The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1902-09-04
THE DISGRACE OF THE SOUTH
Fearful Results Of It's Refusal to Enact Law,
Relative to Child Labor.

the conditions prevailing in the
Southern states as the result of the
refusal Of political leadership in these
commonwealth to enact legislation
for the protection of labor similar to
those in force in almost every state
north of the Mason and Dixon line.
When it is remembered that this same
political leadership controls nearly a
hundred seats in the house of repre-
sentatives and twenty more in the
senate, all of them. practically, join
ing in and dominating by force of
numbers the caucuses of one political
party, it will be seen that the senti-
Southern legislatures to wipe out the
evils of an industrial feudalism little
less oppressive than the system of hui
man slavery, is one to be reckoned
with in national as well as local poll
tics.
Miss Macfayden says: There are
American children dragged into the
mills when scarcely out of their baby
hood, without education, without op-
portunity, being robbed of health NOR
ally and physically, forced to labor as
in the days of negro slavery negro
children were. With theil baby hands
these little slaves are undermining the
liberties of the future, not only of the
cotton operatives of the South but of
the American working people; not
only of the working people, but of the
community in which they for good or
evil are to play so large part"
THE Southern states of America"
says Miss Macfayden. ARE the only
section of the world where the crime
of infant labor is permitted, a crime
which, if not quickly wiped out, will
write itself large on economic and in
dustrial history, to the everlasting
shame OF the people of America"
Miss Macfayden estimates that 10000
children under fourteen years of age
ale now employed in the textile mills
of the South. and that 5000 of these
children are between the ages of six
and twelve years" To the Mortified
4
ing with little children" There being
no laws regulating hours of labor,
many children are employed at night.
Miss Macfayden talked with child
not nine years old who at six years
Did had been on the night shift eleven
months. She stood at 1920 at night
in a cotton mill in Columbia, S. c..
where children who did not know
their own ages were working from
! s p. m. TO q. m. without a moment
Of the maddening racket of the ma
chinery, in an atmosphere unsanitary
and clouded with humidity"
THE physical, mental and moral ef-
| feet of these long hours of toll and
confinement on the children is indie
scribably sad" Dropsy and consump-
ton result in hundreds of cases. In
Huntsville. Ala, in January a child of
eight years lost the index and middle
fingers of her right hand and a child
Of seven had lost her thumb a year
previously. In one mill city in the
South a doctor told a friend that he
had personally amputated more than
a hundred babies fingers mangled in
The MILL"
mo mill children look healthy"
Miss Macfayden continues. Anyone
that does by chance, you are sure to
dnd out has but recently begun work.
! They are characterized by extreme
pallor and an aged. worn expression
infinitely pitiful and incongruous in a
.hild's face. The dull eyes raised by
The little ones Injured to toll before
they ever learned to play. shut out
| by this damnable system of child slav-
cry from liberty and the pursuit of
happiness, often to be early robbed
of life itself, are not those OF a child.
but of an imprisoned soul, and are
filed, it always seems to me, with
speechless reproach. There is unfor-
tunately no question as to the physi-
cal debasement of the mill child"
in the fines mill in Columbia, S.
! c., a magnificent example of splendid
enterprise, | found a tiny girl of five
years in the spinning room. Her little
sunbonnet had fallen back onto her
neck, and her fair hair was covered
with the threads that had fallen on
her head from the frame as she work
ed. She was helper to her sister
Neither child knew her age. but a girl
Of eight, standing near, told me they
we're seven and five and worked there
all day long. A beautiful little child
Of eight. with hectic flush and great
gray eyes, told me she hadn't worked
but a year
"All holidays are made up in South
| Carolina A strike occurred at one
mill among some organized employees
because they were required to make
up Labor Day beforehand. They were
locked out and starved into submits
sion.
"In Alabama the children in the
mills are required to work Thanks
giving Day.
"In Georgia a child missing Satur-
day--a short day--loses ohe-sixth of
her weeks wages.
THE wages paid these children bear
out what I have said in regard tt
child labor keeping wages low. Many
toll for 10 cents day."
Until there is law which really
keeps the child under twelve out o.
the factory, economic pressure will
drive it in, Notwithstanding all the
sentimental remedies offered in the
place of the one which in every Other