Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/99

92 lived very well and kept him in liquor besides.

Such cases are comparatively rare in the North, but in the South the prevalence of child labor and parental idleness is notorious, and has developed into a definite social custom. A poor white, idling at mid-day around the saloon in a small Southern town, is said to have replied to an investigator, "What all's the use of me workin' when I have three head of gals in the mill?" "Greedy and indifferent parents," you will say. That is very true. These cases, and many like them which might be cited, present that side of the problem. There are parents who consider their children as an asset from which they have a right to live, as they would live from their horses, or garden patches, or any other possession. Yet these cases are the exception rather than the rule. "Greedy and indifferent parents" are not so prevalent in the community as many writers on child labor would have their readers suppose. Cases constantly come to light, where, for a mess of pottage, parents sell