The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-08-21

1 negro. not cunning enough to speed the spindle. is spared It Is now ths the iittie darky is out out in the cotton nas,n fields under the open heavens.
 l These white children often begin | work In the mill with no fragment or l education. And often after year of this brain-blasting labor they lose the power to learn even the simple art of school Tar the little workers. but they they often topple over with sleep at. the
 desks. after the long grind of
 ths .say1 day Indeed ,nn n.dn they nus, must hours in the nirht-school. shorten ! ing their sleep-time; for the ogre of the mill must have all their strength at full head in the early morning. The overseer cannot. afford to be sending
 his morr ted 'poker-up" to their homes to rout them out of bod day after day. lest they fan asleep on the mill-fioor while working or eating. Nor can he afford to keep clerk busy docking | the wages of these little sieep-starved acidents of the fatigued and fumbling I fingers. For these little drudges are l fined for their lacks and lapses; and
 they are sometimes in debt to tho con-. : But worse than all the breakdown | of the body IS, the breakdown of the
 soul in these God mills Here boys and girls are pushed into the | ing jests. Torrents of foul pro- the souls Of the children. till they. too. l grow Hardened in crusts of coarseness. Piled on all these are the fearful risks
 that the young girls run from the at-
 if the girls happen to be cursed with a | little beauty.
 What avail our exports. our tariffs,
 our divfaends, if they rise out of these
 losses. all riches are poverties. so long as the. soul is left to rot down. What the friends of mercy are pleading, Is
 dren-fhe G plea ca of Him who a cried out out. ''Be not afraid of them which kill the
 body. but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell" !" The poor remnant of these young | toilers. they who do not crumb1e down | in an early death. or drift to the gut l ter or the brothei. are left, alasi to be-
 come fathers and mothers: Fathers I and mothers. forsootht What sort of I fatherhod and motherhod can we hope
 for these children robbed of childhood, | sucked out of their bones and the 1 beauty run out of their faces? Trag- 1 ical fl 1t beyond words to think that
 any any of these poor human sttigiss should
 to send oa still more pitiable pro- geuy. What child worthy of the name
 can spring from the ioins of these
 withered efigies of men? What babe
 worthy of the name can be mothered l in the side of this wasted and weak
 ened woman who has given her. virgin vitality to the Moloch of the mill? And what wonder that, if expelled from the factory as no longer competent to l be cog or pulley in the vast ma chine. they. have no ambition but to ' the commonwealth. having fostered 1 these dull degenerates. should be forced to care for them In her almshouses. her
 jatls. her asylums? What wonder that I only the cheapest and cosrsest pleas
 urss can stir their numb spirits? The things Of the soul which they have
 missed, they will never know what
 sun, a sorrowful type of the savage created by civilization, a sad protest against civilization--the starved, the
 stunted; the stunned, who speak no Well does Emerson cry out. "Give us worse cotton. but give us better menp l Well does Carlyle cry out, Deliver me
 fants, and let the cotton trade take | it's chances. ]" What boots a social or der that makes thousands of degener- ates as the by-products of it's exquis- | ite linens and delicate musIins? Must
 we take our civilization on such terms l ss this? Must thousands fall and per-
 ish that few may soar and shine2
 the savage for the body is more ret than
 raiment. The savage, the grim son of the forest, has at least 2 light step. a sound body brood of lusty children, song, But our savage of civilization, what of hin2 Look at his wasted body, his empty face. his beauty-robbed
 existence. Men are such cravens be- l thing right because it has been long | in existence. But child-labor has about I 1t no halo of antiquity. It Is thing | of yesterday--a sudden toadstool Tn the inefrnal garden. It shot up with | the coming of steam and loom at the
 end. of the eighteenth century: Eng
 land began to fight the villainy In 1902. | yet today the black shadow of it lies wide upon America.
 The factory, we are told, must make
 certain profit, or the owners (ab-
 srdss wF eops vns TRssrs n fore the president Is goaded on by the
 directors. He in turn whips up the
 ooYerseer; the oyerseer takes t out of | lash cuts red the backs of the little children. Need we wonder, then. that 1 cotton-factory stock gives back 'portly | profits--25, 35, yes even 50 per cent.
 It pays. my masters, to grind little children into dlvidondsi And the silks
 and muslins do rot show the stain of
 blood, although they are splashed with scarlet on Gods side.
 | But Is there no hand reached out to
 stay these children lured to their ruin | by the Pied Piper of Greed? Yes, | brave company of men and women both North and South are banded for the rescue. At the center of this fighting phalanx is the Child-Labor Committee Of New York city. Ardently support Ing this center are the Consumers League and thousands of labor unions
 and women's clubs scattered over the
 nation. The church of the South. It's I steeples in the shadow of the mill in-
 stead of hurling anathema against this | treason to- the least of these" too often stands complacenf, acquiescent, silent. And SO the men and women of mercy and rescue find themselves hind cred by the icy indifference of organ | ized religion, ~as well as by the iron | opposition of vested interests. Rob us of child-labor and we will | take our mills from your State" This | is the frequent threat of the mfll-own- | CTS in the chambers and iobbies of leg | islation And, alas! we are in a civili- zation where such threat avails Still, 1 in spite of the apathy of the chJrch. in | spite of the assault of capital, the | friends of mercy have in all but four States forced some sort of a protective | law: no child under IF years of age shall work nor any for longer than
 mon-school education. This reads fair | lv well: but n law on the statute book | is not always a law on the factory | floor The inspectors are often vlgi- | lant and quick with conscience. Some mills desire to keep the law. But oth- CTS are crooked: they have their forged | and perjured certificates, their double | pay-rolls-one for the inspector an- |