The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1916-07-07

care we find a nationwide interest
in the development of the child along
all lines by men and women of means
and by large corporations. States
have passed laws affecting the en-
ployment of children in mills, until at
present very few States will allow
children to be employed under four
teen years of age.
In this matter of legislation, the
! thing l wish to call special attention
! to is the gross Misrepresentation
Of conditions in the mills and villages.
Irres agitation has also had
its effect. The question has at last
reached our national congress. A
bill is now before the United States
senate to prevent all children under
fourteen years of age from working
: and those under sixteen years from
working more than eight hours per
day. I believe a great many of our
law makers are honest and sincerely
desire to support measures which
they consider best for the child and
the country-but the average polltl-
clan. both State and national, cares
very little for the merits or demerits
of a bill or for the child and family
it may affect. If the bill is for the
time popular and if by supporting it
the politician can retain his office, he
is ready to give it his unqualified
support
can further illustrate what mean
by referring you to the most COM
mon prediction scene. Who here
but has had opportunity to see the
small politician (the two-by-four
kind, and more are in this class than
is generally believedl going around a
few weeks before election kissing the
| babies, fondling the children, giving
the old man the glad handshake and
seeing something splendid to speak
of everywhere, and who, if elected,
reverses his whole attitude toward
the very people he professed pleasure
in associating with. 1t is no pleasure
to refer to such conduct on the part
of Office seekers, and the fact that
they can so conduct themselves and
get elected ought to bring blush Of
shame and deep feeling of contempt
to every genuine American. But we
cannot deny that such conduct is
common among US. The point is: can
we conceive of such a man genuinely
! supporting any measure except for
the reasons already referred to? Is he
the one to solve or to have any part
in the solution Of this deep and sacred
question? He must reform himself
before he can live comfortably in the
atmosphere in which the solution will
finally be wrought out.
The very thing, to my way of think
ing, that has hindered a proper solu-
ton of the question thus far has been
the paid hireling who misrepresents
conditions at the mills and the small
politician, who by loud words and
leather lunged speeches, proclaims
in glowing terms the oppressed con-
dition of the poor little factory child,
and proceeds to help it by the enact
ment of laws which take from it its
daily bread. The Bible must have
meant some such thing as this when
it speaks of a stone for a loaf or a
scorpion for fish!
We concede the right Of sover-
eign State to enact laws for the pro-
lection of her people and the devel-
opment of her citizenship; but we do
question the wisdom of negative laws
which forbid the child to work with
out any provision for those who by
some misfortune are more or less de-
pendent upon their children for sup
port, and, further still, to deny them
the right to work without proper pro-
vision for their educational advance
ment.
The questions that come to every
thinking man and woman are: Is the
type of child labor legislation we have
necessary? Or is it helpful? Or
again, do these laws aid in the de-
velopment of the child into a we'll
rounded citizen? If these questions
cannot be answered in the Affirmative,
then such legislation most certainly
has no place on our statute books.
The idealist and the dreamer has
| the impression that the enactment of
negative laws such as most States