The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-07-29

more than or s years old working hard and beaten when they Jagged. have read about the conditions in the Southern mills, but nothing have read equals for sheer brutality what l see right here"
 MT. spargo sums up the matter thus; Conditions are no whit better in tho North than in the South. The child labor problem Is not sectional, but na- tional"
 Child labor works i'll to industry for 1t cheapens labor. It forces men Into likeness The author relates that ne saw the able-bodied men searching 1r work. At the factory they said: Small girls wanted" Said one man to hls fellow. .sThat's fourteen places we've seen they want. kids today, Bill, but we've tramped round all week an neV- CT got sight of a job" Child lab )r breeds disease in the little laborers. No child can grow and develop in the
 close air of a factory with brain and body worn, ere formed, with fierce Ia bor.
 chean furntture contract intestinal
 troubles from inhaling the poisonous fumes. Those who work in match Iat :
 tories suffer from phosphorus recersis
 or "nlessv law" Boys in type foun- drias ara infected with lead poison. n
 cotton and woolen mills clouds or mt dust clog the lungs. In glass factoriss the children breathe in microscopic par
 ticles of glass. In wood factories saw
 Sust Ia inhaled. in coal mines breaker
 hove breathe the polluted air till their
 I,,ngs become bIackened. In soap fde- tories alkaline dust inf1ames the eye lida and nostrils. So through the ea-
 fire list of industries employing the
 children of our country
 Child labor not only works Ill 10 ohs tn6nstrial system, brings disease 10 al. tnS,- srorloved hut is fruitful of moral tiIs. "When children become wage aarnArs they cease almost at once to he chIidren' They lose their respect Sor narental authority, become arro- rant. wayward. and defiant Discl- nIina is relaxed when 1t IS most neSes- sary." It Is needless here 10 Iollow tbrourh the pages reciting the moral siis t6at heset the working child, It
 nav he left for the earnest student 10 nnnder while the author assures us: SaSyo writer dare write, and no pup ,isbsr dare publish, a truthful descrip- tion of the moral atmosphere or nun
 dreds of places where children are eH'-
 ployed." ,,., s. .h,s avtl Child labor can never pc rishteo"Si' and honestly defended.
 Those who would compare the Work
 <, the child in the home, at domestio antics at field work with work in the Ssctories do not realize the initial pur- mort of the question. In the iorheI fhera is hope in the work and Joy Tn inc leisure that followed the work
 Tn inc latter "the competition Is oe- tween man and the machine, the child and Inc man.-and even the child and | Ike machine." The latter labor "saps the constitution of the child, robs 1t of none. and units 1t for life's struggle. | Sucb child labor Is not educative or
 vvhoiesomo. but blighting to body mind
 'sIt ia not only the interests of the chIidren Themselves that are menaced; evan more Important and terrible Is the thought that civilization itsel1 IS imnerIled when children are dwarfed physically. mentally and morally by
 hunger, heavy toil and unwhoiesome
 surroundings" .x4 e.. Those who would contend that fac- torv work is no more injurious to chiid than home work have their an- swar here. "Children have always worked, but 1t is only since the reign of tha machine that their work has been svnonvmous with slavery. Un- der the old form of simple. domestic in- 6ustrv even inc very young children
 were assigned their share of the work | in the family. But this form of child | labor was a good and wholesome | thing. The work of the child then ] constituted a major part or US educa-