The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-12-09
TALK OF CHILD LABOR
INTERESTING ADDREss<AT WASH
 INGT0N MEETING.
pr. Felix Adler, Samuel McCune and A, J. McKeiway, D. D., Among Those Who Speak on
 the Subject.

Washington. Dec. 8.--Thc second an-
 nual meeting of the National Child La
 Dor Committee began at the New wfI-
 lard Hotel today. A number of we'll
 known publicists interested in securing
 legislation governing child labor by the
 National and State Governments are
 attending the meeting. The Secretary Of the Navy, Charles J. Bonaparte, pre-
 sided over the session this afternoon
 and tonight Felix Adler. the chairman
 Of the National Committee, made an
 address and introduced the speakers.
 These included John Graham Brooks of Cambridge. Mass; Mrs. Florence Kelly,
 Secretary of the National Consumers
 League, and Owen R. Lovejoy, Assist
 ant Secretary of the National Commit
 tee who spoke on child labor in tho
 glass industry.
 MT. Brooks declared that to loose the child of II or 12 years from the discip-
 line Of the school and throw him into the industrial field wastes an enormous
 treasure to 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. Germany and France were in advance of the United States in matters affecting the interests of the children, while the United Statesssvas on par with Russia in that respect. In this country. she urged, it was not a question of hos- tility to legislation in this subject but merely indifference.
 Mir. Lovejoy held that the manufac- ture of glass had made more progress In the past fifteen years than in the 300 years preceding. He stated that the National Child Labor committee pro- posed legislation forbidding the em- ployment of any boy under fourteen years of age in a glass house and to restrict night employment to those over sixteen years of age. The objection that this would ruin the industry. he added. Is not established by the facts
 Isaac N. Seligman of New York, chairman of the finance committee re- ported on the money that had been spent.
 At this afternoons session of the Ma tional Child Labor convention address es were made by Felix Adler, Ph. D., of New York city, chairman of the na- tional committee on The menace of child labor;" by Samuel McCune Lind say. Ph. D.. the secretary. on 'sThe pro- gress and outlook of the movement against child iabor;" and by A. j. Mo Kelway, D. D.. of Charlotte. N. C., the assistant secretary on Child labor in the cotton industry of the Southern 
 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 in- creasing.
 There were he stated, about ten thou sand children working about the mines. about seven thousand in the glass in- dustry and the number of child labor. CTS in the Southern textile mills has in creased within a few years from 24.- 900 to about 60,0O0.
 He declared, however. that the con- science of the people was eyervwbere and there were signs of A great moral upheaval and that children would be the first. Dr. Lindsay re- viewed the progress of the child labor movement during the past year. Out of the thirty-nine legislative assem- plies which met In 1905 he figured mat twelve passed child labor laws.
 Dr. McKelway after stating that si per cent. of the children employed in l industries in the South | were employed In the cotton growing. cotton manufacturing States of South | Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and | Alabama and said: |
 It. Is rude awakening that has | come to our people: that the abolition | 'f negro slavery marked the beginning | 'f white child slavery that our pres | snt Industry (cotton) is not different | Tn the South from what it was for n | hundred years in old and New England. | m industry distinguished for long | hours and low wages and cursed by inc | employment of children on a larger | 'cale and of tenderer years than any | other industry in the world. In this | 1ear of the twentieth century there are | 10000 children in Southern cotton mills | rom to Is years old. toinne | welve hours a day or twelve hours n | night and reducing the wage scale to | what Is necessary for the suport of a | ;hild instead of what will support a | amily or manhood wages.
 And the South is also awakening O the fact that it's characteristic tn- lustry has so intrenched itself behind | III the commercial life of the south hat 1t Is able to control Legislation n opposition to the popular will that would express itself in the enactment I humane laws and their enforcement. | rhere Is still some indifference and | nore ignorance concerning the extent | # evil, but kind hearted people may 70 trusted ct last to right the wrongs | If childhood and protect the coming ace from degeneration. from the abus- | ng of the body. the marrinK of the | hind and the spelling of the spirit | which are the inevitable consequence | If too early toll.
 Conditions are just now at their