The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-08-26
WE MUST STOP FACTORY CHILD LABOR.

N44ASAA ~
legislative campaign this year and
about which every candidate for the
Legislature should be compelled to
speak out, is a law to stop the blight
ing of young lives in the cotton fac
tories of our State.
1t is not more certain, not more re-
voting, that. the ancient Phoenicians-
offered children as sacrifices to the
fiery god Moloch than that young lives
are being sacrificed to CRED and Mann
mon throughout the South to-day, and
to a noteworthy extent in III own
State.
And as Saul stood by, consenting
unto the death of the martyr Stephen
and keeping the raiment of those that
slew him, so the people of North Car
DINA are aiding and abetting this sac
rifce to our modern Moloch by per-
hitting it to go unrestricted by law.
That the cotton mill owners when
the last General Assembly was in ses-
sion signed some sort of agreement
that looked as if it were intended to
stop child labor, does not affect mat
tiers. 1t was a farce, a cowardly make
shift. Every knows that it is be-
ing Violated every day, and this was
to have been expected. An agreement
that no one can enforce, an agree
ment without bond, an agreement
whose violation brings no penalty
this is the ghost of a shadow that the
Legislature of 1901 accepted instead
of passing a law to stop child slavery
as it should have done.
It makes no difference to us who is
responsible for the employment and
laborious confinement of these little
children who should be developing
their minds and bodies instead of hav-
ing both stunted and blighted. Some
put the blame on the cotton mill own
ers, some on indifferent parents. This
controversy does not affect the great
question. The children should be
saved-whether they are saved from
greedy capitalists or cruel parents is
immaterial.
It is coming to be recognized in all
parts of the civilized world hat the
State owes the high duty to herself
and to every child born within her
borders, to give him a chance to fit
himself to live and become a useful
citizen. For this purpose the State
must maintain schools and give the
child an opportunity to attend them.
This is the duty that the State owes
to these children. Cruel or indiffer-
ent parents may stand in the way and
capitalists may claim that it is their
own problem and that the State should
not interfere. But if the State needs
these pleas and neglects her plain
duty, she does so at her own peril and
to the everlasting loss of boys and
girls who have a right to her protec-
ton.
In almost every cotton mill are liv-
ing examples of the States neglect,
illiterate young men and women who
were placed in the factories while
mere children and who have never
since been able to attend school.
Some of the mill men with whom
we have talked denounce not less Sc
verely than we have done in this arti-
Gle the evils of the present system and
would heartily welcome a law to pre-
vent the continuance of child labor.
But not all hold these views. Take
this incident which comes to us on
good authority: In one of the promi-
nent manufacturing towns of North
Carolina recently, a well-known teach
er spoke On our educational problems.
In the course of his speech he called
attention to the fact that children In
that town, compelled to labor in the
factories, were being deprived of
school advantages and were growing
up in ignorance. A short time after
this, the manufacturing element, hay
ing taken offence at his action, pre-
vented his election as superintendent
of the city schools.
The Charlotte Observer says that in
some sections Ku-Klux methods of
dealing with what it calls the "van-
pire parents" Chose who live on the
labor of their children, only loafng
and drinking themselves have been
adopted. It commends the idea: we
cannot. 1t is shameful and danger
Gus for a civilized State to call on a
mob to RIGHT mrnnnn m;4L:. -