The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-10-18
SEEING THINGS BADLY.

SEEING THINGS BADLY.
 The HuntsviiIe Tribune. generally alert and active in advocating anything in the line of home industries. Is down on the cotton factories. and from re- cent issue, we copy this part of an edi- torial. printed under the heading, we want No More
 HpntsvI,Ie has all the cotton facto. 1 ries we ever want What We have we I have to abide with, but 0od lorpio " | should ever have another Inere aLs more reasons than one TOT tnis s.n,ariss in sn which is superinduced by starvation I wages; they do not pay labor enough 70 | support it. hence the burden must et some time fali on some one. A Mttie tude: . little living accorded the az. rregation. When you are afflicted with cotton mills. 1t is like having the Eng fish sparrows. all other piros. all otner ton mills grew in number. our furniture factories, our spoke and handle facto. ries departed. All that we had that paid living wages left us strange tnis all countries and cities; nothing can or will live with a cotton factory town. Let New England keep her factories. let the tuHleItAI out OL WHICH HILL udhot are made remain in the old fields as Of yore. where they enjoyed greater vtr- tue, greater health. greater prosperity. and the country enjoyed it with them. That is a singular position for a Southern newspaper to take, especially one whose editor has been prominent ip all commercial and industrial work. But that is not all, for it declares that if there is a cotton factory in the South that hasn't proven a calamity. we know not of it," and continues in this rather doleful strain:
 If the hands employed in the mills of Huntsville, with equal industry, half l the required economy, were back again | in the healthful fields, producers of ag- l ricultural products. they would be far more healthfuf, vfrtuous and valuable mercy of the mills politically, finan. l cially and to vast extent morally. The | recent mob violence showed the possi- bility of an army of evil doers from so financiai disaster. a strike. a fire, an | epidemic occur at the mills, and Madi- 1 son County would have to appeal to
 the world for help. We could not besr | the burden.
 Whether Editor Lane has been look
 ing through blue gIass. or has eaten something that doesn't agree with him. or whether conditions are really so bad in Huntsville, are queries that we are
 not prepared to answer. He takes such a different view from that held by most
 Alabamians that we are at loss to
 know what is wrong. Nor do we un- derstand why The Tribune should vir.
 tually charge that the employees of q cotton factory constitute a mobocfacy, for that Is what the language means. That there are lawless people working
 in the factories Is doubtless as true as
 that there are such people in all other
 situations where men and women of all
 kinds and dispositions are crowded to-
 gether. For that matter. the farming class is not altogether clear of bad citl- zens.
 What The Tribune means by a cotton
 mill being a calamity we are not pre- pared to say. If the employees are all as bad as our contemporary labels those
 in Huntsville, we may agree with it.
 but we take no stock in any such char. acterisation of them. It will not apply to those of Montgomery, nor do we be-
 lieve 1t is a fair statement as to any
 other manufacturing city--excepl
 Huntsville. Certainly these industries
 are not "calamities" from financial
 point of view. for too many of them
 are proving profitable investments fof
 that to be true.
 It sounds strange to hear an Alabama
 newspaper advocating the abandonment
 of all manufacturing. and the turning
 of 1t over to New England, just when
 so many of the best thinkers. and best
 friends of the South. are lending their
 influence and their labors to the work of bringing the cotton mills to Alabama
 The Tribune should discard blue
 glasses.