Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1902-05-28
THE CHILD LAsoh QUESTION.
Senator Tillman Speaks Out ForclbIy on a
Grave Issue.


Washington, May 1T.--Senator Tillman
has written the following letter to one
of his constituents and is desirous that
it have the widest circulation possible in
South Carolina:
My Dear Sir: have your letter of Nav
4th. The House Committee has rejected
the Lowering resolution, looking to q
constitutional amendment allowing Con-
gress to fix the hours of labor, and am
glad of it. No such amendment should
ever PISS or become law. The people Of
the respective States alone should con-
troll such matters and they are fully COM
petent to do 80. Your looking at things
from only one standpoint is The reason
why you have been misled into advocat-
ing such centralizIng an un-Democratic
doctrines. Suppose, for instance, that
Congress, under the pressure or organ
lied labor in the cities, should pass an
eight-hOur law for ali workmen through
out the United St tes? What would be-
come of the agr' .u,s"ral workers of the
country ?
agree heartily with the idea of the
South Carolina Legislature being COM
tories, as we'll as prevent the excessive
hours OF labor among adults, and shall
lend my support, with all the earnest
ness l possess, to force the next Logisla-
ture to relieve the State of the odium
now attaching to it, The cotton mill
presidents may clamor for the privilege
of blighting the lives of the children
who work in their mills, when they
should be at play or at school, and they
may demand the right to declare divi-
dends by this cannibalistic process but
unless l mistake the people of our State
the issue has only to be presented
fully and bravely to cause the Legislature
to do its duty by an overwhelming ma
jority. God forbid that we should ever
| have to seek relief from Congress in that
or any other proper reform of a local
| character.
consider the action of the mill own
| ers in Aiken county in locking out their
employees as the most cruel and uniusti-
| fable wrong have ever known of. 1t
cannot be disputed that men have tho
right to strike and quit W ork, nor can it
mills have the right to close their doors
and not give work, but the effort to force
the King mill people to return to work
by Furnishing all the Operatives in the
other mills who have nothing to do with
1t and living even in different State, is
something unheard of in the South.
Those mills would never have been built
uu0 Will Wow W eluplOylnB LABOR Tor
the mutual benefit of both the owners
and workers, and when the lockout came
it was too late for the operatives to seek
employment on the farm, as no crop
could have been planted at that late date.
had rather sea every cotton mill in
South Carolina burned down and never
have another one be built than to have
those who own them make slaves of
those who work in them. The child
labor business is cold-blooded greed.
The Aiken lockout is a proclamation I'M
speakable in its infamous cruelty and in
science. The unnecessary suffering it
has produced and the sense of wrong
will cause incalculable. injury. There
are men in Aiken county who, to my
knowledge, have been working faithfully
and continually for years and years in
the Horse Creek Valley without the
slightest friction, and if all the opera
tives in that valley could move away and
leave the mills to rot down for the want
of labor it would be nothing more than
just retribution for this high-handed and
outrageous action on the part of the
owners. b. II. Tillman.