Our Benevolent Feudalism

by William J. Ghent

VI

There are 168,624 children employed in manufactures throughout the country, a gain of 39.5 per cent. Child labor has increased in twelve of the factory States, remained practically stationary in two (Michigan and New Hampshire), and decreased in five States. The reasons for a decrease, where it is observed, are not hard to find; in certain industries child labor has been demonstrated to be unprofitable. But wherever it has been found profitable it seems to have been increasingly utilized. The increase in Wisconsin is 193.5 per cent; in Washington, 103.8; in Illinois, 92; in New Jersey, 51.4; in Pennsylvania, 47.8; and in Massachusetts, 44.9. In States outside of the foregoing list the same tendency is shown. South Carolina increased its child laborers by 270.7 per cent; Alabama, by 143.8; North Carolina, 119.2; Georgia, 81.

Children number 17.5 per cent of all the factory wage-earners of South Carolina, and 14.6 per cent of all those of North Carolina. In five other Southern States (including Maryland) the percentages range from 4.3 to 7.6, while among Northern States Rhode Island children form 5.2 per cent of the factory wage-earners, and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin children 4.5 and 4 per cent, respectively. If Pennsylvania is comparatively low in percentage, it is because of the great mass of its adult workers; for in absolute numbers of child workers it heads the list of commonwealths. No less than 33,135 children are employed in its factories, a figure which puts to shame the puny showing of New York, with 13,199, and of Massachusetts, with 12,556.

In certain industries children form more than one-fourth of all the operatives for a particular locality. In the making of cotton goods in Alabama 29.2 per cent of the workers are children, and in South Carolina 26.8 per cent. The figures for this industry in North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and Maryland are nearly identical. In Pennsylvania, for the making of jute goods the figures are 26.2, and for silk and silk goods, 20.2. Slightly more than one-fourth of the hosiery and knit-goods workers of Georgia are children and slightly less than one-fourth of the tobacco workers (chewing, smoking, and snuff) of North Carolina. Massachusetts, with its factory law, can make but the humble showing of 6.4 per cent of children in its cotton-goods factories, and Rhode Island but 10.3 per cent. Glass-making is an industry which has made a most literal adaptation of Jesus’ invitation to little children; though, if the words of reputable eye-witnesses are to be accepted, it is not exactly a heaven into which they are welcomed. Of the operatives in Pennsylvania glass works, children number 14 per cent, and of those in New Jersey glass works, 15.7 per cent.

In the cotton-goods industry there are 39,866 children, a gain of 70.1 per cent. It is interesting to learn that there are 1003 children employed in ship-building, and that this number is a gain of 476.4 per cent over 1890. There are 4521 in boot and shoe making, an increase of 85 per cent. There are 2259 in flax, hemp, and jute weaving, nearly twice as many as ten years ago. There are 316 in turpentine and rosin making, a gain of 236.2 per cent. The number has decreased for some reason in the making of clay products, as has also the number of men workers, women having now a growing preference in the potteries. There are also fewer children in petroleum refining, but in button-making an increase of 321.6 per cent, in leather-glove making of 185.7 per cent, and in slaughtering and meat-packing of 138.1 per cent is shown. Watch-making shows a gain of 30 per cent, bicycle-making of 780 per cent. Children have been found comparatively unadaptable in the liquor industry. Only 643 are employed in brewing and 18 in distilling. For all that, these figures represent an increase—in the former case of 24.6 per cent, in the latter of 200 per cent.

Children, according to the census, are persons below the age of sixteen. Testimony outside of the census reports shows the extreme youth of many of these operatives. Investigations among the glass works of southern New Jersey reveal a number of cases of child workers of eight, nine, and ten years of age. Mr. J. W. Sullivan, a careful and accurate observer, who visited this district in July of the present year, confirms these statements. Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, found a child of five working at night in a South Carolina mill. Mrs. Irene Ashby-Macfadyen, who has carefully studied conditions in the Southern mills, gives many instances of extremely young children working incredibly long hours. Professor George Clinton Edwards, in the New York Evening Post for August 13th, gives other instances relating to the mills of Dallas, Tex. In a later communication to the same journal he quotes the statement of a mill superintendent to the effect that of sixty boys and seventy-six girls employed, “there are two in their tenth year, nine in their eleventh year, thirteen in their twelfth year, and seventeen in their fourteenth year.” “This list, from the pay-roll,” writes Professor Edwards, “does not include the little children, who, with the mills’ knowledge, worked at the mills’ work, who earned the mills’ pay in the 10 or 20 per cent increase received by the relatives they assisted at piece work, and who were, therefore, in fact, the mills’ employees.” Labor Commissioner Lacey, of North Carolina, reports 7605 children under fourteen in 261 mills. A correspondent of the Cincinnati Post estimated 400 of the 1000 children employed in five mills in Columbia, S.C., to be under twelve years of age. Testimony by mill officials before a Southern legislature acknowledged in one instance 30 per cent of child workers under twelve years in a spinning room, and in another 25 per cent.

The census reports bear amiable testimony to the providence of the mill-owners. “Many of the mills,” says the South Carolina report, “have reading rooms and libraries for their employees, and nearly all contribute regularly to the support of the local schools.” “In the absence of legislation regulating child labor,” says the Georgia report, “all the cotton manufacturers in the State have signed an agreement to exclude from the mills children under ten years of age, and those under twelve who cannot show a certificate of four months’ attendance at school.” In the North Carolina report we find, “In the absence of legislation nearly all the mill-owners have agreed to discontinue the employment of children under twelve years of age.” A correspondent of the New York World found a like benevolence among the glass employers in southern New Jersey. “I need the boys,” said one, “all I can do is to treat the boys as well as I can.” The mill-owners, one and all, demand that the State keep its hands off, and trust to their own benevolence for remedies. So far, in the South, despite a three years’ agitation, the matter is still left entirely in their control.

Criticism of the mill-owners has been made to the effect that despite their benevolent professions, the children are poorly paid and that they remain uneducated. Some of them work long hours for 10 cents a day, others for 12 1/2, 15, and 18 cents. A newspaper correspondent tells of a certain spinning room in a Southern mill wherein the average daily pay for all children is 23 8/10 cents. “I know of babies,” writes Mrs. Macfadyen, “working for 5 and 6 cents a day.” The schooling which a child working seventy-two hours a week can get may be roughly guessed at. Mrs. Macfadyen found 567 children under twelve years working in eight mills. Only 122 of these children could read or write. In a school in a mill-town of between 6000 and 8000 persons, the same investigator found an enrolment of 90 pupils divided into two classes. A visit to one of these classes disclosed 22 children, only 12 of whom were mill-workers’ children, and 10 had worked in the mills from one to three years.

Criticisms based on these data are, however, generally held to be sentimental and irrelevant. Glass-blowing or textile-weaving, like anthracite mining, is, in the sententious phrase of President George F. Baer, of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company, “a business, and not a religious, sentimental, or academic proposition.” It is conducted for the making of money, and not for the spiritual or hygienic welfare of the operatives. It would be well, say the employers, if things could be better. But for the present they are making all the contribution to that end that they feel can conveniently be made. Moreover, they contend—and they are supported generally by the local ministers, who have in charge the spiritual affairs of the populace; by the local editors, lawyers, and solid men of “business”—it is better that children should work in the mills and factories than “run about the streets.” As for education, the contributing employers point to the schools, as though to say, “Here are the opportunities; why do you not take advantage of them?” It is quite enough to provide a balky horse with water, without being morally obliged to make him drink.