The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-08-21
EDWIN MARKHAM LN COSMOPOLITAN,
 WRITES OF THE CHILD AT THE LOOM ]"

I eight and nine years old, and some are only five and six For day or a night | at stretch these little children do
 their eyes in watching the rushins threads: dwarfine their muscles in an 1 eternity of petty movements; befouling
 ing cotton; bestowinE eeaseiess. anx-s
 ious attention for hours, where science I says that "a twenty minute strain Is
 ,Sa long enough f9r sg,rrowing mind And s,,, | migrants. hardened by the efrete con- I ditions of foreign servitude Nor are
 they negro children who have shifted | are white children of q and pure colonial stock. Think of It. Here is
 q .paople that has outlived the bondage of England, that has seen the rise and I fall of slavery--a people that must now. | fling their children into the clutches Of capital into the nav of the blind ma on in a base servility that reminds us I of the Saxon churl under the frown of
 the Norman lord. For Mammon is mer- Fifty thousand chndren. mostly girls. I are in the textile mills of the South. | Six times as many children are working
 n1W pfna as were S working twenty years ago, go, can be awakened 1t will not be long i before one hundred thousand children
 vi, ,h be hobbl.i,ng i In hopeless lock,step | be long till these little spinners shall
 be far ..on the way to be spiders and
 Think of the deadly drudsery In 4 those cotton mills. Children rise at haif-past four. commanded by the ogre
 scream of the factory whistle: they hair dressed, to the walls which shut
 out the day and which confine them
 amid the din and dust and merciless
 in iittie narrow 1inss- lanes. they @ look and leap and reach and tie among acres and acres Of looms Always the snow of the
 lint In their faces saiways the thunder Of
 half-hour at noon breaks the twelve-. ! hour vigil, for 1t is nightfall when the
 long hours end and the childrsn may | "home.p often too tired to wait for 1 the cheerless. meal which the mother, also working in the factory, must
 Frequently they snatch only bite and curl up undressed on the bed, to gath CT strength for the same dull round
 tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomor-
 When was in the South L was ev-
 anywhere charmed by the bright cour-
 tesy Of the cultured classes, but I was vas penury of the working people. This penury stands grimly out In the gray
 monotonous shells that they can harn-like structures. And for these dirty, desolate homes the workers must pay rent to the mill-owner. But the rent Is graded according to the num- Der of children sent to work In the
 mill. The more the children, the less | the rent. Mammon is wise: he knows how to keep q cruel grip upon the tots And why do these children know no
 rest, no play, no learning, nothing but \ the grim grind of existence2 Is it be- cause we are all naked and shivering? I Is 1t because there is sudden destitu- ton in the land? Is 1t because pesti- wars red hand Is pillagiRg our store houses and burning our cities2 No, eorsooth Never before were the store
 houses so crammed to- bursting with
 wool. No, forsoothl The children, while yet in the gristle, are ground down that few more useless millions are leadin~ the commercialism of the world, and we grind in our mills the
 bones of the little ones to make good our boast.
 Rev Edgar Murphy of Montgomery.
 groups is, of these pathetic little toiierss. s
 all ,St Inder d, IF Jane 3,iA iAddaIs ,r1 saw in hsr
 teeth blacked with snuff, like all the little ones about hef--a little girl who
 was busily and ciumasaily tying thrSa:d,s ads
 lives only four years after 1t enters | the mills. Pneumonia stalks in the damp. lint-filled rooms, and leads hum
 
 Hundreds more are maimed by the
 machinery, two or three for each of
 their elders. Che old mill hand car-- ries sixty-four scars, the cruel record
 The Labor Commissioner of North Carolina reports that there are 26l
 neearis 4o,ooo people are employed. in- l cIuding nearly 5000 children. The average daily wage Nof the men is 5s S1tI Oi E sss csnts MGme TSe 0csS ae CT goes on to say: ''I have talked with little boy of years who work, ed for forty nigh nights b In Aiaeeama, ana ra age had been on the nightshift eleven months. Little boys turned out at o'clock in the. morning, afraid to go for permission to lie down on the office floor In one city mill in the South, doctor said he had amputated the fin- gled In the mill maf very, and that horrible form of Jsy occurs fre- quently among the overworked chill
 irene Macfadyen of England. after inspecting our conditions, year or two ago. wrote; ..The- physical. mem hours hot 'i of toll Q on the children is indes scribably sad. Mill children are so stunted that every foreman will tell The lint in their lungs forms perfect cultivating medium for tuberculosis and pneumonia, and consumption is common among them. Many die after few years of this service" The Washington Post. commenting on child labor in the South, says: ''The aver age life Of the children after they go Into the mills Is four years. It would be less cruel for State to have chil- dren painlessly put to death than 1t Is to permit them to be ground to death AiiVwho have gone through the mills tell the same story of misery and tn- justice. Mrs. John Van Worst, in her book, "The Woman Who Toils" tells a piteous and moving story. This Is
 book which ought to go out as a cry of conscience over the nation Among thousand little tragedies, she tells of an overseer who said: T have a hun- dred kids in here who ought to be
 over 12. but sometimes [ have tO ask | the parents if they are bringing me l triplets. They generally SDanaku tU have three between IF and IA years old. Anything to get 'em in. But If l they swear falsely what can I doT Ebert Hubbard has been through the mills of South Carolina. T know"
 says he "the sweat-shops of Hester
 Street, New York; I am familiar with
 White-chapel. London; l have visited | the Shetto uf Venice; I know the lot Of the coal miners of Pennsylvania; and I know somewhat of Siberian atro- cities; but for misery, woe, and hope ! less suffering, I have never seen any thing to equal the cotton-mill slavery of South Carolina"
 Fut not alone upon the South lies ] the blame of these human hells- Many