Mill Owners Decide 5-Hour Workdays for Children with 3 Hours for School Should Be Sufficient, July 17, 1922

Observe Spirit of Child Labor Law. . . Mill Men Will Not Take Advantage of the Law’s Repeal

By the Associated Press

Asheville, N.C., July 15—Important among the developments at the Southern Industrial conference being held at Blue Ridge was the unanimous sentiment expressed by all of the cotton mill officials from Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama, who are in attendance, against taking advantage of the repeal of the child labor law, although all agreed in the constitutional correctness of Chief Justice Taft’s decision.

Opinion seemed to have crystalized against working boys and girls 10 hours per day, while on the contrary, every man seemed in favor of more education rather than more work for those under 16 years of age. Steps are already being taken toward the formation of a plan under which five hours daily will be spent in the mill and three hours in school.

Stuart W. Cramer of Cramerton, N.C., chairman of the national committee of the American Cotton Manufacturers’ Association, sounded the sentiment that the Taft decision would not lower the 8-hour standard and said “as a rule the manufacturers of the south profounds regret the loss of the results of the inspection that ceased with the Taft decision. Any southern man who fails to observe the restrictions that have resulted from experiments, both legislative and industrial, whether compelled to do so or not, is a traitor to his industry and his own selfish interest.” “Manufacturers of the south are determined,” declared B.E. Geer, president of the Judson Mills, Greenville, S.C., “that our mills shall be run not only to make cotton cloth, but to make the right kind of men and women as well.”

From the front page of the Durham Morning Herald, Sunday, July 16, 1922. The U.S. Supreme Court had struck down laws passed by Congress to limit the hours children under the age of 16 could spend working in places like cotton mills and coal mines. Cotton mill owners were free go to back to their previous 10-hour days for boys and girls but those at this national meeting are proposing an ideal of 5 hours spent in the mill and 3 hours of schooling.