CHILD LIFE vs. DIVIDENDS.
KNK ASIIIIV-MAOKADVKN , In Amuijcim
1'VdorntloniHt. )
Tlicsc are American children
dragged into the mills when scarcely
out of their babyhood , without edu
cation , without opportunity , being
robbed of health morally and physi
cally , forced to labor as in the days
of negro slavery negro children never
were. With their baby hands these
little slaves are undermining the
liberties of the future , not only of
the cotton operatives of the South ,
but of the American working people ;
nor only of the working people , but
of the community in which they for
good or evil are to play so largo a
part.
part.And
And what is the universal reply
to your question , "Why are they
there ? "
They are there , it is said , "to
attract Northern capital , " a scathing
comment on both those who sell and
those who ask the sale. The South
ern states of America are the only
section of the world where the crime
of infant labor is permitted , a crime
which if not quickly wiped out will
write itself large on economic and
industrial history , to the everlasting
shame of the people of America.
TaKe the number of the children
employed ! Statistics are very diffi
cult to obtain. In quoting figures it
is to be remembered that we are not
dealing with the denser population of
the North and East. The wliole popu
lation of Alabama , more than one-
third of which is negro , and does not
count in this connection , is only
about the same as the city of
Chicago.
There is but one of the Southern
states iu which there is a Labor
Commission North Carolina Mr.
B R. Lacey , as Labor Commissioner ,
gives in his last report 7,605 children
under 14 employed in 261 mills.
Taking this as a general average
would give at least 20,000 children
under 14 in the textile mills of the
South.
The Cincinnati Post recently sent a
correspondent through the South to
investigate the subject of child labor ,
simply as a matter of news , and par
ticularly cautioned him not to exag
gerate. Out of at , least one thousand
children employed in five mills iu
Columbia , S. 0. , lie estimates 400 to
bo under 12 years of age. Applying
this proportion to the above figures ,
would give at the very lowest com
putation , little children , infants be
tween 6 and 12 , as operatives. Ho
spoke personally to numbers of chil
dren , who said they were seven and
eight , and others who were so little
they did not know their own ages.
In Alabama , they estimate that
there are at least twelve hundred
children , or between 6 and 7 per cent
of all the operatives. In Georgia ,
from compared estimates and actual
counts , the proportion of children
under 12 to grown operatives appears
as between 14 and 15 per cent , while
in South Carolina it is at least 9 per
cent.
The Associated Press reported the
prcsidpnt of the Whitney mills as
stating before the legislature that 80
per cent of his operatives were under
12 years , which percentage he says
referred only to the spinning room ,
but that is startling enough. James
K. Orr stated that 25 per cent of
his machinery was run by children
under 12 years. These cold precent-
ages do not give an adequate expres
sion of their meaning. To the horri
fied visitor the mills appear to be
swarming with little children. The
light and easy work of which the
managers speak is to stand on their
feet all day before a spinning frame ,
where the threads may break at one
end or the other or in the middle at
any moment , and when the thread
breaks the spool stops and the thread
is to be rejoined and the spool
started again.
A baby has one frame to attend to ,
but most have two , many have three
and some have four or five. The
boys are generally doffers or sweep
ers , that is , they have to change th °
bobbins on the frames as they become
full and substitute empty ones. In
the exercise of their work they often
run 16 or 17 miles a day with their
trucks. The little sweeper plies a
broom bigger than himself to perform
these actions , trivial in themselves ,
uninterruptedly for 12 hours a day
on the average , with only one-half
hour for rest and food We all re
member how Lord Shaftesbury ob
tained powerful backing for his child
labor law by inducing a gentlemen in
high place to repeat for 15 minutes
the very action required of the child.
At the end of that time he was will
ing to vote for anything to put a stop
to such barbarity.
Without regulation of hours there
is no reason to prevent the mills
working at night and when they can
do so profitably they avail themselves
of this permission. I have talked
with a little boy of seven years who
worked for 40 nights , in Alabama ,
and another child not nine years old ,
who at six years old had been on the
night shift 11 months.
A clerk in a cotton mill told mo
that little boys turned out at two iu
the morning for some-trivial fault ,
afraid to go homo , would beg him to
allow them to go to sleep 011 the
office floor.
In Georgia it is a common sight to
see the children of cotton operatives
stretched on the bed dressed as they
came from the mills in the morning ,
too weary to do anything but fling
themselves down for rest.
In South Carolina Miss Jane
Addams , of Chicago , found a child
of five working at night in the fine ,
large , now mills. Only a few weeks J
ago I stood at 10:00 : at night in a
mill in Columbia , S. C. , controlled
and owned by northern capital ,
whore children who did not know
their own ages were working from 6
p. m. to 6 a. m. without a moment
for rest or food or a single cessation
of the maddening racket of the ma-
chiney , in an atmosphere unsanitary
and clouded with humidity and lint.
Slaughter of Innocents.
The physical , mental and moral
effect of these long hours of toil and
confinement on the children is inde
scribably sad. Mill children are so
stunted , that every foreman , as you
enter the mill , will tell you that you
cannot judge their ages. Children
may look , ho says , to bo 10 or 11 ,
and bo in reality 14 or 15.
A horrible form of dropsy occurs
among the children. A doctor in a
city mill , who has made a special
study of the subject , tells mo that 10
per cent of the children who go to
work before 12 years of age , after
five years , contract active consump
tion. The lint forms in their luiigs
a perfect cultivating medium for
tuberculosis , while the change from
the hot atmosphere of the mill 'to the
chill night or morning air , often
brings on pneumonia , which fre
quently , if not the cause of death , i&
a forerunner of consumption.
How sternly the "pound of flesh"
is insisted on by the various em
ployers , is illustrated by the case of
two little boys of 9 and 11 , who had
to walk three miles to work on the
night shift for 12 hours. One night
they were five minutes late and were
shut out , having to trump the whole
three miles back again. The number
of accidents to those poor little ones
who do not know the dangers of ma
chinery is , appalling.
In Hnntsville , Ala. , in January ,
just before I was there , a child of
eight years who had been a few
weeks in the mills , lost the index
and middle fingers of her right hand.
A child of seven had lost her thumb
a year previously.
In one mill city in the"Soutli a
doctor told a friend that ho had per
sonally amputated more than a hun
dred babies' fingers mangled in the
mill. A cotton merchant in Atlanta
told mo ho had frequently scon mill
children without lingers or thumb
and sometimes without the whole
hand.
So frequent arc these accidents that
in some mills applicants for employ
ment have to sign a contract that in
case of injury in the mill the com-
