this nationa' problem it was denounced as having been financed by capital invested in New England cotton mills. She had seen the influence of this idustry, so conspicuous for the exploitation of children, exerted in State legislatures and in the halls of Congress. She has seen southern Senators and Representatives, misrepresentatives all, strive to prevent the creation of a Children's Bureau and later strive to cripple it with meager appropriations. And she has seen the same little goup of Representatives in the House voting last year and this against the Federal child-labor bill and describing it as an attack on the South.

“And, if I do not misinterpret the spirit and traditions and sentiments of my own people, the South hotly resents the implication that her civilization is measured by the standards of child-employing cotton mills. It is unfair to the South that such an impression of her humanity should have been made by the exploiters of childhood and their Representatives that the press dispatches nov almost automatically carry the statement, Southern Congressmen oppose Federal child-labor bill.' For a majority of southern Congressmen voted for that bill, as they did for the Children's Bureau and for ample appropriations for that bureau. The South is not only in favor of the abolition of child labor, but she is getting ready to rebuke in no uncertain fashion those who have misrepresented her views in the halls of Congress as she has already rebuked those who as governors or as State legislators have defied the will of the people through subservience to special interests."

The following southern newspapers are among those which have expressed their opinions emphatically in favor of child-labor reform, and in most instances in favor of the principles of Federal regulation:

Tampa (Fla.) Times, Roanoke (Va.) World, the Rome (Ga.) Herald, the Americus (Ga.) Progress, the Galveston (Tex.) Tribune, the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph, the Winston-Salem (N. C.) Journal, the Galveston (Tex.) News, the Asheville (N. C.) Citizen, the Augusta (Ga.) Herald, the New Orleans (La.) Picayune, the Beaumont (Tex.) Enterprise, the Memphis (Tenn.) Commercial-Appeal, Meridian (Miss.) Star, Tucson (Ariz.) Star, the Baltimore American, the Houston (Tex.) Post, the Greenville (N. C.) Reflector, and the Journal of Labor, Atlanta. Extracts from some of these editorial expressions are printed below:

[Roanoke (Va.) World.]

THE MODERN SLAVERY.

Those people of the South, and they may be counted by the million, who take a broad view of things and who want to see their Nation developed along the highest lines, are following with profound regret the attitude of southern Representatives toward the Keating-Owen child-labor bill.

This bill is designed to prevent the employment of children under 14 and to limit the hours of work for children between 14 and 16 to eight hours a day. In the large majority of States of the Union a law similar to this is in force, but in some Southern States it is far below the standard which the best thought of the country plainly establishes.

Opposition to the Keating-Owen measure comes almost entirely from the South, and particularly from Virginia and North and South Carolina. Such opposition, in our judgment, does not express the convictions of Virginia and Carolina people. In fact, it misrepresents them. It advertises them before the world as champions of modern slavery. For years the American Nation has been struggling to break the shackles from the hands of children, to make life and opportunity for them brighter, and to put behind them the protective care of government.

If the question of preventing child labor could be submitted to the citizens of Roanoke, it would pass by an overwhelming, if not unanimous, vote. We wish it were so that this fact could be made known to all the world. Roanoke stands in the forefront of the battle for the little ones, and it hears with profoundest sorrow of its misrepresentation by southern Democratic Congressmen. Roanoke is for the child first, last, and always, and it hangs its head in shame that men can sell the child's rights and the child's future for the perpetuation of material advantages. Roanoke is opposed to slavery of every sort, and it hates with all its heart the slavery that would barter the lives of God's precious charges for the building up of gain.

[Asheville (N. C.) Citizen, Feb. 4, 1916.]

KEATING BILL'S first blood,

The passage of the Keating bill by one of the biggest majorities every accorded a measure in the lower House of Congress is a signal triumph for the opponents of child labor, and certainly a stinging rebuke to the Southern legislators who believe that their seats in Congress must be retained by the sacrifice of little children. It is rather a sad commentary on some of Dixie's Representatives that they stood out in painful comparison to more than 300 Congressmen from other sections of the United States, and it is no record to be proud of that historians of the future will write.

Child labor, a marketable commodity! Child labor, a sop to be thrown to the great manufacturing interests that congressional succession may be uninterrupted and that the profits of the aforesaid interests may grow greater and wax fatter! Evidently there are 337 Congressmen opposed to 46 Congressmen, taking the figures of the Keating vote as being correct, who are not troubled by the question of constitutionality, but who know and believe that when the United States Government engages in the work of protecting its wards, its citizens of the future, it has entered upon a mission which the States of themselves seem unable to accomplish, mostly because they will not accomplish. If this great Government, which has reached out into so many questions involving State rights, will not protect its little ones from greed and oppression, who will protect them? It has been said that some parents must depend upon the labor of their children. This may be true in rare cases, but the number is remarkably small. In most cases the parents who feed on the strength and energy of their children, refusing to work themselves, are burdens upon the Nation, and they throw upon society of the future more wrecks of their own type. The question of child labor is not a political one, and he who would attempt to make it so is unworthy of the respect and confidence of his fellow men. This is a national question, and while the public conscience has not yet been fully aroused to this danger which threatens the country, a danger far greater than the lack of armament, a day of accounting is coming, a day wherein a zeal for justice and fairness to helpless childhood will be kindled in the hearts of the people. For, after all, justice is a law of God, founded upon nothing less than His eternal wisdom.

[Raleigh (N. (.) News and Observer, Feb. 9, 1916.]

THE CHILD-LABOR EVIL.

Just so long as the North Carolina opponents of the Keating bill contented themselves with making objections to the bill based upon their belief that it is unconstitutional, that it is a bill which overrides State rights, that it is a bill which is to be made the basis of conditions in which New England mills will be favored as against southern mills, they were on pretty safe ground to argue against that measure which has just passed the United States House of Representatives.

But when the position is seriously taken that there are laws with relation to child labor in North Carolina which meet the need or which are satisfactory to the people who want to see childhood protected, arguments against the Keating bill fall flat. It is a well-known thing that bills with "teeth" in them for the ending of child-labor laws have been put to sleep in the State senate, and at the last session the modest bill for State inspection was done to death by cotton mill manufacturers and the influence they had in the senate.

In its child-labor laws North Carolina, we believe, is classed at the bottom of the list of those looking out for its children, and in this is placed with South Carolina, New Mexico, and Wyoming. We can't say that we “ point with pride" to any such comradeship. In fact, we wish we were well away from the three States to which we are linked in the lack of care we give to childhood which is forced into the mills. And especially so when we recognize that it is that position which is said to have been largely the reason for the Keating bill, the purpose of which is to lift the emphatic hand of the law against child labor.

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[Greensboro (N. C.) Record, Feb. 15, 1916.]

MR. SMYTHE.

Mr. Smythe. cotton-mill owner of South Carolina, was before a Senate committee to-day opposing the Keating child-labor bill, and he came near converting us, at any rate-to favor the measure which he opposes. This paper has been inclined to antagonism of the proposed law which would prohibit the interstate shipment of goods made by child labor, believing that the laws on the subject might be handled best by the individual States, but the manner of the fight being made upon the bill is very near to convincing us that the bill is not only meritorious but that certain of the mills are more dependent upon the labor of children than we had ever supposed. From time to time the statement has reached our ears that none favors child-labor laws which relieve the manufacturers of the demand that they employ children more than the average manufacturer himself, and, believing this, we have been inclined to oppose yellow agitation for legislation in the matter. But there are some views we have which are principles. We do not believe an industry which offers homes to families is justifiable in arguing that these families must work their 14 and 15 year old children to keep up the household, and therefore we can not see any good purpose in a mill owner presenting this phase of the case to the Congress.

[Raleigh (N. C.) Progressive Farmer, February, 1916.]

Since southern manufacturers with their vast wealth and influence have used their power to prevent suitable child-labor legislation by State action, nothing remains but for the National Government to handle this matter.

[Winston-Salem (N. C.) Journal, Feb. 4, 1916.]

CHILD LABOR IS UP TO SENATE.

It is now up to the United States Senate to say whether or not the Supreme Court will face the necessity of passing on the constitutionality of a Federa! law prohibiting the shipment of goods made by children from one State to another. As was generally expected, the child-labor bill passed the House Wednesday by an overwhelming majority, which was, we have no doubt, a little more overwhelming than the friends of the measure had anticipated. There were few who thought that only 46 Members of the House would in the final test register dissenting voices against the Keating bill; but so it was.

Coming from the House as it does with such a powerful majority in its favor, there is good reason to believe that the Senate will also pass this bill. More and more the Senate is becoming mindful of the fact that the House is close to the people and is fresh from the people and as a usual thing knows what the people want in the way of legislation. And the Senator who is as much politician as statesman-and most Senators are that-nearly always keeps his ear close to the ground. Such Senators will think twice before flying directly in the face of a House majority of 337 to 46, Constitution or no Constitution. When the test comes we dare say he will find it much easier to shift the burden of safeguarding the Constitution from his own to the Supreme Court's shoulders than to take the responsibility himself.

Of course there are a great many Senators who are first of all statesmen and who would be willing to sacrifice their seats to principle, who would rather lose their jobs than to vote for a measure which they believe to be against the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. Then there are not a few Senators who, like many Members of the House, honestly believe that Congress has a right under the Constitution to pass this child-labor bill. These last-the politician Senators and statesmen Senators who are honest, but, in our opinion, mistaken-will doubtless predominate when the vote is taken on the Keating bill.

[Memphis (Tenn.) Commercial-Appeal, Jan. 4, 1916.]

But the right to grind the hope and health and joy out of little children by long hours of hard labor in close factories or dark mines belongs to no man and no corporation of men. And it is against the greed of these would-be grinders that the child labor committee has formulated its bill. The members of this committee are not speaking from hearsay information. They have

personally inspected the mills, the sweatshops, and the mines where the blood and hope of the undeveloped children have been coined into factory products. It is in behalf of these children that they are seeking to arouse public sentiment, that Congress may be induced to pass a national law that will be effective and protective.

[Hickory (N. C.) Daily Record, Jan. 15, 1916.]

There are only a few defenders of those who would stand for the system in North Carolina. A rich Commonwealth can not afford to be backward in the matter of child labor, and North Carolina manufacturers should let the world know that they are willing to go as far as any State in practical welfare legislation. Wholesome legislation is coming, and it would be much better if the broad-minded men among the manufacturers would take it upon themselves to see that good laws are made and then obeyed.

[Anderson (S. C.) Farmers' Tribune, Jan. 11, 1916.]

MILLS WORK OVERTIME.

Some operatives of the Anderson mills called at Farmers Tribune Saturday and asked that we call attention to the fact that that mill was daily violating the laws of the State by working the operatives overtime. "While we are not required to start work until 15 minutes after the wheels start, yet if we do not take up our work 15 minutes before the appointed time, the work is so torn up that it requires half a day to straighten out the mess," said one of the operatives. "Of course," continued this operative, "we do not get pay for straightening up this work, and therefore rather than lose several hours straightening up what the machines have messed up, we go to work 15 minutes ahead of time in the morning and at noon, which allows us only 30 minutes to get home for dinner and back to the machines. Those who work by the day are also required to work overtime, which amount to about a half a day during the week."

[Greenville (S. C.) Home Circle.]

CORPORATION, NOT STATE, OFFICERS.

The other day we had an interview with a prominent attorney regarding the cotton mill deputy sheriffs in the State. He said: "I don't believe in these mill village police being hired and paid by these mill corporations, as they are more bound to serve for the corporation than the general public, as their service is better in the interest of where their salary comes from, than anywhere else. While these are supposed to be State officers, they don't serve the State, only in the interest and by their commands of the corporations he is not independent."

He further stated, regarding the Freez riot: "The mill police, Mr. Justice, seemed to stand around with his hands in his pockets, only doing what the mill management told him; otherwise he would have prevented the riot if he had been acting independent."

"Think the legislature could change this law, that all State officials should be paid by the State, and not some public corporation to pay and use them in the interest of their individual welfare."

[Greenville (S. C.) Home Circle.]

THE REASON WHY.

Little babies thrown out into the streets, together with household effects. Can you imagine the cause? Not for a crime; not for lack of industry; not for lack of efficiency in work; not for lack of morality, because the religious pictures that were hanging on the walls with this inscription: "Jesus is the Head of this House"; that proves these people were religious. Well, what? Why were they thrown out into the street? Because the workers joined a labor union; and this is the punishment decreed and operated by capital. Just because a man exercised his rights of citizenship-independence he must be thrown out of a home, and these little babies must suffer.

Thrown out by Judson mills just because they would not yield to slavery and ignorance, and domination of capital.

[Greenville (S. C.) Home Circle, Feb. 10, 1916.]

The Keating child-labor bill meets with favor in Congress. It passed by a vote of 337 to 46. This bill prohibits the interstate shipment of the products of child labor, under a heavy penalty, but excepts boys and girls' clubs.

If the bill passes the Senuate it then becomes a law. And it will be of a great benefit to all mill workers. It means better pay for the grown people that have children. It gives the children the benefit of education, while it don't prohibit children from work on the farms. And it don't prohibit children from working in cotton mills, but it does prohibit the shipping of child-labor products outside of the State on which it is produced.

[Americus (Ga.) Herald.]

STATE WILL NOT PROVIDE FACTORY INSPECTOR TO ENFORCE CHILD-LABOR LAW.

There will be no adequate enforcement of the Georgia child-labor law for at least another year. At the extraordinary session of the legislature there was no mention of the bill to provide a factory inspector among the six subjects for legislative action. At present the commissioner of labor is charged with the enforcement of the child-labor law in addition to the "collection, collation, and dissemination of information and statistics concerning labor in its relation to capital; location, capacity, and output of mills and factories; quantity of raw material used by them annually; location and horsepower of valuable water powers," etc., for which work he is provided with two office assistants.

The bill providing for an assistant factory inspector to enforce the child-labor law was favorably reported by both house and senate committees at the last session, and the governor was urged by the Department of Labor, the labor unions, and other friends of child-labor reform to include it in the program for the extraordinary session.

"This is one of the occasions when we realize more strongly than ever that a Federal child-labor law is the most important goal in the campaign against child labor," said Dr. A. J. McKelway, the National child labor committee's secretary for the Southern States, who has just returned from Atlanta. "For years we have fought to improve the child-labor law in Georgia, and last year we did succeed in raising the age limit from 12 to 14, with the exemption for poverty raised from 10 to 12 years. But now the State refuses to provide for the enforcement even of that mild law. If we had a Federal law we would not have to wait for the Georgia Legislature to take action. The law could be enforced by Federal inspectors."

[Rome (Ga.) Herald, Feb. 6, 1916.]

THE CHILD-LABOR BILL.

The Keating child-labor bill barring from interstate commerce the products of child labor has passed the National House of Representatives by a vote of 337 to 46. This is probably a forerunner of what will happen in the Senate. Under the provisions of the bill a heavy penalty is imposed for interstate shipment of any commodity made in whole or in part by children under 16 years of age.

Unless the children are protected the foundation of the Government will soon begin to totter. There have been from time to time enacted in all States child-labor laws. The great trouble has been that these laws have never been enforced as they should be. Usually the lobbyists in the State capitals have managed in some sagacious way to add a rider to the child-labor bill which effectually impedes the real purpose of the law. Now that the Federal Government has taken a hand in the game of child protection the children of the future will be substantially looked after.

The Keating bill has been a source of contention for some time. It was prepared during the last session of Congress but was not presented at that time. Now that it has been passed with such a convincing vote in the lower House its ultimate passage in the Senate can be safely predicted, but it is not probable that the vote will be so emphatic.