The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-06-10
The Terrible Picture.

protest that Is also prophecy" The Terrible Picture. My friends, 1t wa5 the most terrible nicture I ever saw, a child 1eadened in the race for profit beyond the capacity and power for pleasure and for play robbed of these inalienable rights and of a happy childhood by the vicious buccaneers of civilized society. Robbed of what, did hear you ask me? Robbed of what? Why. I'll tell you: There. little girl, don't cry.
 They have broken your doll. know; And your tea set, blue
 And your playhouse. too
 Are things of the long ago.
 But heaven holds all for which you sigh.
 There, little girl. don't cry! There, little boy, don't cry,
 They have taken your kite, know And the glad. wild ways
 Of your schoolboy days
 Are things of the long ago.
 But life and love will soon come by. There. little boy, don't cry! There, little child. don't cry! They have broken your heart, know, And the fanciful g1eams
 Of your youthful dreams
 Are things of the long ago; But childish troubles will soon pass by, There. little child, don't cry" And now, my friends. the thread of our story must run very fast and very briefly. Alabama has a. law on her statute books for the regulation of child labor In her factories and manu- featuring establishments which prohib- It's all children under the ages of twelve, except in the special cases of widowed mothers and disabled fathers. It provides that a sworn certificate shall be filed in the office of the opera
 tor by the parent. showing the age of the child, with date of birth, and makes the furnishing of false cer- tificate crime. The law further pro- vides that no child under thirteen years of age can work in any factory between D. m. and a. m.. and fixes forty eight hours per week as being the time limit for night work, and sixty-six hours per week for work of children under twelve years of age during the daylight hours.
 No Provision for Enforcement. Such is the law given us by our | legislature, and as a crown unto their own negligence the legislators who framed and passed 1t. made no provis- | ion as to the enforcement of same.
  special duty to see to it's fulfillment; 1t Is no officers sworn special duty to see that the child shall have It's rights: no money was appropriated for factory in- spectfon, the State being too poor. and yet today we have the spectacle of tho treasury of our State grooming beneath the surplus of a million dollars, regard ing the distribution of which unnomi- mated legislators are telling the people what they must do with it, while the backs of John and Mary bend lower beneath the burden of economic pres sure.
 Now, in this address I waive any cul- pability on the part of the operators as whole for these conditions as disclos- ed. I do so because to my knowledge there are many good men and true In charge of our cotton mills who deplore these conditions as much as any one. and who are doing everything they can, by means of kindergartens and other wise. to improve the lives and dispel the ignorance of their operatives Thase good men are simply in the grip of cir cumstances and should not be expected to perform and discharge duties incum- bent upon the whole of society to per form and discharge.
 SDisables'' AbIe-Bodied Men.
 The effects of this law in some moral respects were swift and sudden. Able bodied men who before its passage were enjoying the health and wealth of living off the labor of their children, low, besotted brutes, on the passage of this law fulfilled its conditions for working their children between ten and twelve by becoming disabled fath- CTS" And that same father who would work his child In its immaturity will house his colt and his OK to the age when It's fullest development will AaE AfR r1a4 closest analogies in all nature to such a parent Is the pig-eating mother hog who devours her offspring on birth, and the hen that pips and devours her own egg.
 Another matter worthy of considera- tion is that the work of both John and Mary is based on lie of the parent. a thing known to both the boy and tho girl There are hundreds of cases par allel to this in our State and the ques- ton naturally arising out of this de- pravity Is, What Is the spiritual effect on a child where his condition Is based on a sworn fa1sehood of his parents against the danger of the exposure of which he is repeatedly warned not to disclose to a strange interrogatorT Also the child too often knows the part that the factory plays as a law break CT, as was evidenced in an incident not long since that carries even humor with its grimness John" became incensed at his treatment from the factory su- perlntendent, and, to use his own lam gauge, was going to have the law'' on the factory. thinking that if he dis closed his age the mill would be closed. It is needless to say that "John." under the kind persuasion of his rather wig orous disabled father" is now more silently performing his duties than ever before.
 The ApoIogista.
 Nor shall I seek to put before you and answer all of the arguments that are put forward by those who favor the labor of children in factories How that labor keeps the child out of mis- chief, off the streets. that an idle mine Is the devils workshop, and some Of it's champions who go so far as to pre- tend a motive of great social benevo- lence in this; that child labor, alto sether unprofitable as a whole to the employer, is indulged in to make fami- lies economically independent that would otherwise be public charges To all of this I make this answer, that "idleness in young years is not half so prolific of crime and of immortal and criminal learnings as Is premature em- ployment," and that competition in la bor between child and parent always reduces the parents to the wage scale