The independent. [volume] (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907, 1905-04-13
slavery was a paradise compared with

slavery was paradise compared with
lit.
Many of the black slaves lived to a
good old age, and they got a hearty
enjoyment from life.
The infant factory slaves of South
Carolina can never develop into men
and women. There are no mortality
statistics; the mill owners battle all
attempts of the outside public to get
at the facts, but my opinion is that in
many mills death sets the little pris-
cner free inside of four years. Be-
yond that he can not hope to liEe, and
this opinion is derived from careful OBJ
servation and interviews with several
skilled and experienced physicians
who practice in the vicinity of the
mills.
Boys and girls from the age of six
years and upwards are employed
They usually work from six o'clock in
the morning until seven at night. For
flour months of the year they go to
work before daylight and they work
Until after dark.
At noon / saw them SQUAT on the
floor and devour their food, which con-
sisted mostly of cornbread and bacon.
These weakened pigmies munched in
silence, and then toppled over in sleep
on the floor in all the abandon of
babyhood. Very few wore shoes and
stockings; dozens of little girls of, say,
seven years of age wore only one gar
ment, a linsey -woolsey dress. When
it came time to go to work the fore
man marched through the groups
shaking the sleepers, shouting in their
ears, lifting them to their feet, and in
a few instances kicking the delin-
Quents into wakefulness.
The long afternoon had begun-from
a quarter to one until seven o'clock
they worked without respite or rest.
These toddlers, saw, for the most
part did but one thing-they watched
the flying spindles on a frame 20 feet
long, and tied the broken threads
They could not sit at their tasks; back
and forward they paced, watching,
with inanimate, dull look, the flying
spindles. The roar of the machinery
drowned every other sound. Back
and forth paced the baby toilers in
their bare feet, and mended the brOk-
en- threads. Two, three, or four
threads would break before they could
patrol the 20 feet-the threads were
alawys breaking!
The noise and the constant looking
at the flying wheels reduce nervous
sensation in few months to the mini
mum. The child does not think; he
ceases to suffer is as dead as |
hope. No more does he long for the |
green fields, the running streams, the
freedom Of the woods, and the com
partnership of all the wild, free things
that run, climb, fly, swim or burrOw.
He does his work like an automa-
ton; he is part of the roaring ma
chinery; memory is scared, physical
vitality is at such low ebb that he
ceases to suffer. Nature puts short
limit on torture by sending insensi-
bility. If you suffer, thank God!-it is
a sure sign you are alive.
at certain night school, where
several good women were putting
forth efforts to mitigate the condi-
ton of these baby slaves, one of the
teachers told me that they did not
try to teach the children to read
hey simply put forth an effort to
arouse the spirit through pictures and
.elling stories. In this school / saw
he sad spectacle of half the class, of
/ dozen or more, sunk into sleep that
more resembled stupor. The teacher
vas fine, competent woman, but
worn out nature was too much for her
to teach, you must make your ap-
zeal to life.
The parents of the children sent
hem there so they could be taught to
cad, but was told by one who knew
hat no child of, say, seven or eight
ears of age who had worked in the
Mill a year could ever learn to read
lie is defective from that time on A
ear in the mills and he loses the ca :
acity to play; and the child that can I
ot play can not learn. :
We learn in moments of joy; play is
ducation; pleasurable animation is f
ecessary to growth; and when you f
ave robbed the child of it's play-spell, i
GU have robbed it of it's life. +
The reason that thought flags and {
tupOr takes DossassiOn Of the child :