The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-10-04
Letters to The Editor.
asssSss5e asxds
About Child Labor.

Eitors The Advertiser.
 I note that one of your correspondents raises two points in, the child labor dis cussion He asks. first, why the proposed legislation should be exclusively directed against the cotton factories. If he will examine the suggested bill, he will see that 1t does not apply exclusively to cot ton factories but to manufacturing es- tablishments" in general.
 The bill is intended to protect children under l2 years of age who may now be compelled to labor for eleven and twelve hours 6 day in the dust and whirl and rattle of machinery. They have some times been compelled to labor far into tions. may well challenge the especial attention of the public.
 And 1t may well challenge attention up- on another ground. Tn Alabama, during the ten years from 1890 to 1900. the num- Der of our factory operatives under l6 years of age increased 3s6 per cent. Those under 16 years numbered, in 1900, nearly 90 per cent of the whole number ot our factory employees! These are not the fig ures of "reformers' and 'agitators'' but of tho census of the United States. (See bulletin 216, D. t0) Is there any other industry in our State which shows such tendency to throw the burdens of em- ployment upon the immature? Is It any wonder that such special conditions should challenge the special attention of the Legislature?
 In ali civilized manufacturing commit mites the legislative protection of the younger children, the children under F, has been demanded not only in the inter. est of the child, but in the interest or the State. The State must safeguard the future of her citizenship.
 But your correspondent raises second question. He claims that such legisla- ton is an infringement of the divine right of the parent" Now the divine right affected by such legislation Is the rtahA nR hA m n xrynrt CT children amid the dangers of the fac tory and in the monotonous confinement of Its labor for eleven and twelve hours a day! How about the rights of the Is the more divine" the right of the parent to exact such task from the child of tender years. or the right or the little child to receive the compassion | ate protection of the State?
 The State, as I have suggested, must | safeguard the future of its citizenship. The State which prevents parent from killing child by poison or from maim- ing the child by blow may also pre- vent a parent from killing or injuring the child by enforced and unnatural la- bor. This principle has already been rec ognized by Alabama in her legislation prohibiting the labor of the younger chll- dren in the mines.
 The parent now has the power to work his children of from to Il years of age in the factories of the State for eleven and twelve hours day: he has the pow CT to work these little children not only through the day but through the night; and there is no limit upon this power ex- cept that which may be marked by the exhaustion of the child. It Is aNpower which some parents and some fabtories have not abused. But 1t is also a power which may be abused at any time and which some parents and some factories have exercised with conspicuous cyni- cism. Laws are framed not as criti- cism of the good but as restriction upon the evil. A just and reasonable law can have no terrors for the humane.
 I question whether any man has the right to shift the burdens of the bread- winner in the factory to the shoulders of much more concerned as to the rights of the child) but if he asserts such right. it Is not a right which am prepared to call divine"
 Edgar c. Murphy.