The Brunswick news. [volume] (Brunswick, Ga.) 1906-2016, 1911-04-30
Child Labor
In The South
ALICE LOUISE LYLE.

Events nave so shaped themselves
in recent years as to make it possible
for the women of this county to be
taken seriously when they rise to
express an opinion.
On few matters have women felt
more deeply or agitated oftener than
on that relating to Child labor''-or
| the position of children as bread
winners in the marts of trade and
| industry.
| Opinions differ on this, as on all
subjects worth considering from an
| argumentative viewpoint, and it may
be well to look more closely at and
analyze more carefully the grounds
taken by those VINO object to the en-
ployment of children in the mills of
| the south.
| When first the agitation against
child-labor was begun it was in the
| north. where conditions are so radi-
cally different from those of the
sonth.
| In the nature of things, these con-
! ditions could not he so bad in the
| south for several reasons
First, there is a lack of the emf
grant from which the recruits are
gathered for the tenement, the sweat
shop and the factory
Secondly, the conditions under
which these people lived, before be-
coming residents of citizens of this
country has prevented them from
holding real estate or handling sums
OF money approaching even the wages
OF a day in the shop or mill For
many months they cling to the Gus
toms of dress and food which they.
| their fathers and grandfathers have
practiced for years before them.
An apt illustration of this is shown
by the Chinese coolie whose laundry
in every hamlet looks exactly live
every laundry in every other hamlet,
town or CITY; and the operators OF
these i've exactly alike, little rice,
little tea. little opium and fully
seventy-five percent or their income
Is tucked safely away.
With the Russians who come over,
the same might be sad-with such
changes in diet as the national mode
of living dictates. So with the Hun
gai..Gns, Jews, Swedes and the rest of
those Who enter the hospitatle ports
OF the United States.
The children are the entering
wedge which make it possible for
the conditions of the family to be
changed Without an upheavel to earn
real money, to use it for the Ameri-
canizing of the children in matters
CT clothes and food.
! The matter OF education is not so
great in the foreign t~rn children
as ii comes TO be with the first gen.
Grafton born here; Tut the family
have become aroused to the wage
| earning capacity of the children and
/ thus the sweat-silop is founded.
! In the south, we have none of these
! conditions: we have squalor, it is true,
( but it is not the over-crowded squalor
1 of the tenement; rather is it the
squal2r of the lazy, Indifferent white.
to W. ON life is nothing more serious
i than sufficient food and clothing to
! supply the demands of nature and
society.
| In the mill towns of the south the
7 children are frequently those of poor
/ families Who have come from worn
out farms, with no money for the
needed improvements nor even for
the necessary fertilizer.
Should TIE head of this pitiable
family die, the mill town, with its
regular employr' ort, rs house at
least weather tight and the chances
tor mingling with Others quite as
poor. Just as humble. it's true (and
for this reason more desirable as
daily companions) appeal irresistible
to the woman who is left with a
brood of young children to provide
for, and it is here those interested
in tie welfare and condition of these
people should begin.
We need improvement, we need
fairer basis for the treatment of these
little ones, but we do not need dras-
tic laws which will prohibit the en-
ployment of the children in any cl.
| pacity.
All mill owners are not heartless;
! all mill towns are not squalid: all
mill WORKERS are not over-worked nor
underpaid, ~s>El
If the women's clubs will look fair
~ and fearlessly into hte matter, ii
A they will cease confounding the con.
1 ditions of the south with those of the
\ NORTH, We will have less mis-repre.
sentation, less of tendency to make
| paupers of people willing and able t.
n work. and less likelihood of providins
4 sab-fests for lot of noisy agitators
\ whose head depends on the amount
If turmoil they can cause.
Look to the commisSary as the
main source of the undesirable condi
tons of the mill worker teach then
the proper food values and, with the
natural conditions existing in the
south. we will have no cause fol