The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-09
CHILD LABOR IS
 ON THE INCREASE National Child Labor Committee
 Meets in Washington MIR. BONAPARTE PRESIDES Significant Addresses Made-Dr. Mo- kelway of North Carolina Says Me-
 gro Slavery Has Been Suc-
 ceeded by White Slavery.

1 Washington December S.-The second
 annual meeting of the national child la
 bor committee began at the New Willard
 hotel today A number of well known
 publicists interested in securing legisla-
 ton governing child labor by the national
 and state governments are attending the
 meeting The secretary of the navy, Charles J. Bonaparte, presided over the | initial sessions, and tonight Felix Adler l the chairman of the national committee
 made an address and introduced the l speakers These included John Graham | Brooks of Cambridge, Mass; Mrs. Flor ence Kelly, secretary of the National Consumers league, and Owen R. Love l joy assistant secretary of the. national
 committee, who spoke on child labor in
 the glass industry.
 Mrs Brooks declared that to take the child of Il or 12 years from the discipline of the school and throw him into the industrial field wastes an enormous | amount of effective labor power, and
 cruelty lessens the chances of the child to get what his own life and his own age should bring to him.
 Mrs. Kelly declared that England Ger many ana France were far in advance ot the United States in matters affecting the interests of the children, while the United States was on par with Russia in that respect. In this country she urged 1t
 was not a question of hostility to legisla- ton on this subject but merely indif- ference.
 MT. Lovejoy held that the manufacture of glass had made more progress in the past fifteen years than in the 300 years nrppaHtpQ IJp stated that the national child labor committee proposed Legislation forbidding the employment of any boy un- der IA years of age in glass house, and to restrict night employment to those over
 16 years of age. The objection that this would ruin the country, he added, is not established by the facts.
 Isaac N Selgman of New York, chair
 man of the finance committee. reported on the money that had been spent. At this afternoons session of the na- tional child labor committee addresses
 were made by Felix Adler. Ph. D., of New York City, chairman of the national committee, on "The Menace of Child La
 bor;" by Samuel McCune Lindsay. Ph.
 D.. the secretary. on '"The Progress and Outlook of the Movement Against Child
 Labor;" and by A. J. McKelway, D. D.,
 of charlotte N. C., the assistant secre-
 tary. on "Child Labor in the Cotton h.
 dustry of the Southern States
 pr. Adler said there are in this coun.
 try between one and two million child
 laborers The evil he contended was not
 only widespread but steadily increas-
 ing.
 There were, he stated, about 10000 chill dren working about the mines, abou~iet
 in the glass industry and the number of
 child laborers in the southern textile
 mills has increased within few years from 24.0OO to about GO.000.
 He declared however. that the con- science of the people were everywhere awakening, and there were everywhere signs of a great moral upheavel, and that
 the children would be the first to bene- fit.
 Dr. McKeway after stating that 91 per cent of the children employed in man
 ufacturng industries in the south were
 to be found in the four cotton growing and cotton manufacturing states of North
 Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and
 Alabama, said:
 "It is a rude awakening that has come
 to our people that the abolition Of ne gro slavery marked the beginning of white
 child slavery; that our pet industry tcot- tom Is not different in the south from
 what 1t was for hundred years in Old and New England. distinguished by long hours and poor wages. and employing children of tender years in more numbers in this occupation than in any other part of the world. There still remains indif- ference and ignorance concerning the .sx- tent of the evil, but a kind hearted peo- ple may be trusted at last to right the wrongs of childhood and protect the coming race from degeneration"