The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1909-10-30
Southern MIL slavery"
Richmond News-Leader.


sensational magazines filed their
pages with accounts Of what thev
called "child slavery in the South d"
Special commissioners, including sew
eral women, were sent to the South
ern cotton mill districts. We had pa
thos and rhetoric and vivid word pic
lures, human interested narratives.
sobs in type and the rest of it. This
newspaper has little confidence in
stun OF that kind. If Northern mag
azine writer sent to a Southern cot
ton mill town reported the conditions
good and the working people reason
ably we'll and happy the story would
have no interest. 1t would be a bald
statement of fact. Probably it would
not be printed and the writer would
miss the space and maybe lose his or
her job. The public likes to have its
feelings stirred. A picture of a cotton
mill girl fairly good looking, well
dressed and in good health would be
Of no value from a news or magazine
standpoint. 1t would be common
place and usual. A photograph of a
| child emaciated and miserable ap-
peals to the sensibilities. It is pic
turesque and stirring.
On two or three occasions The News
Leader, discussing the question of cot.
ton mill labor in the South, has re-
ferred to the town Of Pelzer S. c. The
town was chosen as an illustration be-
cause health statistics are kept care
fully by the mill management and,
therefore, any assertion regarding
conditions there can be verified off,
cially. In the South Carolina news
papers of October 1S we find one of
the annual reports from Pelzer. The
town has a population of a little over
5000. 1t has four or five large cotton
| mills, all owned by the same company.
and $500 of its people, more than
half, actually are engaged in daily la
Dor in the mills. Last year the deaths
were 1s. not quite four to the thou
sand. The births were 23s. Twelve
of the deaths were those of infants.
Only one death was caused by con-
sumption.
These actual facts will offset COL
umns and pages of argument and as
sertions and eloquence. The death
| rate is not quite 4 to the 1000 a year.
The birth rate is nearly SO per 1000
year. These are facts and all the
theory in the world cannot prevail
| against them. People who are over
worked or starved or miserable or
who live in the unwholesome condi-
| ton so vividly described by the mag
| azine writers do not have the vigor
and vitality represented by a death
rate of four to the thousand and a
birth rate Of fifty to the thousand.
This town is owned and governed
entirely by the mill company. 1t has
| no municipal government or organi-
zation and the population is entirely
white, no negroes being permitted to
live within it's limits. We do not mean
| to say that every cotton mill town in
| the South would show the same con-
ditions. We doubt if another town in
the country of like population has a
death rate so small and a birth rate
so large. The facts from Pelzer
show, however, that work in cotton
mills is not necessarily unwholesome
or injurious and need not involve any
! impairment of physical or mental
strength. The first Pelzer mill was
| completed about 81 years ago. Some
of the present employees are grand
children of those who worked in this
first mill, representing the third gen.
Grafton of cotton mill workers in the
same town. Evidently there is no i'm
pairment of constitution and no in
herited weakness. The demonstra-
ton is complete that where the man.
agement is wise and the people have
the intelligence to cooperate with the
methods used to maintain the public
health cotton mill labor apd life real
ly is more wholesome and more con-
ducive to physical we'll being and long
living than employment on farms.
Gabrielle d'Annunzio, in search for