The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-08-17
COTToN.MILLs AND CHILD LABOR
LAWS.

The New England press seems sud-
denly to have united in crusade against
child labor in the Southern cotton mills.
So far as North Carolina is concerned there
are fewer young children employed in
cotton mills than heretofore, and most
of the mill men are discouraging their
employment and lessening the number.
, The most progressive favor a law that
will prevent employment of young chill
dren in cotton mills. The Democratic
State Convention in South Carolina de-
clared in favor of such law. The North
Carolina Legislature at its next session
will pass law preventing the employ
ment of children in factories. The
,, Southern people recognize the evils that
grow out of the employment of children.
and they may be relied upon to put an
end to it without the assistance of out
side parties.
Why have the New England papers
: chosen this particular time to lecture the
South about child labor? Here seems
to be the cause of their sudden zeal: a
Connecticut cotton mill company, located
at Hartford. has decided to dismantle,
and remove their plant to Alabama. 1t
has payroll of $4,000 week and gives
, employment to about 700 people.
This concern and others that are NOV
, ing South are induced to do SO by
variety of reasons. The climate, the
nearness to the cotton fields. and the
cheaper living are the three chief factors.
The New England papers put it solely
On the ground that in the South they
can employ child labor whereas 1t is
prohibited in Connecticut. They are
unwilling to admit that the South is
rapidly becoming the centre of cotton
manufacturing and that its primacy will
be established before another census
period. Unwilling to see the condition
! as it exists and to accept the logic of
events, some papers are seeking to ex-
plain the logical movement to the South
/ by saying that Northern mill men are
moving their plants to the South in order
! to get the advantage of employing chill
dren.
The South rejoices in the erection of
, every factory and in the removal of sue
cessful concerns from New England to
our more suitable environment. II any
are coming in the expectation of en-
ploying child labor, the South does not
welcome them. The Southern people,
awake to the dangers of employing chill
dren in the factories. are getting ready
to enact laws against it, and they wish
to deceive nobody. But that is not the
controlling reason, or even one of the
chief reasons. for the removal of cotton
mills from New England to the more
profitable South. They will continue to
| come and the passage of reasonable child
labor laws will not deter them.
The people of North Carolina are
strongly in favor of child labor law.
One would have been enacted at the last
session of the General Assembly, but the
mill men all signed a paper pledgrg
themselves not to employ any child I'M
der twelve years of age. That pledge
has been kept by most OF the mills, but
some have continued to employ young
children directly or Indirectly. 1t has
been demonstrated that nothing but
statute on the subject viii answer.
The problem in the South is not new
one. 1t first came to England. Mrs.
Browning did much to rouse the people
of England to the evil of child labor by
this poem:
do we hear the children weeping, o my
brothers
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads
against their mothers,
And that cannot stop their tears.
But the young, young children, o, my
brothers.
They are weeping bitterly!
They are weeping in the playtime of the
others.
In the country of the free.
"Still, all day, the iron wheels go on
ward.
Grinding life down from its mark;
And the childrens souls which God is
calling sunward,
Spin on blndly in the dark"