lowest rate in existence, and it carries first aid, which is a provision for a surgeon at the company's expense, without regard to liability. In other words, for less than $1 per operator per year they will take the chance of personal injuries, pay the doctor's bill without question, settle liberally if there is liability, defend lawsuits, and pay judgments, and yet they make money out of the business or they would not keep it up.

Senator BRANDEGEE. What document have you before you now? Mr. ROBERTS. One that I published myself-page 6.

Senator POINDEXTER. What is the title of it?

Mr. ROBERTS. "The Child Labor Mania." That is what it strikes me this proposition is. In Alabama we have a law that makes it a condition precedent to the employment of a child under 16 years of age that that child must have attended school 12 weeks. And after the employment

Senator THOMPSON. Per year?

Mr. ROBERTS. Per year. And after the employment of that child it must have had schooling 8 weeks out of each year in addition to the 12 weeks it had before it got the job.

Of course, there is no reason under the sun why a cotton mill should be singled out and burdened with that responsibility.

But

they have not resisted it. We do not resist it, for the very simple reason that the more proficient and efficient we can make these children the more we can make out out of them. It is to our interest to improve their conditions mentally, morally, and physically, and we are doing it.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Do their wages go on while they are going to school these eight weeks?

Mr. ROBERTS. No, sir.

Senator BRANDEGEE. How is that law expensive?

Mr. ROBERTS. Because, we have to pay the schooling; yes, indeed. You could not get the public schools to take children for any splitup terms.

Senator POMERENE. Do you have private schools?

Senator THOMPSON. In connection with the mills?

Mr. ROBERTS. It is in connection with the mills. We have three mills at our end of the town, and we have combined with the Young Women's Christian Association in the maintenance of a school, almost the year around.

Senator POMERENE. What length of time must the children who are not employed in the mill attend school?

Mr. ROBERTS. They have to attend school 12 weeks before they can be employed.

Senator POMERENE. I understand that; but you spoke about your being to this special expense and the amount of time that they must attend school. Were those children who are employed?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes, sir.

Senator POMERENE. Does that generally apply to all children? Mr. ROBERTS. Yes, sir.

Senator POMERENE. What sort of a general law have you in your State?

Mr. ROBERTS. The general compulsory education law?
Senator POMERENE. Yes.

Mr. ROBERTS. We have none. It only shows to you that if you want to work these children under 16 years of age you must see to it that they get a schooling. Of course, that is not fair to us; but the point I make is that these cotton-mill owners have not fought that provision; but, instead, have gone on and done everything in the world they could to promote the best interests of the child, because it was to their interest to do it.

I speak of it in that way because I want to show you, gentlemen, that we are not four-flushing; I want to show you that the relative position of those children working in the southern cotton mills is secure, because their advancement is to the interest of their employers to-day. That is the point.

I read this excerpt from the remarks of Mr. Scott. I failed to tell you that I could not understand how any man could make that statement in the face of the invitation that the Labor Committee received from the cotton mills to go South and investigate these conditions for themselves. That invitation was made and most cordially and urgently made, and was not accepted. I understand it will be extended to you gentlemen. I sincerely hope that you will all accept it. I really believe that it does not matter so much in the long run what you do to us, but you are in serious danger of working the gravest injury to the most dependent members of society that live in the South. I can not speak of conditions_elsewhere because I do not know them, except fundamentally. I say that it is a proposition that is fraught with the gravest probabilities to say to a young boy: "It matters not what happens to you, you shall not work." It is a retroversion of the very highest human philosophy since the beginning of time.

Senator POMERENE. You do not mean to say that this bill says that?

Mr. ROBERTS. It certainly does. It says that a child under 14 and between 14 and 16 years can not work to exceed eight hours a day.

Senator POMERENE. That is a different thing.

Mr. ROBERTS. It is, in your mind; but, practically speaking, and so far as southern cotton mills are concerned, it blasts his chances, because he can not get work at 8 hours a day, as Capt. Smyth tried to explain to you this morning.

Senator POMERENE. Why are the conditions so different in your section of the country from what they are in other sections where they have adopted similar laws?

Mr. ROBERTS. I have just stated, sir, that I can not explain to you why conditions are different. Suffice it to say that they are different; therefore the State should be left to handle them.

Senator LIPPITT. Do you know of any State where they have adopted a law that prevents children from working more than 8 hours?

Mr. ROBERTS. I do not get that.

Senator LIPPITT. I say, do you know of any State-the Senator from Ohio asked you why the conditions should be different in your community from what it was in States where they had adopted such laws I ask for information, if there is any State in your knowledge that has adopted a law that prevents children working more than 8 hours.

Senator CLAPP. Senator Lippitt, I put a statement in the record before you came in giving some 19 States that limit the working hours for children under 16, including Massachusetts and New York.

Senator LIPPITT. When did the law in Massachusetts go into effect? Senator CLAPP. I could not tell you.

Senator THOMPSON. Read those off.

Senator CLAPP. I do not know that the committee cares to have it all read.

Senator THOMPSON. I mean just the names of the States.

Senator CLAPP (reading).

Arizona, Arkansas, California, District of Columbia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.

Senator LIPPITT. Does that prevent them from working on farms or mills or what?

Senator CLAPP. All I can say is that it provides an 8-hour day under 16 years in factories.

Senator LIPPITT. We will not interrupt the witness; I will look at this [referring to statement introduced at the commencement of the afternoon session by Senator Clapp].

Mr. ROBERTS. Gentlemen, for the sake of getting down to the crux of the argument, we will put the age limit at 14 years. The proposition will certainly hold that this bill is in the position of saying that if you are under 14 years of age you shall not work for a living, no matter what your conditions are.

Gentlemen, we might sit here

Senator CLAPP. Just a moment. Have you any regulation on this subject in Alabama?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes, sir.

Senator CLAPP. What is that?

Mr. ROBERTS. Sixty hours a week, 12 weeks of schooling before employment and eight weeks schooling during employment.

Senator CLAPP. You were speaking a while ago of liability insurance. Have you any employer's liability law in Alabama?

Mr. ROBERTS. No, sir.

Senator CLAPP. No workingmen's compensation act there?

Mr. ROBERTS. No, sir; we have not.

Senator UNDERWOOD. Mr. Roberts, we have an employer's liability act, but not workingmen's compensation act.

Mr. ROBERTS. I did not know that; I beg your pardon, Senator. Senator UNDERWOOD. Alabama had one of the first employer's liability acts.

Senator CLAPP. I understood that. I was a little surprised at his

answer.

Mr. ROBERTS. I beg your pardon; I really did not know it. I am not a lawyer; I am just a business man, and I know I have to carry liability insurance, and that is what it costs me to get it.

I was saying to them, Senator La Follette, before you came in, that we obtain that liability insurance for less than any other occupation, and it is a point well worth considering by a man who has been under the impression that there are any inherent dangers in the work of cotton spinning.

In regard to the condition of these people who are working in these mills, I do not know anything better that I can do than to

refer you to the report of Dr. W. H. Oates, State factory inspector, Alabama, on page 9 of the annual report for year ending December 31, 1912:

The environment and surroundings to which these recruits are moved are, as a rule, inestimably superior to those in which they have been living.

Now, gentlemen, this man is supported by the agitators, and these are his words:

The so-called homes from which they come may be described in most cases as being totally void of civilization, education, sanitation, and hygiene. Frequently a man and a wife with four or five children live, or rather exist, in one or two rooms. They are absolutely illiterate; can not read or write, and eke out a miserable existence by ignorantly farming a few acres of land. In a vast majority of cases they have hookworms, are dull, listless, and apathetic, have little to say, and, in fact, I might say, are a race within a race.

That is the concluding paragraph of the annual statement of the State factory inspector, and he is borne out by the facts. If you gentlemen do not believe that the condition of these children are improved by going to the mills, go there and look at them. I say that any man with common sense can see it on the very faces of the two generations that are there. The children every time are beyond comparison with their own fathers and mothers. If you gentlemen do not believe those things, if you have any doubt about it, and if there has been so much confusion in all such reports as this that have been sent out here, and a great mass of statistics-statistics until you are just sick of it-go yourself and look at them. There is not anything about this proposition that you can not see. There is nothing to the technical or theoretical part of it that requires an expert. Any man can see it for himself if he will go and look.

I wish to quote again from the Congressional Record, this time from the address of Hon. William J. Cary, of Wisconsin. He says:

There is no necessity-absolutely none whatever-for the employment of young children in a factory of any kind, and no excuse for it either. The only reason why it is done is to swell the pockets of an already too wealthy manufacturer who pays starvation wages, and, not content with earning enormous dividends at the expense of adult manhood, lowering the standard of his workman's living that he may feast more luxuriously, but must drag childhood into his devil's maelstrom and grind youth and all that it means into pulp of wrecked humanity to satisfy his extravagances and satisfy his lust for wealth. and power.

What rot.

The southern cotton mills have done more for the people that they employ, and have gained by it personally less in proportion to their service than any other class of people that ever lived; and if you do not believe it come down there and see for yourselves.

I will quote again from this pamphlet of my own, on page 10. It gets down to the kernel of this question:

I would not put my own boy at work, though it might be best for him to work a part of the time. But I am deeply opposed to having him outlawed from making a living if he should be suddenly thrown on his own resources, with the option to beg, steal, or starve until he reaches an age acceptable to these so-called uplifters.

What are you going to do with the boy? Put yourself in his place. Your father dies and you have a mother dependent upon you. Now, to save argument, we will just come right down to what that ultimately reaches every time, and that is that the State should provide

mother's pensions, and that has already been done in several States. I will agree with you to a certain extent, but I put it to you as man to man: Would you like to look back upon a boyhood sustained by a public charity? You say, "I would not feel that way about it; it would be mine by law." I say it would be no more yours by law than the county poorhouse is yours by law to-day. Yet, how would you feel if you had to say to your friends, "Yes; my mother went to the poorhouse; I was 12 or 14 years old and able-bodied and could have worked and kept her from doing it, but the poorhouse was hers by law and I let her go, and I went myself"?

Do you wish to look back-do you wish to have any boy look back upon that condition, when he could do what you all had to do, go to work and make an honest living?

It is very unfortunate that there is such a difference in men. It is true they are born equal, but the conditions change every day. If you were to apportion the world's wealth equally, in 30 minutes there would be a realignment; some of them would be broke and some of the others would have it all. I do not know why that is, but it is another way of saying that the "poor we have with us always," and we always will.

Senator BRANDEGEE. At what time do these children have to come to work in the morning?

Mr. ROBERTS. Six o'clock.

Senator BRANDEGEE. At what time do they go home in the afternoon?

Mr. ROBERTS. Six o'clock.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Do they get their lunch at the mill?

Mr. ROBERTS. I should have said that they leave the mill at 5.30. I beg your pardon. Now, answering your last question, yes, sir; the mill and the village are right there together.

Senator BRANDEGEE. How much time do they get off at noon?
Mr. ROBERTS. Half an hour.

Senator BRANDEGEE. At other mills, in States where they have this eight-hour law for children, they get along with it some way or other; I do not know how. It has been explained satisfactorily before the committee. Are you not able to state whether, if your mill should be compelled to reduce the hours of employment of these children from 10 to 8, there is no alternative between putting your mill on an eight-hour basis or discharging these children?

Mr. ROBERTS. I do not see any.

Senator BRANDEGEE. You can not conceive how these other mills, in other States, can do it?

Mr. ROBERTS. No, sir; I know nothing of them.

Senator BRANDEGEE. We will get that information from some witness later.

Senator THOMPSON. I understand your statement is 11 hours?
Mr. ROBERTS. It is 11 hours.

Senator THOMPSON. You take a half hour off at noon?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes; I am very glad you spoke of that, because it brings to light a very important thing as to the question of the lightness of this work. In our State we have passed a law permitting 60 hours a week. We immediately went to 10 hours a day every day. We prefer that; the owners prefer it.