The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1914-11-18
WOMAN STIRS
UNION men
0Den Their Purses to Aid the
Little T0iIers.
Their CONDITION PICTURED
Story of Low Wages and Long Hours
In Southern Cotton Mills Causes
Uproar In A. F. Of L. Convention.

Uproar In A. r. of L. Convention.
Philadelphia, Nov. Is. - A simple
narrative or the horrors of woman
and Child labor in the southern cot
ton tactori -, coupled with cry for
help tor s.rf.ers which sprung unex'
pectelly into the calm OF the Amerl-
can Federation of Labor CONVENTION
at Horticultural Hall, threw the place
into a tumult and mad the delegates
emptying their pockets in money con-
tributions after they were told that
there was no available relief FUNDS
In the treasury.
Even Samuel Gompers' voice failed
him when he tried to speak. He told
them to dig and dig they did. The big
delegation writhed during the ta-e OF
women who have only the ghosts OF
their womanhood lett and OF thou
sands of children, disease-ridden,
and stunted, who In the
purse OF an actual test recently
pwed that they had. never been
kie TO laugh cut loud. I" -
When it was over, Max 8. Hayes.
If Cleveland, one of the most restless
Socialists in the country. was rising
out of the uproar, his two fists In the
air, his eyes streaming and his voice
rafting the glass ornaments on tle
chandelier as he damned all alien plu-
tocrats to 1.-The seventy-seventh az.
ing circle of perdition" until all time
and space shall be swallowed up In
darkness.
The convention was told that priva-
ton, cold and insufficient food have
made pellagra rife among southern
white children, and that at the pres
emit time in Georgia the scourge Is
even greater than that of tuberculo-
sis; that the labor laws Of the state
are violated In the northern owned
mills, and that children OF seven and
eight years Of age work from dark
till dark for as little as thirty-nine
cents q week.
Mrs. Sara A. Conboy, organizer OF
the pioneer unions of the textile work.
ers In the south, was the speaker.
She said that the conditions of child
labor in the south are unparalleled
anywhere in the world and that the
treatment of women and children by
the mill owners is at once a menace
and an unthinkable disgrace to the
entire white race in this country.
The delegates were 80 shaken by
her description that they didn't wait
to petition their unions for help. They
took up collection on the floor that
probably will total several thousand
dollars.
The women and children mill work.
ers in Atlanta, Mrs. Conboy said, had
struck voluntarily and even before
they had been organized In union.
They struck because of long hours,
unsanitary conditions In the mills
that caused a crusade by the Atlanta
board of health and pay that left
them always but twenty-four hours
ahead of starvation. They were
promptly evicted from their homes
and have been living in tents for five
months rather than accept present
conditions. A league of mill owners
backed up by the textile interests In
Massachusetts, she said. Is fighting
them.
mo conditions that ever attended
negro slavery" said Mrs. Conboy,
quietly, were ever so horrible as
those that are killing off these help
less slaves of the cotton trades. The
children are sent to the mills before
they are eight years old. They do not
go to school. The hours are so long
that the mill owners have bands in |
the mills to keep the more indolent
negro workers awake"
The men in the southern cotton |
mills work from twelve to fourteen
hours a day, Mrs. Conboy said, and
average 1928 a week. The women
make less. Many children work an
entire week for less than so cents.