The Connecticut labor news., 1924-03-01
CHILDREN OF IA
 EMPLOYED BY
 COTTON MILLS
States Weak Laws Permit Them to Work 60 Hours a Week in
 Southern Cities.


 ment of children under I4 years IS not good business and southern cot ton mill owners have found that out. They say they were taught their les son during the time the Federal child labor law, now defunct, was in force. Yet they are opposed to a constitu- tional amendment which would ern- power Congress to enact new child labor legislation.
 Typical of this attitude is the state ment by P. E. Glynn, president of the Georgia Cotton Manufacturers Asso- citation, who says:
 There might once have been a time when the southern textile operators could have been criticised for his em- ployment of very young children. But today this operator realizes that chill dren under fl working in his mill are not profitable investments. Under the. federal law, which was declared un constitutional, child workers between I 4and 16 were prohibited from work ing more than eight hours day. But much more rapidly. Prohibiting them from working until 14 we consider ample protection"
 Seldom See Sun.
 Plenty of A year old boys and girls can be found in typical southern mill towns whose only glimpse of the sun is through the window of a cotton mill In North Carolina armies of little mites are granted legal permission to work II hours in a single day and Co hours a week. They constitute the powerful dull Jacks and listless Jills given too much work and too little play. From cradle to grave their lot has been fixed both by precedent and environ ment. They and their children and their children's children must watch and feed the 'droning spindles.
 Sixty hours of work week leaves an easily recognizable pal1or on the child's cheek. Schooling has ended for the average mill child below the fifth grade Georgia mill owners, however, have introduced a bill in the legislature prohibiting employment of I2 years old boys in textile industries. This is a significant move. But Geor- gia, by reason of her weak labor laws, still attracts great numbers of child workers from the adjoining state of Alabama.
 State Laws Weak.
 These interstate employees, protect 1 d by Alabama laws, which prohibit l nore than eight hours of wo.k for children between I-4 and fS. flow l across the boundary line daily into Georgia. Mornin gand night sees the bridge across the Chattahoochee riv- 1T at Columbus, Ga, crowded with 1 ooy and girl cotton mill workers l coming into Georgia from Alabama. l All of them are between I4 and 10. l But Alabama, in which they live, can  posed exploitation.
 In Georgia, where boys of 12 may go to work providing they are or ,hans or the support of widowed l mothers, 6o-hour week is also legal y permissible, and most of the cotton l mills there are running on $ to 58- 1our basis. And at Rome, Co.,, where l he writer was arrested on the pro- ests of mill owner who objected to laving pictures of his property taken, III instance was found where a I2 year old boy was given employment 1t $5 a week, while his older brother, l ] lad of IS, complained of walking the streets in search of job. This same 1 E2 years old boy, by virtue of his earning power, was the sole support of his widowed mother, his I8 years old brother and still younger mem Der of the family
 As yet there Is no state aid through | ! mothers pension for youngsters of his type in Georgia, so all the com can do to assist them is grant permission to quit school and 70 to work Generally speaking, in he principal southern cotton mill tates, long hours for child workers prevail This condition, in addition to industrial prvaton, saddles further lomestc hardship upon the mill boy nd girl. Living in community built lround the mill, the children receive put pref contact with the outside world.
 Such state of affairs has created ritual caste system vehemently de- ounced by federal child welfare de- artment heads In the town of Rocky