The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1903-02-10

of sobriety. W. all remember the story of the
Maine grocer who sold whiskey as well as grocer
les. This grocer went to a public meeting called
to consider whiskey legislation, in the course OF
which those who favored prohibition were asked
to 90 to the right side of the hall, the opponents
of prohibition to the left. Before the final count
was made, the grocer surprised every body by
scrambling to the right side.
"What is the matter" he was asked, when the
meeting adjourned, "don't you know it will Grip
pie your business~
eyes" he replied, "but when [ looked around
me over there on the left I decided I couldn't stay
with that crowd of red noses"
And so we find considerably more to commend
in the News and Observers advocacy of factory
child labor legislation than in it's stand for tenn
perance laws. The men who are opposing the
measures to stop factory child labor are men of
great wealth and influence, and it is going to re-
quire considerable courage to fight them. But
they must be fought-and they must be defeated.
They were left free two years ago by reason of
promises to reform; now that it has been demon
strated that some have broken those promises, a
law must be passed which will stop the evil every
where. If the Legislature fails in this, it must
I've made to feel the pressure of an outraged pub
lie opinion. North Carolina has been long enough
disgraced by its failure to protect it's child life;
the stigma must now be removed. AS Governor
Aycock said in his message, "There is great
necessity for the development of our industries,
but there is no such imperative necessity for the
creation and accumulation of wealth as to justify
us in the sacrifice of child life to secure it."
The children must be saved. Neither greedy
capitalists nor cruel parents must be longer al
lowed to coin the lives and hopes of innocent
children into factory dividends or weekly wages.
And just here we are again reminded of the ring
ing words of Prof. Jerome Down, late of Trinity
College. We have printed them before, but there
isno reason to apologize for their temperance:
! "When a child five or seven years of age is put
to work in a factory and its life sacrificed in the
interest of the parent or the capitalist, is that
in principle any better than selling it into slavery
or eating it? Is it not a refined form of canni-
balism?
of a farmer were to hitch his young colts to
a plough and plough and work them eight hours
a day, his neighbors would denounce him as a
brute. What sort of horses would such colts
come to be? Can we afford to be less humane in
the treatment of children than in the treatment
of colts? The testimony of medical science and
of statistics is that child labor in factories short
ems life about one-half and stunts both the mind
and the body.
"This inhumanity to children has so outraged
the feelings of civilized people, that there is not
now a manufacturing country in the civilized
world, except a few States in the South, where
children without age limit are allowed to work in
factories. Even Russia and Japan throw the
protecting arm of the law around these innocent
and helpless human beings. There are about
$4,000 children in the Southern States working
in factories under IA years of age, and many of
these are under 10 years. This is the greatest
blot upon Southern civilization. Last winter the
manufacturer of North Carolina agreed among
themselves not to employ children under twelve,
but the agreement embraced so many exceptions
and conditions, that it left a gap to do as he