The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-08-31
Dangerous to Legislate.

To the Editor: want to express my
self about what is being discussed so
much in all the papers throughout The
country, and especially the textile papers
That is child labor in cotton mills. TINS
is a very dangerous thing to legislate
on from the fact that widow women and
children will suffer most While on the
other hand, the owners of the manutac-
turing plants will be better off by not
having in their mills any boy under
twelve years and girl under thirteen
years. This is the poorest help any man
ever had in his mill. The mill men are
not to blame for il. They don't want this
help. as a rule They are often admitted
upon the pleas of a widowed mother or
father claiming to be an invalid or too
roor to make a living and what httie is
done toward a livelihood is done by tie
children. as he is not able to work be-
cause there is something the matter with
back, hip, head, etc. With these eX-
cuses. he will beg and tease until the
mill man or his superintendent will ad-
nit them through sympathy for him or
her and the children, as the case may be-
l say it is dangerous, because you don't
know where the end will be when you
some men who are politicians want to
gain notoriety, will blow and puff about
things they know least about like some
Northern people who come South and
then go back North and write up some
gerat wildcat story how children are
treated in Southern mills. misrepresent-
ing everything from beginning to end,
while the truth of the matter is, the
how N IN
mills, especially in North Carolina Gas
/ know more of my own State than any
other) are doing better, making more
money, living better than any of the wo-
men and children that are working in the
hot sun in the fields and hardly make
enough to live on while those in the
mills have something in the way OF
Injuries and some money over and above
a living. l will venture to say that there
are hundreds of women and children,
have no doubt, making more money
in Southern cotton mills than sales girls
and children that work in the stores in
the North and East that work for $3.50
to $3.50 per week. We don't hear any
howl and cry about this. The troubl9
with some people who are not friends to
the South is they can find fault in every
thing she does but cant see anything
wrong about their own door. The Northern
fanatic may say what he pleases about
us, but we are destined to be the people
in the near future.
Now as to legislation, l want to make
this suggestion: Let the newspapers stop
discussing it, and when the Legislature
meets, enact a law at once prohibiting
any boy under twelve years and any
girl under thirteen years of age from
working in a cotton mill and have the
statute broad enough so as to make it a
misdemeanOr for any father or mother
to put his child in a mill under the above
age with a penalty alike as to the mill
owner employing the child. Let every
Democrat and Republican vote for it and
stop right there and listen to nothing
that any fanatic may say. If this won t
do, then make a law requiring every
child under twelve years of age that is
of sound body and mind attend school
all the time of any available school term
with a penalty imposed upon the parents
for failure to send them to such school.
| This would be better, in my judgment, as
! this would take the children out of mills
and other plants where they are en-
ployed. Consequently they would be in
| school from four to nine months every
| year until they are twelve years old, as
l know of no mill village but what has
| schools at least four months every year
| This is dangerous legislation at this time
| but l believe if the Legislature enact 9
! statute something like the above, that il
| should be satisfactory to everybody
That much and no more.
Very truly yours,
| I. L. CHISHOLM.
B Sanford, n. c., Aug. 80, 1902