The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-11-20

burg by staff correspondent of The New York Sun covering the growth or cotton mills in that county:
 Tn addition to the twenty or more mills now in operation in this county, whose administration Is for the most part eentered here in Spartanburg, there are three new ones now in progress or con struction each with capital or NbO,U and two more, and they or the largest, of the old mills have just completed the necessary buildings and are putting In the machinery to double their productive capacity. In addition to paying the to 12 per cent. annual dividend each com pany now on the average draws upon It's three years for 50 per cent. of the cost of building a new mill and the mill is built"
 So our people know. unshakeably know that the passage of laws restricting the employment of children in the cotton mills cannot seriously effect the mills and cannot neutralize the advantages which this section has over New England in the manufacture of cotton. They are at liberty to consider the question from an other than the financial standpolnt, ana this they are doing.
 They know that, whether the number of children in the mills be now large or small. the rapid extension of the manu- featuring industry will soon make 1t large and that if 1t be or shall become large the consequences will be most seri- ous to the future of the State
 . They know that working eleven hours day (some of the Alabama factories work thirteen hours) in a warm and moist room, it's air filled with flying lint, is necessarily injurious to any person of ordinary physique and must be especially so to children of tender years. They know that while general exercise under favorable conditions Is good for the body it is not good for the body especially of a little child, to be kept standing for such long and weary hours in posture tend ing to contract instead of expand the chest and not admitting of motions that might develop 1t systematically
 They know that if children work year in and year out for II, 12 or 13 hours a day in a mill they cannot attend school and that after such long and irksome labor they cannot be expected to study at home; so that this employment is direct ly antagonistic to that education for which the State provides and which is the right of every child and the defence Of the future interests of the commonwealth.
 These things being so our people have reasons in plenty for interesting them selves in the reform-reasonS very much higher and broader than considerations of the doctirens held by some labor or ganiza ton which may advocate the same reform. In truth it is something of an insult to appeal to intelligent Southern men on such considerations as The Manu- facturers Record advances. What do they care what MT. samuel Gompers likes or does not like. what he champions or what he opposes What is it to them that the American Federation of Labor ''stoutly maintains" the policy of the boy colt! These are extraneous things-they have nothing to do with the matter before our people, which is to protect them selves from a rule of ignorance in the future and to guard the coming gen. erations from an impairel vitality.
 It is to the interest of South Carolina At.. at1a a people sound in mind and body. a race whose minds will be illumined by. educa- tion and who shall be capable of main tainlng the sturdy virtues of the past. To these ends our people Will devote themselves and they will not be swer"ed from their purpose by any other consid- nrations than their own interest and honor.