The semi-weekly messenger., 1905-05-12
Personal and Corrective.
Charlotte, n. c., May 6,

Charlotte, N. c., May 6, 1905.
ITO the Editor of the Messenger:
Sir: have read with interest the
editorial On Child Labor in The Mes
lsenger of the 4th instant. Will you
allow word of correction in the inter
ests Of truth?
| l do not regard my own personality
a. of sufficient Importance to the pub
lie for me to be correcting every mis-
statement concerning myself. But l
would like to prevent my forcible expa-
ttriation, if possible, and and therefore
beg to say that REV. Mr.. McKelwaS,
late Of Virginia, and North Carolina,
now Of New ork,' might be amend
ed to read, ''early Of Virginia. now OF
North Carolina" l am not ashamed Of
my Virginia ancestry Or rearing Bu!
I have spent all my manhood's life in
North Carolina and have no intention
or desire of leaving the state, nor have
! bad. My home is in Charlotte. l am
editor of The Standard and not "e1ito
rial writer" and go to New York only
occasionally on business Tip.
| There is also misapprehension il
your mind as to tDe scope ard the WOrE
Of the Child LabC. Commit y which
have the hOnOi to serve IN the South
ern States. You speak of it as 1.-THE
committee which devotes it's attention
tic the welfare of the children of the
ISouth." If it did that only, we of the
lSOuth would have the right to COM
|plain that it was sectional rather than
rational in it's aims. But what are the
facts: l trust that you will publish
this statement as an offset to the inn
pressiOn you have made upon your
lreaders Since the organization of the
committee less than a year ago it has
assisted more or less directly in secur-
ing the reform of child labor laws ex-
listing in Vermont, Rhode Island, New
York, Massachusetts, Kansas, CalifOr-
mia, Delaware, West Virginia, Oregon,
land Pennsylvania, and in all these
Istates the law makes fourteen the age
limit, instead Of twelve, as it is in
North Carolina and other Southern
manufacturing states. It would seem
THAT all the successful work of the
Icommittee by way of securing legisla
ltion had been done in the North. So
iii the prevention of child labor is the
l"crippling of competition' it is the
North, not the South, that has the
fright to complain. / for one do not
lbelieve that the South is going to allow
tits manufa cturers to make capital Oui
|of the humanity of other states, espe-
lcially when it is the child of the for
ieigner that is mainly protected in the
North and West while it is our own
flesh and blood that we are failing tc
lrrotect at home.
And | sometimes think that in Norti
ICarolina the east must come to the hell
lot the west in the solution of this prob
Hem. Some of us are too cI,se to il
land too much interested in it finan.
lcially to see it in its true light. I fell
lcertain that the kind-hearted people Of
this state would never tolerate the de
Imand that the manufacturers made a
the last session of the legislature, to bt
iallowed to employ a boy of twelve
lyears all day, whether he can read ant
write Or not, or girl at the critica
Iperiod Of her life, between the ages o1
twelve and fourteen, or either of then
jail night. That was the issue that wa.
made. The Biblical Recorder is doin;
good service in getting the facts. The,
are facts that humane people will no
tolerate. And if the east will only con
slider the problem, dispassionately
there will be enough from the west
who are disinterested, to see that &
humane and effective law is put upol
the statute books of the Old Nortl
State. The present law is neither hu
name in what it allows nor effective il
what it fOrbids.
Sincerely yours,
A. J. McKELWAY.
| Assistant Secretary.