The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1902-09-23
AS TO CHILD LABOR
MR. MURPHY'S CARD IN MANU-
FACTURERS' RECORD.
Says the Only Real Issue is Whether
: That Paper Opposes the EN-
: 3sw1 ployment Of Small Children
in Factories.

no the Editor of The Manufacturers
Record: =
have read with great interest and pleas
lire an editorial review. OF my pampnlet
entitled '.The Case Again Child Labor. "
- 1t is usual, in the notices of produc-
tons which are deemed of SUFFICIENT I'M
portance to Justify a six-column review.
to indicate the office Of publication ana
the terms of supply. If, therefore, you
will kindly permit me to make good the
omission, 1 will say that the pamphie ct
in question may be had free Of charge
upon application to the Secretary OF
the Committee on Child Labor, p. o,
BOX BAT, Montgomery. Ala:
I know the mill men of the South suftil
ciently well to believe that they are ready
to- be fair to me, and trust do You no
injustice when I say that / am cordially
willing after they have compared the
booklet itself with your representations
: of it, to. leave the decision in. their hands.
They can thus judge. in the light of the
context, your quotations from its pages.
7 have no request to make of your read
ers except that they will put my argu-
ment side by side with yours.
After reading the pamphlet some of
them may be q little surprised that you
should have described 1t as 'infiamma-
tory" ''impracticable,' "Bryanesque,
terised By ''inanity-" They may also
wonder why you should pay 1t the trib-
ute Of a six-column notice, after your
courteous references to its author as a
'theorist," an "over-heated faddist,'' a
victim of theoretical philanthropy" a
'hysterian OF the masculine gender" and
an industrial agttator who uses phil
anthrophy for a cloak" Those who are
familiar with your pages Will doubtless
regard these expressions, however as
the characteristic amenities of strictly
'impersonal review.
After SUCH clear-cut exposition and
such admirable precision in the gener-
GUS field Of the, 'lmpersonal," one natu.,-
ally turns with appreciative expectation
to your argument itself. He will find
varied and comprehF RI ive reference 10
my literary and personal shortcomings;
he will find my pamphlet charged with
Inconsistencies and perversities; he will
find from sentence TO sentence cum l.
lative aggregation of all the adjectives
of censure; he will find deliverances up
on slavery, upon the New England CON
science, and upon other subjects of his
torical and industrial interest, but upon
the one essential point of the whole dis
cussion he will find that precision seems
to be chiefly conspicuous by its alb
sence. ~
This is the point Does The Manufac-
turers' Record favor or oppose legisla-
ton, by heSStates OF the South. proifb-
ting the employment in factories of
Z our children under II years of age?
4 y That Is stheA issue and the only real
issue of this discussion. If The Manu-
facturers' Record is in favor Of such leg
isIation, why not say so? II The Man
ufacturers, Record is opposed to such
legislation, why not squarely and delin-
itely say so? My personality, my mo-
tives, my little pamphlet, the purely sug-
gestive bill which has been offered in
Alabama (Which The Record has kindly
helped us to improve)-these things are
not cardinal issues in the debate. II The
Manufacturers Record is in favor of Leg
islation prohibiting factory labor for chill
dren under II. 1t may call me what names
1t likes. If 1t is opposed to such legisla-
ton. II may then expend five and seven
eighths columns in its interesting en-
ploymentsof the vocabulary of irritation
and in the happy indulgence of it's ca
pacity for "impersonal' criticism, AMI
still have on hand a small piece of a
column in which to tell us what it thinks
of the point at issue.
l wish to give full credit, however, for
the following paragraph. page 9D:
FDeplorable as the employment of chill
dren at labor IL, that system has not
been oast Off by the world in spite of
Mss Eizlie Barretts verses. q supposo
the difference Is to the poem called THE
Cry of the Children By Mrs. Elizabeth
Barrett Browning) 1t will be cast off
b. the South to the betterment of ev-
erybody commemorative mill operatives
ALLY and the whole Southern society, only
by, the upimpeded and unantagonized ef-
fSrts of the representative Southern men
who have already accomplishsd so much
of their own initiative for the improve
ment of the condition of a long-neglected
folk, and wno iii resisting the dema-
gogue and the UPSTREAM, especially the
historian of the masculine gender are
comforting distinct be left not only