The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-08-23
WHITE SLAVES in MILLS
TWO VIEWS OF CHILD LABOR IN
FACTORING OF COTTON.
Connecticut Plants Contemplated Re-
moyal to Georgia Calls Out Some
Very Pointed Comments.
Brooklyn Ea gle.


cause it could no longer employ children
there in its mills, and its proposition to
go South. where child labor is tolerated by
law and ignorance, the cotton duck COM
pany has stirred up a hornets nest of pop
ular indignation. Whether men who so
callous to the decencies, and who prize a
dollar beyond all other things in this world
and the world TO come. can be stung into
shame for their conduct is doubtful, but if
they can. then the stockholders in the mill
are spending bad half hours with their con-
sciences. For their position is absolutely
untenable. 1t is a proclamation to the
world of a greed that is pitiful and con-
temptible. To screw the last cent of profit
out of their business they will put little
children into dark, airless, unwholesome
workrooms. depriving them of play and
schooling, shortening, hardening their lives,
to flout the commonwealth that has made
laws for the protection of these little ones.
and to take work out of the hands of the
fathers who depend on it for support, be-
cause the children can be forced TO do it
cheaper-what can be said for men who will
do this? Nothing They wish to leave Con-
nectIcut. Let them leave it, then, in
heavens name.
1t is argued by uphoders of child slavery
in the mills that the boy and girl of eleven
or twelve years are better off at the loom
than in the fields. because they poor
and need the money, because they are
low-down. ignorant lot, without any other
way TO earn ii. What an astounding prop
osltion! Is any child on farm required to
and repellant task for ten or twelve
! hours day? Is the fresh air, sunlight,
freedom of movement, chance for play and
wholesome farm diet no offset, even If the
| hours OF field work are as long? Is no
| account to be taken Of the places that in
| evitably surround mill and that act as
| moral poisOns TO the children as surely as
| to the adults-the frOwsy saloons, the cellar
billiard rooms, the hang-outs where cigar
| cite smoking fellows and hard faced girls
congregate? And If the children low
| down and ignorant, who makes them so
| Who but the mill owners that keep them
| out of school? Out upon you, Pharisees and
/ falsihersi
But, it has been said by men who run
the Southern mills that the remedy for bad
| conditions is to be found in the compul-
| sorry education of the children. They would
| send them to night school. Now. imagine
| the state of a child who has worked from
| in the morning till half-past at night,
| with barely time for a snack at meal hours
"a child, say, of dozen years He is a
| fine subject for the classroom after that.
is he not? Why, the poor little creature
cannot hold up his head OVerWorked un-
derfed starving for air, with his eyes
! blurred by darkness, and his brain whirl-
| ing with fatigue, what can ne do in the
/ way OF added labor at his books? To send
| him TO school after his day in the mill
| would be added cruelty. or, they say.
| we Will work him nine months at the loom
/ and send him to school the other three 1t
comes TO the same thing. You send him to
| MS books tagged, sickly, dispirited. suffer-
| ing from an unnatural strain. That three
months should be spent in the fields, if so
| be that heaven wills he should spend nine
| months in the service of the mllr'
| Again 1t is said that if child labor is for
| bldden In the South the parents who depend
| on II Will suffer. If there are parents in
| the South or anywhere else who being able
| of body, permit their offspring TO feed them
| on such terms as are offered by mill owners
| tnat pay children % cents day, we wonder
| that mention is made of it. Such parents
| ought TO be put out of sight. i'm the prisons,
| II possible in the almshouse if otherwise
| There are children of six, seven, eight and
| nine years, who do not know one letter of
| the alphabet, doing night work in the Caro-
| line mills. Are parents to be considered
| who permit this? No; let us consider the
| children and do something to make better
| parents of them when their own time
| comes. In one mill in Atlanta are over 800
! children under the age of twelve of whom
| only thirty know how to write their names
| Are there any arguments to advance for the
parents of such? for the men who employ
| the children? for the state that nerroi+s
| them to be employed? The Connecticut
| company will answer.
II is said that the opposition to child
| ldDoE IL leu Dy trades unions, who wish the
| work that is being done in some cases for
cents day. Then let the unions have if.
Let them force the last child from the last
| cue that Southern legislatures shrink from
| dreading the loss of the dollar or the dollar
| vote. No matter who leads it, so the opposi-
| ton comes and let it roll the land in
a reslstless wave, shifting down capital
politics and every other hindering thing
| against it.
Not many years ago there was led
! through the streets of Boston a black man
| in chains. He had run away from slavery
and was being taken back to it by sheriff
supported by file of shame-faced American
soldiers. Boston was Inundated, degraded
by the spectacle. To-day there is in BOSTON
the president of a Texas mill where little
children toll for him in heat and foulness
Tor twelve and in rush seasons fourteen
hours day. They eat their food in the
mill, from their hands instead of plates.
They live in novels, receiving paw wholly
inadequate 10 their work. they are falling
in health, dulling in wit, they see no OMEN
ing to a happy, hopeful life. And this man
in Boston holds up his head and is respect-
ed-in way-by some of his associates
! He has yet to reckon with his God and
even with his country. He SAYS that he is
not responsible for what are blandly called
| conditions He is responsible. He makes
them. He houtS humanity, he defies the
higher law, he degrades statehood. he nm
dignifieS industry, he makes commerce con-
temptible, he is in brief the owner of
white slaves. How long shall we the
American people. endure him and his like q?
A WHOLESOME INDIANA DECISION.