The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-07-13
TWO CLASSES OF MIGRANTS.

INO OF
We are glad to know that our a
and the chief Of police have begun 4
diligent wedding out Of the Migrants in
the city. There should be NJ idle men
or women having no visible means of
support allowed to remain in the city.
Every one of this crowd Of Migrants
should be made to WOrk-either for the
county or voluntarily.
When vagrancy has been proven
against a 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. It is true that such
course relieves the city OF that per-
sons baneful presence, but only to in
fict it on some other community. 1t
does not force the vagrant to do bet
ter in the future or punish him for his
conduct in the past. 1t does not check
the violation of the law n is an in
Justice to other communities, often
subjecting the rural districts to the
Of the presence OF such
characters where there is not the same
police protection against their pllfer-
ing and greater crimes. Persons con-
victed of vagrancy should be put to
work. That is the law and it should
be enforced.
There is mother class of idlers who
should be attended to by the officers
of the law. These are to be found in
the factory towns ana 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 stunt
ed and bodies dWarfed by the long
hours of labor in the mills.
These men form a more despicable
class of Migrants 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 idle
ness, living off their hard earned
wages, merits the contempt Of all de-
cent people and deserves the full pen
atty of the law against vagrancy.
= Were this law enforced in the mill
towns there would not be 80 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.
The mill owners are not as much
responsible for the child labor cOndi-
tions in their mills as are those vaga-
bono fathers. Many of them will tell
YOU they do not want the children in
the mills. They would prefer the
grown members Of the families, They
build school houses where the chill
dren of the taInllieS VINO move W Tic
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 pa
tronized; the play grounds are empty,
because the heads of the families as
sembIed there to supply the mills with
labor will not work, but place their
children in the mills instead.
Let part of the energy being devot-
ed to preventing child labor in the
mills be expended in forcing the V a
grant parents to take the children's
places and much more good will be &C
cOmplished. If it cannot be done in
any other way then as a last resort
compulsory education will surely be
resOrted to. We know that many mil
owners would like TO see such law II
force.
We do not eXOnerate the mill owners
from all responsibility for the cOndi'
tons of child labor in the mills, bu'