Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-11-27

tapltai.
1t is somewhat difficult to write re-
ply to an attack upon ones statements
in which one is given the ''lie direct"
The anonymous writer of an article in
The Herald hardly does his subject
justice in not stating which part of tlre
thousand odd miles of south he halls
from. 1t is easy to say Il have not
seen," but more difficult to refute II
have seen"
/ have no .object to gain in eXagger-
ating the evil of child labor in the
south, and indeed those who have had
far wider experience than | declare
| have not spoken or written half
strongly enough. l have myself seen
children of six to seven years in the
mills of Alabama and. besides counting
them in twcnty-four mills, have direct
statements from several of the man
ayers which make their proportion to
workers more than twelve years of
age between and Z per cent. l have
the actual count in Augusta, Ga, made
fifteen months ago, which gives them
ms $50 in eight mills, and the hours run
by day and night, which show "the lit
tie gray shadow" toiling from dawn to
dusk.
| never said the south could not COM
pete with the north without child Ia
Dor, because | believe it can, but | said
that this was the plea urged by the mill
interest opposing child labor legislation.
l can produce any number of witnesses
to prove that this was urged before the
legislatures of Georgia, Alabama and
South Carolina last fall. Indeed, it was
carefully explained to me by almost
every employer of child labor that chill
dren under twelve We're mo use" but
that legislation to prevent their employ
ment would check investment from the
north.
l can also produce the repeal of the
old Alabama child labor law in 1894,
which was made on the promise of the
Chicopee mills, Massachusetts, to estab-
lish factory at Alabama City in the
event of such repeal Mr.. II. A. Mitch
ell, their manager, was our chief oppo-
nent in Alabama last year, and in his
address to the legislature cited that re-
peal as fairness to capital, from which
he trusted they would not go back"
Operatives sign pledges to work so
many of their families in the mills be-
fore they are allowed one of the compa-
nys houses, which are the only ones
within their means. This necessitates
child labor in five out of ten cases. A
very slight acquaintance with econom-
les teaches that if adults refuse to
work without their children it is be-
cause their own wages are too small to
live upon, while the law allows children
to be worked.
| did not say children were aroused
at 6 O'Clock in the morning They are
at work by that time or are leaving the
night shift. Miss Jane Adams of Chi
cago wrote me that she had seen tiny
children working at night in the South
Carolina mills.
l would also refer to the article of
Commissioner Lang in his report on Ia
Dor and printing for North Carolina, in
which the existence of child labor plays
a prominent part.
"The illiterate negro" writes one cor
respondent to him, "sends his child to
school. The illiterate white man sends
his into the mill"
In every mill l visited was told that
10 cents ride was paid, and found
many children managing but one ride
day. These might be termed "learn-
ers," but they worked from to 6, with
from thirty to forty-fve minutes break,
every day Notwithstanding.
Out of twenty-four mills | visited in
Alabama eleven We're run entirely by
northern capital. know of many more
both in that and other states, so that
my experience differed from that of my
critic in finding it rare" for a share
of stock to be owned outside the dis
trict where the mill is situated.
AS many of the managers are New
England or Pennsylvania men, it is a
little difficult to understand their hay
ing been friends from boyhood days"
with the poor whites" who come into
the mill from countless isolated places
and are notoriously restless, drifting
from one of these ideally pictured mills
to another.
] concur with Mr.. Klncald in believ-
ing that the operatives in most of the
mills are better off as regards money
than ever before, but this does not justi-
fly child labor, which means the de-
structon of the industry in the future,
although large dividends for the pres
emf.
1t is strange that if the Georgia mill
owners were so eager for the abolition
Of child labor, regarding it as unneces-
sary and Improbable no less than thr-
ty of them should have appeared before
the legislature last session to defeat a
very mild child labor law, and would
like to know who is going to fight bill
after bill to death" if not they
If the mill owners are honest in their
desire to abolish child labor, they will
press for legislation. Only legislation
can secure this, for their agreements"
have no value in law-no penalty for
breach, no guarantee for new mills.
The law is terror to evildoers, not to
those onQea yOring to promote the very