Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1901-04-19
CHILDREN AS SLAVES.
FIFTEEN HOURS A DAY FOR
$I.6O AND $500 WEEKLY
The Slavery of the Black Man Heaven
In Comparison TO That OF the Poor
white ChiIdren-Trusts "Own" the
Legislators.

IT stood in the door of humble
cottage Swallowed by the factory's mas
sive walls The mistress of this home
was the wife of gallant Confederate
soldier. They had seen better days,
Death had kindly come to him, and he
slept. The remorseless hand of neces-
sity had driven the widow and her
children out from the old homestead
to the humble cottage. AS | stood the
gates of the factory swung open and
amid hundred children hers came
They were young children. The kind
ly walls of the nursery should have
been around them. There was no
spring in their steps, no light in their
eyes, their cheeks were white, and |
thought, standing in the presence or
the children of this Confederate SOL
der, l would give every spindle and
loom in the South to bring back the
light to their eyes and see the roses
bloom again upon their little cheeks.
Il would like to see every boil OF
cotton whose white bosom opens to
the warm kiss of Southern suns spun
and woven in the South, but there are
prices | would not pay for it.
I'VE are standing today, at the gate
of the grandest manufacturing empire
the world has ever seen. The men OF
the North and East, with spindle and
loom and treasure, are coming to our
cotton fields. The laws of nature,
stronger than all the laws of man,
compel them to come. But mark this
truth, they are coming as our masters
Our children and our children's chill
dren are to be their servants. | would
put no restraining hand upon their
coming. l would fling wide the gates
and bid them enter, but so help me
God, would never give them our
children until their little bodies had
grown beyond the nursery walls and
the light of knowledge had dawned in
their souls.
Last night l sat with my wife by
the fireside of our comfortable home.
I watched my 7-year-old boy lay his
head upon his mothers lap and close
his tired eyes in sleep, and l thought
except for the goodness of God he
might be numbered among the thou
sand little toilers in the mills of the
South through the long hours of the
night. And then with justice in my
mind and pity in my heart, | said, 1
will do for the children of my people
what would have them do for mine ,"
Part of a speech delivered in the
Georgia legislature by Hon. Seaborn
Wright. on the anti-child labor bill.
In the cotton mills of the South lit
tie boys and girls and 10 years of age
are employed in the factories, work.
ing in some cases fifteen hours day.
for $1.5O and $500 a week. Laws have
been proposed making it illegal to en-
ploy any child under IL years of age,
but in every instance the owners of the
cotton mills have been able to get the
bills defeated. The conditions in some
of the cotton mills are so frightful that
the children are not able to endure the
work but year or two. When such
things as this are common, 1t seems
like a hollow mockery to talk of ours
being a civilized nation, and yet from
pulpit and press there is constantly
going forth the boastful declaration
that this is the most enlightened coun-
try on earth, destined by the Almighty
to carry civilization to all peoples. 1t
is time that we look matters squarely
in the face and admit that there are
children and women in the United
States who are being ruined in health,
forced into sin, and barely escaping
starvation, all to the end that giant
corporations may be enabled to pay
large dividends on watered stock. Per-
haps the cries of the children will stir
the hearts of people whose ears are
deaf to reason.
Even as we did it unto one of these.
We did it unto me-"