The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1906-07-26
Treat Them as Migrants
Fathers Who Work Their Children
in the Mills and Live in Idleness
OFF Of Their Wages, Should be
Treated as Migrants Along With
the ldld and Dissolute Class
of Negroes.
Wilmington Messenger.


We are glad to know that our
mayor and the chief of police have
begun a diligent wedding out of the
vagrants in the city. There should
sbeno idle men or women having no
visible means of support allowed to
remain in the city. Every one of this
crowd OF vagrants should be made
to wOrk-either for the county or
voluntarily.
When vagrancy has been proven
against defendant in the courts we
do not believe in the practice some
times followed of suspending judg-
ment on condition the vagrant will
leave the city. 1t is true that such
course will relieve the city of that per-
sons baneful presence, but only to
infiict it on some other community.
1t does not force the vagrant to do
better in the future or punish him
for his conduct in the past. 1t does
not check the violation of the law
and is an injustice to other commun-
tiles, often subjecting the rural dis
tricts to the annoyance of the pres
ence of such characters where there
is not the same police protection
against their pilfering and greater
crimes. Persons convicted of va
grancy should be put to work That
is the law and it should be enforced.
There is another class of idlers who
should be attended to by the officers
of the law. These are to be found in
the factory towns and the villages
built up about cotton factories. They
are the men who move there with
their families, put their children to
work in the mills and spend their
lives in idleness, living off the work
of their children, whose minds are
being stunted and bodies dwarfed by
the long hours OF labor in the mills.
These men form a more despicable
class of vagrants than the worthless
negroes who hang around the streets
of our cities and towns. Any able
bodied man who will put his children
in a mill and spend his life in idleness,
living off their hard earned wages,
merits the contempt of all decent
people and deserves the full penalty
OF the law against vagrancy.
towns there would not be so much
complaint against child labor in our
mills The children who are now
supporting their worthless parents
would be going to school at least
part OF the year and performing much
healthier labor at other times.
pn na IN
responsible for the child labor condi-
tions in their mills as are those vag-
abond fathers. Many of them will
tell you they do not want the chill
dren in the mills. They would prefer
the grown members of the families.
They build school houses where the
children of the families who move to
villages to work in the mills can get a
common school education. Some Of
them provide pleasure grounds for
the children; but the schools are
not patronized; the play grounds are
empty, because the heads of the fam
lilies assembled there to supply the
mills with labor will not work, but
place their children in the mills in
stead.
Let part of the energy being devo-
ted to preventing child labor i'll the
mills be expended in forcing the va
grant parents to take the childrens
places and much good will be accom-
plished. If it cannot be done in any
other way then as a last resort COM
pulsory education will surely be re-
sorted to. We know that many mill
owners would like to see such law in
force.
We do not exonerate the mill own
ers from all responsibility for the
conditions of child labor in the mills,
but we do'say that all the blame does
not rest on them-not as much as on
the idle, worthless fathers. Enforce
the law of vagrancy as to them and
there will be a wonderful change for
the better in the condition OF the
children in the mill towns. These are
the vagrants who should be taught
that if they will not work voluntarily
they will be made to do SO by the
law