The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-12-09
ABOUT CHILD LABOR

I. G. Hoagland of Brooklyn, in the New York Sun.
 The review of the book, "The Child That Toileth Not" by Maj. Thomas Rob- inson Dawley, Jr., in the Sun of Saturday last commands interest. If I were a Carnegie or a Rockefeller the author says, seeking to improve the conditions of the poor in the rural districts mean- ing those in the south, I would first build them a cotton mill" And he is right.
 The cotton mill has been, is, and will be boon to the poor whites of the south. It has offered them an opportunity for self help that hitherto had not been pos sible. And in the mill they learned the first lessons of self restraint, punetuality and the other good habits of constant toll To many of them the mill was better abiding place than the home, being cooler
 in the summer and warmer in the winter than the shacks in which they lived. And the houses built by many of the mill arrangements are a big improvement on the native variety.
 Child labor cannot be defended theoreti- cally, but whatever the abuses are else- where, they cannot be considered in the same light in the south, that is, by an opened minded, unbiased person ac- quainted with local conditions.
 We are led to believe by professional labor agitators that the cotton mill is an 'awful'' thing in the south, when in fact it has been an 'awfully'' good thing for that country. Many of the so called "barons' are interested in welfare work and, particularly in North Carolina, where the state is responsible for high percentage of iliteracy, give the children the first opportunity they get for school ing.
 The labor in cotton mill is not heavy but the hours are long. The doffer boys do not work all the time. They are ire. auently found outside the mill playing baseball Their tasks are light and not as tiresome as those of the adults at the spindles and looms.
 My point of view in the matter of child labor in the south is strictly impartial have not owned & mill in whole or in part, nor have I been employed in one. Neither have I been employed as a labor investi- ~f'N reported conditions in several thousand cotton mills and other factories in seven states and have yet to see the awful hor- TOTS pictured by the facile pens of insin- cere labor protagonists.
 In principle I am opposed to child labor but at the same time I am a devotee of facts, and the tales of child labor special ists concerning conditions in southern cot ton mills are decidedly not in accord with the facts What Major Dawley says is true, and his view is that of a person who knows what the conditions are and says what is so about them.
 Some years ago Jack London delivered soaring philippic in Boston on the Child Labor Mill Baron down south From what he said it was apparent that he had not been inside of a southern cot ton mill. And that is typical of some other investigators"
 There are many noble men and women performing service in improving labor conditions in contrast with which the half truths of others and their inaccurate re- ports savoring of predestination, stand out sharply.
 m Siinpis, tue PioPosilioh IS this' ihe cotton mill in the south has been an ad- vantage, not disadvantage to children. The conditions there are not duplicated in any other section of the country. so | what might be sense in Lawrence, Mass, concerning labor would be nonsense in Laurens, s. c. The mills are not differ ent. but the people are. Ask them. The truth will prevail in printers ink some day.