SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 159 



mills, stores and offices, but we take little or no thought of the 

 hours of labor, the wages and the living conditions of the women 

 and children who furnish the raw material of the looms. It is 

 for the comfort and happiness of these primarily, for the greater 

 prosperity of the South secondarily, and finally for the social 

 and political blessings to come to the republic through a thriving 

 yeomanry, through the strength and virtue of a contented and 

 cultured rural population, that I beg your patience." 



It is quite possible that the Texas farmer is not so indifferent 

 to the exploitation of his children as he appears to be, for he is 

 literally "up against it," and he may be applying the common 

 anodyne of accepting and even justifying that which appears to 

 him to be inevitable. It is obviously easier for outside observers 

 to tell him that child labor is only making matters worse and 

 that there is no way out until he abolishes it, that it is for him to 

 appreciate and act upon such a long plan. 



More than half of the farmers in Texas are transient renters, 

 moving on every two or three years in a hopeless search for better 

 things. They are weighed down with debt ; mortgages are high 

 and climbing higher; illiteracy and dependence upon the one 

 crop keep them treading a vicious circle. The cotton picker's bag 

 hanging about the neck of every child, bending his head with 

 its weight and tripping him as he walks, is a symbol of the life his 

 father leads and the life to which the child himself will come. 

 He may be just on the verge of better things when the boll-weevil 

 will blight his entire crop and reduce him again to hopeless ruin. 

 Years, decades, of such experiences have broken many a spirit. 

 They have lost the little interest they had in education and the 

 younger generation has been growing up in ignorance. 



Therefore it is that I place first and foremost in any program 

 of change the restriction of child labor. Children must be left 

 free to go to school. The school year must be lengthened and 

 attendance required through the entire term. This is obviously 

 and immediately necessary. 



