Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/93

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86
CHILD LABOUR PROBLEM.

child labor in a modern community may be placed upon the character of modern industry.

In the South, where child labor in the cotton mills has developed some of the worst child labor conditions with which the country must contend, machinery is being built just high enough to accommodate a child. Is it, however, fair to say that the child labor in the Southern mills is due to the character of the machinery which is being introduced into those mills?

An unknowing organism, such as a machine, can scarcely be held responsible, if, while operated by human intelligence, it becomes a party to a social wrong; yet the responsibility must rest somewhere. Is it reasonable to place the responsibility for child labor upon a machine which is being used, as the servant of man? Such an explanation is clearly inadequate. It leads to no conclusion as to the cause that is sending the children to work.

The evolution of modern industry unquestionably forms the basis upon which child