are very low in the south, at
least in many places, living expenses
are very cheap in some ways, and some
times where whole family works, they
can lay up 800 to $3.50 a year above
actual needs. Many of the southern
mill are run night and day. The night
hands get the same pay, but do not
work 30 many hours.
The southern factory system is both
blessing and curse to the poor whites
of the south. 1t is blessing in that il
enables them or some of them to gel
little money. Northern people have
very little idea how bare the lives O
the poor In the south are, and of how
little money they handle in year.
But the factory hands get money and
they spend most of it for food and the
like, 80 that some of it goes into th'
farmers hands. The factory people
are able to get some comforts, and thu
men and women who work ON the day
force are probably no worse off thar
workers in any factories. The nigh
workers are no worse off than many
night workers, better perhaps thar
many. But it is the children who suffer
and it is likely that in time laws will b.
passed preventing the working of chill
dren in the mills. No one can see tn,
pale faces of the child workers withou
feelings of sorrow.