The percentage of average daily school attendan e to the white school census was 59. For the year 1911-12 the percentage of white rural enrollment for the entire county of Caldwell to the white school census was 66.

For the year 1911-12 the percentage of average daily attendance to the white rural school census of Caldwell County, N. C., was 44.

CATAWBA COUNTY, N. C. FROM SCHOOL REPORTS, 1912-13.

Study of four cotton-mill districts in Eickory Township, Catawba County, N. C. Percentage of white school enrollment to white school census in the four mill districts, 62.

Percentage of average daily attendance to white school census in mill districts, 38. Percentage of white school enrollment to white school census in 12 rural districts in Catawba County, 76.

Percentage of average daily attendance to white school census in the same 12 districts in Catawba County, 50.

Percentage of rural white school enrollment to rural white school census in Catawba County for the year 1911-12, 68.

Percentage of rural white average daily attendance to rural white school census in Catawba County for the year 1911-12, 54.

STUDY OF SCHOOL REPORTS OF ROANOKE RAPIDS, HALIFAX COUNTY, N. C., FOR THE THE YEAR 1913-14.

Roanoke Rapids is a cotton-mill town.

Percentage of white school enrollment to white school census in Roanoke Rapids, 51. Percentage of white average daily attendance to white school census, 28.

Percentage of rural white school enrollment to rural white school census in Halifax County, 75.

Percentage of rural white average daily attendance to rural white school population in Halifax County, 47.

RURAL NORTH CAROLINA.

Percentage of rural white school enrollment to rural white school census of North Carolina, 79.

Percentage of rural white average daily attendance to rural white school census in North Carolina, 54.

Alleghany County, N. C.-This is a mountain county.

Percentage of rural white school enrollment to rural white school census, Alleghany County, 89.

Percentage of rural white average daily attendance to rural white school census, Alleghany County, 62.

Stokes County, N. C.-This is a semimountain county, being located at the eastern slope of the mountains. It is strictly rural.

Percentage of rural white school enrollment to rural white census, Stokes County, 82. Percentage of rural white average daily attendance to rural white school census, Stokes County, 46.

Mr. SWIFT. As further bearing upon this question--and I am stating this to make this clear-so far as my investigation goes, the movement to the mill village does not make for general education. In my opinion it works just exactly the other way. Mr. Hickerson, the county superintendent of public instruction of Rockingham County, told me less than a month ago, that at Mayodan, Mr. W. C. Ruffin's mill, the educational facilities in the schools were not nearly so good, and the children were not attending school nearly so well as in Rockingham County. I give this explanation: We already have in those mill villages, frequently some very good schoolhouses. Frequently they are built largely, or in part, from funds contributed by the mill corporation or by individuals connected with the mill. Our country people are building their school houses by local taxation, and I think, while I have not made any detailed study of this, that the sum of the taxation on the mill village would practically amount

to the same as the local taxation for the building of school houses and running the mill schools in the country district.

It is a fact in one mill, which I recall, that the mill contributed $140 to pay the expenses of the teacher. They were opposed to a local tax to extend the school. That mill was, according to my information, at Whitnell, in Caldwell County, N. C.

A question was asked here yesterday as to the church facilities of our people. I do not think it hes ever been suggested that we do not have plenty of churches all over North Carolina, and I am quite sure that the same is true with respect to South Carolina. In fact I know that the strength of our religious life lies in the country districts and not in the villages or in the cities. That is well recognized.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. You mean that the churches that are there now are not usually filled?

Mr. SWIFT. Do you mean in the mill villages or in the country? The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Well, anywhere.

Mr. SWIFT. I think the attendance at the churches in the country is better than in either the mill villages or cities. That is my observation from some years of study.

I made no study as to the poverty of the mill people except in one place. More than a year ago I studied a chart prepared by the secretary of the Associated Charities of the city of Columbia, S. C., in which he designated the points from which came the principal demands for charity. Except immediately around the city hall, which condition arose through the transients, the mill villages were the places from which most calls for charity came, even including the colored districts which form a part of the city. This is my opinion formed after what study I have given the subject, and what facilities I have had. If it should be the opinion of this committee and of the Congress that children under 14 years of age ought not to be permitted to be employed in our manufacturing establishments, it is my opinion that so far as North Carolina is concerned it will be a good many years before such prohibition will be written into the law. I do not think it will be at all possible to get that enacted at any very early date. If it should be the opinion of this committee that there should be a strict enforcement of any child-labor legislation by special inspectors under a designated department, according to recommendations made by Gov. Kitchin and our other governors, it is my opinion from observation that that can not be had in North Carolina for many years.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Why?

Mr. SWIFT. The gentlemen here who are opposing this bill have always opposed it there-opposed that side of it-and I do not think there will be any change in that attitude. That is, of course, an opinion based upon experience with legislatures in that State; thirdly, if it should be the opinion that there should be a limitation of hours of labor to eight for children under 16, I have no sort of idea, I do not believe, that it can be enacted into law, or that it will be enforced in my State.

I think it was Senator Clapp who asked the question, "Why this discussion with reference to the cotton mill?" Now, this has been my experience: When we come to the legislature seeking laws, or the

enactment of laws relating to the employment of children, we meet only one well-defined opposition. That arises from the cotton millssome in the hosiery mills and others in the spinning and weaving mills. As Mr. Ruffin has said, "We do have some children in the tobacco factories." So far as I know, in two years with the legislature, I have seen no active and have heard of no active opposition on the part of the tobacco manufacturers on this question. I have looked over and studied one tobacco factory. I saw no large number of very small children. I saw two small white boys who appeared to be under 13, and I think five colored children of about the same size. The others were 14 years and over.

If I may be permitted to state on the matter of the widows, Mr. Hollis last year in South Carolina made a study of the number of orphan children and widows in 16 South Carolina mills. He found in those 16 South Carolina mills 5,000 operatives. He found a mill population of 15,000. He found the number of children between 12 and 14, 233. Of these, 52 were the children of widows.

Mr. KITCHIN. What county is that?

Mr. SWIFT. I think it is in the Rock Hill section. The mills are not designated. He has only sent me the abstract. Seventeen were the children of disabled parents. Seven were orphans. The number of families dependent upon the aid of children between 12 and 14 was 72; that is, they were not orphans, but the families were somewhat dependent upon the children. I will ask to have this paper inserted in the record.

(The paper referred to is as follows:)

Report of 16 cotton mills, 5,000 operatives, a mill population of 15,000, taken to be report of Mr. Hollis, of Greenville, S. C.; facts obtained from Judge Joseph A. McCullough, of Greenville, S. C.:

77

Orphans....

Number of families dependent upon the aid of children between the ages of 12 and 14..

Mr. SWIFT. There is, besides the widow, another person in these cotton mill districts that demands attention, and that is the man who has lived out on a farm and who has a family of children growing up. Somehow the word gets to him that he can make more money, or better, and he comes to believe it, by moving into the mills. It is not rare for that man to go into the mill village, put his children at work, and then become what we know as a "mill secretary"; that is, he is the man who draws the wages and lives off the labor of some older and some younger children. He does practically nothing. There are a great many of those. My observation, however, is that it is becoming not quite so good caste as it was once. But still the law against vagrancy has not been enforced so as to cut out all of these people.

Last year, when we were studying this question I submitted to the physicians in my State six questions, and if I may, I will read the

questions and answers. The first question submitted to the physicians of the State was:

Is it probable that the employment of children under 14 years of age in the mills, factories, stores, and other public or private buildings for 11 hours a day will be injurious either to the race or to the children?

I had 320 replies. Two hundred and ninety said yes; 16 said no; 5 said yes, conditionally; and 9 did not reply.

I asked the second question:

Is there any reason why it should be more injurious for girls than to boys?

I asked that question for this reason, that there is a distinction in some States. In my State the girls are admitted to employment at the same age as boys. In answer to that question, out of 320, 264 answered yes; 45 answered no; 3 answered, conditionally; and 8 did not reply.

The third question was:

In your opinion would it be wise to forbid the employment of any child under 14 in any mill, factory, store, or other similar place?

To that there were 211 answering yes; 61 answering no; 39, yes, conditionally; and 9 did not reply.

The fourth question was:

In your opinion would it be wise to forbid by law the employment of any children under 16 years of age in any mill, factory, store, or other similar place for more than eight hours a day?

In answer to that question 247 said yes; 48, no; 16 answered conditionally; and 9 did not reply.

The fifth question was:

In your opinion would it be wise to forbid by law the employment of any children under 16 in any occupation declared by the State board of health to be dangerous? In answer to that question there were, yes, 263; no, 28; yes, conditionally, 13; and 16 did not reply.

The sixth question was:

Should the State empower the commissioner of labor to enforce the child-labor laws and inspectors be given him for this purpose?

Answering that there were yes, 264; no, 16; conditionally, 5; not replying, 35.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. How did you select you physicians? To whom would you address that inquiry?

Mr. SWIFT. I took the list from the report of the State medical society for the year 1912.

When this question came on for hearing, as I remember, one physician came before the committee and stated his opposition to the State legislation which we were attempting to get through. He came from one of the principal cotton-manufacturing towns in the State. There may have been another person whom I do not remember; I do not think there was.

Mr. Chairman, so far as I now know, that is all I have to say. (Mr. Swift was thereupon excused.)

STATEMENT OF MISS EUNICE SINCLAIR, OF FAYETTEVILLE, N. C.

Miss SINCLAIR. Gentlemen, my report for this afternoon is not in regard to health conditions and social conditions in the mills, but

simply as to the number of children who in the past few months I have found at work in North Carolina. This report was made from material gathered by going from house to house. The information. in all cases was given by the parents of the children, and I frequently had reference to the family Bible or family record. I visited 28 mills. Some of those mills were good and some of them were poor, but I think the average represents very well the conditions in North Carolina.

My report was for those children I found under 14 years of age at work in the mills. In case I found a child of 14 who had been working over a year, I reported him also. I found some children 14 years of age who had been working as long as six years. I possibly missed some of the children in those mills owing to my inexperience. I do not think I would miss any in a mill to-day. I have been employed by the Child Labor Committee for the last six months. Senator CLAPP. Where is your home?

Miss SINCLAIR. Fayetteville, N. C., in the eastern part of the State.

The first mili I visited was the Holt-Williamson Mills in Fayetteville. There I found two children of 14, one of whom had been working three years; three, 13; and one, 12, a total of seven children. in that mill.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Out of how many?

Miss SINCLAIR. You mean the number of employees in the mill? The ACTING CHAIRMAN. How many children employed in that mill?

Miss SINCLAIR. I found 7 children under the age, but did not count the number under 16.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Well, have you the number of children that were employed in the mill under 16?

Miss SINCLAIR. I have no record except what I made myself in the mill. I went through the mill.

Mr. KITCHIN. Perhaps it would help if she would give the total number of employees in the mill as well as the number of children. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Can you give the number of people in the mill ?

Miss SINCLAIR. I think I can get that.

The next mill I visited was the Cumberland Mills, near Fayetteville, and I read what I have in my report:

Cumberland Mills village made a rather interesting study. Being segregated as it is, it has developed a positive monarchy, and yet owing to the excellent situation it might be a model mill community. The children under 10 years were allowed to "play" in the factory. "Play" I found to mean assisting the father, brother, or sister. While they were not receiving wages they were permitted to work. James Lovick, whom you find mentioned in the report, was one of these frivolous characters up to a few years ago, when he was indiscreet enough to become caught in a band and narrowly escaped death.

Here I found 2 children of 12, 5 of 15, 12 of 11, 3 of 10, and 2 of 9, making a total of 16 children.

The next mill was the Raeford Power & Manufacturing Co., Raeford, N. C. Here there were 8 children of 14, 1 who had been working as long as a year, 4 children who had worked for 2 years, 2 for 3 years, and 8 for 4 years; making a total of 15 children in that mill. The next mill was Sanford Cotton Mills, at Sanford, N. C. Here there were 3 children aged 14, 9 of 13, and 3 of 12, making a total of 15 children.