tage is greatly reduced,
as practically no one under sixteen can be profitably employed in a weaving
room.

Public sentiment against the employment of children became aroused only
slowly. Crusades against such industrial customs are usually led by
organized labor, by professional philanthropists, by sentimentalists,
and by socialistic agitators. The mill operatives of the South have
shown little disposition to organize themselves and, in fact, have
protested against interference with their right of contract. The South is
only just becoming rich enough to support professional philanthropists, and
an outlet for sentimentality has been found in other directions. There has
been as yet too little disproportion of wealth among the Southern whites
to excite acute jealousy on this ground alone, and the operatives have
earned much more money in the mills than was possible on the farms. In
comparatively few cases does one man, or one family, own a controlling
interest in a mill. The ownership is usually scattered in small holdings,
and there is seldom a Croesus to excite envy. This wide ownership has had
its effect upon the general attitude of the more influential citizens and
hindered the development of active disapproval.

The chief reason for the inertia in labor matters, however, has been the
fact that the South has thought, and to a large extent still thinks, in
terms of agriculture. It has not yet developed an industrial philosophy.
Agriculture is individualistic, and Thomas Jefferson's ideas upon the
functions and limitations of government still have influence. Regulation
of agricultural labor would seem absurd, and the difference between a
family, with or without hired help, working in comparative freedom on a
farm, and scores of individuals working at the same tasks, day after day,
under more or less tension was slow to take shape in the popular
consciousness. It was obvious that the children were not actually
physically abused; almost unanimously they preferred work to school, just
as the city boy does today; and the children themselves opposed most
strongly any proposed return to the farm. The task of the reformers--for
in every State there were earnest men and women who saw the evils of
unrestricted child labor--was difficult. It was the same battle which had
been fought in England and later in New England, when their textile
industries were passing through the same stage of development. Every
student of industrial h