The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-07-29
Conducted By nlartI,a Young

mills of the South at sO.ooo. no less than 10000 of them being under twelve
 According to Mir. McKelway. one of the most competent authorities in the country, there are at the present time not less than 6O.000 children un- der fourteen employed in the cotton mills Of the Southern States"
 These figures are appalling. We of the South know that these 60.000 chill dren are all white children. We know that one country. especially our section. needs that every one of these white
 children be in schools instead of in
 mills. We know that large number
 of the mills are owned by Northern
 capitalists, but it is Southern Children
 who are sacrificed. MT. Spargo makes
 have no means of either verifying or contracting it:
 The Northern owners of Alabama
 cotton mills secured the repeal of the la..' passed In that State in 1887 pro-
 hibiting the employment of children
 under fourteen years of ago for more than eight hours a day; and. when. la
 ter. the Alabama Child Labor Commit tee sought to secure legislative protec- tion for children up to twelve years of
 age. paid agents of the mill owners appeared before the Legislature and OPPOScu LHGlF tntCbb4 Here again are startling figures;
 There are more than S0.000 children employed in the textile industries of the United States according to the very l incomplete census returns, most of them being little girls. In these in- | dustries conditions are undoubtedly | worse in the Southern States than else where. though have witnessed many l pitiable cases of child slavery in l Northern mills which equalled any thing have ever seen in the South.' Can we not enact and enforce laws
 that shall prevent Northern capital that l gave freedom to negro slaves. from en- l slaving our white children?
 Mir Spargo has studied the condi- | tion in every section of our country, of New Jersey glass factories. he states: "Td sooner see my boy dead than
 working here. You might as we'll give | a boy to the devil at once as to send
 him to a glass factory, said one blow CT. A veritable system of child slav- | cry has developed, remarkably like l the old English pauper-apprentice sys- I tenn These boys are under no restraint | by day or night and are wholly with out control during the Idle hours They
 are in the streets in gangs. In and out of the police courts and the jails. q | burden to themselves and to the com munity imposed by the demand of this boy destroying Industry" Furthermore l he pertlY observes; "lt IS perhaps only | indicative of the universal readiness of
 men to concern themselves with the
 mote In their brothers eyes without | considering the beam in their own. | that I should have attended a meet ing in New Jersey where the child la bor of the South was bitterly condemn
 ed. but no word was said of the appal- ling nature of the problems in the | State of New Jersey itself"
 | Of Pennsylvania the author writes Tn the State of Pennsylvania alone | the State which enslaves more ehiidret
 than any other--there are thousands Ai little breaker boys employed. maay | of them not more than g or 10 years | old The law forbids the employment
 of children under 14-7"
 From the Maine "sardine" canning factories where small herrings ar, placed on the market as sardines, wt learn of these conditions. Tn the rush
 season fathers. mothers, older children
 and babies work from early morn ttl night You will scarcely believe me | perhaps. when say and babies but ( is literally true. I've seen them nt