The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1900-11-21
ETIIlCS IN FACTORY LIFE.

While the rapid growth of cotton
manufacturing in the South the Ques-
ton of the relation of employer and
cmployc has come to the front, and rep
resentatives of both factors in industry
are earnestly seeking to develop such
relations as may conducc to the well
tare OF all. In this respect the South,
entering rather tardily upon the indus
trial life, has the advantage OF other
sections which ii enjoys in other re-
spects. The pitfalls have been tested
and are clearly visible TO the South
Out OF the striving and stress of older
Industrial countries and communities
are developing conditions which will
record Il marked advance in human
ethics. This may not appear to the
superficial observer, but IT Is borne
III strongly upon earnest philosophical
students. or these, none Is better
fitted to express an intelligent and
valuable opinion than Carroll ID.
Wright, United States commissioner of
labor, one of the few slatistlcians Of
the country who study figures for what
they may discover rather than for what
they help to prove. Therefore, Il paper
on the factory as an element IN social
life, which he read before the New En-
gland Cotton Manufacturers AsSocia-
ton at Washington will appeal strongly
TO men and women who are seeking TO
win the best ou; Of factory conditions
in the South.
Mr. Wright, from his point of van
tagc for wide and caI cful study, makes
the point that the factory has had an
ethical value IN addition to an cconomi-
cal one. Tracing the development in
New England factory life, he notes
the succession Of Americans, English
Irish, French Canadians, Swcdes and
Greeks in the cotton factories as an
evidence, not of degrading influence,
but of Il bcttcring of the conditions of
several classes of operatives. Turning
TO the South, he pictures the beneficial
changes Iii thc condition of the poorer
whites wrought by the opportunities for
| employment in the factory, with its
means for education, enlightenment
and intelligent impulse not otherwise
obtainablc, to show that machinery.
instead of limiting skill, brutalizing
the intellect or lowering the tone of
morality, is really lifting men and wo-
men out OF low into high grades Of en-
| lploYmcnt, and surrounding them with
| influences to intellectual activity. He
recognizes that the present condition of
the worker is not ideal, but yet that it
Is far superior to that of the man who
has no such chance to be a worker.
Pointing to the ideal, Mr.. Wright wise
ly recognizes at the same time, definite,
practical facts. He contends that it
would be suicidal to take purely ethi-
cal view at the expense OF the econo-
mic, and expresses the belief that in
dustry should develop on lines permit
ting ethics to become gieater force.
This contention is timely, especially
for the South. New circumstances not
inircqucntly lead well-wishers for thcil
fellows to take extreme ideal positions
without recognizing that ideals, as a
rule, may only he attained through
practical means, especially III the case
where human effort is directed upon
industrial development. Persistence II
this inclination IS likely to defeat its
very object, and to make the last state
OF the class to be benefited worse thar
lis first. In approaching the solution
OF problems connected with Southcrt
industry, therefore, il will be well fo
everybody to remember that Southern
industry is in itself working to the bet
terment of employees ; that in an era o
machine revolution inequalities an,
hardships are bound to appear in spit
, of best efforts against them, and tha
there is danger for future generation
, of workers III attempting to evolution
/, izc by sudden wrench, ev with tn
, best intentions, the conditions of TIN
: workers, instead of permitting them t
be bettercd in natural evolution unde
the sway of the conviction that the
4 should be made as ideal as practic,
circumstances may permit. Manufa
: hrerS' Record.