Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury [Connecticut]) 1900-1903, 1902-08-09
SEEKING CHILD LABOR.
Greed of Rapac.ous Employers Mus
Be Checked.

Be Checked.
The determination Of the great COR
poration which controls tho manufac-
trre of cotton duck to close their mills
at New Hartford, Conn. and move the
plant to some southern state should
awake the plilantlaropisfs of the south
to renewed efforts to secure restric-
ton of child labor in their states. The
New Hartford mills are a1RtslaA the
best known In the cotton duck bust.
ness, and employ about seven hundred
persons. These have been told that the
mills will close on September 1, md 1t
is said that though the business has
been prosperous the great outside COR
poration now conducting it objects to
the Connecticut law forbidding the
employment OF children under ia vars
of age, and expects To increase its
profits by operating where no such re-
strictive laws are in force and where
cheap child labor ran be secured.
Such q step as this on the part of the
manufacturers is z complete rcfUta-
ton Of all the arguments made by the
New England ownsrs Of southern cot
ton mills against legislation to protect
children. They have almost uniforms
w admitted that chill labor was an
evil and promised to Ito their best of
their owr. accord tn abolish ii. They
did not want hard and f:lsl laws, how.
ever, for it was sometimes necessary
to employ children There were fam
lilies 80 poor that it was sometimes IL
matter of charity to let the el.il1ren 90
light work Some OF the best adult
employees were set upon securing
places for their children, and unless
the mills hired them they would move
to another mill where the standard
was lower and so the wotlld-be phil
anthropist would merely lose his adult
help without saving the children from
labor. No enlightened mill owner
wanted to employ chiIdren--they were
source of loss rather than profit
but SO long as Georgia, for instance,
allowed child labor, 1t would not do
for Alabama to pass restrictive laws
which would drive, the workers across
the border, for the mill population
was migratory, and the demand. for
workers so great that mills habitua1ly
paid the moving expenses of employees
hired from d distance. All these ar
guments have been made with the ut
most seriousness, and to them is added
what is by many considered the real
objection on the part Of the gmanufac-
tarers to- legal safeguards for children.
This il the fear that measures re-
stricting the labor of. children in fac
tories may prove the entering wedge
for general oppressive labor legisla-
tion Especially is the opening of the
door to labor agitators dreaded. and
| the charge is freely made that the
present campaign against child labor
| In the south is secretly inspired by the
agents Of the labor unions.
Now comes this report that one of
| the great cotton manufacturing con-
Germs is preparing to go south to utfl-
| ize the cheap labor for children. IF
| that report is well founded, it Is, as
the Hartford Courant, which first pub
| ished the story, saws, "a most discour-
| aging and discreditable sign of the
times and Of the greed of the hungry
| dollar" 1t shows that all the fine
| talk of the philanthropic manufacture
ers who employ few children for their
own good and furnish schools for
them, SO that they are really better off
than II they were left free, amounts
| to nothing. Doubtless some of these
| manufacturers are perfectly sincere,
and If left to themselves would reduce
! the evils of child labor to minimum
| or even employ a rev cn1luren under
| conditions distinctly beneficial But
| 1t is clear that laws must be made for
those who would abuse their liberty,
not for those who would use it proper
"; and IL northern mills are to be
moved for the sake Of child labor.
clearly the abuse OF liberty has reach
ed dangerous stage.
Possibly this southwark tendency
may for q time make the work of re-
formers more difficult. because local
greed viii be awakened and 1egisla-
lures will be Influenced by objections
to laws which might prevent the es-
tablishmert OF Mills If child labor
Is the attraction to capital, 1t will be
| argued, no prohibition should be en-
forced until the capital has been Sc
cured and prosperity established on
firm foundation. 1t Is not to be be-
1eved, however, that the humanity OF
the South can be silenced by that
pleas, or that the lawmakers OF the
South are ready to sell their own
flesh and b1ood--for the cotton mill
operatives are almost exclusively ma
IL