OJnntfll ilaui ^rlynol Htbraty Cornell University Library KF 3552.A7N27 1909 The child workers of the nat'o",;PT°«:^,f'' 3 1924 019 905 425 DATE DUE M^ PniNTEOINU-S.A. Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924019905425 Natwnal (Htjilh iCabor CHotnmttlw 105 EAST 22D street NEW YORK CITY Child Workers of the Nation Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference on Child Labor Chicago, ill., January 21-23, 1909. NEW YORK 1909 105 EAST 22D street NEW YORK CITY THE CHILD WORKERS OF THE NATION PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIFTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JANUARY 21-23, 1909 NEW YORK 1909 Copyrighted, 1909, By the American Academy of Political and Social Science. All rights reserved. The papers in this volume are reprinted from the March, 1909, Supple- ment to The Annal3 of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, in which they were originally pubhshed as the Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference on Child Labor held under the auspices of the National Child Labor Committee. Chicago, 111., January 21-23, 1909. THE CHILD WORKERS OF CONTENTS Conserving Childhood Andrew S. Draper i Duty of a Rich Nation to Take Care of Her Children Isaac N. Seligman 15 Charles R. Henderson 20 The Federal Children's Bureau — A Symposium. . .By Lillian D. Wald 23 Jane Addams 28 Leo Arnstein 30 Ben B. Lindsey 34 Henry B. Favill, M.D, 36 Charles R- Henderson 40 Florence Kelley 41 Samuel McCume Lindsay 44 Some Unsettled Questions about Child Labor Owen R. Love joy 49 The Child and the Law A. J. McKelway 63 Child Labor in the Textile Industries and Canneries of New England Everett W. Lord 73 Child Labor in the Ohio Valley States E. N. Clapper 79 Practical Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries ; Higher Educational and Physical Qualifications . Howell Cheney 86 Scholarships for Working Children Florence Kelley 100 Some Effects of Improper Posture in Factory Labor Albert H. Freiberg, M.D. 104 Child Labor and the Juvenile Court James A. Britton, M.D. 11 1 Overworked Children on the Farm and in the School Woods Hutchinson, M.D. 1 16 Handicaps in Later Years from Child IuAsob.. .. .William E. Harmon 122 Accidents to Working Children Edwin W. De Leon 131 Uniform Systems of Child Labor Statistics John Williams 144 The Present Situation in Illinois Edgar T. Davies 153 The Forward Step in Louisiana Jean M. Gordon 162 The Difficulties of Child Legislation in a Southern State James R. McDowell 166 Reports from State and Local Child Labor Committees : Citizens' Child Labor Committee, Washington, D. C, Henry J. Harris, Secretary 198 Illinois Child Labor Committee, Harriet M. Van Der Vaart, Secretary 219 Kentucky Child Labor Association, Lafon Allen, Chairman 172 (iii) iv Contents PAGE Reports from State and Local Committees, Continued: Maine Child Labor Committee, Mrs. Ella Jordan Mason, Sec- rotary iSi Maryland Child Labor Committee, Joseph C. Judge, Secretary 182 Massachusetts Child Labor Committee, Richard K. Conant, Secretary ^°^ Michigan Child Labor Committee, Franlf T. Carlton, Secretary. . 183 Inter-Church Child Labor Committee, Grand Rapids, Mich., Mrs. H. Gaylord Holt, Chairman 183 Minnesota Child Labor Committee, Mrs. Meta Jackson Barnard, Secretary 184 Children's Protective Alliance of Missouri, A. O. Lovejoy, Chairman ■ 186 Nebraska Child Labor Committee, John J. Ryder, Secretary 188 New York Child Labor Committee, George A. Hall, Secretary 189 North Dakota Child Labor Committee, Elizabeth Abbott, Sec- retary-Treasurer 191 Ohio Child Labor Committee, Albert H. Freiberg, Chairman.... 192 Warren (Ohio) Child Labor Committee, Phebe T. Sutliff, Chairman 193 Child Labor Commission of the State of Oregon, Mrs. Millie R. Trumbull, Secretary 193 Pennsylvania Child Labor Association, Fred S. Hall, Secretary, Philadelphia Child Labor Committee 196 Allegheny County (Pa.) Child Labor Association, Alida Lat- timore. Directing Secretary 197 Rhode Island Joint Committee on Child Labor, Mrs. Carl Barus, Chairman 197 Wisconsin Child Labor Committee, Edward W. Frost, Chairman. . 199 Reports from Southern States, A. J. McKelway, Secretary for the Southern States 201 National Child Labor Committee, Fourth Annual Report of the Gen- eral Secretary and Treasurer 204 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference on Child Labor: Program and Proceedings, and brief addresses by A. C. Bart- lett, Edward W. Frost, Mrs. H. M. Van Der Vaart, Mrs. Florence Kelley, George A. Hall, Samuel McCune Lindsay, Dr. Frank Billings, Dr. Henry Baird Favill, Charles W. McGinnis, Miss Helen M. Todd, Julius F. Wengierski, Mrs. E. J. Bissell, Dr. John A. Ryan, John J. Ryder, James R. McDowell and others 212 Children Engaged in Street Trades, Proceedings of Section Meeting devoted to this Topic 230 State and Local Committees in Co-operation or Affiliation with THE National Committee,— with List of Officers 250 Recent Publications of the National Child Labor Committee 253 Members of the National Child Labor Committee 256 CONSERVING CHILDHOOD By Andrew S. Draper, LL. B., LL. D; Commissioner of Education of the State of New York, Albany, N. Y. It is yet to be proved that a wide-open democracy like ours can do some of the things which a well-ordered political society needs to have done, as well as more centralized forms of government do them with apparent ease. Indeed, it is yet to appear that we can make good the fundamental principle of our political creed and assure equality of right and opportunity to every one. Of course, there are compensations for the fact, but it is a fact. The door of opportunity opens wider here than in any other nation in the world. The passion of the United States is that every one shall have his chance. We provide primary, secondary and higher instruction practically free of cost to all. The teaching is efficient and the equipment is ample, often sumptuous. The spirit that supports it all is delightful. The school budget is the one tax of which no good American has the hardihood to complain. The road to and through and between the schools is a broad highway. It has no breaks and no very heavy grades. No sect, no party, no social set, no commercial interest, is allowed to obstruct it. So much is settled and everywhere accepted. It is more than settled and ac- cepted. Wealth, society, business, religion and political sagacity find their security and their pleasure in continually enlarging and strengthening the educational ideal. The road to accomplishment and to fame is as open and as free as that to the schools. Education is not only the universal American passion, but hope, cheer, courage are the words which the most beautiful and brilliant flag in the world whispers in the ears of all, native born or adopted, who live where it casts its shadow. A national temperament which is being warmed by the intermingling of the blood, the experiences and the ideals of all the peoples of the world; which has been ennobled by the constantly enlarging opportunities and continually increasing influence of wo- men ; which has been incited by innumerable individual successes, and which has been made very confident, if not very vain, by the always 2 Conserving Childhood unfolding magnificence of the governmental plan, is stirred to its very depths by the opportunities and the inspirations of the Ameri- can Republic. The miUions who are mature enough to feel it, and who have not been borne down by conditions which are well nigh insuperable, are struggling, in season and out of season, to make the most of it. The spectacle is brilliant enough to stir the wonder, if not the jealousy, of the world. Nothing short of the Gloria in excelsis can express our heartfelt appreciation of it all. Would that there were no word of qualification nor ground for apprehension. But there is, and we are old enough and strong enough to look each other in the face and say it. Our general characterization expresses great and proud truths, and perhaps the larger part of the whole truth, but still it is only a part of the whoie truth. The undisclosed part is that we count a mere opening for some as the equal chance for all. It is not so; one must be helped to a place where he may enter the door of opportunity, before he has any share in the equal chance for all. Leaving further applications of the principle to be made by others, it is my mission to this Con- ference to say that all American children must be given the imple- ments with which to make their way in our busy civilization before it can be said that our political system is sufficiently efficient or that equality of chance is held out to every one. Fifty years ago we we're discussing just such a question as this, and the great Lincoln, right here in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois, was piercing the fallacy that political freedom cov- ered the right to do wrong. Senator Douglas, a very great man, was saying that the territories should have free constitutions and be left to vote slavery up or down, according to their inclinations; but the greatest of all lUinoisans and the greatest of all Americans answered, " No, that is but temporizing with an inherent wrong." It would be logical, he said, if slavery were ever right, but for one man to claim the right to eat his bread in the sweat of another man's brow, save as the result of free contract or pursuant to bad laws already duly enacted, was essentially immoral. Slavery might be tolerated for a time where it was established by law, because even that might be better than a fratricidal war which might sever the union of the states and present an insuperable obstacle to a further democratic advance; but freedom was to be voted up and slavery must be voted down by the common action of a free nation, when Conserving Childhood 3 it came to territory that was already free. The people saw the point, and used the man to carry the great principle to a consum- mation which saved the nation. Slavery to ignorance is no less slavery than the slavery of a serf to ah overlord. It is the inherent right of the American child to be or to become free from both. The possession of at least the elementary powers to read and write, by which he may gain knowl- edge and make the most of himself, is an essential part of his freedom. Such possession by all the people of a free country is the country's most valuable property. It is the property of all. Every one under a free constitution has just as much of a prop- erty interest in the literacy and the efficiency of every other as he has in the performance of any other legal or moral compact. No one can waive it for himself, through his youth or his ig- norance, because of the mutuality of all the obligations of the universal compact. He cannot lose it by misfortune for which he is not responsible. If he is incapable of asserting the right for himself, the legal organization set to enforce the terms of the compact is bound to enforce it for him. The right of every one to read is not to be voted up or down, as a city, a county, a district or a parent may please to vote. This is essentially so in a democracy, and more particularly in a democracy with ideals like ours. The illiteracy of an American citizen whose childhood has been passed in America is unlawful and essentially immoral. Education, an essential of freedom, is always to be voted up and everywhere enforced in a republic. These are not idle words. In America, where we offer more education to every citizen than does any other country in the world, there are more people who cannot read or write in any language than there are in any other constitutional country in the world. The attendance upon the primary schools is less complete and regular than in any other well-ordered nation upon the globe. In Chicago or New York there is a much larger percentage of people ten years old or more who can neither read nor write than there is in London, or Paris, or Berlin, or Zurich, or Copenhagen, or even Tokio. Illiteracy is almost a negligible quantity in the German Empire, in France, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries and even in Ja- pan. As I was preparing this address I had the pleasure of a call from Dr. Koht, professor of modern history in the University of 4 Conserving Childhood Christiania. I asked him how many children there were in the Scandinavian countries, ten years old, who could neither read nor write. He said not any. He seemed surprised at the question. In the state of New York there are fifty-five in a thousand, and in Illinois forty-two in a thousand. It is easily explained. The immigration is an inadequate ex- planation. Immigrants from the highly or uniformly educated na- tions go far to offset those from the peoples where education is less diffused. Immigrants are often more jealous than native Americans of their opportunities in the schools. They more commonly settle in the cities, where the schools are convenient and where all the people are accustomed to some measure of compulsion, than in the country. There is a larger percentage of illiterate children of na- tive born than of foreign bom parents in the state of New York. This statement is also true of Illinois. There is often a larger per- centage of illiteracy in the country than in the cities. The explana- tion is not a very complacent one. It is in the fact that we know little of national economics; that we have not acquired the habit of taking care, and particularly in the fact that we have a popular conception of freedom which does not include the vital necessity of proper restraint and compulsion as to all. It is because of our unfortunate disposition to let people do as they please, upon con- dition that they let us do as we please. It is because we are so indifferent in our self-confidence, so willful, resourceful and op- timistic. Probably no one will deny that we have as complete a system of school attendance and child-labor laws in New York as in any state. They are not complete, but are measurably so for America. They are harmonious. The Labor and Education Departments are in accord. It looks as though the labor laws are very well en- forced. Behind them there are strong, influential and determined bodies of citizens — the labor organizations, who have direct interest in the execution of the laws which prescribe the ages, the hours and all of the conditions where many people work together. These or- ganizations not only enforce the laws, but they create sentiment. Even the execution of the laws of itself makes sentiment. Direct interest gives energy and strength to the arm of the law. Even those people who have no direct interest and who do not think much about it, get into the habit of thinking that what happens all of the time ought to happen. Conserving Childhood 5 School attendance laws are without organized help. Sentiment is quite indifferent. Indeed, there is a not uncommon feeling that it is below the dignity of the state to be hunting up little children to make them go to school, and quite apart from the proper feelings of the well-to-do to be punishing poor or unworthy parents for not keeping their children in school. This feeling is much more com- mon in the country and in smaller towns than in the larger cities. But it exists everywhere. The officers of the law look upon the en- forcement of school laws as beyond their realm. The police very nearly revolt against it. The local magistrates refuse to impose pun- ishments. It is not strange; it is not wholly unworthy; they have sympathy, and they deal with so much squalor and with what seems to them so much more serious matters, that they are glad to take a promise and let the thing go. Sometimes they are thinking about votes at the next election, but oftener they are simply expressing the very common feeling of indifference of the country. The exe- cution of the school laws is largely left to school officers, and, with- out the interested aid of the officers charged with the enforcement of the penal laws, the school officers are pretty nearly helpless. The mercury which measures American public sentiment upon enforcing school attendance is well down to the freezing point. Legislators dislike to add to the efficiency of attendance laws, and governors are even more reluctant to suggest discipline upon subordinate officers, who persistently refuse to make them effective. In other words, we have the disadvantages as well as the advantages of democracy. If our country were simply one great business corporation, with " no body to be kicked and no soul to be damned," which was ex- pecting to continue indefinitely and was always looking for profits, its officers would do all they could to enlarge the efficiency of boys and girls, because they would know that such efficiency was the thing above all others to reinforce life and assure the repetition of divi- dends. If we had a king whom we sustained in the delusion or pretence that he was a sort of father to us all, he would be likely to follow courses to enlarge our productivity, without letting any of us get out of what he conceived to be our proper places, because productivity would be translated into revenues. If our country were an empire, bounded by rival empires, and likely at any time to have to fight for territory and for life, things would be arranged to make each of us contribute to the military power of the empire. Intel- 6 Conserving Childhood lectual acumen, versatility, craftsmanship, the working habit, are larger factors than mere physical strength in the constituent ele- ments of military power. If our country were a constitutional monarchy or even a republic where thought and political power were not very free ; where there was an inherited autocracy and superim- posed aristocracy, with a false " culture " which inbreeding was de- grading into insipidity, every one of us would be used for what there was in us to hold up the props which support the roofs. Our scheme of government is not like that of any other people. Our thinking and our outlook are peculiar to ourselves. We have shown that we can govern ourselves. We have shown that in in- finite and overwhelming ways our plan is stable and secure enough, and our ways open the door of opportunity to the individual and the mass. The great heart of our nation is not yearning for aristocracy or empire or military power. It does not even want a kind or a measure of learning that is not in equilibrium and in sympathy with work. We want to bear a great nation's honorable and instructive part in the progress of the world. Beyond what good neighborli- ness and good morals impose, we do not wish to meddle with the affairs of other peoples. We do not wish them to do more con- cerning our affairs. As they do not seem so disposed and as no one suspects that we would allow it if they did, there is no occasion to bluster about it. But in the interests of neighborliness and good morals we have some lessons to learn, as well as some to impart. We do not believe in the Government using the people, but we do believe in the people using the Government. We would use this Government for a double purpose — to keep us all in good legal and moral relations with all the world, and to assure peace, security, equality of right and the utmost of opportunity to every soul in the republic. All that is inbred in us, but there is one thing that is not, and that is regard for common possessions and responsibility for the brother who is in bonds. It would, of course, be absurd to say that this is true of all of us, because those among us who have been the most successful in business have commonly become our noblest benefactors, and because vital occasions always develop a moral sense which may be counted upon. But it is not too much to say that, with all of our opportunities and all of our encouragement, there is no national policy and no national conscience in America which uses the authority of the nation to universalize and conserve the efficiency of men and women. Conserving Childhood 7 We are a wasteful people. We have never studied economy. We have never acquired the habit of taking care. Other peoples would live sumptuously out of the difference between what they would get and what we do get out of our properties. We know nothing of the potentiality of our resources. When we fall short we start out to find new fields rather than to find ways for increasing the productivity of old fields. Unhappily, loose habits react upon ourselves. They actually make us profligate of our boys and girls. Just now we are enjoying a little breeze of prudence about natural resources. For once the statesmen and the orators and the magazines and the newspapers are en rapport with the professors of economics and the political economists generally, to make us more saving of wood and water and coal and oil and iron than we are. The agricultural colleges are telling us how to get more out of our lands, and admonishing us that if we don't treat them better and use more fertilizers they will stop yielding their fruits in season. We do more to conserve wild animals than tame ones. All the states are protecting moose and deer and fish and wild chickens. In New York we have taken up the cause of chipmunks and woodchucks, and would have done it for wolverines and gophers and badgers and prairie dogs if there were any. Such a wave of prudence is as ex- hilarating and encouraging as it is unprecedented and timely in America. When we get started in conserving we are likely to do a great deal of it. Surely we will not stop at the border line of human interest, and when the issue comes to be a moral one we will not forever hesitate at the point where it is necessary to compel people to do some things as well as not to do other things. Resources alone can never provide the ballast necessary to the equipoise of a nation. The vital factors in a nation's existence, to say nothing of a nation's beneficence and moral progress, are human. In the economics of nation building the overwhelming concern will have to be about boys and girls. In all history, men and women have overcome scarcity of resources and difficulties of situa- tion. There are compensations in the economics of God. Strong and sane peoples have used slender resources and hard situations to work out overwhelming results. Unsubstantial and frivolous peoples have been overcome by the very plentitude of materials and the very advantage of situation. Great peoples have made them- selves the greater by overcoming the hardness of situation. But no 8 Conserving Childhood people has ever grown great unless tradition or the force of cir- cumstances or intellectual prescience was larger than the material factors in the compounding of its future. Poverty or a sufficiency, rather than inordinate wealth, helps nations as well as individual men and women. We are wealthy in natural resources. In woods and waters and mines we are a " millionaire " nation. We have no conception of the potential possibilities of our boundless areas of tillable lands, for we have never had to make the most of them. We hold a low esti- mate of the possibilities of domestic animals. We do not realize the wealth that is yet in our mountains. We have even less appre- ciation of the associated worth of our hills and valleys and low- lands ; of our lakes and streams and cascades ; of the rains and dews that nourish us, and of the climate that stimulates us to make the most of material things. We have endless coasts washed by the two great oceans; deep, sheltered harbors in all latitudes, and the busy highways of the nations are and must ever be across the lands and waters that are under our flag. But we have more than wealth of natural resources. History, tradition, severe fighting for freedom, the hard struggles of pioneers, much thinking and strong moral purpose have been the warp, as much as the wealth of a new continent has been the woof, of our civilization. There was something in the blood of our fathers; there is something in the blood which all the nations are continually sending to us ; something in the compounding of the English nation, and something more in the compounding of the American nation; something in the factors which have produced, and something in the results which have grown out of the steady advance of religious and political freedom through a thousand years, to make us a keen, quick, alert and ambitious people. This in turn is disclosing our enormous natural wealth. It is disclosing our cunning, our avarice, our pertinacity, alsa Is our political system going to be equal to the new strains which the new situations put upon it? We have no doubt of it. But there is enough about it all to challenge the wisdom of the generation that is here, and to quicken the red blood of the one that is coming on. "Conserving natural resources," if not an American phrase, has an American meaning. It describes a movement to stop a few great characters, through a few overpowering corporations to which Conserving Childhood 9 we have delegated much of the power which belongs to all of us in common, from getting our common possessions into their own hands, or from despoiling great inheritances which have come to us in com- mon. This does not necessarily mean anything against these great characters; most of us admire most of them. Often they are as great in their patriotism and in their rational generosity as in their business sagacity. It means nothing, essentially, against the corpo- rations. Their development of resource has been a necessary force in the development of a new country. It means merely that the time has come for a little more assertion of common rights in common property. It is more against a further absorption that is coming to amount to sequestration of our goods, than against a national profli- gacy that has not yet put us in sore straits. The outcome of so much of " conservation " seems hopeful. Certainly it is grateful. But it is to be feared that greater prudence in the use of whatever goods each of us can lawfully gather will not seize upon us until we are in a tighter pinch than now. With all of our national wastefulness we are more profligate of childhood than of any other factor in the nation's life. We are not only lax about requiring attendance upon the schools, but we have pretty nearly given over the control and direction of children who live at home and exist in the regular order. The common authority presumes too much upon the proper exercise of the author- ity of parents. It does not take into account the number of parents who are so vicious or weak that they have no right to have children, or the number of unfortunate children who would be better off if they were orphans. And, largely through the influence of a senti- mentalism that is fully half bad, the children in three-quarters of the better homes and in the schools are given their own sweet way to an extent which weakens their characters for life. We cannot exculpate the schools. They are as wasteful of child life as are the homes. From the bottom to the top of the American educational system we take little account of the time of the child. We are anxious to do everything under the sun, and to put into the young head of a child all that he is ever expected to know. The sentimental and well-meaning people load everything upon us. So we have eight or nine elementary grades for work which would be done in six if we were working mainly for produc- tivity and power. We have shaped our secondary schools so that lo Conserving Childhood they confuse the thinking of youth and break the equilibrium be- tween education and vocations and people and industries. Our university facilities divide up the time of students between their de- partments with as much enthusiasm as a young surgeon goes at an autopsy. The departments get what they must have to sustain them- selves and the subjects get the consequences of it. They pay for it in time or in attenuated courses and unremunerated work. The training is for the professions, and if the universities are let alone the students will not be ready for life before they are thirty years of age. That keeps young people unmarried and unsettled too long, and it works havoc in life in obvious ways. In the graded elementary schools of the state of New York less than half of the children remain to the end of the course. They do not start early enough. They do not attend regularly enough. The course is too full of mere pedagogical method, exploitation and illustration, if not of kinds and classes of work. The terms are too short and the vacations too long. It all overworks and worries teachers, so that to live at all, they have to have short terms. More than half the children drop out by the time they are fourteen or fif- teen, the limits of the compulsory attendance age, because the work of the schools is behind the age of the pupils and we do not teach them the things which lead them, and their parents to think it will be worth their while to remain. The compulsory attendance age should begin at six, or at seven at the most, and the course should be freed from everything not of fundamental importance to the early training of a child. I am not for going back to the simple work of a half-century ago. I am quite aware of the fact that the child is to live in a complex civiliza- tion. But I am sure that there is no need to teach him, before he is fourteen years of age, everything that it may ever be well for him to know. I am quite sure that it is desirable to induce society to expend its devotion to culture upon the school grounds and the schoolhouse, and leave the children to bathe in the sunlight of these things while the teachers are allowed to train them in the things they must know in order to be self-supporting and a support to the state. I am no less sure that the multiplicity of books and appliances and the endless exploitation and illustration in the teaching may well be severely reduced. It is not often a question of what or how it may be well to teach a child if the element of time is not to be Conserving Childhood. II considered; generally it is a question of what we can teach him before he is fourteen years old that will be of most worth to him in after years. There is another side of this subject that is staring right at us. That is the unpreparedness of children for any vocation which is not literary or professional; the undue public and school influence upon ambitious temperaments to choose mental rather than manual work; and the utter indifference of the educational system in the past to the intellectual and industrial equilibrium of the country. Now, I am not saying or implying that a poor boy shall not enter a profession or aspire to any position in the land. That is for him to settle. The roads are to be open to every child, no mat- ter under what sort of a roof he is born. There is not only one road, but many, and he is not to be persuaded by always present injunctions and implications to enter one particular road when there is grave doubt about it being the best one for him. All the roads are to be made good, and his all-around qualities are to be trained untH he sees the road which seems the best to himself. The finest successes come not so much from learning as from doing, and an educational system which does not recognize that fact and act up to it needs radical reforming. The conspicuous suc- cesses in life do not attend those who are the star students upon com- mencement morning more than those who find something that they can do and who do it with all their might. I have been surprised at the number of college men who gain success, although for one reason or another they left college without a degree. The captains are those who can command. We have been trying to impose upon labor a leadership which was not accustomed to labor and did not know any too much about the details of labor. We have trained for cul- ture and for expertness and for examinations. It is time to train for craftsmanship, and let workmen of character and efficiency forge to the front. They will do it even though the signals are set against them, or else there will be little accomplishment and small progress. Why not arrange the scheme so as to make it easier for them to do it? If we are to do anything substantial in the way of conserving American childhood, we will have to control it. We will have to in- sure its attendance upon instruction, and we will have to train it to efficiency of hand even more than smartness of head. Character 12 Conserving Childhood will come out of labor before competency will come out of mere cul- ture of mind. How long shall we proceed upon the fundamental mistake that there is any culture worth the name which does not grow out of work, or any real manliness or womanliness which has not proceeded from things that have been done? I am not saying that necessarily the things done must have been done by the hand, but I do think that the culture is likely to be deeper and the character the stronger if the things done have been done in the sweat of the brow. We need a new order of public schools, a system on parallel lines with the literary high schools, a system which will train in hand work and which will not assume to train captains, but workmen; a system which will permit no short cuts to the position of master workmen, but will fit for that of journeyman in shorter time. W« need a system which will stand fair between every interest of all the people ; a system which will do definite things and open the door of opportunity to a multitude against whom it is now closed, a system which will dignify hand labor and go a long way to restore the balance which we have been losing, to the diminution of our efficiency and therefore, of our happiness at home, as well as to the injury of our trade relations with the other nations of the world. Of course, the people whose feelings are expressed in this not- able assemblage need no other argument than the exclusively moral one to quicken their interest in the conservation of American child- hood. It has been the political assumption of the Republic that none other is necessary. But it must begin to be evident that even the economic interests of an empire, even the apprehensions and as- pirations of the man on horseback, may go further than the moral sense of a democracy must necessarily go to make an elementary training of the children universal. Something beyond the open chance, and something beyond our encouragement and good wishes, will have to operate if we are to conserve the youth of the United States and steadily advance the efficiency, and therefore the char- acter, the happiness and the prosperity of the country. We will have to have an always up-to-date enrollment of every child in the land, and some responsible central authority will have to see that every one gets that fundamental training in useful things, which, under the theories of all respectable governments is his in his own right, and which the manifest interests of every country inexorably demand that he shall have. Conserving Childhood. 13 As already observed, when we really commence a good thing we do much of it. President Roosevelt is following his notable movement for conserving natural resources with another, which is to have the attention of a distinguished conference in Washington next week, in the interests of neglected and defective children. That is admirable. It will be one of the many good things which will make the administration of Roosevelt prominent in the history of the country. But we must go still further. We must take up the claims of the overwhelming number of children who are reasonably normal and not very destitute. We must conserve their time, their mental and manual efficiency and their morals. We must have them all recorded and see that every one has the benefit of his birthright. We must exercise more control. We must see that every one is trained to read and write and prepared for some vocation by which he can make a living. Then there will not be so many degenerates and waifs in the next generation or in the one after that. There seems to be little room for issues of fact or differences of opinion among us. In college vocabulary, we offer to all the people more wide-open electives in our educational system from top to bottom, and require less, than does any other country. They offer less and require more than we do. They certainly get more in a cir- cumscribed but exact elementary training universally diffused than we do. We shall withdraw no offerings; we shall doubtless make more. But that is not enough. In the moral interests of boys and girls, in the interests of industrial prosperity, in the interests of the Republic and in the interests of democracy and freedom in the world we are bound not only to see that every child can read and write, but to follow him until he has the chance to enter upon a vocation which will make him respectable and of worth to the world. In the advance of our educational system we have not main- tained the balance. The unequal chance, the fallacious outlook, works injustice to multitudes of people and to many industries. Our education should put a premium upon work of hand. It is the only way to enlarge the open chance without confusing and misleading boys and girls. We should all stand for laws establishing better and safer con- ditions for labor, and particularly for laws which try to keep greed from robbing children of their American birthright. But when we exclude children from work, we must include them in the schools. 14 Conserving Childhood Too much work is bad, but too much idleness is infinitely worse. The schools are bound to be of a kind and character which will en- able them to count organized labor among their strongest supports. We are in the midst of a great task. We are working out the basis and the details of the greatest industrial democracy in human history. Let us lose nothing of our good humor. Let us abate noth- ing of our confidence and our courage. Let us prove that our in- difference is more apparent than real. Let us tone down our con- ceits and our boasting. Let us cultivate toleration of opinion and be generous in our estimates. Let us think straight, with an open mind, expecting to give and take and come to common conclusions. Let us use our political power without fear when with good purpose. Let us say nothing for mere novelty ; nothing to catch the eye of a newspaper which scares itself for revenue only. Let us go on exer- cising more and more control in the interests of decency and thrift, and making the forces of righteousness more aggressive than the forces of evil dare to be. There is no need of misgivings. What is upon us was bound to come. We should have expected it, and we can handle it. When the moral sense of the nation is once stirred it acts quickly and force- fully. A democracy with the finest possibilities for every one is bet- ter than a monarchy which, in one way or another keeps a whole people in bondage. Of course, there are difiiculties. It is harder for a people to agree together and execute their purpose than for a monarch or minister who reckons not with the popular mind to settle things. But even old Talleyrand declared that public opinion was mightier than any monarch who ever lived. We have broken out roads and we wUl break out more. We will consider until we conclude what to have done, and then we will not be so squeamish about vesting executive officers with the power to carry it out. Our plan of government has already justified its being. It will do so more completely. When it has solved our problems upon a basis of reason and of right, as it will, the people will be the happier and the state the stronger, because in our education we shall be better bal- anced; in our industries we shall be more efficient, and in our poli- tics and our religion we shall be more free. (I.)— DUTY OF A RICH NATION TO TAKE CARE OF HER CHILDREN By Isaac N. Seligman. Chairman, pro tempore, National Child Labor Committee, New York City. It is a great privilege for me formally to open these interesting sessions, and I bring to you all a message of cheer and encourage- ment from the East. The honor of addressing you to-day falls on my shoulders as temporary chairman. Our Chairman, Professor Felix Adler — that valiant champion in all movements for the betterment of his fellow-beings — has been called to Berlin University, where he is now delivering a course of useful lectures. It was he who, from the very first meeting for the organization of the National Child Labor Committee, has given it its best ideals, and from him our Board of Trustees and workers throughout the several states received constantly fresh in- centive and inspiration in the performance and continuance of the work. I am actively interested in many fields of social work, but I venture to say that few if any of them have afforded me keener pleasure or more thorough satisfaction than my association with the child labor movement. It is customary in formally opening proceedings to render an account of our stewardship — what has been accompHshed ; what goal it was hoped to achieve; wherein obstacles have been encountered. To review the operations of last year affords a pleasing retrospect. The Committee has practically no floating debt. It has been said that it is much simpler to finance a surplus than a deficit. The Com- mittee depends for its financial support on voluntary contributions. A dozen or more gentlemen, deeply interested, subscribe annually sums from $ioo to $500; but the Committee depends chiefly on regular annual membership, which comprises sustaining members, persons contributing $25 or more; and associate members, persons contributing $2 or more. These subscribers, to the number of nearly 3000, have enrolled as annual contributors, thus manifesting their sympathy in the waging of war against the evils of child labor. I trust that all those present, and those absentees who are inter- (15) i6 Duty of Rich Nation to Care for Children ested in the work of the National Child Labor Committee, will enroll themselves as members, thereby having the pleasurable sat- isfaction of annually contributing their mite to the saving of child life, and keeping open in this fair land of ours the door of oppor- tunity for every child. The work of the society can be more effectively increased, and greater results can be achieved, if it could depend on an annual income of $10,000 to $15,000. In surveying the work accomplished by the National Child Labor Committee, we can honestly affirm that great progress has been made. Goethe, the German poet and philosopher, laid down three axioms as a test for the value of all undertakings : 1. What does one propose doing? 2. Is it worth doing? 3. Has it been well done ? I think we may fairly claim, after you have listened to the able speakers who will address you on many interesting subjects, that you will say to yourselves, the work is worth doing, and has been well done. The subject assigned to me this evening is a particularly agreeable one — "Duty of a Rich Nation to Take Care of Her Children." The subject is a vast one, and hours could be pro- fitably employed in discussing this problem. What is the duty of a wealthy nation to its wards? To what extent, and in what manner, shall a nation guard its weak, sick or suffering? There may be honest differences of opinion as to the duty of the state, or the nation, or private capital being enlisted to, erect hospitals, homes or institutions, but there cannot be any difference of views as to the necessity of the nation passing such laws as will pro- tect the lives of our tender children working in any path of life. I have always maintained that in spite of the prodigality and liberal- ity of our Government in many directions, it has been remiss in doing so little for the needy, sick and poor. The large majority of institu- tions throughout our land have been erected, and are maintained, by private subscriptions and endowments. In England, France and Germany, in fact, in most European countries, the asylums for the young, hospitals, convalescent homes and so on are built and are con- ducted more largely under supervision of the government. The pub- lic is not asked to erect or maintain such homes. In our country the majority of hospitals, convalescent homes, institutions of all Dttty of Rich Nation to Care for Childrtn ly kinds, although frequently aided by state funds, must find the where- withal to subsist through private charity. Opinions may differ as to which system is most productive of good results but it appears to me that the European system is sounder and wiser, and is less liable to cripple the usefulness of such institutions at times when the country suffers from financial dis- turbances. Already Germany's policy in establishing the old-age pension system has been taken up by France and England. Perhaps in time such a system will be followed in our own country. It seems to me that it is the paramount duty of the state or na- tion to take care of, or aid, those who, by misfortune or accident, are disabled from earning their living. Private charity should not be continually called upon to do what is clearly the duty of the city, state or nation. There are many other directions in which private charity can be usefully dispensed if the state or city relieved the public of the financial burden of building, repairing and maintaining hospitals and institutions. We must realize that the socialistic spirit is everywhere spreading. We have lately seen in many European countries the policy adopted by the government giving work and devising undertakings for the unemployed during times of distress. Concessions are being continually made by the party in power more thoroughly to satisfy the middle and poorer community. If the government feels the necessity of giving work to the poor, is it not morally bound to maintain those unable to work ? The natural liber- ality of the American to devote his means or private fortune to some useful end, and his prompt, chivalric and substantial answer to the appeals from the poor and needy, have apparently stifled the govern- ment's, state's or city's readiness to perform its clear duty in doing its share in proper relief. It is true that there are quite a number of people who believe that charities and relief of the aged, infirm and suffering can be more effectually managed by private charities than through the direct instrumentality of the state. I will concede that, in many instances, private management may prove more satis- factory; but the spectacle of some hospitals and institutions being forced to close their doors or restrict their usefulness from want of funds is deplorable. Such a condition of affairs cannot occur abroad under state control. However your view of the responsibility of the state for the relief or protection of the adult may differ from mine, I am satisfied that there can be no dissenting voice as to the impera- i8 Duty of Rich Nation to Care for Children tive duty and moral obligation of a nation, and, if rich, the greater the obligation, to guard- and watch its younger children, and sur- round their tender lives with such safeguards as will better protect their health and lives, thus doing its share to enable them in time to become honest, decent and useful citizens. Omitting from the discussion the obligation of the state, and not private charity, to erect and maintain orphan asylums, pro- tectories for children, homes for little waifs, there is the overpower- ing moral duty of the state and nation to pass laws to regulate the number of hours of employment for children, say, under sixteen years of age, and to prevent them from working in occupations dis- tinctly hurtful to their health and morals, and to prohibit absolutely any child under fourteen years of age being employed for wages. The various states, through the ministration and inspiration of the National Child Labor Committee, are actively engaged in this hu- mane and noble task. We have now twenty-six state and local Child Labor Committees, whose efforts are co-ordinated and supplemented by our National Committee, and we are constantly receiving appeals from many states to aid them in securing better laws for the com- ing year. These are encouraging signs. It shows that public interest and sympathy in this great work have been awakened. Do you realize that one in every twenty of all the children in the country from the age of ten to sixteen years is working in a factory, coal mine, trade or transportation, many of them slaving in the night in grimy workshops in big cities, deprived in most cases of elementary education, and forced in many instances to associate with vile and evil companionship ? These are the crying evils which the National Child Labor Committee is trying to rectify, and these are the evils which our nation must suppress. Many difficulties are encountered in locating and ascertaining the source of the evils. The owners of factories employing child labor are, in many cases, loath to give information, and even the parents of the children work- ing in undesirable occupations and surroundings falsify the ages of their children. It has been humorously said that a factory child passes from the age of eleven to the prescribed age of fourteen years without any due regard to the Gregorian Calendar. The National Child Labor Committee hopes to secure, at an early session of Congress, the passage of a bill for a Federal Chil- dren's Bureau, the object of the bill being to investigate questions Duty of Rich Nation to Care for Children 19 of infant mortality, the birth rate, physical degeneracy, juvenile de- linquency, and juvenile courts, desertion, illegitimacy, employment of children in dangerous occupations and all legislation bearing on the health, efficiency, character and training of children. This will afford the Committee and the public valuable information and am- munition to cope better with the evils of child labor. Child labor means moral impairment and physical destruction, and it is the duty of the state to protect the tender childhood, and not allow the young lives to be sacrificed at the altar of greedy em- ployers, or even by selfish parents. As has been nobly said : " The child means more to the community than any material gain." I firmly believe that, when we have established in all the states of the Union proper and restrictive laws to save child life, we shall have accomplished a great achievement. Kipling has truly said that we must teach people to live before we teach them to learn. When we, as a nation, have accomplished this beneficent end, we shall have conferred on our country a lasting blessing, and shall have left to generations to come a noble legacy, whereof we may justly feel proud. Give us your warm sympathy and active support, and we pledge you that we will not shrink or retire from the battlefield until we have won the fight. (11.)— DUTY OF A RICH NATION TO TAKE CARE OF HER CHILDREN By Professor Charles R. Henderson, Representing the Governor of Illinois. His Excellency, Governor Deneen, has requested me to present his sincere regrets and to speak for him the welcome of our com- monwealth and his own deep personal interest in the causes here represented. It is possible for citizens of Illinois to appear in this company with something of elation and hope, because we have fought a good fight and succeeded fairly well up to this time in ad- vancing the interests of the working children in this region. We al- ways think of the pioneer services of Mrs. Florence Kelley and her fellow-workers at Hull House and elsewhere, who have stood with womanly zeal and patriotic devotion for humane legislation. They have not only been interpreters of the poor to the rich, but they have helped the rich and the strong to discover their own best interests and their own best selves, for so long as a manager of industry is permitted to do wrong and to be cruel, even in igno- rance, his conscience is hardened and his nobler nature never has a chance fully to assert itself. Therefore, while men have been made indignant by this movement in our state, they have doubtless come upon reflection and after experience to see that we do not represent a class interest, but the interest of the whole people and of the human race. Our present Factory Inspector, Edgar T. Davies, also de- serves a word of honorable mention in this connection. He has honestly endeavored, not only to enforce the law, but to study it in its working and efifects with all fidelity ; to secure competent advice, and to give wise counsel to those who have power to make laws. If our esteemed Governor were present, he himself could speak with confidence and pride of what has been accomplished. We acknowl- edge that much remains to be done in Illinois, but what has been achieved is a pledge and token of what earnest and brave hearts are determined to do in the future. What obligations does our national wealth impose upon us in every commonwealth where industries are carried on ? (20) Duty of Rich Nation to Care for Children 21 (i) First of all our numerous and rapidly increasing wealth takes from us the paltry excuse that child labor is necessary to support industry. So long as strong and willing men and women are almost begging for employment it is false to claim that the com- modities needed by human society require the exploitation of child- hood. (2) Nor can we say, with any shadow of reason, that the labor of any child under fourteen is necessary to support a widowed mother or a sick father. Indeed, no state and no nation can afford to offer up such a sacrifice to such an end. The widowed mother and sick father should, indeed, have the relief which their wants require, but let that be done at the expense of the capable and the successful, not at the cost of innocent and immature human beings. The nation must not use up its children in the present, because they are needed in the fullness of their strength in the future. No more short-sighted economic policy was ever pursued by a benighted people than the policy of destroying childhood in mines, mills and factories. (3) If our industries were required to prevent all avoidable accident and disease due to the hazard of occupation and by a system of insurance, provide for families temporarily or permanently de- prived of income by injury or invalidism, there would be far less need of either public or private charity than now, and children would not be asked to carry a burden which manufacturers should bear. What are the specific duties of the nation, acting as it must, chiefly through state legislation and administration ? (i) First, it should provide bureaus for a thorough and a constant investigation of the condition of child life. An occasional, and even periodical, investigation is not adequate. The evils of child labor are constantly pressing upon our attention. There will always be a temptation on the part of certain short-sighted employers to think that child labor is cheap. So long as light machinery, driven by inanimate power, makes it possible, some one will be found to employ children. On the other hand, poverty will always pre- sent a strong incentive to ignorant parents to send their children where they can add a little to the immediate income of the family. Children themselves sometimes desire to escape from school, and to have, at least, a little spending money of their own. Both of 22 Duty of Rich Nation to Care for Children these are ignorant of the ultimate effects of factory work. The custom of immigrants to work with their children in the field has a similar effect, and country people are not aware of the dangers of urban industries. Therefore, the State and the Federal Government must provide a constant corps of inspectors and investigators for the study of the changing conditions in factories and mills. (2) In the second place, we must work for uniformity in the laws of the several states in order that the manufacturers of the different states may be treated fairly in their competition with each other. Whether this shall be done by some Federal law or by state laws introduced through a joint commission cannot be discussed at this moment, though it deserves full attention. (3) Uniformity of legislation is not so important as a higher standard for legislation — ^though both are closely connected. (4) In the fourth place, we must work out far more complete- ly than we have ever done yet a policy for the transition period be- tween the play and school activities of young children, and the steady occupations of mature persons. This period, extending from about the fourteenth to the seventeenth year, has not been suffi- ciently considered in our movement. It should receive much more prominent place in the Anti-Child Labor Creed than it has yet had. The fact that a discussion of the connection between child-labor leg- islation and trade instruction of young persons is on our program shows that this thought has found a welcome in many minds throughout the Union. Indeed, our cause has been seriously hin- dered hitherto because it was thought that we had not made pro- vision for the proper occupation of children during this transition period. We have given apparently too much ground for the decla- ration that it would be better to keep the child busy in the factory than to let him run idly on the streets. Of course, no such alternative is necessary or was ever thought of by any of us, but we must in our discussion remove all just ground for this criticism. THE FEDERAL CHILDREN'S BUREAU A SYMPOSIUM I. By Lillian D. Wald, New York,^ Member of Board of Trustees of National Child Labor Committee. Headworker, Henry Street Settlement. Although the National Child Labor Committee stands sponsor for the bill introduced into Congress for the establishment in the Department of the Interior of a Children's Bureau, the Committee can no longer claim sole guardianship of this measure, nor would it indeed desire to do so. Two and three days ago, twenty-five thousand clergymen in these United States proclaimed once again from pulpits of all creeds the eternal message of the value of the child, outlined to their hearers the modern conception of childhood's claim upon society and the ob- ligations to the child of a society which has prospered by all the re- sults of a progressive civilization. They asked their congregations, whether Jew or Gentile, to consider and support this effort to bring the child into his heritage of this civilization. And not only have the twenty-five thousand clergymen and their congregations shown their desire to participate in furthering this bill, but organizations of many diverse kinds have assumed a degree of sponsorship that indicates indisputably how universal has been its call to enlightened mind and heart. The national organizations of Women's Clubs, the Con- sumers' Leagues throughout the country, college and school alum- nae associations, societies for the promotion of special interests of children, the various state Child Labor Committees, representing in their membership and executive committees, education, labor, law medicine and business, have officially given endorsement. The press, in literally every section of the country, has given the measure serious editorial discussion and approval. Not one dissenting voice has it been possible to discover — not one utterance contradicts the principles that have been laid down by these various representatives of humanitarian thought and unselfish patriotism throughout Amer- ica, and which values they believe the bill will advance, or that within its scope lie potentialities for such broadening. ^This address was delivered at the hearing on the bill to establish the Federal Children's Bureau, held January, 1909, before the House Committee on Kzpenditures in the Depart- ment of the Interior. (23) 24 The Federal Children's Bureau It may be, at first, something of a shock to hear of taking the child out of the realm of poetry and pure sentiment into the field of scientific, organized care and protection ; but only to the superfi- cially sentimental could it appear that the poetry and purity of child- hood might be sacrificed by using all the fruits of modern thought, study, experience and knowledge to their advantage — ^"Even the least of these." What would the Bureau do? What measures for the advantage of the child, the future citizen and the country would the Bureau further? What innovations in governmental functions would the Bureau introduce? These are pertinent questions that may well be asked, and which must be answered to the satisfaction of the men in both Houses of Congress before we shall have the right to ask them to vote for its creation. The Bureau would be a clearing house, a source of information and reliable education on all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life, and especially it would investigate and report upon the questions now nowhere answered in complete or unified form, and whose enormous importance to national life is so strikingly evident. It would fix upon government the responsibility. The attitude now is not unlike the small boy's, of whom my friend in New York tells. He had told him of the story of Nero. The brutality of the monster was vividly related ; how he slew his mother, how he played while Rome burned, etc., etc. The boy showed no concern and to draw him out my friend said, "Well, what do you think of that kind of a man?" "He never done nothin' to me," quoth the boy, with a shrug. The Bureau would investigate legislation afSfecting children in the several states and territories, and all other facts that have a bear- ing upon the health, the efiiciency, the character, the happiness and the training of children. Orphanage has many aspects that should call out the wisdom of the sages. Perhaps not enough has been done. Perhaps, in some respects, too much. The orphan is a child and orphanage means to some people, even now, the commitment to an asylum, the child lost in the obsession to an institution. Many are like the pious philanthropist who prayed, "Oh Lord, send us many orphans, that we may build the new wing to the asylum." Nothing would the Bureau do to duplicate any work now being done by state or federal government, but it would strengthen this work and bring into immediate usefulness all of the statistical facts The Federal Children's Bureau 25 that may lie in the treasure-house of any governmental department or any private association. Practical co-operation of this kind, based on intelligent sympathy, has already been assured by the far-seeing chief of the Educational Bureau and the head of the Census Bureau. As much of the results of their researches as vs^ould enrich the Children's Bureau would be laid before it almost w^ithout the asking, and yet, important as is their information and their knowledge, it covers only a part of what pertains to the whole great question of the wisest and most enlightened guardianship of our children — the most valuable natural asset of our nation. Literally the Education Bureau is the only thing that has been established by the govern- ment which could be directly construed for the children, — from which it might be said that we as a nation are indifferent. The Children's Bureau would not merely collect and classify information, but it would be prepared to furnish to every community in the land information that was needed, and diffuse knowledge that had come through experts' study of facts valuable to the child and to the community. Many extraordinarily valuable methods have originated in America and have been seized by communities other than our own as valuable social discoveries. Some communities in this country have had more or less haphazard legislation, and there is abundant evidence of the desire to have judicial construction to harmonize and comprehend it. As matters now are within the United States, many communities are retarded and hampered by the lack of just such information and knowledge, which, if the Bureau existed, could be readily available. Some communities within the United States have been placed in most advantageous positions as regards their children, because of the accident of the presence of public spirited individuals in their midst who have grasped the meaning of the nation's true relation to the children, and have been responsible for the creation of a public sentiment which makes high demands. But nowhere in the country does the government, as such, provide information concerning vitally necessary measures for the children. Evils that are unknown or underestimated have the best chance for undisturbed existence and extension, and there where light is most needed, there is still darkness. Ours is, for instance, the only great nation which does not know how many children are born and how many die in each year within its borders ; still less do we know how many die in infancy of preventable dis- 26 The Federal Children's Bureau eases; how many blind children might have seen the light, for one- fourth of the totally blind need not have been so had the science that has proved this been made known in even the remotest sec- tions of the country. Registration and our statistics on these matters are but partial, and their usefulness is minimized by. the unavoidable passage of time before their appearance. There could be no greater aid to the re- duction of infant mortality than full and current vital statistics of children, such as no one community can obtain for itself, and for want of which young lives, bom to be valuable to society, are wasted. We realize only occasionally, or after the occurrence of some tragedy, how little is known of other important incidents of the children's lives. We can not say how many are in the jails or almshouses, though periodically the country is stirred by some news- paper report such as that of the little boy of twelve sentenced to five years in a federal penitentiary, or that of a little boy confined for some months upon a trivial charge and incarcerated with a murderer, and other evil men and women, in the cell of a county jail. Outside the few states which have juvenile courts, there is chaos in the treatment and punishment of difficult children, and largely because of lack of knowledge concerning this important matter. This information can not be effectively obtained by private agencies. It is too vital to be left to that chance. Only the federal government can cover the whole field and tell us of the children with as much care as it tells of the trees or the fishes or the cotton crop! I remember that some three years ago, when it was our pleasure to bring this suggestion before the President, his first expression of approval was, if I recall rightly, that "It is bully." It was a coincidence that the Secretary of Agriculture was departing that same morning for the South to find out what danger to the com- munity lurked in the appearance of the boll weevil. That brought home, with a very strong emphasis to the appeal, the fact that nothing which could have happened to the children would have called forth such official action on the part of the Government. What measures for the advantage of the child and the country would the Bureau further? No direct responsibility or administra- tive function for furthering new measures would fall upon the experts of a Children's Bureau, but proceeding by the experience The Federal Children's Bureau 27 of other scientific bodies there would be ample justification for em- ploying the best minds of the country for the application of the knowledge gained, by using the stimulus of suggestion and educa- tion. It takes no stretch of the imagination to believe that, with the light of knowledge turned by responsible experts upon all phases of the problem of the child, the American people could be trusted, if not with the immediate solution, then with serious consideration, for what appears to be a national apathy is not really so in fact. What innovation in the governmental function would this introduce ? This measure for the creation of a Children's Bureau can claim no startling originality. It would introduce no innovation — no new principle — in the function of government. It is along the line of what we have been doing for many years to promote knowledge on other interests, on material matters. Look carefully into the history of the development and present scope of the various bureaus within the authority of the Government, and ample and fascinating analogies will be found. Other countries, too, have awakened to realize the import of efficient guardianship of their children, have gathered expert infor- mation and are using it under the leadership of trained specialists. The French call this development "Child Culture," which implies the use of scientific minds and trained powers, co-ordinated functions, and the protection of the state to the end of efficient manhood through a well guarded childhood. Current literature every day shows the trend of civilized people to fix the responsibility upon the present generation to preserve and cultivate its resources, indeed charging as a crime against us any reckless waste of these. The English children's bill, that within a day or two has become "An Act," is the best example of this as regards the children. That bill is a most remarkable document indeed, covering practically every incident in the child's life that might come within the con- cern of the Government. Its ninety folio pages constitute a com- plete code, and reflect not only the wide range of the government's information, but cover every interesting phase of the development of this vital, social and economic matter. A "veritable children's charter," it has been called. The forms of the English government and ours differ. We do not desire the code ; details and administra- tion can be left to the states ; but we do desire and we most urgently need information, and the best means of broad publicity on all 28 The Federal Children's Bureau matters relating to the children, that the national intelligence and conscience may be stirred. The full responsibility for the wise guardianship of these children lies upon us. We cherish belief m the children, and hope, through them, for the future. But no longer can a civilized people be satisfied with the casual admmistration of that trust. Does not the importance of this call for the best states- manship that our country can produce? I ask you to consider whether this call for the children's interests does not imply the call for our country's interests. Can we afford to take it? Can we afford not to take it? For humanity, for social well-being, for the security of the Republic's future, let us bring the child into the sphere of our national care and solicitude. II. By Jane Addams. Hull House, Chicago, 111. There is very little to add to all the pleas which have been made for the establishment of this Federal Bureau in the interests of children. I shall, however, try to point a moral and adorn a tale from the history of this Child Labor Committee itself. In the very early days, its annual meetings consisted largely of the people working in their various states to secure some adequate child labor legislation, and they came together to swap stories and to cheer each other forward on their very difficult and stony ways. Gradually it became evident that there was needed at least one central secretary who should discover those states in which no one was even working for child labor legislation ; who might be able to visit those states and arouse interest. Another of his duties should be to look over all the states of the Union, dividing the people, as it were, into territory where the first important work needed to be done, and into another territory where information needed to be furnished toward the best methods of securing legislation, and still other territory where unbridled enthusiasm needed to be re- strained. Gradually it was discovered that more than one man was needed, as is shown by the reports of the three secretaries of the Committee, one representing the New England States, another the Th€ Federal Children's Bureau 29 Southern States, and still another the States of the Ohio Valley. They prove how absurd state lines are when it comes to industrial questions; how exactly the same industrial conditions prevail, for instance, in that little three-cornered spot near the meeting of two rivers which contains a piece of West Virginia, a piece of Pennsyl- vania and a piece of Ohio, and where the child labor legislation in the three states differs almost as widely as possible. Of course, the moral is that a Federal Bureau naturally would have nothing to do with state lines, and that only a Federal author- ity could adequately deal with such a situation. The growth of this Committee in still another direction illus- trates the need of a Federal Bureau which shall furnish informa- tion in regard to children. During the very first years in the life of the Committee, it was found necessary to gather careful infor- mation, not only about child labor laws, but also in regard to com- pulsory education laws, because the two must be articulated in order to work smoothly. In later annual meetings a great deal was said in regard to industrial education, both as tending to hold children longer in school and fitting them for work. It was discovered, how- ever, that the educational authorities knew nothing in regard to the children during those first two or three perplexing years after they left school and went to work. The children themselves could not find any connection between the things they had learned and the things they were called upon to do, and they all believed, as one boy said to me, that the commencement orator knew what he was talking about when he said they were going out into a cold world. Thus the Child Labor Committee, in pursuit of its aims, was forced from one aspect of child life to another. To-night, as you see, the talk has come more and more to a consideration of health — "con- servation" is a popular word — and the Committee is now working for the conservation of the health and efficiency of the children of the nation. What does all this mean? Certainly two things. One is that these great questions of education and child labor cannot be ade- quately cared for by states whose boundaries are determined by rivers and mountains, and seem to have nothing to do with indus- trial problems, and that these problems therefore must be dealt with by a federal authority having power to transcend state lines. Sec- ondly, that we cannot confine our attention to child labor and detach 30 The Federal Children's Bureau it from all other things which pertain to children, and that we are forced into a consideration of education, of health, of recreation, into all sorts of other questions which can only be adequately dealt with and their inter-relation understood, if some bureau of dignity and authority is empowered to consider them. Only the United States itself is in a position to take charge of such a bureau. Does it not seem that the small effort of the Na- tional Child Labor Committee— the effort was small at the begin- ning, and it is small yet compared to the need — illustrates the need of a Federal Bureau which shall be concerned with the interests of children? Is it not inevitable that this Committee itself should be the way to its establishment in Washington? The Committee goes on to Washington for a hearing before the Committee in the House of Representatives on January 27; but such a Bureau will only be established if throughout the United States there is a great in- terest in it, if the people everywhere feel that it is necessary, not merely that another Bureau shall be added to an already compli- cated series of governmental bureaus but that a Bureau shall be established which is going to do something which the people demand and feel ought to be done. Such action on the part of the Govern- ment may in time do away with the popular impression that the Federal Government is remote and far away, that it seems to con- cern itself more with canned meats and fisheries than it does with things which have to do with human life and a sane social progress. Nothing after all can make the Government appear quite so — shall we say vital — ^to the best interests of the nation as the establishment of a Bureau which would concern itself with the appealing and the rewarding task of looking after its children. III. By Leo Arnstein. New York. It seems peculiarly fitting that the subject of the Federal Chil- dren's Bureau should be discussed at a meeting of the National Child Labor Committee, a society whose very existence is based upon the principle that there is a fundamental distinction between the adult and the child, and that in order to have an adult population worthy of the name we must cherish and guard the child in its formative period. The Federal Children's Bureau 31 The advisability of establishing a Federal Children's Bureau resolves itself quite naturally into two questions: ist, is the child worth saving? 2nd, does the proposed establishment of a Federal Children's Bureau give promise of accomplishing the desired end? Assuming that the child is worth saving, I shall take up for consid- eration the second question. I think that it will be generally admitted that success in any field, whether it be that of science, social work, business, or manufacture, is predicated upon two conditions — the correct ascertainment of facts in the first place and the proper use of them in the second. The inter-relation between the ascertainment and use depends upon the success with which these facts have been gathered, cor- related and grouped, and unless this has been done properly with an eye to accuracy and availability, and with the idea of using them for a definite purpose, such statistics are of little if any real value. One of the chief objections urged against the Federal Children's Bureau is that it will duplicate the work now done by the Census Bureau, an objection which, if true, would be of weight, as we are certainly all agreed that duplication of effort is by all means to be avoided in this present state of society where so much remains to be done, and the means at our disposal are so few and ineffective. But as a matter of fact there is not even a remote possibility of duplica- tion, because unfortunately the statistics gathered by the Census Bu- reau are of practically no value for the purposes contemplated by the Federal Children's Bureau. They are gathered according to some theory of statistical method, which makes them of absolutely no value from the standpoint of changing and improving the condi- tions under which the children are at the present time being brought up. If anyone, upon the publishing of the census report, were to go to a locality which, from the census report, he judged to be in a particular condition of development, he would feel like a modern Rip Van Winkle. He would come to the place expecting to find i» as depicted in the census report, and he would find everything changed — customs, laws, methods of legislation — everything. Eight or nine years might have elapsed since the particular condition which he was looking for had been mirrored, and he would find that the thing that he was trying to do, the thing that he was trying to improve, did not exist in the form in which he had found it pre- sented in that report. 32 The Federal Children's Bureau As a matter of fact, the census report at the present tune is a huge mass of inert statistical information, and to behold it one feels that there is a tremendous economic waste there, the sort of waste which would grieve a manufacturer if he thought that there was lying at hand a large amount of potential energy which by one more operation would be changed from an inert, useless mass to a powerful dynamic force, to something which would accomplish great ends ; but that if he were not allowed to add that one operation, it would lie there unused and useless. An example of the loss because of uncorrelated massing of statistics that I refer to, is the fact, for instance, that we find in the census report that out of the 579,000 illiterate children recorded in the United States, 500,000 were contained in thirteen states, the other 79,000 scattered over the remaining ones. There is a fact which seems fairly to bristle with meaning; it means everything, and yet what use is going to be made of that discovery unless there is some particular bureau which exists for the purpose of un- covering that fact and using it for the eradication of conditions of this kind. By a proper grouping and a frequent publication of the facts that are gathered by the Children's Bureau, we shall, in the first place, obtain publicity. Now, when I say publication, I do not mean the publication as it is done at the present time with the Census Bureau statistics. They are indeed published to the extent that if somebody, being particularly interested in the subject, is pre- pared to give up a great deal of time and is willing to delve into a mass of figures which are recorded there, he can get out the fact that he is looking for. The publication that I mean is the grouping of these figures, these dead figures, until they make a living mass, and then not to allow them to remain buried there, but send them forth — ^bring them home to every community that needs them. Do not do as you do at the present time, allow these people who want this informa- tion but who do not need it to get these figures, but rather take it to those people who do not want it, but who do need it ; the people who do not feel the need of this kind of information are the ones to whom it should be brought home most strongly. Publicity will do more probably toward eliminating evils than legislation. Turn the light of publicity on these evils and they will disappear of them- selves. The Federal Children's Bureau 33 The further effect of these reports will be to inspire and in- vigorate those localities which most are in need of a quickening force. There are bound to be in a widespread country such as this a great many communities, which, by reason of their better facili- ties, their greater opportunities, are going to be considerably above the level of the average, and very much above the level of the least advanced sections. Now, to take these highest points, find out what is being done in the best communities and bring this informa- tion to the attention of the people who most need it — ^that will be doing publicity work of a kind that will count. In so many cases, bad conditions, inhuman treatment if you will, exist not because of any particular brutality or cruelty on the part of the people who are at fault, but mainly because of inertia. Every business man in this audience will feel with me when I say that one of the hardest things to overcome in a business establish- ment, is the fact that if you want to change anything, no matter how small the improvement may be, you are met with the statement that it has been that way for twenty years, and there is no reason for changing it. I think that a number of the bad practices which exist in relation to children, exist, not because the people are brutal, not because they are more cruel than others, but merely that they have been calloused to seeing these conditions, and associating under such circumstances, and they do not appreciate the undesira- bility of what is being practiced there, until they have it brought home to them by contrast, by comparison. I want for just a moment to touch upon the National Bureau of Education. Those people who feel that the prerogative of this department will be infringed upon by the proposed bureau mistake its purpose and its scope. The Bureau of Education needs infor- mation about the child which it does not get at present and the Children's Bureau will need educational information which the Bureau of Education can furnish, and so they will supplement each other and make the work of both departments more effective. A Federal Children's Bureau will, of course, have far greater prestige and far greater authority than any state organization could have. The jealousy and suspicion between states which now so often prevent the less advanced from profiting by the experience of a more progressive sister state, would be absent. It will eliminate conditions that give rise to the remark that the United States is a 34 The Federal Children's Bureau place where old failures are tried over again, only on a larger scale. It is very sad that such should be the case, because aside from the tremendous waste of money, there is a waste of time and a waste of progress which can never be made up. It is truly a pity that there should not be some central organization which can collect all the facts that have been learned by the experience in the past and use them for the benefit of the present and the future. I think that no better investment of any kind can be made than the establishment of a Children's Bureau as a Federal Department at Washington. IV. By Hon. Ben B. Lindsey, Judge of the Juvenile Court of Denver, Col. After an experience now going on nine years in the Juvenile Court of Denver, I feel naturally a particular and special interest in this bill. All of our people in Colorado interested in work for children especially feel that interest because eight years ago, as Mr. Walsh, the President of our society for the protection of children and animals, knows, an effort was made to get the House to pass a bill providing for a Bureau similar to this one, and it has been a matter of chagrin during that experience to receive letters from the officials of various governments of Europe, even from Japan, want- ing to know where to apply to get certain facts, certain data, regard- ing the children of this country and the relation of childhood to crime, and not to be able to answer those gentlemen satisfactorily. I remember recently, when the children's bill in England, that great measure that has been discussed at this conference, was being con- sidered, receiving a letter, I think from one of the under secretaries, to get certain facts, and it was simply impossible to provide the information that was needed and expected that this Government could furnish ; and I, as a judge of one of the courts of this country dealing with children, felt very much embarrassed that we could not say that our Government was able to furnish such information. We have found, in our efforts to help these 100,000 children that have been said to be dependent, that nothing is so important as facts. In my humble judgment— I may be wrong, and that is The Federal Children's Bureau 35 just why we want a Bureau of this kind, in order that I may know and you may know whether I am right or wrong — in my judgment there are icx),ooo children, dependent and delinquent, coming to the courts of this country every year, and within the period of sixteen years that means 1,600,000 children coming to the courts of this nation in every generation of childhood. Is this great Govern- ment of ours, with sufficient facts already gathered in this imperfect way to demonstrate that fact, going to neglect this opportunity of spreading the real information, of gathering together the real causes of this awful condition that affects the children of this country ? I was in a certain city recently, and I went to the chief of police and asked him how many children had been in jail that year. He said 100. When we investigated the records, we found there were 650 boys alone brought to the jail in that city of less than 150,000 people. I went into another city of less than 200,000 people, and when I asked the jailer how many boys had been in jail he said five or six hundred. When we investigated the records, we found there were 4000 arrests in that city among the boys alone under twenty years of age and over 2000 brought to the jail were under seventeen years of age. If we had a Bureau of this kind it would stimulate the gathering of reliable statistics as it can not be stimulated or done in any other way. The head of a Bureau of this kind would send to the head of a city a blank to be filled out and kept, and it is going to stimulate the official who is to fill it out to keep records and re- turn them to the Government. We have had some experience of this kind showing that this is done. Our State Board sent blanks to different judges, asking for information on this subject, and the information came; but it does not come in any other way. There must be some kind of stimulus, if you please, to officials to get this information together, and it is going to come through a Federal Children's Bureau, and in my judgment in no other way. For instance, how many boys brought to jails in the cities of this country return within five years? In my own city, through private effort and investigation, we found sixty-two per cent, of all the boys brought to jails returned in five years for worse offenses. . In Chicago, under the Commercial Club, about ten years ago, a similar investigation was made, and they found that seventy-five per cent. 36 The Federal Children's Bureau returned in five years. What effect does the work have in prevent- ing crime? Another thing, twenty per cent, of the boys in some cities of this country come to jails before they come of age. One out of every five mothers' sons comes to the jails in the cities of this country, according to some private investigations. Isn't that a fact, which this Government should know and be able to demon- strate ? In the nine years of work we have been forced into a certain position in this matter that has perhaps led us to see the necessity of this Bureau more than some other courts. We have, in my court alone, two stenographers furnished us by the county, who work from morning to night largely answering letters and furnishing informa- tion that has been gathered in this imperfect way not only in this nation, but in the world. Not less than 3,000 and, in my judgment, nearly 5,000 letters are sent out from there every year; and one of the embarrassing things that has made me ashamed almost of my country is that in answering letters to all the world I have to tell them constantly that these facts are not gathered by our Govern- ment, and they can not understand. Sentiment is not, perhaps, a justifiable argument for the establishment of such a Bureau, but it is nevertheless a proper one when it is a practical one. This Government can do no one thing that will be more worthy than to say to the nations of the world and all the cities of this Union asking for this important information about our dearest possession, the children, that we have a Bureau, and here we centralize and specialize and focus all these facts upon this important subject of the child ; and however much the Bureau system may have been abused that is not any reason why a Bureau that is needed and necessary, as this for the children is, should not be established, and I do earnestly hope that the Congress will pass this bill. V. By Henry B. Favill, M.D., Chicago. It would be a very false conception of the problem which we have met to discuss if it were assumed that in purpose "the forces which we try to overcome are directly antagonistic. I think it is safe to say that with very rare exception there is not an em- The Federal Children's Bureau 37 ployer of children in mine, factory or sweatshop that would not prefer a different and better order of things. Conditions of industrial life develop slowly and compactly, and it is as a final and at the moment inevitable phase that child labor bursts into its full enormity. So the employers of children find themselves confronted by a condition quite irrespective of indi- vidual preference; a condition so related on the one hand to indus- trial competition and cost of production, and on the other to labor competition and necessity to exist, that they move on with a fatalistic insensitiveness that puts them in the minds of many into a class of malefactors to whom are too readily ascribed the responsibility for the outrages which they more or less perpetrate. That they are terribly culpable is true in spite of extenuating circumstances, but that they are voluntarily initiating the system which we deplore is not at all true. What they do they do because they rest upon that ancient fallacy that business necessity is paramount to other social considerations. They are not alone in this misconception. Thousands of right- minded, fairly intelligent men and women participate in the expres- sion which has hardly the dignity of an opinion, that radical disturb- ance of the social order is bad. I speak slightingly as to so-called opinions on these matters because it is eternally true that no opinion is worthy the name which has not as its foundation a reasonable understanding of the facts and I assert without hesitation that the majority of those highly respectable conservatives who are satis- fied to let things work out their own solution, are profoundly igno- rant of the conditions which they condone. To the masses of citi- zens who are indisposed to move in these measures of reform are to be added still other masses, who, because of their notions of political economy, object to legislative regulation or to administrative control through governmental bureaus. Without approaching the abstract argument upon this subject, those who have made this matter a deep and conscientious study, reach conclusions applying to the concrete facts with great definite- ness. Absolute control of the health of the individual can never be the function of the state. Control of the conditions under which the lives of the people shall be lived and their energies expended is an inevitable necessity. The state will approach this problem from the standpoint of self-preservation. Defective health is the 38 The Federal Children's Bureau foundation of crime, pauperism and degeneracy as well as that widespread inefficiency due to obvious disease. All sociologic forces have come to recognize this fact. The physical well-being of the people is the deepest interest of the state. If the state is to undertake the establishment of conditions designed to safeguard health, it is imperative that the foundation of accurate knowledge upon which to base radical and comprehen- sive legislation be laid. The detail of such legislation is too remote to engage our attention here. What we must strive for is knowl- edge, and to this end, the interested forces demand a National Bureau of Health, the most valuable function of which shall be the culture of intelligence upon these subjects. If this proposal shall become effective, it will appear to many that the end which we seek has been accomplished. That will not be true unless the interests which we represent be specifically defined. The medical profession has only within a few years come to realize that child health and adult health present distinctly different problems. Our literature upon the physical aspects of childhood is very recent and meager. Our scientists who have devoted themselves to child welfare are comparatively few ; yet one glance at the broad proposition should be convincing. Consider the difference in the questions involved as to how an individual goes out of the world and how that individual comes into the world. Is it not obvious that with reference to determining the type of an individual and hence his value to society, the first few years are inexpressibly more important than all the rest? Let us go even further than that, and say that questions involved in the period before birth or conception, which are coming to be recognized as profound and crucial, are only to be interpreted in the light of the deepest knowledge of child life. That there must be in this general pursuit of broad intelli- gence as to health problems, a specific and definite examination of the child problem, admits of no question. It seems best, therefore, that a distinct bureau in this broad movement should be secured. It is true, however, that there are questions of im- mediate importance which need not wait for this extensive in- vestigation. Among these questions is child labor. As a definite factor in our social economy, the iniquity of its existence is enor- mous. There is inherent in it the same ethical stigma that there The Federal Children's Bureau 39 is in slavery or polygamy or in any other widespread national moral obliquity. It ought not to exist and the intelligence and effort of all right-minded citizens should be committed to its extirpation. There are questions, it is true, which are open to reasonable difference of opinion. What constitutes the proper age for labor; what are justifiable considerations in determining customs of labor, are appropriate studies for a health bureau. Those, however, are outlying territories. The plain unvarnished proposition, that children shall bear the industrial burden of this people cannot much longer be countenanced. My privilege to address this meeting comes through my con- nection with the warfare upon tuberculosis. Could one come from a territory more deeply concerned with this issue ? Where is f oimd the safety of any individual against tuberculosis? In physique. Where is laid the foundation of physique? In childhood. Where bear the heaviest the burdens of bad hygiene ? In childhood. Where concentrate most the direct forces of infection? In childhood. So far as tuberculosis is concerned, there is no hope for the race until the territory of childhood has been fortified. History should teach us to be without surprise that a great people can have gone on to such development with so little foresight. Foresight is a rare combination of qualities. A joining of vision with judgment; an attribute of maturity; a power by no means universally vouchsafed to men. Myriads of people see the menace of an iniquity, and fainthearted turn aside with a feeling of im- potence. Recognition of the difficulty without conviction as to the moral obligation which it implies accomplishes nothing. Under the guise of conservatism masquerade indifference, timidity and self-interest. True conservatism is concerned only with genuine progress, hesitates only at mistakes; may be wisely quiescent, but never supine. It is curious that foresight and conservatism having so much purpose in common should be, in fact, so divergent through the major part of their respective paths. In social development the struggle is always between those who have vision and those who have caution. In this alignment, the forces of caution under the conception of prudence receive very exaggerated recognition and support. Those who have vision and imagination command undue criticism and discredit. The time has 40 The Federal Children's Bureau come to act in behalf of the child, and those who see must dominate those who fear to move, and to this end all sympathetic forces must be combined. That there should be any difference of opinion as to the imperative need of properly rearing and protecting the children of the nation is unthinkable. In fact there is no such difference of opinion. The thought of those who think at all is unanimous upon this subject. The problem is how to combine the insight of those whose sympathy has reached the root of the matter with the effectiveness of those who have the courage and ability to deal with it. These forces can only be combined under conditions which satisfy both. There must be a broad and evolved policy of correction and protection. There must be a convincing mass of accurate information. So far as appears, nothing offers to satisfy these requirements but a National Bureau devoted to the welfare of the Nation as represented in the growing child. We hesitate not at all in adding our influence to the movement in that direction. VI. By Professor Charles R. Henderson, University of Chicago. I. There are already several important national organiza- tions charged with the watch care of public health interests in this country ; among these is The American Health League, established as a committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This league aims to promote unification of Federal action in relation to the health of the people of the land, and to forward local interest in matters of sanitation and hygiene. It is a laymen's movement, inspired by a scientific spirit. The American Medical Association, with its special section on Public Health, lends its high authority to a movement of trained medical experts. The Ameri- can Public Health Society is also under the direction of specially trained medical men. The Public Health and Marine Hospital Serv- ice is at once official and expert, with a remarkable history of guard- ing the quarantine ports and fighting fever during the past cen- tury. All of these associations center their attention upon the physical interests of all classes and all age groups throughout the nation. The Federal Children's Bureau 41 2. The Bureau of Education is already a " Children's Bureau " in the sense that it aims to publish the results of scientific study of children, and seeks to promote the knowledge of child nature and the best methods of education and organization of schools. All friends of children should strive to support the efforts of this Bu- reau, at whose head we have had distinguished men, and under its present administration it continues to deserve the respect and warm- est support of the nation. 3. And now we have the National Child Labor Committee, which aims to promote the physical and moral interests of the work- ing child and to secure for it suitable education. Therefore we are here interested in each of these agencies, since they are all working for the same end from a different starting point, and by various means, and they all have their claims upon our moral co-operation. 4. The specific call of this meeting and this hour is for the es- tablishment of a " Children's Bureau " in the Federal administration. From the standpoint of those who are asking concentration and co- ordination of public health activities at Washington, this is a reason- able effort. A Bureau which aims to promote all the interests of childhood would, of course, include care for their physical well- being. VII. By Mrs. Florence Kelley. New York. I have been deeply impressed with the meagreness of our kno^yl- edge of what is to-day being done for the children, after all these years of effort. For instance, in the southern states there has been much patient agitation, much constant effort to get statutes on the statute books. We know that in Louisiana there is an exceedingly energetic factory inspector and in the neighboring state of Missis- sippi there is no enforcement, no official whose duty it is to give us information. In the other neighboring state of Alabama an un- fortunate official was appointed with the three-fold duty of inspect- ing jails, insane asylums and cotton mills. He did not do it very long, he committed suicide. I have learned since I came here of the current appointment of his successor. 42 The Federal Children's Bureau In North Carolina there is a Commissioner of Labor. There are no truant officers, no factory inspectors, and the Commissioner of Labor has no right of entry into any factory. Wherever he enters it is as the guest of some friend. He has no right of entry. In our own state of New York we have an admirably organized factory inspection bureau. Every day the inspector finds from two to twenty children working illegally in Greater New York. That is after we have had a child labor law and factory inspection for twenty years. In the city of New York the bureau of inspection sends us every day a list of the children found illegally at work the day before, a duplicate of the list is sent to the Department of Edu- cation, in order that the children may be returned to school. They must be either legally at work or in school until they are sixteen years old. Hitherto a subordinate clerk in the Department of Education seems to have put that list into the waste basket. When, this fall, we inquired of the head of the truancy department what his method was for using that check list, he seemed entirely unaware that it had ever been sent to his department or that such a check list existed. In the city of New York we have eighty-three salaried truant officers. Every time the State Department of Labor finds a child illegally at work who has never had working papers, it thereby shows that some school official has let that child go illegally from school (assuming that the child had ever been in school). This fall one young college graduate undertook the task of following up children whom the factory inspectors' reports day by day showed to be illegally at work, to learn why it was that eighty-three city truant officers let from two to twenty children be found illegally at work every day. Some interesting things transpired. One was that not very long ago one of the eighty-three truant officers had been regularly draw- ing his salary while serving also as interne in a hospital. I do not know anyone except a convict serving a term in a penitentiary who would be less able to get children into school than an in- terne in a hospital. Other truant officers were found who appeared to be turning a dishonest penny, not by getting children into school but by escorting the children and their parents to the office of the Department of Health to facilitate their getting working papers to get out of school. The Federal Children's Bureau 43 We have had compulsory education for twenty years just as we have had factory inspection, but we have never had any official whose duty it was to know the daily methods of the truant officers. It is nobody's sole duty to inspect the truant officers. But one young volunteer in a few months showed that if those officers have to report in writing every day what they do with their time, and if those reports were public documents which we could all look at as we can look at the factory inspectors' reports, we may get the same sort of efficiency on the part of our school author- ities that we have already to an admirable degree on the part of the Department of Labor in its bureau of factory inspection. We asked how often the truant officers report to the head of the department and found that some of them report once a week, — not directly to him but to the district superintendent, — and by the time the information reaches the center, instead of being twenty- four hours old as in the case of the factory inspectors, it may be thirty-four days old and the child may have moved and may be lost forever to the schools. We wrote to the Commissioner of Education at Washington asking for a standard daily report blank. That was about three months ago. We have received no letter in reply ; we have received four pamphlets of irrelevant information but no reference whatever to a daily truant officer's report. We wrote to several heads of truancy departments in different states. The head of the truancy department in our own state wrote after long delay that he had never seen a blank for a daily report for truant officers, but he had no doubt that if we wrote to every city in the State we might find one. Now, that is the sort of chaotic lack of knowledge and lack of standard of work which we want the proposed federal bureau in the interest of children to deal with. It ought not to be necessary to write to every city in the United States with the hope that ulti- mately one may find a truant officer's daily report blank. We have no authoritative list of persons responsible for keeping non-working children in the schools and no authoritative list of all the persons responsible for the inspection of factories in this nation. We have sadly little authoritative knowledge with regard to the children who work in any state. I believe that in New York we come a little nearer to having up-to-date knowledge than anywhere 44 The Federal Children's Bureau else, because once a month the Department of Labor prints a list of the convictions obtained during that month for violation of the child labor law. We need to know about the prosecutions, because there are al- ways sinister charges that it is only petty offenders, little people who cannot retaliate by insisting on the removal of the too effi- cient inspectors, who are prosecuted. That is a cruel charge and if it is not true it ought never to be made. It is only by giving us full publicity which in most states we do not get that that charge can be silenced. Finally we want to know what our children know when they leave school. In many states they need not go to school at all. In some southern states thousands do not go at all. In many other states they have to go until they have reached a certain nominal age and then they may leave school whether they know anything or not. Even here, in Illinois, it is only necessary for a Syrian child to say that it can read and write in Syrian, or a Russian child to say that it can read and write in Yiddish. If it has not attended a public school it is not required to read and write in the language of the people among whom it is going to live all its life. We want objective tests and one centralized bureau to standard- ize those tests instead of the chaotic condition in which we are to-day. VIII. By Samuel McCune Lindsay, Ph.D., Professor Social Legislation, Columbia University; Vice-Chairman, National Child Labor Committee. Why do we who are associat^ed in this child labor movement, want to see a Federal Children's Bureau? Our reasons are set forth in the section which outlines the compass of the Bureau itself, section two of the bill which is now re-introduced in Congress and is still pending in the House and the Senate. It reads : "The said Bureau shall investigate and report upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life, and shall espe- cially investigate the questions of infant mortality, the birth rate, physical degeneracy, orphanage, juvenile delinquency and juvenile The Federal Children's Bureau 45 courts, desertion and illegitimacy, dangerous occupations, accidents and diseases of children of the working classes, employment, legis- lation affecting children in the several states and territories, and such other facts as have a bearing upon the health, efficiency, char- acter and training of children." That is a pretty comprehensive program. The reason why we want so comprehensive a program enacted into law is in order that somewhere there may be a co-ordination of the various lines of activity that are now being put forth on behalf of childhood. We feel that the child labor movement alone is a one-sided movement ; that it must be brought into direct relation to the efforts and the work that is being done in so many other departments of activity for the benefit of children if it is to reach the greatest possible effi- ciency. The watchwords, or keynotes, of this program for a Children's Bureau are the following: Investigation, information, interpretation of facts. This investigation, this collection of information, this inter- pretation, must be scientific, must be impartial, must be thorough. As a private organization supported by voluntary contributions, we have had to carry on investigation, to gather information, to interpret the facts that we have found in connection with child labor ; but at best the information we gather is always open to the suspicion that it is the information gathered by interested parties. They tell us we are looking for child labor, we are looking for the evils of child labor. We are not interpreting these facts with that absolute impartiality and scientific attitude of mind that is necessary in order to carry authority with it. I will not stop to argue that question. The records of this Committee are printed in several volumes. The results of our field investigations are subject to the examination and criticism of the world at large, and I am perfectly satisfied for one to stand on our platform and to submit that that investigation has been thorough and impartial and fair, and has gone as far as the means and re- sources at our command would allow. But I submit this further question to you, and to the public at large : Is it fair that a private society like the National Child Labor Committee should have placed upon it the burden of the expenditure of nearly $100,000 which we have expended in the five years of our organization — is it fair that the burden should be placed upon us to gather this information 46 The Federal Children's Bureatt when it is clearly a duty of the Government to furnish information for its citizens? Is it not fair that such efforts as are being put forth by private committees like this Committee, like all the other agencies that are working for social betterment, shall have their resources to use for carrying out their program ? There is no other Government in the civilized world that does not furnish more in- formation on these subjects upon demand than the Government of the United States. It is absolutely impossible to verify with any degree of certainty the various statements that are made here by these speakers with respect to so simple a matter as the number of children of a particular age at work. We could spend the entire time of this conference in controversy over the question of whether there are 1,750,000 or 2,000,000 children under sixteen years of age at work, because the figures of the United States census are not con- clusive upon that subject; because such data as we have in the census have not been worked up by any body of experts, whose chief business it is to correlate, verify, amplify and interpret such information as we already have at hand. I think it was pointed out in several of the speeches last night that the significant thing to be expected of such a Bureau would be exactly what has happened in every other country that has gathered the statistics that we want; that with investigation and with in- formation collected we are bound to develop a better policy with respect to childhood. We have developed here in the last few years a corporation policy in our Government which is now pretty well understood by our politicians and statesmen, by the organs of public . opinion in all quarters, and why ? Very largely, as a direct result of the organization and establishment of the Department of Commerce and Labor and of the Bureau of Corporations in that department, a Bureau that has made it its business to co-ordinate all the informa- tion that the Government possesses on the subject of corporations, and to go out gathering facts with respect to our great industrial corporations. As a result of the gathering of that information there has necessarily grown up a government policy based upon the idea of publicity in corporate business. I do not believe, for one, that our program is going to make very great progress,— our program for the restriction of child labor in certain sections where it is most needed — if we rely merely upon The Federal Children's Bureau 47 the compulsion of law. That will always bring opposition, it will always create opposition and resistance, but we can rely upon the compulsion of publicity, and I think one of the very best signs of the times is a growing sensitiveness in those sections of the country through which our good friend Doctor McKelway travels so fre- quently, to the conditions of life brought out by the facts with re- spect to child labor. Once let those facts be put out in a manner that is beyond the suspicion of any interested motives, once let them be brought forward with the authority of government investigation back of them, the facts that we positively know are true with respect to child labor, and nine-tenths of the battle against child labor will be won. I think that in this national conference there has been no more significant result to be observed than the coming together of people of many diverse opinions and representing widely divergent interests and geographical areas, in hearty favor of a Federal Children's Bureau. I have watched the different speakers coming from dif- ferent states, from different surroundings, representing different ideas, even with respect to this one topic which has brought us together, and I find how they have all come around to one point as we face the problem, as we go further into the work that we have set ourselves to do, that we have increasingly a common need for information, and we feel increasingly our own helplessness as a private society with any resources that this organization can command to get that necessary information, and we feel that this is a paramount duty of our Federal Government. I, for one, have been an ardent advocate of federal legislation, and I am still an ardent advocate of federal legislation as a neces- sary part of a really effective legislative remedy for the evils of child labor. All my colleagues do not agree with me on this subject. Personally I do not think that we will get at the heart of the forces that defeat in operation so much of our state legislation on this sub- ject until we have that uniformity that can come only through some sort of supplementary federal legislation. But I am perfectly willing to hold that as an individual view and to tolerate a wide divergence of views on the part of others who do not think as I do on that subject. I am very sure that however we may disagree as to the wisdom or as to the constitutionality, if you please, of our Federal Govern- 48 The Federal Children's Bureau ment passing a law directly or indirectly to regulate child labor, we can have no doubt and I have yet to hear a single expression of doubt from any quarter as to the wisdom, as to the propriety, and as to the constitutionality of the Federal Government collecting in- formation and disseminating an intelligent interpretation of it to aid and support those efforts which the citizens of this great and rich nation are willing to put forth on behalf of its children. The re- sources of private philanthropy and private charity are spent gen- erously for the benefit of the children of the nation. Let us hasten the day when the nation shall do its full part in this matter, perhaps the only part it can do, by spreading abroad an educational influence with respect to this subject that will make child labor an impossi- bility throughout the length and breadth of our land. SOME UNSETTLED QUESTIONS ABOUT CHILD LABOR By Owen R. Lovejoy, General Secretary, National Child Labor Committee, New York City. The four years of study and legislative work conducted by the National Child Labor Committee should give us a basis in experi- ence for a clear definition of the problem of child labor in Amer- ica. The complicated nature of the work was probably understood from the first by those actively interested in the formation of the Committee, but it was not understood by the public in general. Nor is there to-day any general consensus on many of the essential fea- tures of its solution. There is a widespread idea that the evil briefly called " child labor " is an iniquitous system existing as an integer and perpetu- ated solely by the cruelty and greed of the slave-driving employer. To correct this error is a first duty. The effort to abolish the evils of, child labor is complicated by the wide variety of industries in which children engage ; by the marked contrasts in opportunity in different sections of the country; by the influx of alien races bringing their traditions and customs wholly foreign to the ideals of democracy; and by the inequalities in legislative restriction which render enforce- ment almost impossible, so long as our fifty commonwealths adhere to as many different laws on the subject. It has been the aim in planning the discussions at this Con- ference to record the points on which essential agreement has been reached and to give special consideration to that horde of difficult questions that remain unanswered. We are to tell each other what points have been reached. We must bring to each other the ques- tions we cannot answer. If any general principles have been fully established, all citizens should have the benefit of the experience of those who solved them. If it is discovered that at any point we have turned in an unwise direction, that error should be pointed out clear- ly, and our whole train of activities should be set on the right track. It is the purpose of this paper to review a few of the typical questions that have not been solved, as an introduction to the discussions that are to follow. Perhaps the questions requiring (49) 50 Some Unsettled Questions About Child Labor most immediate attention may be divided for convenience as fol- lows : — (i) What classes of children should be entirely eliminated as a factor in the industrial problem ? (2) From what industries should all children be eliminated? (3) What regulations should govern the conditions of the children who may wisely be employed ? (4) What is to be done with those excluded from industry? I. What Children to be Eliminated Obviously there is a period in the life of the child which, both for the good of the child and for the good of society, must be kept free from exacting toil or burdensome responsibility. How shall the end of that period be marked ? The method thus far applied has been through the establishment of a minimum age limit. That age limit has advanced steadily from eight and nine years until to-day it is generally agreed that, in this country, no child under fourteen years can wisely be subjected to wage-earning labor. Not that all our states have advanced to this standard, for South Carolina, Alabama, Maryland, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, and West Virginia permit children of twelve years to be legally em- ployed, and North Carolina fixes thirteen years as the limit. Fur- thermore, in a number of these states if a child is poor or otherwise handicapped he is turned at even an earlier age to the hard battle for life. But the interested citizens in those parts of the country make an apology for permitting this early exploitation of the child, and are seeking to raise their commonwealths to the higher standard. This fourteen-year limit, however, does not express the standard agreed upon. Beyond this the prevailing demand requires that the fourteen-year-old child shall meet certain educational and physical tests before being subjected to industrial competition. In Colorado, Michigan, Nebraska, Vermont, and Wisconsin he must pass at least the eighth grade before being released under sixteen from school, and in New Jersey he must pass all the grammar grades, and his fifteenth birthday before he can be excused from school. In New York, Ohio and Montana he is required to pass the eighth grade. In a number of states efforts are being made to add careful phy- sical tests, to be made frequently during the school course and upon entering industry. Especial emphasis is at present being put on the Some Unsettled Questions About Child Labor 51 physical qualifications of the working child. Manifestly the under- developed child, the child lacking in sight, hearing, lung develop- ment, muscular growth, bone formation, or heart action should not be abandoned by the state to the rigors of an industrial life merely because he has reached the age of fourteen years. There are those who take the position that the age test should be abandoned and there should be substituted educational and physical qualifications. One of the papers at this Conference will seek to show the pos- sibilities of making anatomical and physiological tests, by which the development of the child can be gauged with scientific accuracy, and thtis the actual physical age be recorded. The difficulty of applying this method in small communities and in parts of the country devoid of skillful medical practitioners will at once appear. It would seem that the medical professon should everywhere be counted on to give the child that meed of protection which is due. Yet it is notorious that in many cities the local boards of health perform in a merely perfunctory manner, or entirely neglect to per- form their duties in relation to the certification of children seeking employment. Despite these objections we welcome this proffered aid to the solution of one of the most perplexing phases in this problem. And we believe the movement among physicians marks the beginning of a more rational and scientific treatment of the whole subject. Such tests would, from the outset, have immense educational value. Let the people be convinced that the child is not a little man or woman, but a being in the process of physical formation — with features of that development so delicate that no less caution is required at the age of ten or twelve years than was required in in- fancy — and a speedy end will be reached of all the popular fallacies about the benefits of hard and exacting labor in the training of the little child. Such tests as are foretokened in these experiments present an encouraging prospect. Meanwhile there will be a period of experimentation and civil war among the experts. During the period if we must continue to "fumble" we must insist that, while we work by confessedly unscientific methods, the child shall be given the benefit of the doubt. For the encouragement of those who have fought to establish the laws that now protect the children in many states it may be noted that thus far the findings of the physicians and anatomists 52 Some Unsettled Questions 'About Child Labor tend to justify the rough line of demarcation that has been drawn at fourteen years and to urge the adoption of still higher restrictions. Upon this point, then, we are clear in our duty to attack every part of the country which compels younger children to be wage earners. At a recent child-labor conference in Connecticut a leading manufacturer of New England frankly proposed a sixteen-year limit for all children in wage-earning industries. This gratifying propo- sition is meeting with popular favor. The Governor of Connecti- cut has advocated this in his message to the legislature, and a bill may be presented to thus amend the law. Such a step in Connecticut would provide a new basis for legislation in other states, II. From What Industries Should All Children Be Excluded Upon this question there is a ground of general agreement with a wide margin of doubt. We may agree that all mines and quarries ; all mills in which., as yet, no successful method of guarding danger- ous machinery has been applied; all factories in which dangerous acids, chemicals, or high explosives are used should be positively shut against the child. But just what are the kinds of industry re- ferred to? In a few states a partial list of industries regarded as dangerous has been made, but nowhere, we believe, with complete- ness. Neither can there be until every state shall establish, as New York has this year done, a sanitary department of factory inspec- tion and shall have that department so perfectly equipped that a report may be made to the state of all forms of industry that offer menace to life, limb, or health and in which the measure of risk in each may be tabulated upon their record or if they have no record, upon their reputation elsewhere. Such inspection will doubtless add to the list of hazardous employments, many now looked upon as safe places for working children. They will note the special aptitude of the little child to get into danger or harm in places that are entirely safe for the adult— from the mere fact of immature judgment, recklessness and curiosity. The labor required about a coal mine is obviously dangerous, and we are not surprised to learn from the last available statistics upon this point from the anthracite mines of Pennsylvania that among the slate pickers the ratio of accidents to boys sixteen Some Unsettled Questions About Child Labor 53 and under is 300 per cent, higher than to the men and boys above sixteen in that branch of the industry. Ordinary industries of our states are not, as a whole, ex- ceptionally dangerous. Yet the report of the Factory Inspector of Indiana for 1907 shows 400 per cent, of accidents to children as com- pared with the adults, and the report from Michigan in 1907 shows 450 per cent, of hazard to children — in proportion to the number employed. What is the record of the whole country? Are chil- dren being sacrificed by industry twice as rapidly, or three times, or four times, or eleven times, or what is the percentage of risk to the working child? And what are the industries in which these accidents most frequently occur? We believe no state wants to mangle or kill its little children in industry. We sin in ignorance. But we have no right longer to be ignorant. Our industries are well enough developed and cause and effect are sufficiently well known to make ignorance inexcusable ; and we spend enough money in public administration on far less important matters to leave no excuse for neglecting this safeguard to the public health. Such a Federal Children's Bureau as we are urging would have, as an essential part of its field of labor, to discover and compile for public information, all the facts that can be gleaned from the whole country bearing on industrial accidents to children. A few well-compiled reports, we venture to predict, would put an end to the discussion. For the present, however, in default of any more complete basis of agreement, we may reasonably urge that, if fourteen years is to be made the minimum age for general employment, sixteen years shall be laid as the minimum for em- ployment in all industries that are known to be dangerous in the ordinary sense, and eighteen years in the extra-hazardous occu- pations. This higher age limit should also, of course, apply to all industries in which there is a menace to the moral life. III. Regulations Governing Employment of Children and Youth Assuming that many children on reaching the age of fourteen years, or its equivalent in mental and physical development, may be employed, also that, for those employed there are certain industries which are not excluded as being extra hazardous or dangerous, we have to consider regulations governing the work of children 54 Some Unsettled Qitestions 'About Child Labor between fourteen years and maturity who are employed in occupa- tions that are not dangerous. Shall we consent that, because the child and the industry meet certain tests, all protective care on the part of the state shall be removed? Shall it be lawful for a boy who could not be employed legally last week to enter a factory or workshop for an unlimited number of hours, day or night, simply because he has attained a given birthday? On some of these questions we ought soon to arrive at a fair consensus of opinion. We may differ as to whether the opening and closing hours in a factory should be five, six, seven, or eight o'clock, but there should no longer be any doubt as to whether a young boy or girl, just passed the age of fourteen, may work a ten-hour day as in New Jersey and Indiana and all the New England states, or eleven hours as in Alabama, or twelve hours as in North Caro- lina, Pennsylvania and Georgia, or an unlimited period as in West Virginia, Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Nevada. Here is a plain question on which neither the interests of the industry, the poverty of the family, nor any other motive should lead us to compromise. No child can study for a ten-hour day without serious injury; nor play for ten hours or more without harm. How much less reasonable to suppose that a child of tender years and with bones but partly formed and muscles undeveloped may be put to the single task of earning profits for its employer, or bread for its progenitors, for a ten or eleven or twelve hour day, without suffering an injury for which society must pay heavily in the future! It is gratifying to record that already Ohio, Illinois, Nebraska, New York, and Colorado have fixed an eight-hour day for children under sixteen years (the law in New York applying to factories, with a nine-hour day in mercantile establishments, and Ohio ex- tending the eight-hour protection in the case of girls to eighteen years). No evidence is on record, either from the reports of the Factory Inspectors, the School authorities, the compilers of labor and industrial statistics, or from the operators of the industries af- fected or the families of the children concerned, to show that any serious interruption to business has been suffered, or that poverty and family dependence have increased. On the other hand, these reports, official and unofficial, tend to show that some industries have adopted the eight-hour schedule, while others have been en- Some Unsettled Questions About Child Labor 55 couraged to advance to higher levels, because of the elimination of those who could not profitably be employed for a shorter period than the normal working day, and the consequent substitution of older and more competent employees. As to the families affected, the reports from state and local committees to be presented at this conference will show that the dread of causing sick fathers and widowed mothers to starve because little children are forbidden to be crushed under excessive industrial burdens is a needless dread. Poverty has rather tended to decrease and family standards have tended to advance toward the line of self-support as a result of these humane measures. In the light of this experience shall we not agree that we have a plain duty to press upon the people of the states adjoining those mentioned, namely: Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, as well as a number of the younger western states — the need of throwing this special form of protection about those who are on the border line between child- hood and youth. Shall we not urge them to establish an eight-hour day for all children under sixteen years in all wage-earning employ- ments ? The necessity of gradual approach to this reasonable standard is recognized, therefore we shall count it a gain, if in Pennsylvania this year a ten-hour day can be secured for children of fourteen or if in North Carolina the hours per week can be reduced from sixty-six to sixty. Night Work The same conclusions are potent as against all industrial em- ployment at night. It may be granted that certain forms of indus- try can be carried on more profitably when operated day and night and that no legislation should be enacted which will cripple them in their night operations. But when the welfare of a child or youth of eleven or thirteen or fifteen years is involved, argument should be at an end. If the child cannot find a place in the industry without being subjected to the obvious injuries of night work, then let him be excluded altogether. The chief opposition to such restriction will continue to come from those engaged in the glass manufacturing industry. Night work of children is practiced in other industries, especially in certain ^6 Some Unsettled Questions About Child Labor textile industries, but not as a recognized essential feature of the in- dustry. No cotton mill or silk mill has proclaimed its inability to exist without the systematic employment of little children at night. Yet the glass industry, a branch of manufacturing that has made as great progress as any other in this country in the past quarter-cen- tury, under the influence of an exceedingly high protective tariff, stoutly claims that the prohibition of night employment of little boys will be its ruin. The cry usually takes the form of a threat to move the factories to some other state. Three states in which glass is extensively produced have enacted laws forbidding the night employment of children under sixteen years. These are New York, Ohio and Illinois. These states stand, according to the Census report of 1905, as fourth, fifth and seventh in the scale of glass-producing states. To determine whether these restrictive laws appear to have in- jured the industry we refer to the record of its growth since their enactment, and compare it with the growth in states not affording children this protection. The table of comparison given with New York, Ohio and Illinois, on the one hand, and Indiana, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, on the other, presents a valid reply to those who contend that such child-labor laws will ruin the trade. Growth of the Glass Industry in Five Years (igoo-1905) Increase Factories _, „, . f Illinois 116. % These States Prohibit J ^t -,r 1 /« „,.,,- t 1 New York ^.Q% Child Labor ' J y/o '0 at night [^^.^ ^^^^^ Indiana '10.2% New Jersey ij. % Pennsylvania 2-5% These States Permit Child Labor at night Capital 63- % Wage Earners 44. % Value of output 98.8% S4. % 23-3% 55-2% 69- % 72-5% 98.5% 8.6% ^•5% 3-4% 16. % 2-3% 26.8% 43.5% 7- % 2S-7% This comparison is not presented here for the purpose of show- ing that child-labor laws promote the industry, although they appear to afford such evidence. There are other far more impcatant factors • Decrease Some Unsettled Questions About Child Labor 57 determining the progress of this industry than the question of the age or hours of hoys who are employed. The cost of fuel, the ac- cessibility to some of the chief constituents in the composition of glass, and good markets are factors far more important, and are those on which an equality of opportunity for different sections of the country can never be realized. The chief glass-producing states which at present permit the employment of children under sixteen years at night are New Jer- sey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, Maryland, Missouri and Kansas. In Indiana, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey bills are before the legislatures this winter forbidding such em- ployment. Were it possible to combine the forces working for such legislation in these four states, we believe the glass manu- facturers would be less opposed and might consider favorably such simultaneous action. Vacation Permits Among the specific questions that are to receive consideration here is the question: "What shall be done in the case of school children who apply for permits to work during the long vacations ?" On this matter there is the greatest confusion of opinions and pro- grams. In the discussion, which we hope will bring about a degree of harmony in action, we suggest that in the case of vacation permits the injury to the child is not so much from the work he does, al- though too little attention has been given to the right of the child to a period of relaxation from the overwork often required in our schools, but what makes the summer work a menace to the child's development is the difference between what he does in the summer and what he will have to do in school in the fall. The proverbial reluctance among working children to return to school ought to be a clear suggestion to our communities as to what the school should be. The fact that people are now so perplexed about what to do with the children prevented from work either in vacation or at all times constitutes the strongest possible argument for co-operation with the National Education Association and those associations formed to promote practical education, to the end that a constructive program shall be worked out without delay. 58 Some Unsettled Questions 'About Child Labor Street Trades The various street trades and work in city tenements are forms of child employment sorely in need of study and regulation. The physical difficulty in regulating the hours and conditions of employ- ment in street trades is greater than in the case of factories and mines. It is further complicated by the traditions which teach that the little newsboy or messenger of eight or ten years is the only sup- port of his widowed mother, and furthermore, that the little man is on the straight road to the White House or the presidency of some billion dollar trust. We stupidly adhere to these delusions, over- looking the sacrifice of health, education and character, which in the overwhelming majority of instances are suffered by infant news- boys and night messengers, while we have kept the mind fixed on the few notable men who rose to eminence from a childhood in these nomadic pursuits. Sweatshops In the matter of tenement-house employment the question of regulation is further complicated by the tradition of parental own- ership. We are asked, " How dare the state invade the sacred in- closure of a man's own home and deny his right to the help of his own children, who work under the home roof?" The question sounds conclusive, but it is wholly specious. Its answer is in two parts. In the first place, the place invaded is not a " sacred in- closure." The tenement house workshops in our great cities are not under home roofs, but in crowded blocks of congested humanity, where hundreds of our nation's little children are burning out their eyes at night as they work in the dim gas light on some monotonous task which develops neither mind nor body. For this labor the only rewards are shamefully inadequate wages, bent and diseased spines, stooped shoulders, contracted lungs — the culture beds of deadly germs, and the other natural fruits of wrong physical environment. In the second place, the child is not a parental asset. The state is bound by the law of self-preservation to deny a father or mother the privilege of exacting from his own child what would be re- garded as cruel or injurious if exacted from another's child. If the parent, either through poverty, vice or ignorance is unable to provide the care and protection needed, then the state is bound to enter and become the parent of that child. Some Unsettled Questions About Child Labor 59 Farm Labor A kind of child labor which has received too little attention in this country is to be discussed at this conference. It has gener- ally been assumed that if children work on the farm there can be no objection to their employment. Indeed, one of the most promi- nent critics of the work of this committee in questioning our repre- sentations as to the extent of child labor in America with one sweep brushed aside all the children working on farms as wholly beyond the need of attention. Naturally the factory and mine have received the first attention, for there the children are congregated, and if evils exist they are more apparent. But disturbing reports are coming to us from many parts of the country, testifying to the neglect or the abuse of child- hood in the rural districts. We learn of the twelve-hour workday in the berry fields of New Jersey ; of the congestion, overwork, and immorality in the vegetable gardens of Delaware and Maryland, where the pickers' shanty repeats the unhealthy evils of the city tenement; of the beet-sugar fields of Michigan, Nebraska and Colorado, and the tobacco fields and stripping barns in Connecticut, Kentucky, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Reports reach us from many parts of the country which pro- duce tobacco in large quantities that not only are the children kept from school during the harvesting season, but that through the winter, whenever the weather is favorable for stripping tobacco, they are kept from school one, two and three days a week, and thus their education is interrupted and the whole school system de- moralized. In the fruit-canning sections of New York state, eighteen months ago, a thorough investigation of child labor was made, which revealed such abuse of little children that the canners hiding behind a technicality in the agreement with those directing the investiga- tion insisted that they suppress the publication of the report, lest its publication ruin the industry. Canners in the states not investi- gated would, it was claimed, use this report against their New York competitors, although the same abuses are believed to exist in nearly every section of the country where canning is extensive. 6o Some Unsettled Questions About Child Labor IV. Constructive Measures But manifestly legislation that eliminates the child or the in- dustry is not enough. There is the constructive side. As to the industry, perhaps we need not concern ourselves. It is enough to know that no necessary form of industry has ever been permanent- ly crippled by excluding the children from it. Inventive genius has always come to the rescue of the industry and has found a way to apply better methods or better machinery, which in the end has put the industry on a higher plane and rendered better service than the child had ever done. At a time when all over the country so large an army of unem- ployed men exists as a burden upon the charitable agencies of our communities and as a menace to individual virtue and the founda- tions of the home, there can certainly be no justification for the contention that manufacturing industries would be crippled by the elimination of young children. Indeed, there is a double motive for the release of young children from industry. Not only are the children benefited by having a substantial addition made to their period of preparation for the obligations of maturity, but the normal demands of our industries would inevitably draw into service large numbers of able-bodied men who are now idle. But the problem of what to do with the child is less simple. The question arises as soon as a child is thrown out of employment by a new law, " What are you going to do with him ?" And no one seems to know. At least there is no agreement upon the point. A mother in Washington a few days ago charged the child-labor law of the District of Columbia with making her son a forger. The newspaper story does not bear the marks of authenticity, but it serves to illustrate the feeling of a large number of people through- out the country. The point of view of those who would leave all children to work indefinitely until society has fully prepared to take care of them, loses some of its force when it is remembered that the same opposition to the law is found in Ohio, where boys under six- teen and girls under eighteen have been thrown out of employments which could not use them on an eight-hour day, and in Alabama and Arkansas, where children of eleven years are thrown out because they were not fortunate enough to have a widowed mother or a crippd'ed father. Some Unsettled Questions About Child Labor 6i None the less, the question is a vital one, and calls for careful study. It is easy to say, " Give the child a practical education and thus fit him for a useful industrial life." But where? In many states the only place a child can get a practical education is in a reform school. In default of such opportunity for a practical education the schools are yearly leaking a large percentage of those who enter the early grades. Less than thirteen per cent, of all enrolled pupils were reported as above the fifth grade in the last United States Educa- tional Report. It is obvious that those who leave school at ages varying from eight to thirteen years of age are wholly unprepared for the industrial battle of life. Even children who remain in school to the end of the compulsory period in some of the more advanced states are totally unfit to enter industry. The following sentences from the unpublished manuscript of the forthcoming report of the New Jersey Commission on Industrial Education are significant: "Fully ninety-five per cent of the pupils leave school between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, and without hav- ing formed any idea as to what trade or vocation they should follow ; in consequence they drift into occupations rather than select those which might be most nearly suited to their aptitudes, and their pro- gress is generally arrested at an early age, because of the restricted character of their experience and the failure to receive supplement- ary instruction." Much interest attaches to the experiments that are being tried in a number of communities, in making a closer alliance between the school and the manufacturing and commercial enterprises. It is argued that by such an arrangement children may have an in- troduction to the practical phases of industrial life without interfer- ing with their school work. In our discussion of this project we should not overlook the necessity of a radical revision in the school curriculum. The demands for book learning in many of our city schools at present lay upon the pupils a burden of home work, which not only robs childhood of its rightful recreation, but is a menace to the health and a chief motive in the child to end the school career. It would be necessary also radically to change the processes in the industries under consideration if they are to have any value for the child. If he is to be placed in a factory to do the monotonous tasks now required of the unskilled workers, he might, it is true, 62 Some Unsettled Questions About Child Labor earlier become self-supporting, but his industrial efficiency would be thwarted rather than promoted. The proper equipment for industrial education in the schools of our country would, in relation to this problem of Child Labor, accomplish two very desirable results : ( 1 ) A far larger percentage of pupils would remain in school to or beyond the termination of the compulsory period, thus vastly simplifying the work of factory inspectors and truant officers. It is well enough to talk of the error of catering to the whim of the child, nevertheless, until the American school house becomes a place to be sought by the children of our communities, instead of shunned, we shall continue to witness the suicide of the higher school grades, the sacrifice of children in our factories and mines, or their almost equally disastrous exposure to the perils of idleness. (2) We should be able, as we are not at present, to place the young child improperly equipped, in an environment certain to meet his immediate need of training and certain to produce for his fam- ily the material rewards which were their chief motive in having him employed. We are fortunate in having at this Conference a paper by Dr. Draper, who has led the campaign in New York state for such a re- vision of the public school program, and the results of these dis- cussions may reasonably be expected to clear up many difficult points, and indicate how such a committee can best co-operate with the Association for the Promotion of Industrial Education, the newly organized National League for Industrial Education, and other forces working for an adaptation of educational methods to the needs of an industrial civilization. Our four-fold duty, therefore, seems clear: — (i) To exclude all young children and all undeveloped children from the burdens of wage-earning industries; (2) to forbid the employment of all children and youth in industries which menace life, health or morals; (3) to limit the hours, forbid the night employment, and otherwise guard the conditions of those children and youth who may be employed, and (4) to aid in those constructive measures which aim to revise the curriculum and equip the facilities of the public schools to meet the recognized needs of an industrial civilization. THE CHILD AND THE LAW By a. J. McKelway, Secretary for the Southern States, National Child Labor Committee, While my theme is " The Child and the Law," the subject uppermost in my mind is the child who is unprotected by law or is exploited in violation of law. My theme is rather, " Law- lessness in Its Effect Upon the Child," and I use the word law- lessness as meaning either a low standard of legislation, or leg- islation that is so defective as to encourage evasion of the law, or its violation, and particularly that spirit of lawlessness that scorns concealment and is open and shameless in its workings. It is these symptoms of a widespread, evil that I shall attempt to discuss, their disastrous effect upon the child, and perhaps the effect of the appeal of childhood for protection. I once attended with some newspaper friends an old-time negro camp meeting in North Carolina. During the exercises — rightly so called — a collection was taken, one of the officials waiting upon the white people and another upon the colored people. The latter reported the result thus : " I have to thank the colored people for three dollars and sixty-seven cents." The other report began : " I have to thank the white people for six dollars and " " Don't tell it," said the preacher, with a gesture of protest. " When the white people beat the colored people, don't tell it." I confess to some sympathy with the sentiment of pride that prompted the colored preacher to protect his own people from a disagreeable comparison. I am the more embarrassed since my paper is a report from the field of work assigned to me, the Southern States, and I am to make this report within the borders of a state that has reached, in my judgment, the highest stand- ard of legislation for the protection of the children that has been attained by any American state, and is most conspicuous for its effective enforcement of the law and the punishment of transgressors. Yet when I think of the children whose fate is involved, I am resolved to tell the truth, as I see it. For the (63) 64 The Child and the Law knowledge of the facts must precede the proper treatment of any- evil. Moreover, in the recital of these facts and in the earnest protest against lawlessness, as regards the welfare of the chil- dren, I am not speaking of the South as a whole, but of a part of it only. I beg leave to make the broad distinction between the great majority of the Southern people, whose traditions of humanity and kind-heartedness are proverbial; whose willing- ness to sacrifice all material interests for the sake of a principle won the admiration of the world — to distinguish between the South and what is sometimes called The New South. The Old South was commercial; the New South has become commer- cialized. The people of the South who call themselves The New South have made the term unpopular among our people, and they are sometimes called The Mercenaries. The most familiar illustration among us of the sentiments of the Mercenaries is that of the ship, loaded with an equal weight of gold and babies, floundering in the seas and demand- ing lightening. We say that the Mercenaries would cry, "Over- board with the babies and save the gold." The South would say, " Let the gold go to the bottom, and the Mercenaries, too, but save the babies." For, in spite of all that may be said and that may be here said, the South loves her children. She has a great many of them to love. The population of Massachusetts exceeds the population of Georgia by 600,000. But the children of school age in Georgia exceed in number the children of school age in Massachusetts by 100,000. It is no longer an open question in this nation whether law is needed for the protection of the children against the exploiters of their labor. It is perhaps a disgrace to our civilization that there is such need, but it would be a worse disgrace if the facts were not recognized and the need met. To the employer who creates the demand for child labor, to the ignorant or unnatural parent who would supply that demand, the law says, "Thou shalt not." In such restriction of child labor the common judgment of both America and Europe has reached the conclusion that four- teen years is the limit below which children should not be em- ployed for gain, save in work on the farm in the interval be- tween school sessions. It is also virtually agreed that there should The Child and the Law 65 be regulation by law for children under sixteen, at least, such regulation including the prohibition of night work, the shorten- ing of the hours of labor by day and the protection of the chil- dren against dangerous machinery and against unsanitary and im- moral conditions, which the children, naturally, are helpless to remedy. It is also virtually agreed, in the experience of the nations of Europe and the American states, that along with the prohibition of labor for children should go the compulsion to attend school. Experience has also taught that a child-labor law is a "law without a friend" for its enforcement. Employers, parents, and in some instances the children themselves are opposed to its enforcement. The private citizen who attempts to investigate the evil may himself be convicted of trespass upon private property. Therefore, the absolute necessity of official factory and mine inspection, with power to investigate and with power to prosecute the violators of the law. In the light of this substantial agreement among civilized states and nations as to the standard of legislation and the methods of law enforcement, let us see in a brief survey of the field how far the Southern States have advanced toward this standard. It should be remembered in this connection that practically all advance has been within the last five years. Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas have already reached the fourteen-year age limit, though Arkansas permits children between the ages of twelve and fourteen, who are or- phans or the children of dependent parents, to be employed — a vicious exception, of course, to the general law. Virginia reaches the thirteen-year age limit in 1909 and the fourteen-year age limit in 1910. North Carolina has fixed the thirteen-year age limit, and a bill has been introduced into the North Carolina legislature, now in session, changing the age limit to fourteen. South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas have a twelve-year age limit. Georgia permits children between ten and twelve to be employed, and South Carolina children of any age who are already handicapped by partial or complete orphanage. Texas has an age limit of sixteen for mines, and Oklahoma the same, though the child-labor bill pro- per, after having passed the legislature of Oklahoma, was vetoed by Governor Haskell (for which action, it may be remembered, he was Presidentially rebuked). These laws of the Southern 66 The Child and the Law States apply generally to child labor in factories only, the evil being comparatively small as yet in mines and except in a few of the larger cities, in mercantile establishments and in the street trades. In regard to the hours of labor for the children who are allowed to work, the ten-hour day generally prevails, though in Alabama and Tennessee it is a sixty-hour week, which allows, as in Pennsylvania, more than a ten-hour day, and in Georgia and North Carolina a sixty-six-hour week, which, with the usual half-holiday on Saturday given to employees in the cotton mills, means a twelve-hour day for the other days of the week. Night work is prohibited for children under sixteen in Alabama and Mississippi; in South Carolina and Florida, for children under twelve, and in the other Southern states for children under four- teen. As to compulsory attendance upon school, Kentucky and Oklahoma have a compulsory law for children under fourteen; Virginia for children under twelve; North Carolina has a sort of local option compulsory attendance law, which was enthusiastically advocated by the cotton manufacturers, who, at last accounts, have unanimously neglected to put their own villages under the operation of the law. The manufacturers of South Carolina this month agreed to advocate a compulsory education bill for children under four- teen, which is an advance of two years over their previous conces- sion, and to agree to the same age limit for the child-labor law if the compulsory education bill shall pass, experience having demon- strated that this is a tolerably safe condition for amending the child- labor statute. Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas have an age limit of fourteen for illiterate children, while Alabama requires chil- dren employed to attend school three months a year until they are sixteen, and Georgia until they are eighteen. So much for the standard of legislation to which the Southern States have attained. The legislatures of several of these states are in session now or are to meet during the year, and I trust that this review of the legislative status will become antiquated before it is printed. Perhaps it may be said that the advance from no legisla- tion at all to the present standard in the last six years has been more rapid than any similar advance in either America or Europe, for a similarly large population. But when we come to consider the enforcement of the law by the authorities or its observance by The Child and the Law d'j those affected, we may as well begin with the frank admission that there is almost no enforcement and that the violations, even of the poorest laws we have, are open, shameless and innumerable. Ex- cept in Kentucky and Louisiana there have been no prosecutions for violation of the law so far as I have been able to learn. The opportunities for nominal compliance with the law on the part of the employer, while violating its spirit, are abundant, and for this the manufacturers are responsible through the compromises they have been able to write in the laws. Only Kentucky and Lou- isiana have anything like a fair system for issuing the certificates of employment. In the other states the affidavit of the parent made before a magistrate who may himself be in the employ of the fac- tory is deemed sufficient to insure accuracy. In North Carolina only the written statement of the parent is required; in South Carolina the certificate relates only to children under twelve. Florida and Texas require no proof of age. Virginia in her lately amended law, however, instead of the cumbersome and generally ineffective certifi- cate system, which is usually simply a means of protection to the employer, added this short and sharp provision, that the employ- ment of children under the legal age should be deemed prima facie evidence of guilt on the part of both employer and parent. That is at least a great deal better than the immunity bath in the laws of North and South Carolina, recently slipped into the Alabama law, that the employer must " knowingly and wilfully " violate its pro- visions as to employing children under the legal age. It is difficult to know certainly the age of other people's children, and where ignorance is immunity, 'tis folly to be wise. In the Carolinas, especially in South Carolina, where it is easy enough to employ the smallest children in accordance with law, a child is not deemed employed when "helping" an older member of the family at piece-work, so long as the child's name does not appear on the payroll and he does not receive the wages himself. Of course, the difference of the effect of premature toil upon the child, himself, through the absence of his name from the payroll, is obvious ! Before the passage of the child-labor law in Georgia, the manufacturers who had entered into an agreement not to employ children under specified ages, suborned their own consciences by a similar expedient. The remedy for this is the provision that the child shall not be permitted to work in or about the place 68 The Child and the Law of employment. As to the certificates required by law, they are almost wholly disregarded, their protection not even being deemed necessary by the employers. Again, except in Kentucky and Louisiana, there is no adequate provision for factory inspection. Alabama has an inspector and an assistant, who are " inspectors of jails and factories." Thus far the inspector's office has been unable to cope with the task of factory inspection. Tennessee and Virginia have the beginnings of a system of factory inspection, and Mississippi requires the sheriff of each county and an officer of the board of health of each county to inspect the factories located within the county, the sheriff being required to visit the factories once each month. This may prove of temporary value in a rural state with few factories. The North Carolina Labor Commissioner has no authority to enter a factory, and the commis- sioner whose term has expired made a regular report that he had no complaints as to the violations of the law. As in the case of the death of the unpopular neighbor, there was no complaint. Every- body concerned was satisfied. In addition. North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas and Texas have no officials for investigating the facts as to the employment of children, and only the ordinary processes of the law for the enforcement of the child-labor law. Under these condi- tions, a low standard of legislation, numerous loopholes in the laws that we have, the general absence of factory inspection, and of com- pulsory education, the great ally of child-labor legislation, together with an urgent demand for labor in the cotton factories, it would only be natural if the violations of the law were scandalous in their frequency. I am able to prove this by ocular demonstration, through the medium of the stereopticon or the photograph, to any one not phy- sically or morally blind. During the year 1908 investigations direct- ed from our Southern office in Atlanta were made in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina and Virginia. The Virginia manufacturers seemed more sensitive to public opinion, and while violations even of the twelve-year age limit then in force were frequent, few children were found at work who were under ten years of age. Through the operation of the provisions requiring children under eighteen in Georgia, and under sixteen in Alabama, to attend school, there was some show of observance of the law in The Child and the Law 69 these two states. Mississippi had no child-labor law at the time of the investigation, and from the most careful comparison of the re- ports of three different investigators in North Carolina and South Carolina, two of them making photographic records, I am convinced that the conditions, vihWt bad enough in Mississippi, were no worse, there, in a state without law, than in North Carolina, with a thirteen- year age limit, and that they were worse in South Carolina than in either state or in any state of the Union for that matter, except that North Carolina occupies the chief eminence for the employment of children at night, and during a working night of twelve hours. Many words could not make this plainer. Children from seven years old upward were found at work in the mills ; children of ten years of age were found on the night shift. Children of twelve and thirteen, now beyond the protection of the law, had been work- ing in spite of its supposed protection since they were six or seven. This is child labor from one point of view. It is child murder from another point of view. How the very respectable gentlemen who engage in it, or the philanthropic stockholders who permit it, can hope to escape the execration of mankind when the facts are known is beyond comprehension. The Herods have not been popu- lar in the judgment of history. Another bad result of this lawlessness on the part of the em- ployer is the example for the child of disobedience to law and the practice of deception. While in the great majority of mill villages the amazing thing was the unconsciousness of wrong-doing, of actual criminality, on the part of the mill superintendents, and the readi- ness of the children and their parents to tell the truth about their ages, in some mills, where conditions were just as bad, the children had been trained to lie. In some of the mills the investigators were forbidden to take photographs on the premises or even to enter the mills. And the practice has already begun in the South of preparing a mill for investigation, when a visit is expected, by hiding the chil- dren or sending them away from the mill. The effect of all this upon the childish mind need not be described. But with the people of the South, lawlessness finally works out its own cure. The very openness and boldness of it finally brings its destruction. The old Ku-Klux-Klan, which through lawlessness saved civilization, finally degenerated in its operations to the aveng- ing of personal injuries, and, presto! it vanished from the face of 7o The Child and the Law the earth. The night riders had their own way in Tennessee until the horrible murder which shocked the country was perpetrated, and night riding will soon be abolished by way of the hempen cord. The lynching of negro brutes has long been condoned as a neces- sity — is still so condoned in some quarters. But all over the South, beginning in Georgia after the Atlanta riots, law and order leagues are being formed, whose members undertake to denounce the crime of lynching, wherever it occurs, and to aid in the apprehension and prosecution of the offenders. So it will be, I am persuaded, with the reign of lawlessness throughout the South to-day in the matter of the destruction of the lives and the health and the opportunities for usefulness and happiness of its thousands of little children. If I could put our photographs into every Southern home, if what I have said could reach the masses of our people, I know, because I know them, that the response would be swift. If the cotton mill owners themselves would realize the terrible effects of the child- labor system, which they are doing the most to perpetuate in this nation to-day, especially in the South, the most of them would begin housecleaning to-night, or to-morrow morning at the latest. And in conclusion, I wish to sound again the warning to them that I made two years ago. Already they have lost the moral en- thusiasm of a good part of the Southern people that accompanied the tremendous advance of the cotton mill industry, before the facts about child labor began to be known. Already people all over the South are saying that they do not want a cotton mill in their own towns, already investors who have some conscience about their dividends are looking to see if cotton mill money is not blood money. But the cotton mill men are now asking the representatives of the people, in Congress assembled, for the continuation of the high duties on cotton goods, and even for higher duties than now obtain. A gen- tleman from New England explained to the Tariff Commission, the other day, that the cotton mill was an infant industry, that it was an infant industry in New England, because that section had re- cently changed from the manufacture of coarse goods to the manu- facture of fine goods. That it was an infant industry in the South, because it had only in recent years begun to make cotton goods at all. The same sentiment, that it is an infant industry, was echoed by a Southern cotton manufacturer at a meeting in Charleston, giving the same reasons. I desire to agree with the proposition, as The Child and the Law 71 I interpret it, that the cotton mill business is an infant industry. I am backed up in this opinion by the Census reports, which say : " To a greater extent than any other mechanical or manufacturing industry, the cotton mill furnishes employment for children." And it goes on to show that one employee of the Northern cotton mills out of ten is under sixteen years of age, while in the South one out of three employees is a child, and that the proportion of young chil- dren employed is also greater in the South than in the North, in- stances being given in the Census of child breadwinners as young as five years of age. There were a thousand recorded in 1900 who were under ten. We cordially agree that the cotton mill business is an "infant industry". Now, in all seriousness, these representatives of the cotton mill interests come to the people of this nation, through their representa- tives in Congress, and ask for protection and for more protection against their foreign competitors. There would be a universal howl from them if the tariff laws were so violated or evaded as that pro- tection should be denied them. Is it not in order for the people, through their representatives, to say to the cotton mill men : " Your industry is too much of an infant industry to suit our ideas of com- mon humanity. We are not debating the question whether we are willing to pay the same tax or a higher tax upon the cotton goods we purchase, in order to give you protection. But what we demand is that you give some protection to the thousands upon thousands of children who are now employed in the cotton mills of the East and of the South; that you, who are the only obstacle in the way of child-labor reform in the cotton manufacturing states, should cease your opposition and change it to advocacy. You are organized into your associations, and you can easily act together. The legisla- tures that will deal with this matter are now in session, or soon will be. Let us see what the state legislatures will do before the tariff bill is finally framed by Congress. More than this, since a tariff law, once being passed, is of no value to you without the mighty machin- ery of the Government at the Customs-House to enforce it, see that you who are demanding protective legislation, enforced by Govern- ment, shall give the same obedience to law that you demand of the foreign manufacturer, or the domestic importer, and that you protect these children of ours, both from the enactment of defective laws 72 The Child and the Law and from the violations of such laws as you have. Come with clean hands, asking from us this benefit. Demanding from us protection for infant industries, see that you cease the exploitation of infant industry, and that you grant what you have so long denied, protec- tion to the children who toil in your mills." CHILD LABOR IN THE TEXTILE INDUSTRIES AND CANNERIES OF NEW ENGLAND By Everett W. Lord, Secretary for New England Ever since the first cotton mill was established in New England, a little more than a century ago, the textile industries have rapidly increased, and in the textile mills, which to-day are found in large numbers in every New England state, a large proportion of the oper- atives are young people. Probably in every factory town at least seventy-five per cent, of the children leave school as soon as they reach their fourteenth birthday, and almost one hundred per cent. of those who leave at this time go to work in the mills. That some escape from school before they are fourteen and enroll themselves among the workers is undoubtedly true, but the number probably is not great. The problem of child labor in the textile mills of New England does not primarily deal with very young children. It is true that during the past year a boy nine years of age was found working in a Vermont woolen mill, and that a considerable num- ber of children under the legal age have been found from time to time in mills in Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. These, however, are sporadic instances and cannot be considered as char- acteristic of the industry. Most manufacturers desire to comply with the law. They neither want children under fourteen in their mills nor do they wish to become law-breakers. The few who have little respect for the law are likely to be deterred from employing children because of almost certain detection and consequent punishment. The children who get into the mills under the age of fourteen do so usually through misrepresenting their age. In Maine, for instance, the law has required only that the employer demand of the child a certificate of some sort. It may be a copy of the town clerk's record, or a bap- tismal record, or a passport, and some employers have occasionally accepted certificates of doubtful authenticity. When a child presents a paper covered with Syrian or Hebrew characters and assures the mill superintendent that the paper is his (73) 74 Child Labor in New England birth certificate, showing that he is over fourteen years of age, the superintendent may perhaps be excused if he relies largely upon the child's statement. In some cases, however, certificates obviously false have been accepted by employers, who have thus appeared to conform with the letter of the law, but have shown little regard for its intent. In other states the officials who have to pass upon the age of children have sometimes been similarly deceived, so that we have come to recognize as one of the most evident defects in our laws the method of proving the age of children. Until we can de- termine some other standard than that of years there will certainly be children of foreign birth considerably under the legal age at work in our mills and factories. A high educational test is likely to work hardship upon those children who come to this country at somewhat advanced age and who can hardly be expected to acquire in a year or two the English education demanded of children born on this side of the water. Perhaps some definite physical test, which shall show that the child is physically able to perform the work of the mill, without strict regard to the age in years, may be found to be the most satisfactory solution of this problem. The vital problem connected with the employment of children and young people in the New England textile mills is probably not the physical one. Beginning their work when at least fourteen years of age, working in mills and factories, where the hygienic conditions are usually fairly good, and fortified by the invigorating climate of New England, it is not probable that a large proportion of even the younger operatives suffer greatly in respect to their health. It is true that those who have a predisposition to tubercu- losis may develop it sooner under the conditions which prevail in the factory ; similarly those who are particularly disposed to any disease may sooner suffer from its effects if they are deprived of the advan- tages of outdoor life and exercise. It does not appear, however, from a comparison of the young workers in factories with children of the same age in our public schools that the factory workers suf- fer more than do the school children. The young factory workers do suffer, however, from woeful lack of education, and the evils consequent. Leaving the schools at fourteen, they take but little of the school training with them, and that little they are not likely to apply. Less than sixty per cent, of the children have completed the work of the grammar Child Labor in New England 75 grades when they leave school. They have completed no course of study — ^they have only been in contact with some elements of cul- ture, and have usually failed to absorb much from their contact. Like the college boy whose mother said that " he had not taken trigonometry, but had been exposed to it," they have been exposed to a little elementary academic culture, but few, indeed, have taken any of it with them when they have left the school. Even more serious than their slight academic education is their total lack of industrial training, for though most of the young work- ers rank considerably above the grade of illiterates, practically none of them have had any form of hand training or of the mental train- ing which accompanies practical- hand-work. This lack is felt keenly by many progressive employers, and in some of the mills of New England the employers are, at their own expense, providing indus- trial technical training for some of their young employees. The fact that in their mills the directive positions are practically all filled by men of foreign birth and education, indicates somewhat the need for immediate industrial training of the young workers. In these factories where the opportunity is being given to some of the young employees to continue their education the success of the experiment has been most encouraging. While the expense and the problems of supervision and direction are likely to deter many manufacturers from undertaking anything of the sort, it may be that the increased value of the workman and consequent greater return promised for the future will tend to make instruction of this sort more general. If children must be allowed to go to work at as early an age as fourteen, the state should still retain some hold upon them for a part of their time, requiring and aiding them to continue their education along industrial and some carefully correlated academic lines, until they reach the age of seventeen. Investigations show that the children who enter textile mills re- main in that industry, though they may and often do shift from mill to mill and from town to town. The work which is done in the mills is all of about the same grade and offers little to the adult wage earner; yet there seems to be no way out, and the workers continue their unskilled way, earning at thirty but little more than they did at fifteen and seeing before them a prospect of continually decreasing returns for their labors. The young workers are by no means altogether from the poorest homes. Many of them have par- "jd Child Labor in New England ents who are in very comfortable circumstances and who could well afford to maintain their children until they had acquired a more complete education. Dissatisfaction with the school, a dissatisfac- tion to some extent justifiable, added to lack of foresight and parental ignorance or indifference accounts for the presence of the vast majority of the children in the mills. They gain neither in efficiency nor in earning power, but they have closed behind them the door to progress in other lines of employment which offer a fair living wage, and have associated themselves with the least enterprising class of our population. The state cannot remain indifferent to the needs of this large body of young people who have in them the making of good citizens, but whose citizenship is too often spoiled in the making. The one industry in New England in which children are prac- tically without legal protection is the canning industry in Maine. By an unfortunate exemption the law relating to child labor is made inapplicable to any manufacturing establishment the materials and products of which are perishable. It does not seem to have been considered by the legislators who established this standard that the children who were working in the canneries were also perishable. Surely it was not intended to rate children as cheaper than fish, for it is especially to the canning of fish that this law applied, yet that seems a logical deduction to draw. Along the eastern coast of Maine there has grown up a great industry in competition with the sardine packers of France and southern Europe. The herring, which are found in great numbers along the coast, when properly prepared and canned, serve as a fairly passable substitute for sardines, and go into the market under that name. Years ago I visited a canning factory in which there were packed three different products, French sardines, brook trout, and mackerel, all of them being known as herring before they were canned. The fish are gathered in seines and weirs, and are taken in motor boats to the nearest factories. As soon as a load of fish is received at the factory the herring are taken out, cut to the required size, and placed upon flakes for drying and cooking. The cutting and flaking is commonly done by women and children. The fish must be cut and cleaned as soon as they are delivered at the can- neries. This may be in the early morning, or at any time during the day or evening, or even late at night. When a boat arrives, the Child Labor in New England TJ cannery whistle blows for cutters, and whether they are at play in the streets or asleep in their beds matters not, the call must be obeyed, and the children go in troops to the shop. If work begins late in the day it may last until late at night, and in consequence it is not uncommon to see children of eight or ten years of age re- turning home from their work at midnight, perhaps to be called out again in the gray of the early dawn. The operation of flaking is simple, and the children's deft fin- gers often can do more than can adults'. The flaked fish are taken to the ovens, where they are cooked in steam ; then they are packed in the cans, a part of the work done entirely by women and children. The oil or mustard, or whatever flavor is to be given to the fish, is then placed in the cans, and they are passed through the topping machine, which is usually operated by a man and one or two boys. None of the work is particularly exhausting, and the rooms are usually open to the air. At the same time, the operatives frequently work long hours, as it is customary to can all the fish which may be at hand before stopping. In the busy seasons the factories some- times run fifteen or sixteen hours at a stretch, and women and chil- dren remain as long as the factory is open. The surroundings, es- pecially in the cutting room, are likely to be disgustingly dirty, but they are perhaps not unhealthful. The chief menace to the health lies in the irregularity of work and corresponding irregularity of home life. It is impossible to say how many children are working in these canneries, but as a conservative estimate I should say that during the busy season not less than a thousand children under fourteen years of age are so employed. There are a good many children as young as eight or nine who work in the flaking rooms. These little ones do not always remain throughout the entire day, but as they are paid by the piece some of them stay until they have earned enough to satisfy them for the day, and then go to their homes. Others, either because of their own desire or because they may be required to remain, work as long as the fish last. I have found one child of only five working in the packing room, usually employed as long as the other workers, and earning from eight to twelve cents per day. In many of the sardine factories much machinery is used; the law does not require the safeguarding of this machinery as it does 78 Child Labor in New England in other factories, and a child worker has to take upon himself " the risks of his employment". If he is injured, the employer is not liable for damages. In one instance, recently reported, a girl, only nine years of age, lost her hand while playing about a drier. No damages could be recovered ; the girl was supposed to know that the machine was dangerous, and had no business to be playing near it. Sardine canning is a seasonal industry, and this is urged by some as extenuation for the employment of children. They say the children are engaged only during vacation seasons, and so are not necessarily deprived of school facilities. The season, however, lasts from April 15 to December 15, leaving only four months of the year when the children are free from the call of the factory. As a matter of fact, I believe that this seasonal employment is one of the worst features of the business, involving as it does a long period of idleness, and setting before the children the example of their elders, who quite commonly rely upon their season's work for their entire support. Spending the winter months in idleness and dissi- pation, the parents are not likely to insist upon sending their chil- dren to school during these free months, and the children are certain to acquire ways of irregularity which are fatal to worthy industrial habits. The moral atmosphere of the sardine factory is far from whole- some. Washington County, in which nearly all the canneries are located, is reported to have had more juvenile criminals in its courts during the past twenty years than any other county in Maine, and probably seventy-five per cent, of these young criminals have been sardine workers. Few of them are native born ; indeed, few of them have permanent residence in the county or the state. The industry attracts a low grade of workers from a wide section, many coming from Canada. This makes the problem much more difficult for the local town authorities ; their schools are not prepared to receive great numbers of children from other localities, and so the truant officers seldom visit the factory camp. The old residents look upon the factory workers with a good deal of contempt, and feel unwilling to interfere in their behalf. The churches find the problem so hope- less that they have largely abandoned it, and until the state extends its protection there seems little prospect for improving the present evil conditions. CHILD LABOR IN THE OHIO VALLEY STATES By E. N. Clopper, Secretary for the Ohio Valley States, National Child Labor Committee. Arguing from their very wide acceptance, we may conclude that compulsory education and the regulation of child labor are factors in the progress of the state. These two factors bear di- rectly upon the family, and as the rearing of families is unques- tionably another factor in progress we have a situation in which two elements affect another element, compelling on the one hand and restraining on the other. Such compulsion and restraint are matters of no concern to families in comfortable circumstances, as their provisions are easily complied with. But no law designed to do the greatest good to the greatest number has ever been enacted that did not work hardship upon a few. Compulsory education and the regulation of child labor affect adversely the immediate interests of some poverty- stricken families, and for this reason some states blindly and illogically exempt the children of such families from the operation of the law. It seems not to have occurred to these states that their poor boys and girls are the very ones who, of all children, need most such care and protection. As a matter of simple jus- tice, compulsory and restrictive laws should be supplemented by other measures which provide for such cases of hardship as they occasion. In other words, the various factors in progress should be made to operate harmoniously. Such provision is made by the state of Ohio. This state directs its boards of education, upon recommenda- tion of truant officers, to furnish text books free of charge to children of compulsory school age whose earnings are needed to support either themselves or others dependent upon them, and also to furnish the families of such children with such additional relief as may be necessary to enable the children to continue in school until they are legally qualified to go to work. The money for such relief is paid out of the contingent funds of each school district, and the law contains a statement to the effect that no child shall be (79) 8o Child Labor in the Ohio Valley States considered or declared a pauper by reason of his acceptance of such aid. Here is a practical and satisfactory way of making the opera- tion of compulsory education and child labor laws justifiable and harmonious in their bearing upon poverty-stricken families. In Cincinnati the Board of Education has made arrangements with the local Associated Charities to have all cases reported by truant offi- cers investigated by the trained social workers of that organization. Relief will be afforded only when recommended by them. Many statesmen and students of sociology claim that this is paternal- ism. Perhaps it is, but when one considers the hope this pro- vision holds out to the unfortunate children of the state, it seems more like maternalism. Wherever the enactment of laws further to restrict child labor is under consideration, there is invariably raised the objection that such restriction would work harm to the poor and bring increased hardship to the widows and orphans. To a limited extent this is undoubtedly true, but the suffering is far less extensive than popu- larly supposed, and such cases are the exception rather than the rule. Restrictive legislation in the early stages of its enforcement is practically sure to work hardship to a few individuals, but the fact that, all things being equal, the condition of these same indi- viduals will ultimately improve, should not be overlooked. More- over, the introduction of labor-saving machinery into any factory is always attended by a reduction in the number of operatives, yet no intelligent person advances this as an argument against the use of such machinery. Neither should child labor legislation be opposed because of the temporary suffering it entails upon a few. It is frequently urged in West Virginia that child labor in and about the mining village of Monongah is justifiable because of the terrible disaster that occurred there in December, 1907. As a re- sult of the explosion in the coal mines 359 employees were killed, and the opponents of child labor restriction still point to that grief- stricken village, and claim that the widows must have the earnings of their little children in order to live. The population of this vil- lage is less than 2000, and in such a small community the sudden death of 359 wage-earners naturally resulted in a very distressing situation. However, it is interesting to know that only three chil- dren were made full orphans by the disaster, and that through the Child Labor in the Ohio Valley States 8i work of the official relief committee and other benevolent organiza- tions in aiding the sufferers to care for themselves, there was in December, 1908, one year after the explosion, not a single child in Monongah under the age of fourteen years whose earnings were needed either to support himself or to supplement the family income. The law in Ohio, though excellent in many respects, affords no iprotection whatever to children engaged in street trades. Little boys and girls are allowed to sell newspapers, fruits, baskets, chew- ing-gum, and any other merchandise in the streets and public places of every town and city in the state without any restriction. This freedom from all restraint is particularly objectionable in cities, as children there are subjected to exposure and hardships and too fre- quently come under the influence of people who have no regard for their welfare. Children are forced by their parents to sell goods in the markets both before and after school hours, and during half the night, while on Saturdays they cry their wares from early morning until midnight, and neither the state nor the municipality has so far attempted to protect them. Little newsboys also may work from early morning until late at night, as there is no restriction that ap- plies to them. In cities having newspapers between which there is keen rivalry as to circulation, the newsboys lead a miserable life. The men employed to distribute newspapers to the boys are often chosen because of their brutal aggressiveness, and the little fellows at best get but rough treatment at their hands. If the state does not include in the child labor law some provision defining the age under which children shall not engage in the various street trades, the indi- viduals and societies in every community interested in the welfare of children can at least put forth an effort to improve their local situation by urging the passage of a municipal ordinance. Ohio has a well-organized force of thirty-four factory inspec- tors, who are charged with the enforcement of the child labor law in addition to their other duties. This force includes eight women, whose duty is to inspect the conditions under which women and chil- dren work. In the other states of the Ohio Valley district the situa- tion is not nearly so good. In Indiana the child labor law is far behind the laws of other progressive states, and there are only six officials in the Department of Factory Inspection charged with its enforcement. In West Virginia the compulsory education law is excellent, but the child labor law has two different age limits, each 82 Child Labor in the Ohio Valley States applying tO different localities at different seasons of the year. There is no prohibition of night work, no educational requirement, no lim- itation as to work hours, and no requirement as to proof of age. Moreover, there is only one official whose duty it is to enforce the laws relating to child labor, the employment of women, sanitation, and the use of devices for the protection of employees from dan- gerous machinery. This ofHcial is expected also to direct the affairs of his office in Wheeling, and to conduct a free employment bureau ! The situation in Kentucky is peculiar, and can best be illustrated by the statement of a farmer who resides in the blue-grass region of the state. This man realizes the gravity of the child labor situa- tion in his vicinity, and knows that some action must be taken. Several years ago he sold a little corner of his farm to a man who is sober and hard-working, and who has been trying his best to pay for his nine-hundred-dollar home. He has cultivated the land for five or six years, and during this time has been assisted by three little boys who have been working in the fields in the summer, culti- vating the crop and picking worms from the tobacco plants, and in the barns in the winter, handling the gathered leaves. Formerly these boys attended school in September and October, but for several years past the work on the farm has been such that they have not been in school at all. With all this child labor the man has been unable to pay $500 on his home in five years, and within the past few months he was obliged to borrow $100. This same farmer related another instance in which his tenant worked his little girls in the fields during the late summer and au- tumn terms of the district school. His landlord learned of this, and purchased books for the children, and they were sent to school, but in a few days they were found again at work in the field. When the father was questioned about the matter he said that men demanded $1.50 per day as wages for field labor, and as he could not pay so much his children must work or he would lose money. This Kentuckian stated also that some time ago he had a tenant with a wife and five children. The youngest child was an infant, and was daily laid upon a quilt in a fence corner while the rest of the family worked in the field eating merely a cold lunch at noon. This man never sent a child to school, and at the end of the year, after having sold his crop, he still owed his landlord $67 more than the crop sold for. This in the blue-grass region of Kentucky ! Child Labor in the Ohio Valley States 83 These instances can be multiplied indefinitely, and the most casual investigation will show hundreds of wives and children work- ing daily in the fields or in the barns, according to the season, ac- cumulating nothing, and barely making a living. A visitor in the great tobacco factories of Kentucky finds there boys and girls working as "hangers" and "pluggers", performing simple labor and receiving little pay. The nimble fingers of children accomplish more in a given time at these simple tasks than can men or women, yet these little workers receive less wages than men would at the same labor. Child labor is profitable from a temporary business point of view, and so the evil grows. A boy works ten hours a day, taking the hands of tobacco out of the hogsheads and hanging them upon sticks, which are then put into the drying ma- chine, or in fastening the company's trademark on the plugs of tobacco. This work does not fit him for anything else, and when he becomes old enough to demand higher wages his place is taken by some other boy, and he has to begin again at the bottom at some other kind of work. All this time he is being deprived of the bene- fits of education. Illiteracy can never be stamped out until these conditions are removed. There is living in the best agricultural part of the state an American family composed of nineteen members, not one of whom can read or write, or even sign his name. In the country Sun- day schools it is a pitiable sight to see the little children joining in the hymns quite lustily, and then vanishing away when the lesson books are opened, because they cannot read and are ashamed to have anyone see how ignorant they are. There are underlying causes for all the ills of which Kentucky has reason to complain, and the situation can be improved only after the people have awakened and realize their moral responsibility. An aroused intelligent public opinion is the only thing that can remedy the situation in Kentucky, as elsewhere. This alone proves that the public school plays the most important part in improving conditions. The public school educates the masses, and it is the intelligent public opinion of the masses that not only regulates the government, but makes the country a fit place to live in. In this connection it is very discouraging to read in an editorial published recently in the organ of an important industry in this country, the statement that, as no boy could live on a knowledge of reading. 84 Child Labor in the Ohio Valley States writing and arithmetic, and as one man might be very learned and yet not decent enough to behave himself, while another man might be absolutely illiterate and still be a model husband and father, the paper opposed education for working people, and, if it could, would remove every educational requirement from the statute books. When anyone asked for employment it would only look at his teeth and ex- amine his stomach ! It is almost incredible that an American citizen in this enlightened day and age, and in this progressive country of ours, could put into cold print such an absurd, reactionary state- ment. It smacks more of the Dark Ages than of the twentieth century. This same mistake of denying to the working people the bene- fits of education is what brought Spain down from her position as the proudest nation of all, to that of one of the least among the communities of the world. A few hundred years ago Spain ruled over the greatest empire in the history of the world, and it was this same denial of the right of education to her common people that brought on all the disasters which have shorn her of her power and brought her down to humiliation and defeat. There can be no enlightened public opinion without public education, and without enlightened public opinion a nation cannot prosper. Child labor and education do not go hand in hand. The one works against the other. Someone has said, "Show me your companions and I will tell you what you are." So it may be said of wages, "Tell me the amount of the family's income, and I will describe the condition of its members." Child labor will not increase the family's income, neither can it improve its condition. Its benefits are short-lived, its ill effects are lasting. The family is the recognized unit of our civilization. Whatever attacks the integrity of the family under- mines our civilization and impels our whole social structure to its fall. There are many agencies that weaken the influence of the home and break the "tie that binds," and of these the premature em- ployment of children ranks among the most effective. The child's spirit of independence normally reaches its full development upon the arrival of the child at years of discretion, and then the time is ripe for him to withdraw from the shelter and protection his parents afford and to take his place in the great scheme of society, supported by the ideals that home life has instilled into his soul and strength- Child Labor in the Ohio Valley States 85 ened by the discipline and training that were his in childhood and in youth. But if this spirit is developed at too early an age, as is the case when a child becomes a wage-earner, his respect for parental authority is lessened, the relationship between parent and child is thereby weakened, and the disintegration of the home begins. De- linquency among juveniles and idleness and pauperism among adults are the outcome in large measure of child labor. To the truth of this claim judges, probation officers, superintendents of reforma- tory institutions and social workers of every kind will abundantly subscribe. Prosperity in any locality can exist only when the amount of wealth produced there exceeds the amount consumed. So the indi- vidual laborer increases the wealth and prosperity of his country according to the amount by which the wealth created by him exceeds his consumption of the same. An unskilled laborer cannot create more wealth than he consumes, and as child labor is essentially un- skilled labor, the employment of children in gainful occupations is a menace to prosperity. But allow the children to become fully developed, provide for their proper education and training while young, and when they enter the field of labor properly equipped in body and in mind, they become a real factor in the making of pros- perity and society realizes bountifully on its investment. Inasmuch as we add to the power of a child, he becomes an asset; inasmuch as we take away from his power he becomes a liability. PRACTICAL RESTRICTIONS ON CHILD LABOR IN TEX- TILE INDUSTRIES ; HIGHER EDUCATIONAL AND PHYSICAL QUALIFICATIONS By Howell Cheney, Cheney Silk Mills, South Manchester, Conn. As a rule the textile industries, both north and south, have been advertised as among the worst offenders against the children, and I suppose that it is on this account that your secretary has asked me to explain the attitude of a textile industry which has found that it could do without the labor of children, at least until they were fifteen years old. At the start, I must explain that my experience has been con- fined to but one branch of the textile trade, namely, silk manu- facturing. The conditions surrounding this industry have, however, given me exceptional opportunities to study the problem, not alone from the mill standpoint, but from the standpoint of the school. The firm by which I am employed has roughly some 3,600 hands. The plant is situated at some distance from a city, and, in a community of approximately 13,000 inhabitants, is the prin- cipal industry. Most of the employees in the mill live within one school district, which has 1,800 children enumerated. As a member of the Board of Education, it has been my duty for four years to pass upon the certificates of children leaving school to go to work, and also for the last two years I have inspected the applica- tions of persons under sixteen years of age applying for work, to see that they had conformed to the state laws and school regulations, and to the firm's rule that they would employ no children under fifteen years of age. As a great majority of the children attended one school and went to work, if at all, for one firm, it has been possible as in few other places to watch the workings of a rule for- bidding the employment of children for a year more than the law required, and of a school board ruling that no child should leave to go to work who had not completed the sixth grade. This ruling was possible but not customary under the Connecticut law, the fourth grade being usually considered sufficient to earn a certificate. (86) Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries 87 Therefore, neither the school nor the mill had a compelling law be- hind it, but the fact gave a much greater opportunity to study the exceptions, because they all had to be answered reasonably rather than legally. Of course, every just exception which led to giving work to a child made it more difficult to keep others out. I must say frankly at the start that there was some opposition among some of the heads of departments to excluding these children. But in all those depart- ments where the work requires consecutive labor demanding con- centration, attention and care, there is now a unanimity of opinion that a textile industry can do better without than with children, until they are at least fifteen years of age. The boy or girl of six- teen will actually give in work at least half an hour a day more than the average younger child; will do at least five per cent more work, hour for hour, with an appreciable less amount of waste of material and damage to finished product. The work will require less supervision, and will be of a higher grade when finished. The savings secured to the employer by the older child as an offset to the fifteen per cent higher wage can be better measured by experi- ence than by statistics, which are noticeable only by their absence. But wherever the work to be done is continuous for nine or ten hours, and requires attention as long as the machinery runs, our experience would say emphatically that the increased production by the older child, of goods of a higher grade, at a lower cost of supervision and all other overhead charges, is cheaper than the production of the fourteen year old child at a lower wage. Two factors have been constantly at work in the silk industry to bring about a changed condition in respect to child labor. 1. We are constantly raising the standard of our goods, and hence the workmanship. A plain black grosgrain for which my firm made a name forty years ago, would not be a marketable piece of goods now. Every process requires more exact handling than it did then. 2. The great strides in improved machines have not been made without a nearly proportionate increase in the capital invested, and hence it is increasingly necessary to secure the maximum produc- tion of machinery to pay a fair return on capital. Twenty years ago an investment of $1000 per loom would have been considered ample to build and equip a mill of one hundred silk ribbon looms, 88 Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries where to-day $2600 a loom would be necessary to place your plant on a plane of efi&ciency equal to the most up-to-date mills. Con- sider, therefore, how much more necessary it is to watch the pro- duct of a machine and its operator per day and hour. When you couple these conditions with a raw material worth from three dollars to seven dollars per pound, and in which a careless hand can spoil more in an hour than he can earn in a week, he is either a very poor silk manufacturer, or a manufacturer of very poor goods, who persuades himself that there is any economy in child labor as far as silk throwing, dyeing, winding, warping, quilling, weaving or finishing goes. The processes already described include all those in silk manu- facturing in which the work is continuous and demands more or less constant attention as long as the machinery runs. In these there is no economy in the employment of children, at least until they are fifteen years of age. In the above I have stated as fully as possible the economic reasons only which lead me to believe that child labor is not at all essential to the silk textile industries. In all frankness I must also present to you the difficulties which manufacturers must overcome in doing away with this class of labor. I believe your agita- tion would make more rapid headway and obtain the co-operation of the more enlightened manufacturers, if it would concern itself with the making of these difficulties less where principles are not sacrificed, rather than by accentuating them by prohibitive legisla- tion. There are distinct lines on which you can co-operate with the manufacturer, and I am sure he will meet you halfway in them. Discrimination Needed The first of these leads to a group of employments in which the work is intermittent and requires the attention of the employee for perhaps not more than two-thirds or one-half of the time. This covers a variety of jobs which in the total would not employ a large number of hands, such as "doflfers" or children who replace the full spools on a spinning frame with empty ones ; bobbin boys, who keep the various operators of machines supplied with spools and deliver the full ones to the next process; booth tenders, who in weaving rooms hand out the full filling boards to the weavers and refill the empty ones; and a small number of errand boys and Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries 89 girls. In all of these cases the work is intermittent, i. e., allows for periods of rest, and in none of them are children engaged in the operation of running machinery. This group of employments is much more important to the cotton industries than to the silk. It is possible to define it, as above, in legislation on the subject; and the employment is not injurious to the children where it is safe- guarded by registration with factory inspectors for all children over fourteen years of age so employed, and permits issued only after in- spection of the conditions and hours under which they work. It represents a group of employments which constitute a peculiar problem to the manufacturer, and in them centers an economic opposition to further restrictions on this class of labor. This kind of employment illustrates a point I wish to empha- size. I believe that your agitation does not always take account either of the things which children can do in a mill with less chances of injury than they encounter on the streets and in work at home, or of the perplexities which the manufacturer encounters, both as a maker of goods and an employer of labor. With him it is not alone a question of economies in particular jobs, important as these are, but of maintaining a scale of wages fairly adjusted to the skill required and amount of work done. If he pays a girl one dollar and twenty-five cents to put empty spools on in place of full ones, and then to rest for half an hour, when a girl at seventy- five cents can do it just as well, he not only increases his cost in a small item, but invites a condition of dissatisfaction with all of the other one dollar and tweny-five cent help in his mill. It is one of the difficult problems in manufacturing to make a wage scale fairly proportioned to a wide range of abilities, and one's capacity for fair dealing is measured largely by one's success in this respect. The manufacturer has often given unselfish thought and anxiety to the problems which you are agitating, and can work with an intelligence born of actual experience, which is not pos- sible for you on the outside of a mill to approach. It may be a truism to say that if you devoted more time to his difficulties you would encounter his opposition less. His next most serious difficulty is in meeting your demand for an eight-hour day for laborers between fourteen and sixteen years of age. As long as the machinery runs in his mills there must be operatives to tend them, and these operatives must have 90 Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries their assistants, doffers, bobbin boys and booth tenders. I£ their labor is essential, it is just as essential from four to six as it was in the earlier hours. In the proposal of a fifty-five hour week for such employees he would more readily meet you, because by shifts it is easier to arrange the work to meet a deficiency one afternoon in a week than for a shorter portion of every afternoon. He would also more readily meet you in the enforcing of more stringent physical and educational standards, which would keep out the physically defective or mentally deficient children to whom the longer hours would prove injurious. I believe such physical and mental standards should be rigidly enforced. But in allying your- self with the eight-hour cry you are weakening your cause to the extent that you are burdening the child-labor issue with a more general economic question. There is a final difficulty in connection with the restrictions on child labor in which the manufacturer finds you in sympathy with him, namely, in providing a system of industrial training which will produce more efficient labor than our present school system does. I will refer to this matter more fully later. To summarize my arguments up to this point, I would say — 1. The silk textile industries realize no economy from child labor where the work is continuous, and in these employments economic forces and conditions of production are working out the problem in harmony with the moral campaign to which you have given an impetus. 2. Where the work is not continuous, or not engaged in direct operation of running machinery, and is not paid by the piece, it should be your policy to safeguard the children by restrictions rather than by prohibitions. 3. The organization of a mill cannot lend itself to one set of hours for mature workers and another set for fourteen to sixteen year old hands, and here again restrictions will accom- plish your ends without prohibitions. In brief, prohibition of child labor in the textile industries, wherever the work is continuous and involves the operation of running machinery, is necessary. Restriction is required only where the work is intermittent, or is not done under the strain of the piece-work system, or the worker is not directly engaged in tending machinery. Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries 91 So far as economy of production goes, as a manufacturer I believe we can do without the labor of children. But ridiculous though the statement may sound to some of you, from an intimate connection with the schooling on a large scale of the children of laboring people, I feel that these children cannot do without the work until a better substitute than the present school is provided. The theoretical proposition "that the worst thing a child can do is to go to work," is no more true than its complement "that the best thing for a child to do until he is sixteen years of age is to go to school." You too often approach the problem from the theoretical side, and stating the condition under which the normal child can best develop, you assume that there is a choice open to the average child between these conditions on the one hand and work on the other. You infer that he has plenty of nourishing food; that he is work- ing progressively in school ; that his hours out of school are given to proper recreation and fresh air, and that his home life protects him from evil influences, while he is undergoing a discipline or training which will prepare him for his future work in the world. You assume that it is a choice between a healthy growth under these conditions and work that is physically injurious, mentally stultify- ing and morally degrading. Of course, this is a colored picture intended to illustrate a not uncommon attitude. A Many-Sided Problem Whoever studies this problem of child labor must soon come into a sense of its many-sidedness. It is only secondarily a prob- lem in economics and primarily one in humanity in general and edu- cation in particular, and I believe that its ultimate solution must be found in the schools rather than in the mills. It may seem somewhat surprising to you, but the manufactur- er's point of view, if he be at all progressive, and if his plant has been established long enough for him to appreciate the responsibility it owes to its workers no less than to its stockholders, is not radi- cally divergent from yours. Unless he be blind to everything but his next quarterly dividend, he appreciates far more forcibly than you do that keen minds, active bodies and willing hearts transmitted from the apprentice to the master, or from the child to the man, make directly for steady and devoted helpers, for ingenuity, interest 92 Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries and efficiency — in brief, for skill and economy. If he is building for his sons, no less than for his own immediate pocket — and many an American father has that habit — he knows more certainly than you can appreciate that fair dealing with his help has no uncertain connection with fair dealing with his customers, in goods made with all the interest, the intelligence and the force which he can command. More than all, he knows, or he has missed the high- est possibilities of his business, that nothing else can supply these qualities in his goods or any improvements in mechanical processes make good their absence. Humanity plays no less a part in success- ful manufacturing than in any of the occupations by which selfish man makes his living. But if what I have said is true, you will at once challenge my statements by demanding an explanation of the presence of child labor in these trades. Frankly admitting the selfish motives of manufactures, I will endeavor to show the influences which are at work on this problem, and you will please bear in mind that I am speaking of the Northern and Eastern states, where only children who are over fourteen years of age, working not more than sixty hours a week, under some educational qualifications, are employed. I would say that the presence of these children in the factories is due to three causes, whose potency will vary with every locality and in every family. (i) Belief on the part of the manufacturers that such labor is profitable, either directly or indirectly, in maintaining an average wage scale and as an apprenticeship system. (2) The desire on the part of the parents, or children, or both, for a larger income. (3) The failure of the school to advance or interest the average child of over fourteen years of age who is going to work with his hands. The interests of the manufacturer I have described above, and have endeavored to point out practical ways in which he could co-operate with you. But in reality you have no right to consider his interests except in so far as they are identical with those of the children. Turning to the family and educational side of the ques- tion, I will attempt to explain, from a personal observation which is the result of responsibility for a school system in a textile town, the influences which are compelling children to go to work, where Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries 93 the manufacturer's selfishness is at least restricted. I will leave the conclusion to point its own moral — that the truest safeguards you can erect for the protection of these children are higher educational qualifications which enlist the whole boy and not his mind alone, and which leave every possible opportunity open to the boy who can avail himself of it without injury. Attitude of Parents The parents, if they influence the child at all, in more than the average case decide in the interests of a larger family income. In a well-defined class of cases I have found that the worst offenders against the children are their own parents, and it is from them that they need protection. The only protection which will be ef- fective against this particular evil will be the rigid enforcement of educational and physical restrictions. Laws prohibitive as to age will not affect the parents who lie about their children's ages, nor prevent them from altering and forging birth certificates in a way that would be ludicrous if it were not so pitiful. The percentage of cases of real need in which it is a question between self-support and town aid is small, not over fifteen per cent. In principle as well as practice, self-support, if attainable, is better than town aid or assistance from any public charity which it is now possible to give. Perhaps public school scholarships wisely administered may ultimately solve the difficulty. They are not avail- able now to any extent. But until the condition of actual need is met, you are committing a positive injury in depriving this class of children of their only opportunity to find a way out. In such cases the school and charity authorities jointly should he given dis- cretionary authority to allow a child of fourteen years to go to work or to he supported at public charge. But of greater frequency than the cases of extreme need are those in which the influence of the parents, without sufficient necessity, or the loyalty of the child, persuades him to assist in supporting the family. The total of such cases of both kinds is perhaps one-half of the total number of children who leave school to go to work. That a portion, perhaps large, of this number could actually have done without this assistance, does not seem to me to alter the conclusions that if you forbid the parents to make the children help toward their own support, you must provide an alternative, which 94 Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries in the long run will make a continued parental sacrifice worth while. That is, you must be able to demonstrate that more schooling will either make their children higher wage earners or will open up to them a higher social position. The first motive will appeal more powerfully to the struggling families, and to them the school now fails admittedly to provide a training for higher efficiency. The second motive, social position, your school can enlist, legitimately in some instances, unwisely and harmfully in a great majority of cases. To any one who is ac- quainted with our schools the most unnecessary and pathetic failures are where parents are sacrificing their very lives to maintain in a high school a child who has no ability, and cannot even conceive the value of the opportunity offered. Wherever false ideals based on a smattering of many things, imperfectly digested, have grown in place of trained habits of thought, of efficiency and diligence, your school has done an injury which can only be undone by bitter experience afterwards. Influence of the School So much for the influence of parents. If they do not compel or strongly advise going to work, what influence does the school have on the child's decision? If he is working progressively, it is fair to assume that he is interested and would like to stay on. If by the time he has reached the age of fourteen he has not passed the sixth grade, which means he has taken eight years to do the work which should have been done in five or six, he must have lost from two to three years either through incapacity or lack of interest. As we are concerned, in this discussion, only with those children who do go to work, we are certainly within the truth in stating that not over a third of those at work can do more than read fluently, write fairly legibly and perform the simpler processes in numbers, includ- ing common fractions. The average child who goes to work from the sixth grade, or below, has reached the limit both of his interest and his capacity to absorb what is put before him. If you compel him to stay in school, you may be protecting him from physical and moral injury, but you have done nothing to positively advance him upon his way, or bridge over what you frequently term "the two wasted years." It is possible that a widespread interest in industrial training may in time produce a school which will meet the pressing Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries 95 requirements, but in the meanwhile are you justified in advancing the age limit two years before you have provided an adequate train- ing for at least one-half of the children affected ? It is perfectly true that in the past schools have been provided much more slowly than increases of population demanded. I know that I am laying myself open to your criticism in sug- gesting a compromise between the fourteen-year-old standard es- tablished in most states of the North and East and your sixteen-year ideal limit. I have heard you describe in scathing terms the manu- facturer who seeks to continue his exploitation of child labor by exaggerating the educational shortcomings. But fortunately the facts need no exaggeration to make them sufficiently startling. And so long as not more than a third of your laboring children are advanced beyond the sixth grade when they go to work, it is not a satisfactory solution of the problem to continue them in such a school for two years longer. The Need in Education In agreement with Dr. Draper, I believe that the vital need is not so much for a brand-new style of education as for improving and intensifying what we have. I am out of patience with many of the students of industrial training, who have come to the conclusion that a more or less technical training for pupils of high school grade is going to meet a critical condition caused by pupils who are struggling along in the fourth, fifth and sixth grade. No indus- trial training is adequate unless it can be applied to the earlier grades. Taking these grades and the ideals which govern them, what are the foundations on which we must build ? The ideal most indelibly stamped upon our common schools is that they are to provide a training, admittedly and predominantly cultural, which is to open the door of opportunity to all kinds and conditions of people. Our free American schools are individual in their purpose and general in their tendencies, as opposed to the national ideal which governs the German schools in the develop- ment of specific trainings best adapted to classes of pupils. The German literature on the subject which has been so voluminously laid before us recently is most interesting, but it can only tempt us out of our plain course, so far as definite application of it goes. We are not ready to abandon our ideal of a cultural training as the 96 Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries best highway for an open opportunity, and we could not, if we would, force a separation at the end of our elementary schools be- tween those children who expect to work with their hands and those who expect to work with their heads. The experience of England is no more helpful to us, unless it is an example of how not to work out the part-time system. We can obtain valuable sug- gestions and inspirations from the foreign systems, but to make real progress against our own difficulties we must keep our feet firmly planted in American traditions. Frankly accepting the fact that we are going to demand a cultural training, which seeks to open one's eyes to a wider world than our own, we must direct it toward efficiency and definiteness. We must endeavor to get hold of our raw material, to use a manufacturing term, at an earlier age, in the kindergarten if possible, which should have a more definite aim. It should lay the foundations of a larger vocabulary, of a habit of doing for oneself rather than of being done for by a teacher ; of simple, but definite, ideas of discipline and effective co-operation; of some degree of concentration and thoroughness, and finally of an elementary power of expression with the hands as well as with the tongue. Then will your kindergarten become a preparation for the primary grades. In the elementary school no new direction is possible, but in our own case we have been able to secure greater efficiency by smaller subdivisions and more exact grading. Here the classes are flooded with foreigners. These foreign pupils and all subnormal children must be reached at an earlier age; they must be kept moving and not allowed to stagnate. This can only be done in smaller classes and more specialized work. The question of expense will be urged against all this. For a practical mill man the first principle to be learned is the economy of a high degree of completion of every process in itself. " Yarn well spun is nearly warped and a warp well made is half v^^oven." Do you school men seriously enough con- sider the extravagance and waste, both of pupils and teachers, in half-taught ideas which have to be gone over and over again, each time with an added danger of confusion and uncertainty? You may not admit any parallel between the production of immaterial ideas or brains and of material things. Yet you must, as teachers, admit the unfairness both to dull and bright pupils of the waste in energy Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries 97 and time caused by large classes of improperly graded children. Perhaps public parsimony may be slow in recognizing this fact, but the awakening will come more rapidly if you lay your stress on the greater efficiency of what we have. Much, too, can be accomplished in securing more regular at- tendance. The practical abolition of truancy by capable truant offi- cers and prosecution of parents; a carefully organized system of medical inspection and efficient nurses who treat in school many minor ailments for which the pupils would otherwise have been out, and an intelligent attention to securing the co-operation of par- ents, I know, will raise an average attendance of eighty-four per cent to ninety-two per cent. This would make a difference of about a half a year in the time the average child spends in school. In a town of only one industry and one school I recognize that many things are easy of accomplishment, which in a city would be im- possible. Employ only efficient teachers and pay them well. Try to in- still a spirit of enthusiasm and vigor, even at a greater expenditure of wages. No motives of consideration justify a waste of chil- dren by the retention of teachers who have outlived their useful- ness. It is far cheaper to pay a pension. Too great rigidity and conventionality in your systems of promotions make for inefficiency, so far as it insufficiently rewards exceptional ability and encourages a mediocrity just short of the dismissal line. Through the fifth and sixth grades, where the problems of disci- pline are most acute, scatter a few men. Here despite all your efforts those pupils who have reached the limit of their ability to profit by cultural training will begin to stagnate. Respect for a man's authority is more than a moral tonic. It is respecting the boy's developing m.anhood. You cannot hold him by methods which appeal to smaller children. With undeveloped capacities for guid- ance he feels a man's instincts, which must be honored and satisfied. In no way more legitimately can this be done than by giving him something that he is capable of doing, and through the doing of which under a man's direction he can come into a sense of his own power, and happiness in his own usefulness. Here again your school loses in power, because it has not studied its materials and intensified its processes. I am conscious that some of you are thinking that I am treat- 98 Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries ing the problem just as if the children were so many diilEerent kinds of silk and the teachers were so many operatives and foremen. But I wish I could make you appreciate how many different kinds of good and bad humanitj and saintliness and cussedness can be ex- pressed in a piece of silk. No human being can spend himself upon a piece of work without putting something of his humanity into it. The silk dress which you wear contains some indefinable impression of the old Chinaman who tended the worms and moths more ten- derly than many women care for their babies; something of the Japanese children who plucked the mulberry leaves and much of the climate of the particular country which grew those leaves. The Italian girls who reeled the fibers from the cocoons, and the French women who spun the fine strands into coarser threads have added their individuality to the accumulating problem which the Yankee mill takes up. If you think we add nothing further, go from one department to another and observe the spirit and the character of the room as affected both by the character of the foreman and the hands ; or better still, go from mill to mill to study the effect of the controlling organization. Think, as you hurry along in confused ignorance, of the art of the designer, the dyer, the printer and mechanic, no less than the skill of the thrower, of the quiller, warper weaver and finisher. Try to conceive of the brain matter that has gone into the improved machinery — and it is not the great discoveries but the many little improvements that seem so simple you wonder they were ever problems, which make for rapid progress. Do not stand like dummies asking what a machine is doing, only to be told that the product goes in so on this side and comes out so on that ; but try to get hold of some part of the human wits that have gone into the development of that particular process. You may not understand the process any better, but you must come into the renewed sense of the culture of work, however mechanical. Efficiency in the school is directly related to efficiency in the mill. Culture in the mill is the same thing as culture in the school. Whoever puts something of himself into a task is on the way to attain unto culture, and whoever has taken something out of a task and made it his own attainment is cultured to that extent, whether it be in literature or weaving. The problem that is before us is not to discover some mysterious and physiological connection Restrictions on Child Labor in Textile Industries 99 between the hand and the brain. It is to find means whereby the child can express himself accurately, efficiently, and with a compre- hension of what he is doing. Hand work is to many a child the easiest and readiest means of expression. If accuracy and effi- ciency result from it, by so much will culture, or power to command expression follow. You have in your present feebly-organized manual training most of the equipment necessary. Do not be afraid to use it under the direction of an enthusiastic mechanic and rest assured that the boy will discover its meaning without the aid of philosophy and psychology. I have taken all the time allotted me to carry you to my point which is that if your grammar schools can attain that degree of efficiency which will have carried boys and girls who expect to work through the sixth grade, then and not till then can you guarantee the preparation which is necessary for a proper industrial school. In brief, stress laid not so much on the things done as on the way in which they are done; on culture as the power to see, think and act in the experience of childhood, rather than on culture as the accumu- lation of ideas however valuable, will best lay the foundations of the industrial school of the future. And if that industrial school can teach mechanical expression rather than exact trades, it will become an ideal stepping stone to an efficient trade school. SCHOLARSHIPS FOR WORKING CHILDREN By Mrs. Florence Kelley, Secretary National Consumers' League. The State of New York established five years ago the require- ment that children must finish the work of the fifth grade of the public school or its equivalent, must have working papers before they leave school, and must get from the old country (if they come from the old country) documentary proof that they are at least fourteen years old. We do not believe a child's statement, or its parents' or teacher's statement as to its age. It must bring documentary proof from the place where it was born. Besides this children must be fourteen years old according to the school records ; must be able by actual examination by a physician of the board of health to read and write simple sentences in the English language and must, in the opinion of an official physician, be of the normal stature of children of their age, in good health, and fit for the work which they say they are about to undertake. Those children who cannot bring documentary proof of their age have to pass a medical examination, to wait ninety days from the day when they say that they cannot get their documentary evidence — to stay on in school while they try, and the board of health tries, and the principal of the school tries, to get it. There have been enough exceptional cases in which evidence has been obtained from Russia to make it seem always worth trying. Documentary evi- dence has been obtained from every other nation in Europe, from Turkey, Syria, from most unexpected places, real documentary evi- dence of the age of children by sending to the proper official and waiting for the reply sometimes about sixty days. It is required that children must know something before they leave school, not merely that they be fourteen years old, but that they know something. Not even the word of the teacher or the principal that they know something suffices. The children themselves are examined. They must show by the signed statement of the principal and the teacher that they have attended school for five (too) Scholarships for Working ChildrenX years and then they must also prove what they know at^ health office by really reading and writing there. It was said when the statute requiring that was enacted that there would be bitter hardship. So the experiment was made of providing scholarships. I think we have never spent as much as $5,000 a year in any one year in a city of four million people. We cannot hope to meet all the need of the children for scholarships by private gifts. I do not think it 'likely that we shall be able to spend much more than that in the near future because it is not easy to raise increasing amounts of money for the purpose from private charity, and it ought not to be private charity at all. The one state in this country which faces the situation is Ohio, which also requires that children shall know something and that they shall prove their age; that they shall not work at night; that girls even to the eighteenth birthday shall not work longer than eight hours in a day and not after six o'clock at night. Ohio is more logical than we in New York, and says that since the community reduces very materially the earning power of the children, and of these young girls, it behooves the community, not private charity, to provide for them, and it is obligatory upon the school officials that they shall do that. The county must furnish the money, the school officials must provide books and shoes, and what is needed to keep the children efficiently in school. I am told that in Cin- cinnati cases of need discovered by the school authorities are in- vestigated by the Charity Organization Society and the need met as stated to exist by that organization. We are not so civilized in New York. We leave it to charity, and we have for some few years had a maximum of $5,000 a year, roughly speaking, to spend. The hardship inflicted by this moderate requirement that children should finish the work of the fifth grade of the public schools is much less than was anticipated. It is aston- ishing how great a number of our school children are nowhere near the starvation line, how the working people do support and feed, and educate, and take care of, and start in life their own chil- dren. The candidates for scholarships are chiefly the children of the recently immigrated, who do not get five years of the public schools before they reach their fourteenth birthday, and children who have had illness in the family ; perhaps the mother may have been ill and they have stayed at home to help her, or the father has been ill and 102 Scholarships for Working Children they have worked illegally when they should have been in school. There has been irregularity of some kind. If all our children went to school as they should, if they went to kindergartens which are there, from three to six years of age, and to school from six to fourteen — went regularly and behaved themselves — they ought to be ready to go to work not only from the fifth grade but from the eighth when they are fourteen years old. The conundrum that confronts us incessantly is, Who are these children who are between fourteen and sixteen years old and not yet through the fifth grade? If they are sub-normal children, of course the question is answered. There are i,6oo children in the classes for the sub-nor- mal in New York City who are being kept in school until they are sixteen years old, because even at sixteen they will not have finished the work of the fifth grade. This is one of the most humane and enlightened things done in New York, that instead of saying "These children are stupid and cannot learn anything, therefore let us send them out to sell papers on the streets or to do simple work". New York says, on the contrary, "Because these children are slow there- fore let us give them additional time." There are occasional applications for other scholarships for children who cannot make the fifth grade, for example, from the huge families, with sickly father and mother and nine children, of whom nobody is earning anything, and the whole nine have yet to go through school. Those present very grave problems to people who wish to furnish scholarships forever from private charity. I believe that Ellis Island might be asked to look far more closely than it has hitherto done at the quality of the breadwinner when there are from five to twelve young children. Massachusetts asks only that her children shall be able to read enough to enter the fourth grade before they go to work. New York has long asked that they shall finish the fifth. From Mr. Cheney we learn that it is the exception when children of Connecticut are asked to finish the sixth. One state, New Jersey, demands that children shall finish the work of the eighth grade before they go to work. Why have we this multitude who have learned so sadly little, that they have to have scholarships when they are old enough to work but do not know enough ? One useful thing that our scholarships do is to enable us to trace Scholarships for Working Children 103 the child and attach it to the school official who has let it become derelict. We find every degree of non-attendance at school, from the little girl who has been eight years in New York, five years in the same house but never in a school (though her younger brothers and sisters have been going regularly), and the school authorities have never been interested to learn that she existed till she is found illegally at work by the factory inspector and turned over to us at fourteen or fifteen, a candidate for a scholarship. It is a val- uable thing to attach that little girl to the truant officer who let that happen. That, perhaps, is one of the most useful things that a com- mittee can do, which is administering private charity in the form of scholarships as distinguished from the public authorities admin- istering in a general way, as the Ohio authorities do, the money required by law for the children. Surely the weakest point in our whole child labor legislation is the failure of the schools, not only to teach the children that which will be industrially useful to them, but to teach them anything; to keep them in school day by day, week by week, month by month and year by year, until they learn the things which we say in our laws we require them to learn, but which, because of an apparently universal slackness, we do not in any one industrial community really require of all the children or of all the schools. SOME EFFECTS OF IMPROPER POSTURE IN FACTORY LABOR By Dr. Albert H. Freiberg, Cincinnati, Ohio. I approach any further discussion of the physical aspect of premature toil with a good deal of hesitation. In the first place, because I have discussed that matter before the conference on another occasion, and I have learned but little new since then, which puts me in a rather uncomfortable position. I feel, however, that I am in possession of the same data that I was before, and that they have not been changed, though perhaps my viewpoint has changed somewhat. In the first place I think we should be careful not to lay too much stress on the physical changes wrought by child labor, be- cause if child labor or premature employment resulted in no physi- cal damage to the child's organism at all, we still should have ample room for absolutely and positively forbidding it. Therefore, we should not, I believe, put ourselves in the position of looking too closely to the matter of physical damage lest it appear that the argu- ment against the employment of children rests upon the physical damage which is done to them. This is certainly not the case. It seems to me that while the difficulties in the way of ideal conditions which are produced by family dependence and poverty must be recognized, it must also be acknowledged that it is a fatuous policy of the state to permit a minor to sacrifice during his years of possible physical development that which he cannot hope to re- gain or correct completely in his later years; to sacrifice a material portion of that practical efficiency which would otherwise be his and which he requires to give him that place in life to which he is by nature entitled. I think that in any discussion of the physical effects of pre- mature employment, it is unnecessary to discuss the effect of em- ployment upon children younger than ten years of age. I believe that it is generally granted that children under ten years of age (104) Effects of Improper Posture in Factory Labor 105 ought not to have to work in factories for a Hving. It is like- wise pretty generally acknowledged that such early employ- ment cannot but result very unfortunately to these children physi- cally. On the other hand the important ages to study with reference to the physical effects of premature emplo3rment are the years be- tween twelve and eighteen; the years of adolescence, that space of life about which there is some discussion with regard to legal enact- ment, concerning which there is some difference of opinion even among those who are interested in children and who are striving in their behalf; differences as to whether a child should be permitted to work at twelve or at fourteen or at sixteen. During the period between twelve and eighteen years we have to deal with physical and mental changes in the individual which are of enormous importance, and which are recognized by everyone to be so physiologically ; a period which is fraught with great dan- gers to the child, dangers mental, moral and physical; a period during which the child grows more rapidly in length than at any other time save that of early infancy; a period during which, be- cause of the sexual development going on at this time, the child's nervous system is almost turned topsy-turvy. In many cases it is turned topsy-turvy and at this time the child is peculiarly open to external influences of both moral and physical character. There is a vast difference between the work which a child's muscles do in factory employment and the work which that child will do it if he is allowed to go freely as he chooses. A child between the ages of twelve and sixteen or eighteen years will, if given the opportunity, play and play hard. He will play baseball, play foot- ball, and he will use his muscles most energetically. He will take great delight in using his muscles in a gymnasium if he is given the opportunity. Therefore we are told by many who employ children or who would like to employ children at this age, that they are not using their muscles to any greater extent than they would use them if they were given simply that to do which they would choose to do, meaning thereby play. Muscular exercise is beneficial. Exercise is our only means of strengthening the muscles, of encouraging their development, but the building up of a muscle which is actively growing and develop- ing must be accomplished by exercises which are not too severe, io6 Effects of Improper Posture in Factory Labor which are not too long continued and which are of constantly vary- ing character. Furthermore, the muscle which carries out exercises must be given frequent periods of rest, during which it may recover; it should be given an opportunity to build up again that which has been consumed by use. What happens when a child is employed in a factory ? The child is employed in a factory as rule in one of two ways; either in a standing or in a sitting occupation. Sometimes the character of the occupation is such as to combine the evil effects of both these positions. Such a situation has been made clear to me in the illustration which Doctor McKelway gave with reference to the occupation of children at looms in the cotton mills. The child at the loom stands and sits at once, as it were, because he must stand in one place! continuously for a long period of time in order to control the operation of the machine, and at the same time he must keep close to his work in order that this may be possible. Thus are combined the unfortunate effects of both sitting and standing. That which is unfortunate in factory employment as far as purely physical effects upon the muscles are concerned, is the fact that a muscle must perform its functions for a long period of time with- out the opportunity of relaxing, without the opportunity of re- covering. When a muscle has performed its function up to a cer- tain point, we experience the sensation which we speak of commonly as fatigue. Fatigue means that there is an accumulation in the muscle of the waste products of its use, which have not yet been carried away and replaced by new material. If we continue to use a muscle far beyond the point of fatigue repeatedly, there results in that muscle in the course of time instead of further upbuilding, a degeneration and the result of such excess fatigue is the final weakening of a muscle which, if treated properly, would on the contrary grow stronger continuously. The result is that we find the children who are thus unable to change their posi- tion to relieve their over-tired muscles, taking peculiar positions which at first we call bad habits. We speak of the child that has round shoulders, for example, as habitually holding himself badly. Why does he hold himself badly? Simply because his muscles are not capable of holding him in a proper position, in what we call a Effects of Improper Posture in Factory Labor 107 normal position. It is not a matter of slouchy habit of mind, either ; it is a question of muscular weakness. So with the child sitting at the machine, so with the child standing at the work bench continuously for periods varying from six to eight or nine hours a day. It is the lack of opportunity to relax, the lack of opportunity for -these muscles to gain, within a reasonable length of time, what has been used up, which causes de- generation to take place, which causes this weakened condition to take place, and by reason of this weakened condition, certain pos- tures which are abnormal and which will develop into deformity. At a former conference of the National Child Labor Commit- tee I strove to show how premature employment in standing posi- tions tends to produce postural deformities of the feet; how sitting employment in young children tends to cause distortions of the spine and chest, and ^to what extent the conditions thus produced are likely to interfere with future industrial efficiency, as well as future health and chances for a normal tenure of life. It is not necessary to revert to these questions further at this time, but it seems well to mention them, and to call attention to the importance of the matters involved. Consensus of opinion among medical men is that the period of adolescence is of critical importance for the individual, both men- tally and physically. For me the physical condition of children has been of primary interest from a professional viewpoint. As before remarked, even if it could be shown that what we call premature toil was not injurious to the physical organism of the child, there would still be ample ground, both economic and humanitarian, why such employment should be forbidden. Nevertheless it is highly important to seek definite information respecting the physical effect of such employment and for two reasons. The more important of these in my judgment concerns us the less in the purposes of this conference, since it advocates an investigation into the matter purely as a contribution to medical knowledge. As such a contribution, however, an inquiry of magni- tude would assume great importance and would be likely to lend a determinative influence of great value to certain theories at present contending for proof, proof hitherto lacking because of the impossi- bility of carrymg on an inquiry of such scope under private aus- pices. io8 Effects of Improper Posture in Factory Labor It is held by some that the marked deformities of adolescence, such as lateral curvature of the spine and the severe deformities of the feet appearing at this time, cannot be produced by occupation or habit without the existence of structural weakness or disease of the bones of antecedent character. On the other hand, it is maintained that such deformities may result from overtaxing the muscular sys- tem alone, during this period when growth and development may be considered the principal functions of the body. If we could have such an investigation, it would be most important in its results, I am sure. Whether deformities of children develop as the result of very unfortunate or improper employment, depends on a number of factors. Not every child who is employed too early in life or in an improper manner develops deformity. On the contrary, it is highly probable that a comparatively small proportion of them develops deformity. But in speaking of the physical effect of premature employment, we are not dealing with deformities alone, but with the damage to the child's general organism as well. To begin with, children come to their employment with various abnormal conditions already existing. They come suffering from mal-nutrition as the result of insufficient or improper food at home. They come with the traces of former disease of the bones, such as rickets, and of tuberculosis and of inherited dis- eases. They come after having been employed to an excessive extent in their homes, or having been given improper work in their homes, or having been confined to their homes to an undue ex- tent. These things, all of them, lead up to the postural de- formities, which develop later during the course of their employ- ment, and these deformities may be present and in formation when they come. However, this is to be remembered, that a spine which has started to become crooked, that has begun to weaken, and a chest which has not developed to the normal extent may be likened to a nail slightly bent. It may seem strong enough when you look at it, it may seem strong enough when you try to bend it with your fingers, but put it under the hammer and instead of going into the wood it bends still more. This is precisely what happens to these unfortunate children when they are placed in the unfavor- able environment of factories and workshops, and at a time when their growth and development are not yet complete. Effiects of Improper Posture in Factory Labor 109 We have heard much of the influence of the school on the organism of the child. A great deal has been said and written on the subject. It is granted, I think, by schoolmasters everywhere and by others who have given the subject careful study, that the school very often has an exceedingly unfortunate influence on the physique of the child. It is said to be exceedingly important that the child should have the right kind of desk and the right kind of light. But remember that children in the poorest school are under no such unfortunate circumstances as the child is in the workshop or 'the factory. The child at school changes his occupation at least once an hour, during which time he has an opportunity of relaxing somewhat, or moving about. He has an interval usually in the midst of his tasks for some physical diversion. The hygienic con- ditions of even a poor school are much better, it seems to me, than the hygienic conditions in the best of workshops, so long as a child must spend nine or ten hours a day, or even eight hours a day, a| work with only the lunch hour as an opportunity for diversion and relaxation. A comparison of the agricultural child with the child in the factory or workshop has been made, and curiously enough it was a thing to which I had meant to give some consideration. It seems to me that the advantage is all upon the side of the child on the farm, even though he work ever so hard. I shall not go into the details of this question. They were very fully entered into just a few moments ago and much better than I could do, but I have this to say about this phase of the matter ; that it is common knowledge that many of our most prominent men, not only a few, but a great many of them, have come from the farm, and they themselves have told us how hard they worked, how unfortunate were some of the conditions under which they worked. But these conditions seem to have done nothing more for these men than to give them a rugged physique and to give them opportunity for mental develop- ment which has enabled them to rise above their fellows. Where are the graduates of the factories? I have not come across them in literature, science, art or politics. And I do not be- lieve that they are there to be found to an extent at all considerable. The whole question, however, of the physical effect of pre- mature employment is more or less in doubt as regards exact in- formation. We know or we think we know that such an environ- no Effects of Improper Posture in Factory Labor ment as a child has in a workshop or a factory is capable of con- tributing at least very largely to the development of actual postural deformities, as we call them. We do not know how the occurrence or the danger of such deformities among such children will com- pare with the occurrence of the same deformities among children who do not work, because up to the present time no comprehensive investigation has been made in this country at all. Therefore it is highly important that we should have such an investigation, and the purpose therefore of all I have stated is to show, not how much we know about the occurrence of physical deformities in factory children and children in other classes of work, but how much we do not know and how much we should know. Therefore it is a plea for the Children's Bureau. CHILD LABOR AND THE JUVENILE COURT By James A. Britton, M. D., Chicago. My reason for speaking on the relation of child labor to de- linquency is not because I have anything new to say, but because there have been things said on the subject that are well worth repeating. A few years ago a school boy who deserved a whipping got one ; now a school teacher who finds it necessary to whip a child is considered incompetent. Our courts likewise have undergone a change. At one time everyone who had committed a crime had, as a matter of course, to be punished. The existence of the Juve- nile Court is evidence that the old idea is losing ground. It is now considered much more important to find out the real cause of a crime than to punish the particular criminal. Thinking people of to-day give but two reasons for punishing criminals: first, isolation necessary to protect others from con- tagion ; second, restraint so that a diseased or abnormal mental con- dition may be treated. On account of the results obtained from conventional methods of punishing criminals a large-sized doubt has arisen as to the social value of our efforts. This is especially true with the juvenile offenders. The more young criminals are studied the oftener the question is asked as to the amount of personal responsibility they bear for their crimes. It is generally acknowledged that inheritance and environment have far more to do with the production of crime than any other influence. But inheritance is simply the effects of environment transmitted. We are fond of saying "blood will tell," but what we should say is, "Environment will tell whether immediate or transmitted." It happens that most of our crime-producing environment is in our cities, and as some wise one has said that the Lord made the country, but had nothing to do with the towns, it should follow that those who made the towns are responsible for this environ- ment. Because of the feeling that crime, and especially juvenile crime, is caused by an environment for which society in general is responsible, we have the Juvenile Court as it is to-day. This (hi) 112 Child Labor and the Juvenile Court court, with its accessory probation officers, tries to discover the par- ticular influences which cause crime, also to discover whether each particular young offender has had more of a dose of "environment" than the antidote of helpful influence of a thoughtful probation officer can counteract. One of the elements of this environment, and by no means the least, is child labor. This has been said by nearly every one who has given the subject any thought, and especially by Morrison, Mrs. Kelley, Travis, Miss Goldmark and others. The record of the first one hundred delinquent boys and the first twenty-five delinquent girls which were examined this year in the Chicago Juvenile Court is taken as a basis for the following figures. (See page 113.) The record is fairly representative of the twenty-five hundred delinquents examined in the past year and the percentages do not vary to any considerable extent. Of the one hundred delinquent boys, sixty-five of whom were past fourteen, only one had finished the eighth grade, and only eleven had finished the sixth grade, and all but ten of these one hundred boys, were born in this country. Fifty-seven had been in the street trades — forty-three newsboys, twelve errand and mes- senger boys and two peddlers. Thirty had had miscellaneous shop and office jobs, and only thirteen of the one hundred claimed to have never worked. Of this thirteen only six were past fourteen years of age. Not a single boy had ever been apprenticed in any trade. Sixty of these boys were physically considerably below normal, but contrary to several published statements we found only one case of acquired venereal disease. This same percentage of vene- real disease among the delinquent boys under sixteen holds for the two thousand which were examined last year. While eight of the one hundred boys were under twelve years of age, none of the girls were under twelve. All but two of the girls were born in this country, and while four of the twenty-five had finished the eighth grade, not one of them had entered the high school. Only four of the girls had never worked and only two of these four were past fourteen years of age. The general phy- sical condition of the girls was much better than that of the boys of the same age, but forty per cent, of these twenty-five were suffering from acquired venereal disease. At the present rate eight per cent, of all the children and twelve Child Labor and the Juvenile Cowrt "3 o o^o vj r-*o ^ H M H M II •J3 • • g : : :•? g : ^-^slig; fl to W CJ-O Tf O M 'it- M M H ■^ • of ■ ■ ■ ■ 1 OJ « Ih C ux!*!'^ ^:z;h A^coOO h J3 ::J'§5S :& liiiiij Ih o 1 S 1 8 ■O ^ lOCO t^ 11 ! ■ (h . • ■ ■ 9 ■ • Ih ft. f^OwiOiOir^Oi^W M o f CO il d a a g 1 M « PO -t too t^OO Oi O w N NOCMN^OM II « (O Tj- mo t-oo wO-^wOmooooo. II « N M M 00 o> o M n fo Tj-io^o 42 O. M o o H O. w (^ r m il 11 |:?;? ■s.s fe''^ ja c oM o u Ofeft II 5 :§S «! w rt 2 •§3 -S. :•§ :£■ te Vh "' S Si S U, 2 ■O KJ3 S o C 55-0 2 QQPSm N ■^ N 10>0 M H W H O M i 1 M W fO -t JO'O t^OO COM ■ M M H WiUlO ■**■«■<* ^ ro ■* ui^O i^OO H « ■^ lO'O >n M I (O xflo-O *^oo ■43 E cl ■a • ^ S 8 O d o o u c5faa4 o 114 Child Labor and the Juvenile Court per cent, of all the boys born in Chicago, who live to be ten years of age, will be brought into the Juvenile Court as delinquents be- fore they are sixteen. This does not take into account five per cent, of all children who will be brought into the court as dependents, and from whose ranks come a large number of delinquents. During 1907, one-third of all the delinquent children brought into the Juvenile Court of Chicago were sent to some reformatory. On the average a delinquent boy sent to the John Worthy School costs the city for court expenses, Juvenile Home expense and school expense $200 per year. On this basis, which is low when compared with the cost in other like institutions, the city of Chicago pays for its delinquent children committed to reformatories $168,600 per year. We must remember that these figures apply only to chil- dren under sixteen. It takes only a casual investigation to convince one that a schoolboy who spends several hours a day selling papers is not nearly so apt to get along in his school work as a boy who is not subjected to this fatigue. Nothing kills interest like being unable to keep up with the class. Failing to make a grade marks the beginning of many a laborer's career for one who might have been a skilled workman. Judge Kerr, of Minnesota, says that three-fourths of the total number of prisoners who have passed through his court were un- skilled laborers. Hardly a factory to-day will take an apprentice who has not finished the eighth grade, and many factories demand graduates of technical high schools. What chance is there for a boy who loses out so early in the game ? The various steps in the production of juvenile delinquency have been known and talked about for years. The commonest example is that of the home which for some reason does not func- tionate and as a result the child is sent out to bring in money. In the unequal struggle for the few cents which he gets, the child loses health, both moral and physical. The frequent example of this child is the newsboy. The average newsboy if he works three hundred and sixty-five days a year does not earn over $100. If he becomes a delinquent it costs the state at least $200 a year to care for him. When we remember that twelve out of every one hun- dred boys between ten and sixteen become delinquent, and that over sixty per cent, of these boys come from street trades, it does not take long for a business man to figure out that it is rather poor Child Labor and the Juvenile Court 115 economy to let a ten year old boy go into at least this field of labor. I was brought tip on a farm and I have known some farmers that would work in the rain, but I never heard of one that did not know better than to hitch a half grown colt to a plow. To summarize : 1. The production of juvenile delinquents causes the state an enormous expense. 2. Child labor is one of the important, if not the most im- portant, factor in the production of juvenile delinquency. 3. Lack of school and stunted physical development in the majority of cases prevent a possibility of any future but that of unskilled labor for the average child who is sent to work too early. 4. From an economic standpoint the family who sends out a ten year old boy to sell papers loses a great deal more in actual money from the boy's lack of future earning capacity than the boy can possibly earn by his youthful efforts. In other words, this sort of labor from an economic standpoint is an absurdity. There is no doubt that the age limit at which children are per- mitted to work outside of school hours should be raised. If a ten year old boy is not permitted to work in a factory why should he be permitted to work half of the night in the street selling papers? Some of our Eastern cities are compelling all children working oh the street to be licensed in order that better track may be kept of them. But why, when the sum total of such work is a loss to the state as well as to the individual family, should it be permitted at all? Why should ten boys be wasted on a job which two men could do without running either the physical or moral risk? At present a psychopathic clinic is being organ- ized in connection with our Juvenile Court. Not so much to study shapes of head and sizes of ears as to follow delinquents into the actual crime producing environments with a view of doctoring the environment instead of the criminals. OVERWORKED CHILDREN ON THE FARM AND IN THE SCHOOL By Woods Hutchinson, M. D., New York City. Child labor is as old as civilization. Indeed, in all but name, it is far older than civilization for the child of the savage has to forage for himself and fight for his own food from the time he is able to crawl. In savagery, the child works for himself; in barbarism, for his parents ; in civilization, for a factory. He simply changes taskmasters with the ages, and the sternest and most cruel of all was the first. More children die of starva- tion, disease and neglect in the healthiest tribe of "noble sav- ages" that now exists, than in the vilest slum of our factory towns under civilization. There is abundant ground for being ashamed of ourselves, little or none for discouragement or fear that the stamina of the race is being undermined, or its con- tinued existence threatened by child labor. The race is not de- teriorating, even the child of the factory slums is one and one- half inches taller and seven pounds heavier than he was thirty years ago. So far as data are available, it seems almost certain that there never was, in any previous age of the world, as little harmful child labor as in the present one. The magnificent and beneficent series of laws and regulations forbidding harmful child labor which have been placed upon the statute books of all civilized countries and states, largely by the activities of such societies as this, are simply a living demonstration of an awakened public conscience upon this subject, which did not exist before. The evil was present in abundance, but so diffused as to make no pointed appeal to public sentiment, and so universal that it was ac- cepted as a matter of course. It is gravely to be doubted whether the invention of machinery and consequent development of the factory system, making the labor of children more valuable, since brute strength was no longer required, upon the whole increased either the amount or the harmfulness of child labor. It simply concentrated, and, so (ii6) Overworked Children ii^ to speak, advertised its evil consequences; just as the poverty, malnutrition, dirt and disease of a hundred thousand peasants and agricultural laborers, when scattered out over a whole country- side or province, escape our observation, but horrify us when they are concentrated into four or five acres of a city slum. When children are overworked by the score and by the hundred in factories, in full view of the public, so that streams of their pale faces and stunted forms may be seen pouring out upon the open street, it is only a question of time when the public conscience will be awakened and the shame forbidden by law. So marked has been this effect that although there is yet abundant room for improvement, taking the civilized world as a whole, the child in the factory, shop, mine and mill, is now carefully and fairly efficiently protected by wise, thoughtful and humane laws, leaving as the only unprotected classes, the children upon the farm and in the school. To what extent they need protection, not by law, but by the education of public sentiment, is the problem of this paper. This Committee has been so gratifyingly successful in its efforts for legislative reform, that I believe the time has come for it to turn its attention in this direction as well. The relative magni- tude of the problem is easily indicated by a few rough figures. Ac- cording to the last United States census, there were, of children under sixteen years of age in the United States, 650,000 employed in gainful occupations in factory, shop, mill, etc.; 1,100,000 work- ing for wages upon farms; and roughly, 15,000,000 in schools. It is easily seen where the greatest possible menace to the future of the race might fall. If only one per cent of the children in schools were overworked or overconfined; if only five per cent, of the children employed upon farms, including those working at home were so injured, it would work more injury to the nation than if twenty per cent, of those employed in shops and factories were overworked. Or to put it differently: If all the children employed in shops, factories and mines were injuriously overworked, that would only be the equivalent of the damage done if ten per cent, of the children upon our farms, and five per cent, of those in our schools were overworked or overconfined. That overworking and underfeeding of children upon the farm and overworking and overconfining of children in the school ii8 Overworked Children exist, and in no insignificant numbers, few of experience will deny. Most of us who are born or have lived in the country will have little hesitation in testifying that at least ten and probably nearly twenty per cent, of children upon farms are overworked and underfed, from land hunger, traditional ideas of economy. Puri- tanic notions about discipline and "hardening" and "bearing the yoke in one's youth," or from sheer ignorance and indifference. While there are many admirable and wholesome features about life on a farm, so that it is probably, all things considered, the most wholesome and desirable place for children to grow up, it has also its defects. Those of us who happen to have been born or raised upon a farm, a real farm, run to earn a living and not as a healthful and very expensive amusement, can promptly and feelingly testify that it is not half so rose-colored as it is usually pictured in literature or through the pearly mists of our boyhood memories. Farmwork is the hardest and most disagreeable work there is, with the longest hours and the poorest pay. Much of it has to be done before daylight or after dark in mud, in snow, in storm and slush. Farm bedrooms are cold and badly ventilated, and the sheer discomfort, verging at times upon agony, of getting out of bed on a winter's morning and starting the fire with damp wood in a kitchen that feels like a cold storage plant in January, and then going out to thaw the pump, shovel a path to the barn, feed the shivering, staring, coated horses, and milk half a dozen frost-rimed cows, is still fresh in our memories. These and a score of similarly cheerful and agreeable memories rise before us like a nightmare. It makes little difference where we may have gone, or what our lot in life, we never have had to do anything so disagreeable or abominable since. Moreover, while there is an abundance of food growing upon the farm, that food is raised for sale and wherever the balance is a narrow one between the in- come and expenditure, as it is in most of farmer's families, the bulk and the best of that food that will bring a good price in the market is and must be sold, leaving only the poorer quality for home use. In short, the farmer who farms for a living, or who expects to make money, must in the terse language of the corner grocery, "do all his own work, and live on what he can't sell." Overworked Children iig This stern necessity reacts upon the children of the farm just as it does upon those of the factory town, and the physician in country practice can show you in the remotest and most peaceful country district as severe cases of malnutrition, of rickets, of an- aemia, of diseases of the joints and the spine, and of stunted devel- opment, as you can find in a city hospital. There will not be so many of them, but they will be there nevertheless, except in unusu- ally prosperous and well-to-do neighborhoods. In the aggregate, I think it would be safe to say that they equal, if they do not far ex- ceed, the defectives and the degenerates of our much smaller slum population. Unquestionably, a large majority of the work done by children upon the farm, being for the most part in the open air, and under the care and protection of their own parents or rela- tives, is not only not harmful but decidedly beneficial; but we must not shut our eyes to the fact that young children and boys and girls are overworked upon farms, badly fed, and deprived of proper amusement and social and intellectual opportunities to a most undesirable degree, and that this is one of the most potent reasons for the oft-deplored exodus from the farm to the city. When it comes to overworking and underfeeding his children, making home hateful and life one joyless, monotonous grind, a certain class of farmers has no right to throw stones at any factory operative, miner or even sweat-shop worker. If President Roosevelt's commission on country life will succeed in reforming or even improving this type of man — you all know him, whose barn is four times as big as his house, and his real pets and prides his horses and pigs — it will do as much good as any factory legislation that can be placed upon the statute books. Bad as the hours and conditions under which the children in the much-berated cotton mills of our Southern states live and work, it is a question in the minds of competent physicians who have visited the neighborhoods, whether, in many instances, the children are not better off in point of food, education, re- creation and opportunities for development, than they are, upon the small, barren, poverty-stricken farms of the average "cracker" or "poor white" of those states. By all means let us insist upon the strictest regulations to protect the health, the welfare and morals of the children in those mills, or let us remember that we are not restoring them to a perfect hygienic paradise if we send them back to the farms. 120 Overworked Children The same thing must be borne in mind in regard to the other great alternative to child labor, the place to which the child must be sent if he be taken out of the factory — the school. As things stand at present, it is my unwilling judgment that while the factory may become a sweat shop, the average school in the United States to-day is little better than a mental treadmill for the average boy of the working classes after twelve years of age; that the education is so purely formal, so bookish, so ladylike, so irrational and impractical in a word, that it stunts his mind, bewilders his senses and fills him with a dislike for real education and training, which warps him mentally as badly as the factory does physically. Many a boy of this class and age, as our antiquated curriculum stands at present, is better off working six hours a day, in a well- ventilated, thoroughly sanitary workshop, conducted on kindly and intelligent principles, than he would be in the schoolroom dron- ing and day-dreaming over classical absurdities, in which he can find no interest nor profit. The motto of the school is "By books ye are saved." But it is a case of "the letter that killeth." In the total, the school is doing more physical damage to our children than the factory. What the boy wants is not books but life, not words but things, and as matters are arranged at present, he has to leave the schoolroom and go into the factory or the shop to get them. The average schoolroom is preferable to the shop or factory for the working boy or girl after the thirteenth year, in but little more than the fact that it protects him from physical overstrain and its deadening six-hour confinement at hard and uninteresting tasksj which is a heavy offset to this. Not only so, but this utter lack of appeal of the public school curriculum to the working boy of thirteen or more is one of the principal causes of the rush of child labor into the shop and the factory. Taking it the world over, the principal cause of harmful child labor is poverty; the stern need of even the pittance that can be earned by the child to enable the rest of the family to live, not unmixed with greed on the part of a certain class of parents, eager to recoup themselves for the expense and trouble of rearing a large family. In European countries the value of the child's earnings to the parents is the principal motive for early work. In this country, however, we are more fortunately situated. Overworked Children 121 Wages are higher, so that the father's income is more often or more nearly adequate to support the entire family, and the average of intelligence and humanity in the parents of the working class is much higher so that they can see the advantage of giving their children the best possible start in life. Statistical investigations of this point appear to have been made only upon a very limited scale. But so far as they have gone they bring out the interesting fact that from fifty to seventy per cent, of the child labor at too early years is due to the initiative not of the parent but of the child. The causes alleged by the children for their choice were most suggestive; while many of them simply wanted to earn money, to have more to spend, to get on in the world, to buy better clothes or went just because their friends and comrades did, the largest single group gave it as their reason that they were tired of school, that they could not get on at school, that they could not understand their studies or even, horibile dictu, that they got sick at school — they seem to stand confinement of the shop better than that of the schoolroom. In many of these cases, the parents were not only perfectly willing for their children to continue at school, but were paying out money for instruction in bookkeeping, shorthand, music, drawing, etc., in addition to letting the children keep their wages. In short, the conclusion, strange as it may seem to many, is almost inevitable that if we rationalize and modernize the curriculum of our public schools, we should cut the foundation from under one-half if not two-thirds of the child-labor tendency. In fine, as our most intelligent teachers, our most thoughtful students of pedagogy, our physicians, our sanitarians, our child-labor students, have united for years in declaring the most vital, the most crying demand before the American Commonwealth to-day is to make our public schools educate the whole child, and not merely the expanded bulb at the upper end of him. Train him physically and emotionally as well as mentally. Substitute the playground, the garden, the shop for the book-school. Fit him for life and for action, instead of for contemplation and culture; for service instead of superiority; for work, not for display. HANDICAPS IN LATER YEARS FROM CHILD LABOR By William E. Harmon, New York. So much has been written upon the effect in later days, of child labor under unhealthy conditions, that the case of the child against his present environment of the workshop or mine is fairly demon- strated in his favor. In defending present conditions of employment other argu- ments are used — ^those of expediency; the necessity of assisting in the support of the family; the unequal competition through un- equal laws in different states; the correlation between the employ- ment of children, and the employment of men and women in keep- ing the factory, mill or mine in operation. Investigations with which we are familiar are naturally the study of extreme types, excessive hours, unsanitary surroundings, bad light and poor food; and the mass of testimony gathered em- braces that class of workers with which we have but little inti- mate relationship or personal concern — the child of the mine, the cotton mill and the glass factory. Could it be shown that child labor has and is influencing our own American civilization, has perhaps already placed its stamp upon our own careers and will on those of our children, the situa- tion would assume a different aspect. The disorder will have entered our own households. My purpose is to take up the influence of child labor, upon the best of our people ; to trace out the agencies which have affected the ultimate accomplishments of men and women of fine, natural faculties ; to show that in a greater or less degree we, ourselves, may be suffering the blight of the heavy burdens of our clean- blooded ancestors who hewed wood and drew water, and made this country what it is. With them it was a condition which came out of the necessities of a primitive life in a new country. With us it is no longer either necessary or right. It may be possible to trace an invariable connection between child labor and manhood mediocrity. The current phrase "that any American boy may become Presi- (122) Handicaps in Later Years from Child Labor 123 dent" may not only be untrue, but the truth may be that very few boys who gain a Hving by laborious effort can possibly after- wards fit themselves for this or any other position requiring serious mental work. I am inclined to think we will see that the instances where a man has arisen above seemingly extreme handicaps in youth, prove rather than disprove the proposition that excessive labor in childhood, not only interferes with the normal development of the man, but actually prevents it. Of those who may be classed as representing the true Amer- ican type, the largest' number are engaged in agricultural pursuits. There are six million farmers, of one sort or another, in the United States — of these, four million labor with their own hands, and use their children to a greater or less degree in the various activities of the farm. As a whole, these people come from good stock, and are of average intelligence. The farm affords normal, if not the best soil, in which to produce representative men and women. The child of the farm is not handicapped by the manifold disintegrating influences surrounding the city child, nor the child of immoral or destitute parents. In fact, the farm of itself gives the child a fair chance — it is a culture bed in which the body and brain grow toward, rather than away from the normal. Therefore, the study of the effect of child labor on the farm will give us an accurate idea of the actual results of the child labor itself, removed from the complications arising from an environment, which is of itself baneful. Effect of Physical Strain There is little available statistical material showing the effect of excessive child labor under healthful conditions. The considera- tion of this aspect of the subject has been incidental to investiga- tions of children under bad surroundings. It has been largely the bi-product of work on the more imminent problems requiring imme- diate action. The most one can do is to give the results of expe- rience and personal observation, and a fragmentary outline of the experience of others. My purpose is to call attention to a fact which I believe to exist, rather than to prove it; to encourage a study of the matter by those interested in children and their betterment ; to lay out lines for future work ; to give a basis of probability ; and to justify ultimately a comprehensive survey of the situation. 124 Handicaps in Later Years from Child Labor My own consideration of the problem, which has extended over a number of years and in various parts of the country, has convinced me that excessive toil under the most healthful condi- tions between the ages of twelve and sixteen, or that any toil dur- ing this period which precludes an equivalent development of the intellect, results in an arrest of the normal growth of the brain; a replacement of functional with connective tissue or neuroglia. It reduces permanently the mental capacity of the individual, reflect- ing itself subsequently by the loss of ambition, of will power, the power' of concentration, of extended mental effort. An investigation made to determine the correctness of this hypothesis may proceed along three lines: 1. In the study of families of children where exactly the same conditions of living exist, but in which certain of the children have the opportunity for mental development, while the others are de- prived of it through work. A study of this type of case, if suffi- ciently extended, would prove beyond dispute the truth of the propo- sition herein presented — if it be true. 2. A study of the children sent from institutions for adoption. If the intellectual achievements of the children of adoption, in a large percentage of cases, were greatly beyond those of the remain- der of the family, the evidence would tend strongly to the validity of the proposition. The advantage here is, that the material is easily accessible, although the results are not so conclusive. 3. The thiid line of investigation would be to make a compara- tive study between the relative accomplishments of parents and children. It is reasonable to assume that the natural capacity of the child and his parents is about equal, and if the inability of the parent, through toil in childhood, to secure an education, has re- sulted in a serious handicap in later years, when compared with his children, to whom, by self-sacrifice, he has given proper opportu- nities, it is at least presumable that the labor itself has had to do with the case. Early Employment vs. Opportunity for Mental Development For many years I have been interested in this question, particularly in many country districts of tlie United States. I have seen instances where whole families, except perhaps one member, were raised under conditions involving severe physical Handicaps in Later Years from Child Labor 125 labor during youth, and I have noted in the subsequent history of the family, the fortunate child pursuing an even and continuous career of advancement, while his brothers, not only were left be- hind, but went on through life unstimulated by ambition for better- ment. I have seen fellow playmates at twelve years of age equally bright, part intellectually, never to meet again, by reason of one being committed to a few years of hard labor, while the other pursued his onward course, growing intellectually as he grew phy- sically. I have watched the individual working child at eight, ten and twelve years, bright eyes, face full of latent intelligence; at four- teen his eyes begin to deaden, his face becomes heavy; at sixteen much of the light of intelligence has passed out, and he gazes on the world in the quiet open-eyed manner of the mentally defi- cient — his ambition gone, his powers of rejuvenation vanished. I have accumulated some data bearing on the subject, where the illustrations of my hypothesis seem indisputable. The following are a few of the conspicuous instances wherein the facts seem plain : A. Tennessee farmer, moved in 1870 to Texas, with twelve children — extremely poor. The whole family, except one, worked on the farm and in the neighborhood. One went to live with an uncle who was station master, assisted in the work, learned teleg- raphy, studied law, moved to New York, is one of the leading lawyers in the city. All of his brothers, except one, whom he him- self educated, are small farmers or laboring men. B. Young woman, born in Ohio, member of a family of several children, all of whom earned a living by extreme labor. She went to live with a relative, who was postmaster in a fourth class post office ; studied with the local minister in odd hours ; afterward took a course in a business college ; worked at stenography ; became interested in medicine; is now editor and large owner in one of the most important monthly publications in the country. C. Kentuckian, born 1850, five brothers, all worked on the farm. He was sent to school, working in the Summer months ; stud- ied engineering; is now president of an important New York Na- tional bank. The rest of the family have remained on the farm — are all men of limited intelligence, and have accomplished nothing of consequence. 126 Handicaps in Later Years from Chili Labor D. Virginia boy; overworked as a child in making railroad ties; was exceedingly bright at ten and twelve. Is now twenty years of age and very energetic; ambitious to do, but lacks power of concentration ; becomes easily confused, and is earning the wages of a farm laborer. The remaining children of his family have had some advantages, and are all progressing intellectually in a normal manner. E. Four brothers, born in Ohio between '40 and '50; two worked on the farm, and one in the shop of their father, cabinet making. The fourth took a job in a printing office; learned to read; set type; subsequently became proof reader; then editor; passed a competitive examination for commission in the United States Regular Army, and entered upon a career of much distinc- tion. One brother a carpenter ; one dead ; one a harness maker. F. Four boys on an Ohio farm; oldest brother worked ex- tremely hard during youth to support the family, and subsequently sent the younger children to school. All of these children have succeeded well in business. The older brother has paid the penalty by an intelligence so greatly inferior to his brothers that it would be hard to distinguish them as of the same family. All but one of these examples are children of farmers or families where the natural environment was good. These are given in illustration of the lines of investigations first indicated; where children of the same family, through relatively different op- portunities, have worked out totally different careers. The Changes in Environment With regard to the second type of cases, those children re- moved from a limited to a broader environment — by adoption, — I have for some time been interested in providing homes of adoption for the children of indigent parents. These children naturally se- cure many advantages in their new homes, and it has been easy to follow their careers, and even to learn something of their brothers and sisters. A relative of mine has been engaged in the investiga- tion of children of this type, who have been already placed in homes. The general opinion of those with whom I have consulted, such men as Homer Folks and Charles Loring Brace, and my own obser- vations lead me to believe that the career of the child of adoption is much the same as that of the other children of the family into Handicaps in Later Years from Child Labor 127 which he or she is adopted, and in many instances is marked with great success, while the other children, who remain with their parents because they are sufficiently advanced in years to help sup- port the family, have been little better than their indigent parents. Relative Achievement of Parents and Children The third class of cases which I have investigated, and regard- ing which I advise study, involve the relative achievements of parent and child. It is here the question becomes an intimate one, touching our own lives. We are surrounded by living illustrations of the injury of child labor in our own ancestry, either direct or collateral. The winning of the West was a heroic achievement, and yet, it had its price in the limitation of intellectual development in most of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers. I am not contending that there were no compensatory advantages in the de- velopment of the physical qualities of courage and endurance to which we owe greatly our present day success. I merely assert that, with the generation itself, there were limitations imposed which absolutely precluded the men of the time from such acquire- ments as to-day are open to those without the intellectual handicap. Ulysses S. Grant became President of the United States, but Jesse Grant, the tanner and contemporary of my own grandfather, could neither have occupied that exalted position nor any other of great importance. The life of Abraham Lincoln is an exemplification of the possi- bility of achievement under extreme conditions, but in Abraham Lincoln we find an individual of great physical strength, on whose vitality ordinary tasks made no impression, and who, through the influence of a neighbor, absorbed early a love of books and learning. Had Abraham Lincoln's labor been measured by his strength until he reached his sixteenth year, it is quite possible that the world would never have been enriched by the life con- tribution of the Great Emancipator. The present generation is one with which we have to deal and the present day requirements are not those of the pioneer. The problems we meet are those re- quiring intellectual equipment. Those of the early part of the nineteenth century required largely physical strength. I am familiar with the South where the ant«-bellum farming 128 Handicaps in Later Years from Child Labor aristocracy and the lower whites are equally poor. We see in our cities the "unsubmerged tenth"; those who, by the sacrifice of family, or extraordinary virility and ambition, have been enabled to gain a start; but you can travel among the plantations of Vir- ginia, North and South Carolina and find hundreds of families of the best type and heredity where poverty has been so extreme as to require the constant toil of the children ; and wherever you find it, almost invariably the marks of mental arrest are distinctly evident. I have traveled through the mountain districts of Ken- tucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, where the stock is pure American for generations back, but where child labor is almost uni- versal, and where the educational impulse has scarcely touched the people. Here the sign of organic degeneracy is well-nigh universal. To all of us the investigation of this class of cases is an easy one, and if we will but give the matter serious thought, I am convinced that the evil of child labor itself, removed from any other correlative influences, will be apparent. We have but to look about us to trace the history of families in our own community; in fact, to study ourselves, in many instances, to find wherein the excessive work of our fathers and forefathers has handicapped us in the exercise of the finer intellectual and ar- tistic faculties which we feel sure are potentially resident within us. This brings the problem into our own households — ^this makes the evil cry with a near voice and imposes a task on us on behalf of our own posterity. Mental Retardation In the great and permanent work to which the National Child Labor Committee is devoting itself, nothing could be more fruitful of good results than a thorough investigation into the definite though subtle influences of work itself on the development of the growing boy or girl. I am personally convinced that with excessive toil there is an actual organic change which takes place in the brain before the age of sixteen; a cessation of the growth of the functional or gray-cell tissue — a lessening in the depth of the convolutions, or possibly, a replacement of functional by con- nective tissue, which, for all time, puts a check upon the mental capacity of the individual. It does not merely make success more difficult — it makes certain kinds of success impossible. The loss Handicaps in Later Years from Child Labor 129 of an arm, a leg or an eye handicaps the individual — it makes it more difficult for him to accomplish his ends, but it does not make it impossible. The loss of hearing or of sight absolutely closes the door to work in certain directions. So it is with any structural change in the brain which diminishes its capacity. The world would stand aghast if a considerable percentage of our healthy children were deprived of eyesight or of hearing, but the same condition is being permitted to take place wherever children are forced, even under healthy conditions, to toil during the period of adolescence to a degree which deprives them of either the time or the strength to cultivate their power to think. Such an investigation would be within the proper functions of the National Child Labor Committee. It would involve a broad study of individual cases ; it would ramify into all the con- ditions of living. Where children under exactly similar con- ditions of heredity are placed in different environments, are many in number, but somewhat difficult to find. The study of children of adoption is easy, but not altogether satisfactory. The investi- gation of the relationship between parent and child, through his- tory and in society, would reveal a multitude of cases, but obviously the evidence therein gathered would be accumulative rather than positive; but I am sure enough data could be collected to clearly prove the proposition that child labor itself is productive of degeneracy of the mental fibre. The evidence would also impress and make more emphatic the greater evils of child labor under adverse conditions of health in the work shops, cotton mills and mines, and would bring home to us the grave responsibility of permitting any of the youth of the land to be deprived of the privilege of equipping themselves for a fair chance in the struggle for success. It would show that this country is not free to all its subjects — that many are actually condemned in childhood to a form of slavery, for which the community itself is largely responsible. It would fortify the longings of those now making sacrifices to give their children an education ; it would place a restraining hand upon those who, perhaps through their own earlier limitations, are indif- ferent to the conditions surrounding their offspring. It would strengthen us in our effort to enlarge the opportunities of the young, for it would be irrefutable proof that not only is child labor bad under unsanitary surroundings, but that all excessive labor 130 Handicaps in Later Years from Child Labor among children, or even all labor which does not give full oppor- tunity for simultaneous development, is criminally wrong. On account of the important program to which our National organization is committed, this aspect of the case has not been seriously regarded, but it may be the gravest of them all, and I trust that others will determine to consider the question — to study it in their own lives and the lives of those about them. I think there are very few of us who, through our individual experience, cannot find evidence enough to show the hypothesis herein stated provable, if not proven. If it can be clearly demonstrated that continuous labor of any kind, imposed upon a boy or girl, introduces an element of danger to his well-being, the public conscience can be relied upon to ultimately work out a solution of the problem. ACCIDENTS TO WORKING CHILDREN By Edwin W. De Leon, First Vice-President, Casualty Company of America, New York. Exactly one hundred and seven years ago, the first protective labor legislation of the civilized world was enacted in England. It was intended then, as all such legislation is to-day designed, for the protection of the masses against the classes. Two names, repre- senting the extreme ends of the social scale, will forever be associ- ated with the inception of this great movement, Lord Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury, and Robert Owen. As far back as 1601, in the reign of Elizabeth, destitute children and orphans were required by law to be taught spinning, weaving and other trades, and to be later apprenticed. In those days the condition of such children was deplorable. They were put to work at five years of age, and worked from seven to five in winter, and from six to six in summer, attending school after the long day's work was finished. Between the age of eight and eleven they were apprenticed, which meant that they were consigned to little more than slavery in the hands of masters, often brutal and unscrupulous. The intolerable conditions existing at the beginning of the last century in England resulted in the passage by Parliament in 1802 of an Act, introduced by Sir Robert Peel, known as the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act. This statute limited the number of working hours to twelve a day ; provided for instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic after working hours; abolished night work gradually ; stipulated that factories were to be kept cleaned and ven- tilated, and that apprentices should be properly housed and clothed, and should attend church at least once a month. All mills and factories were required to be registered with the clerk of the peace, and two justices of the peace, one of whom must be a clergyman, were appointed as inspectors of factories with power to impose fines varying from two pounds to five pounds for violations of the Act. Kinder Wood in his History of Factory Legislation states that " Socially and industrially the first two or three decades of the nineteenth century form a gloomy period, in which, as Spencer Wal- (131) 132 "Accidents to Working Children pole observes, it took twenty-five years of legislation to restrict a child of nine to a sixty-nine-hour week, and that only in cotton mills." Continued agitation on this subject by Robert Owen and others resulted in the passage in 1819 of an Act placing the age limit at nine years, and prohibiting any child under sixteen years from working more than twelve hours a day, exclusive of meal times. This law applied only to cotton mills, although the advocates of the act intended it to apply to all mills in which twenty or more persons were employed. Various acts were passed between 1819 and 1832, but it was in the year 1833 that the turning point of factory legislation was made by a law that has been referred to as " the first stone laid in the up- building of the great fabric of factory and protective legislation the world over." This memorable act was the result of the work started by Michael Sadler, a philanthropist and economist, and completed by Lord Ashley, afterward Earl of Shaftesbury, who took his seat in Parliament in that year. The new statute called for the appoint- ment of four Government Inspectors working under control of and directly responsible to the Home Secretary. The inspectors were em- powered to enter any factory at will, investigate conditions, call witnesses to give evidence; also to make necessary regulations to enforce compliance with the provisions of the act and to make reports twice a year. All persons under eighteen years of age were prohibited from working between 8 :30 p. m. and 5 130 a. m. in any textile or silk mill. No person under eighteen years was to be em- ployed more than twelve hours a day, or sixty-nine hours in any one week. No child under nine years of age was to be employed, except in silk mills. One hour and a half a day was to be allowed for meal times. Children were not allowed in the same room with machinery or to remain in the mill after the legal working hours. One of the most important and difficult duties of the inspectors was to prevent the employment of children under the prohibited age, for both employers and parents conspired to defeat the law, the one because he wanted children, regardless of age, to work in his fac- tory; and the other because he was willing to sacrifice the future health and welfare of his child for the sake of the few pennies that helped to increase the family funds. It was not until 1837 that an act was passed requiring all births in England to be registered, and providing that no child be employed Accidents to Working Children 133 without a certificate from a duly qualified physician that the child was of the ordinary appearance and in the physical condition pre- sumed by the age claimed. During the next twenty-five years, between 1837 and 1862, vari- ous laws were enacted relating to textile factories and allied indus- tries, including the ten-hour law that came into effect in 1847, and the act of i860, placing dyeing and bleaching works under the fac- tory act. On August 15, 1861, Lord Shaftesbury moved in the House of Lords for an investigation into the conditions of employment of children and young persons in the industries not then regulated by law. The result of this investigation disclosed conditions as deplor- able as those existing in the textile trades at the beginning of the century. Children of four and five years of age were required to work by the side of parents in the hosiery trade, and, according to the report, "mothers will pin them to their knee to keep them to their work, and give them a slap to keep them awake. If the chil- dren are pinned up so, they cannot fall when they are slapped or go to sleep." It is hard to imagine a worse picture of parental selfish- ness, avarice and greed than one that thus blights the physical and mental development of children, and handicaps them perhaps dur- ing life for the sordid gain of the insignificant earnings from their feeble efforts. The minimum age of employment in Great Britain is twelve to fourteen years of age for children, and fourteen to eighteen years for young persons. Children under twelve years of age may not be employed in factories and workshops ; children under eleven years may not be employed in street trades. The employment underground of boys less than thirteen years of age and of females of any age is prohibited. A special investigation of the number of children and young persons employed in textile factories and in laundries was made by the Factory Inspectors for the year 1901, showing that the total number of persons employed was 1,120,439, of which the number of children and young persons was twenty- four per cent. The annual report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops of the United Kingdom for 1906 gives many interesting statistics. The number of establishments under inspection was 255,- 189, excluding docks, warehouses, buildings or domestic workshops. 134 Accidents to Working Children The number of employees was approximately 4,950,000. During the year 1906 the number of children examined for certificates of fitness for employment in factories was 390,869, of which 385,415 were certified and 5,454 were rejected. The number of industrial accidents reported was 111,904, of which 76,208 were reported to inspectors only and were of minor character, and 35,696 to certifying surgeons involving fatal and non- fatal injuries. Of the number reported to these surgeons 7,220 applied to young persons from thirteen to eighteen years, and 152 to children from twelve to fourteen years of age, a total of 7,372, or about twenty per cent, of the whole num- ber reported. In France, the act of March, 1900, regulates the employment of women and children in factories and mills, and controls the hours of labor in all establishments where women and children are em- ployed. As a result, a decided diminution has been noted in recent years in establishments employing a mixed working force, for the employment of adult males alone allows the full twelve-hour day un- der the law of 1848, whereas under the act of 1900 the limit of a day's work is ten hours. The number of establishments included in the report of the Bureau of Labor of the French Government for 1905 was 511,783, employing 3,726,578 persons, of whom 300,988 were males under eighteen years, and 264,650 were females under eighteen years. The total number of accidents reported was 259,882, including fatal and non-fatal injuries. Of this number, accidents to employees under eighteen years of age amounted to 21,900, or nearly eight and one-half per cent, of the total. Children must have com- pleted their thirteenth year, and have finished a common school course of education before they may be employed in any manufactur- ing industry in France. Children under sixteen years of age may be required to undergo a physical examination before beginning work in certain occupations. Children under eighteen must obtain certificates showing age, schooling qualifications and physical fitness to perform the work at which they wish to be employed. No female of any age may be employed in work underground. In Germany, the labor of children is regulated by the industrial code as amended June, 1900; by the ordinance of the Federal Coun- cil of July, 1900, and by the law of March, 1903. Children under thirteen years, or if over thirteen, who have not completed the com- mon school course, may not be employed in factories, mines, building Accidents ta Working Children 135 operations and in workshops designated by law or decree as unsuited to such employment. Children over twelve years of age may be em- ployed in workshops not otherwise prohibited, also in commercial or transportation enterprises, or in hotels and restaurants. Children over ten years of age, if related to the employer by blood to the third degree, or legally under his control, may be employed under the same conditions subject to the authority of the Federal Council and local officials. No female of any age may be employed underground. Certificates must be secured by all young persons before accepting employment, and the employer must file with the local police officials a statement showing the location of the establishment; the number of children to be employed ; the character of the work they are to do ; the hours of labor, and the time of rest periods. The report of the Factory Inspectors of the German Empire for the year 1905 shows that 226,565 establishments were reported, employing 5,607,657 persons, of which number there were 382,264 young persons from fourteen to sixteen years, and 10,245 children under fourteen years, the percentage of children employed being about seven per cent, of the whole number of employees. The Italian Government published in 1906 the report of the Bureau of Statistics, giving data that had been collected by the Bu- reau between the years 1885 and 1903. The number of establish- ments covered by the report was 117,407, employing 1,400,157 per- sons. Of this number there were 79,415 males and 118,191 females of fifteen years or under, making a total of 197,606, or about four- teen per cent, of the entire number of employees. This is the only one of the Great European nations where the number of female children employed exceeds the number of male working children. This situation is accounted for largely by the fact that about 67,000 girls are employed in the textile industries alone, or nearly one-third of the entire number of girls employed under fifteen years of age. Child labor in Italy is regulated by the law of June, 1902, and the administrative decree of January, 1903. The minimum age of em- ployment is twelve years for factories, shops and surface work, and fourteen years for males only in underground work. No child under fifteen years of age, or minor female may be employed until a cer- tificate has been secured, showing the proper qualifications as to age, health and education. Austria regulates the labor of children by the laws of June, 136 'Accidents to Working Children 1884, and March, 1885. Children under twelve years of age are not to be employed in workshops. Children from twelve to fourteen years of age may be employed only in such work as will not injure their physical development or prevent school attendance. Children under fourteen years of age are not to be employed in factories, and from fourteen to sixteen years may be employed only in the " lighter work " of factories, except that from twelve to fourteen years they may engage in the "lighter work" of factories under special permit of local officials. No male child under fourteen years of age may be employed in a mine, and no female of any age may work under- ground. In 1903 the number of employees in establishments visited by Austrian Factory Inspectors was 789,883, and of this number ninety-four per cent, were adults and six per cent, were young per- sons. In Belgium child labor is regulated by the law of December, 1889, modified by royal decrees, the most important of which are the decrees of December, 1892, March and May, 1893, February, 189s, and July, 1904. The employment of children under twelve years of age in factories, mines, quarries and establishments using mechanical motive power is prohibited. Females under twenty-one may not be employed in mines. Certificates showing age, education and physical qualifications must be secured by males under sixteen and females under twenty-one before employment. The total num- ber of employees in establishments visited by Belgian factory in- spectors in 1900 was 273,363, of which children twelve to sixteen years numbered 32,591, or about twelve per cent. In Switzerland children under fourteen years of age may not be employed in factories, and, by special decree, the employment of children under sixteen years of age is prohibited in establishments using saws and similar machinery, or in work connected with explo- sives, harmful chemicals, or processes where much dust is produced. The total number of employees in all manufacturing industries of Switzerland in igoi was 242,534, and about fifteen per cent, of this number were children fourteen to eighteen years of age. America, the refuge for the downtrodden and oppressed, the magic name that fires with boundless enthusiasm the mind of every man and woman here assembled ; admired and respected of all other nations, what has this great country accomplished for the prohibition of child labor and the prevention of accidents to working children? Accidents to Working Children 137 Throughout the length and breadth of this " sweet land of liberty," from the rock-ribbed coast of New England, with its ever busy hum of almost ceaseless toil, to where the gleaming waters of the Pacific softly ebb and flow along the verdant shores of our glorious West, everywhere in this, " our own, our native land," echoes the urgent appeal for help from half a million children, illiterate, help- less, overworked and underfed. How have we responded to the call! On January i, 1909, in every state and territory of the United States, excepting the District of Columbia, Nevada, New Mexico and Hawaii, laws were in force regulating the age of child labor under varying conditions and with numerous exemptions. Most of you are familiar with these laws through articles, addresses and reports printed under the auspices of the National Child Labor Committee. While some of the laws have undeniably improved conditions to a marked degree as regards the employment of chil- dren of immature age, no one will attempt to claim that the work has more than started. Accidents to working children are due largely to illiteracy, and the incapacity to understand and appreciate the dangerous features of industrial life. The failure to read and comprehend rules and warning signs in factories is one of the most prolific sources of injury. Another frequent cause is the inclination to play around dangerous machinery, " skylarking," as factory super- intendents call it, which is ofttimes attended with tragic results. I recall a case that came under my personal observation less than six months ago, where a boy sixteen years of age, in attempting to show some of his young fellow-employees how rapidly he could force sheets of cardboard through a press, caught his hand between the rolls, and before the power could be shut off his arm was crushed almost to the shoulder and had to be amputated in order to save his life. In another case a man who was employed in a large rolling mill secured a position for his thirteen-year-old boy on the rolls, rolling steel bars. This boy got possession of a small hand mirror and amused himself by flashing the sunlight into the eyes of the men working near him. While doing this, on one occasion, he failed to turn in time to catch a bar when it came through the rolls. The red-hot bar struck the ground at his feet, coming in contact with one of his legs, and burned off the foot at the ankle. 138 Accidents to Working Children Perhaps the most usual cause of accidents is the lack of experi- ence of the operator and the want of proper instruction from the foreman or superintendent. In the majority of serious cases with which I have been concerned, the injured child had been employed only a few days or weeks, sometimes only a few hours, and was utterly lacking in experience, education, skill or capacity to under- take the work. The inevitable result followed, generally the loss of one or more fingers, ofttimes the whole hand, occasionally the loss of an arm. To illustrate : in Tennessee, a colored boy, presumed to be four- teen years of age, but afterwards proven to be only thirteen, secured employment as the off -bearer on a saw, but received no instructions as to work, or any warnings as to the dangers. On the second day of his employment he crawled under the saw table, and his left arm was terribly mangled by the saw. In a case in Ohio a boy scarcely fifteen years of age was set to work in a wood-working plant, where his only duty was to carry away the material cut off by a saw nearly six feet in diameter. Hav- ing seen the operator of the saw endeavor to overcome the momen- tum after the power was shut off by pressing against the side of the saw with a stick, this boy attempted to do the same thing, which re- sulted in the loss of his right arm near the shoulder. In a case in Pennsylvania, a boy twelve years of age was em- ployed to feed pieces of steel through a set of rolls while the same were in motion. Not being informed of the danger of this work, and being ignorant of the ordinary hazard of such employment, one of the rags with which he was working was caught into the rolls, and his left hand and arm were drawn into the rolls and so mangled as to necessitate the amputation of the arm about half way between the wrist and elbow. From the state of Washington, a case is reported of a boy four- teen years of age, employed in a logging camp in which his father was superintendent. In spite of this fact, the boy was not properly warned as to the dangers of the work, and was injured so severely that it became necessary to amputate one of his legs at the thigh. Such accidents are not confined to factories or mills, for a case is reported from Rhode Island where a boy under sixteen years of age was employed in the laundry room of a department store, and his duties were to run the washer and extractor. While taking a Accidents to Working Children 139 blanket from the machine in some way his arm became caught, crushing it so badly that it had to be amputated. A suit for $15,000 was promptly begun, and is still unsettled; the plaintiff's claim is $4,000. Mr. Frederick L. Hoffman, in his valuable article on " Industrial Accidents," reported in Bulletin 78 of the Federal Bureau of Labor just issued, states that in 1908, " upon a conservative estimate, the total mortality from accidents in the United States among adult male wage-earners is between 30,000 and 35,000, of which it should not be impossible to save at least one-third, and perhaps one-half, by intelligent and rational methods of factory inspection, legislation and control. In addition, there were approximately not much less than two million non-fatal accidents, that not only involve a vast amount of human suffering and sorrow, but materially curtail the normal longevity among those exposed to the often needless risk of industrial casualties." These figures refer mainly to accidents hap- pening to working adults, but there is an increasing percentage of such accidents to working children, although, unfortunately, neither the statistics of the Federal Government nor of the State Bureaus of Labor can give us the figures at the present time with any degree of certainty or completeness. While statistics are not available for the whole country showing the percentage of working children, we find from the twelfth cen- sus of the United States that the ten states employing the greatest number of children under sixteen years of age were Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, Georgia, Maryland and Wisconsin. Pennsylvania ranks first, with over 33,000, and Wisconsin last, with nearly 6,000. It is interesting to note that this list comprises four Eastern, four South- ern and two Western states, so that as between the North and the South "honors are easy " on this question. The status of legislation regulating the age of employment is not clear or satisfactory. The minimum age varies from ten years in some states to sixteen years in others, subject to numerous qualifi- cations and exemptions. For example, the laws of Massachusetts prohibit the employment of children under fourteen years of age in manufacturing and mercantile establishments, and no child may be employed without an age and schooling certificate. These laws are enforced by a large corps of inspectors responsible to a common- 140 Accidents to Working Children wealth that administers its public affairs on the theory of the great- est good to the greatest number, and as a result, it is rare to find a child employed without a certificate in Massachusetts. On the other hand, Illinois, with over 10,000 children employed under six- teen years of age, according to the twelfth census, does not take the same jealous care of its young workers. While the laws of Illinois prohibit the employment of children under fourteen years of age in factories, stores and mines, and require an age certificate to be placed on file in the establishments employing children, violations are fre- quent, both as to age and certificates. There conditions are due partly to the fact that a large percent- age of the working children in Illinois are of foreign parentage, and many of these parents have no scruples about obtaining age certifi- cates upon false statements and representations, resorting to various subterfuges to attain the desired end. The Commissioner of Labor for the State of Minnesota, in his report for 1905-1906, strikes the keynote of the situation when he says that what is needed in his state " is a better understanding of the intentions of the Child Labor Law; more uniformity in its en- forcement, and a better co-operation of the different official bodies charged with the execution of the act." What say the South on this great social and economic question that strikes so deep at the vital elements of its industrial life? We have heard often of the large percentage of young children employed in Southern mills, and we are led to believe that these conditions are acquiesced in with the utmost complacency by the officials of many of these states. It is most gratifying, therefore, to record the senti- ments expressed by the Commissioner of Labor of Kentucky in his report for 1905 : " Humanity, charity, education, civilization demand that the system of making little children industrial slaves be abolished. Greedy brutes, whether capitalists or parents, should be compelled to respect the rights of little ones to develop, at least until the age of sixteen, their health and character. It is a reform that can with inestimable value to a nation be prosecuted by a nation." The number of factories covered by this report is 1095, of which 504 employ no children, leaving 591 factories employing 5360 chil- dren. A gratifying feature of the situation in Kentucky is the fact that of 218 accidents tabulated from the two districts into which the state is divided, twenty-six accidents only were recorded to Occidents to Working Children 141 children of sixteen years or under, which is less than twelve and one half per cent, of the total accidents reported. Time will not permit an enumeration of the earnest, faithful services rendered year after year by these loyal servants of the nation in charge of the bureaus of labor in the different states in the work of enforcing the child labor laws that arc so often conflicting and contradictory. Credit is also due the Federal Government for the interest taken in this subject by the Depart- ment of Commerce and Labor, and especially for the investigations now going on. Within two weeks a bill has been introduced in Congress providing for the establishing of a National Children's Bureau to investigate and report upon all questions affecting the welfare, character, health and training of children including pre- mature employment, dangerous occupations and accidents. The courts, too, are doing their duty in most instances by up- holding child labor laws and compelling compliance with their provisions. From far Oregon comes a decision of the Supreme Court in the case of State vs. Shorey, and I quote from the opinion the following: "It is competent for the state to forbid the employment of children in certain callings, merely because it be- lieves such prohibition to be for their best interest, although the pro- hibited employment does not involve a direct danger to morals, decency, or of life or limb. Such legislation is not an unlawful interference with the parents' control over the child or right to its labor, nor with the liberty of the child." Other decisions sus- taining these laws have been recently rendered by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in the case of Stehle et (d. vs. Jaeger Automatic Machine Company, where a boy under fourteen years of age was injured while employed contrary to law ; by the Supreme Court of North Carolina in the case of Starnes vs. Albion Man- ufacturing Company, involving injuries to a child under ten years of age; by the Supreme Court, of Michigan, in the case of Van Wyck vs. Dickinson, for an accident to a child fifteen years of of age; by the Supreme Court of California, in the case of ex parte Weber; by the Supreme Court of Georgia, in the case of Piatt vs. Southern Photo Material Company, where an injured child thirteen years of age had been employed without a certificate, and by the Supreme Court of New Jersey, in the case of Bryant vs. Skillman Hardware Company, for injuries to a child under fourteen years of age. 142 Accidents to Working Children In conclusion, I cannot refrain from a passmg reference to the silent but effective help rendered by the business with which I have the honor to be associated, namely, the insurance of Em- ployers' Liability in factories, mills and mercantile establishments. Every policy insuring an employer of labor against loss from liability for accidents to his employees contains a clause exempting the insurance company from liability in case of an accident to or caused by any child employed contrary to law. The great force of this provision and its widespread influence as a deterrent against child labor is at once apparent. Legislation will correct this evil eventually, and public opinion can create a strong senti- ment that will tend more and more to ameliorate the condition of working children, but selfish considerations of economy will ever be the most potent argument in favor of the employment of persons of legal age. Employers will come to realize in time, as many of them have already been convinced, that they cannot afford to violate the child labor laws of their state, for they not only incur a liability for damages thereby, but are unable to secure insurance to protect them against loss in such cases. Thus it is that history repeats itself, for the origin of child labor grew out of the sordid desire of employers to secure labor at the lowest possible cost, regardless of the law of nature or of man, and the same selfish considerations will serve to exterminate child labor when it is no longer profitable to use it. Far better that we should consider the moral and intellectual side of this ques- tion, rather than the purely material side, for it is only in that way that we can hope to build up individual, as well as national, character. It was more than three-quarters of a century before the manu- facturers, workmen, economists and legislators of Europe and America realized the fallacy of the doctrine that the limitation of the age of employment of children and the reduction of the hours of labor would result in reduction of wages, or increase in the price of manufactured goods, or perhaps both. As a matter of fact, the ultimate end of factory legislation is to create con- Iditions of existence below which the working population of any community shall not decline. Only a certain amount of labor is possible to be, and is actually got out of men, women and chil- dren within the ordinary and reasonable limits of a working day, Accidents to Working Children 143 and the object of the regulations in factory acts is to create the greatest degree of efficiency and productiveness in every working unit. To employ children below the natural and normal age of creative ability, or to work them beyond the limits of their physical endurance, is to impair the commercial value of their efforts, and to incur a debt with nature that neither the child nor the com- munity may be able to liquidate in after years. UNIFORM SYSTEMS OF CHILD LABOR STATISTICS By Hon. John Williams, New York State Commissioner of Labor, Albany, N. Y. Not long ago I heard a speaker say that one of the distinguish- ing features in the history of social progress in the twentieth century would be the place given to the consideration of the rights of chil- dren. Whether or not such prophecy will be fulfilled we cannot tell. But I feel that I am absolutely safe in saying that with re- spect to the conservation of the secular interests of our children, the history of the century will not record a single backward step. The intensity of the movement of which this Conference is but a manifestation, is a positive guarantee that in our country the ex- ploitation of child labor is doomed. The trend is irresistible and the future is full of promise. The emancipation of the child will be accomplished. However, as we follow the account given of the conflict between the representatives of this social movement and those who represent the employers of children, we realize that the battle is not yet won. When we come to examine the statutes of our several states we find that the subject of child labor has been sadly neglected in many of them. This fact is a stain upon our civilization and is sufficient justification for the existence of the National Child Labor Com- mittee. The treasure expended in the maintenance of intensive work along this line will in the future bring incalculable returns. The enactment of laws to restrict and to regulate the employment of children, and the creation of state agencies to enforce such laws, are two of the principal objects undertaken by Child Labor Com- mittees. And when that is done, there arises the necessity of observ- ing the enforcement of those laws, their effect upon the problem; the need of amendment and improvement in order to meet new conditions must be carefully considered — in short, every step must be taken deliberately and with a set purpose. In order that every dollar expended and every ounce of energy applied be made to yield a maximum return, I conceive it to be the duty of all who in any way have to do with the campaign so to arrange their work as to (144) Uniform Systems of Child Labor Statistics 145 dovetail with the effort of others, so that there shall be no waste. I would apply this obligation to every agency, official and unofficial. Two-thirds of the states have provided for some degree or method of factory inspection, and one of the chief duties of a factory inspector is the enforcement of child labor laws in the manu- facturing establishments within his jurisdiction. The proper exer- cise of this governmental function is important, in the first place, to the men, women and children whose immediate employment is affected thereby. So far as the individual interest of each such employee is concerned, it is immaterial, if the administration of the factory law be effective, whether or not the outside world knows anything about the work done. The record of the inspector's ac- tivity is of no moment to them if the conditions of their employment are properly regulated as provided by law. But the work of a factory inspector is important in a broader sense than that. It sus- tains a direct relation to the progress of society. Recognizing this fact, laws creating the office of factory inspector provide that such official shall preserve and present annually to some higher authority a record or report of his official acts. These reports are printed and distributed, and through them those who are sufficiently interested can gain some idea of the services rendered. The factory inspector is the only government agent, who, dur- ing the years intervening between federal or state census, has au- thority to enter our manufacturing places and obtain certain in- formation, which, when properly collated, is of great practical value as a means to determine the development and growth of industry. That the value of his reports is determined by the methods employed to present the facts will be readily admitted. If the scheme of the report is clumsy and unscientific, its value is impaired, for in this age when everything moves so rapidly, neither the student, the social worker, nor the statesman can afford the time to dig informa- tion, valuable in itself, which is hidden under a mass of ill-arranged material, and no factory inspector should permit himself to follow a plan of reports that produces discouragement and despair in the mind of the seeker after knowledge. There is no phase of the factory inspector's work concerning which it is more important that precise information be available than the facts relating to the administration of laws regulating child labor, and it is to the methods employed, or that should be em- 146 Uniform Systems of Child Labor Statistics ployed, to record those facts that I shall devote the remainder of my time. It has been my privilege — somewhat painful in a few cases — to examine the reports of state factory inspectors with a view of securing such information as I thought such reports should con- tain, as would enable me to gauge the problem from a national standpoint. But, as many of you know, I was doomed to disappoint- ment. Some factory inspectors have contented themselves with a brief textual reference to the subject, and have left us completely in the dark as to the extent of the problem within their jurisdiction. Others have given us apparently complete data, but the arrangement thereof is so ill-adapted to the purposes for which we read the reports as to be almost worthless. For obvious reasons, however, I cannot undertake any sort of a comparative statement of the methods employed by the several departments of inspection in presenting the facts of child labor. I shall present my own ideas of the manner in which a factory inspector should give to the world in condensed and intelligible form the record of the manufacturers of his state in respect to the employment of children. To begin with, let me say that I speak now as a factory in- spector — as an officer whose primary duty is to enforce enactments for the protection of factory workers. I am not a statistician, but vhen I come to prepare my report I find that I need to use numbers — I want to convey clearly and briefly certain information regarding my work which is of sufficient importance to be preserved; so, perforce of circumstances, I must employ the methods of the man who speaks not in words but in numerals. If I do not adopt this plan, I must leave out much that is of value or string out my re- port to inordinate lengths. In either case it would be practically valueless. My desire is to present the facts so simply and so clearly that the most ordinary mind can grasp their significance. This can be done in regard to child labor statistics which are gathered, or should be gathered, by the factory inspectors of the country. Every inspector who is neglecting entirely the statistics of factories is falling far short of his opportunities. The social value of statistics covering the following group of related facts can be quite fully appreciated by those who make a study of industrial conditions and progress : Number of establishments inspected. Uniform Systems of Child Labor Statistics 147 Number of employees at time of inspection. Number of adult males. Number of adult females (over sixteen). Number of male minors (sixteen to eighteen). Number of boys (fourteen to sixteen). Number of girls (fourteen to sixteen). Number of children under fourteen. It is regrettable that in a few states the factory inspector's re- port is devoid of any statistical statement. Such reports have scarcely any value whatsoever. The text may be well written, but the absence of statistical grouping of basic facts makes us feel that the fine descriptive text is like a house built without a foundation — we do not know when it may tumble about our ears. To secure the statistical information above mentioned is a simple problem for the members of our field staff. It is incor- porated in the report for each factory and sent to the main office. The work of tabulation can be done thereafter, and may be confined to comparatively sim.ple tables, or, if scientific statisticians are available, more minute and elaborate tables might be worked out. No valid excuse can be given by those inspectors, who, year after year, inflict upon the public the unsatisfactory task of reading a mass of generalties which are unsupported by figures showing the facts supposedly described. I imagine that I hear someone say it is quite easy for the Commissioner of Labor of New York to urge that fac- tory inspectors devote more time to the preparation of statistical tables for their reports, for he has a corps of trained statisticians to perform such service for his bureau of factory inspection, while the factory inspectors in other states are denied the services of even one person experienced in statistical work. It is probably true that no other state department of factory inspection is so fortunate as that of the state of New York. We have an excellent bureau of statistics; yet not all of the statistical tables which appear in the report of our bureau of factory inspection are prepared by the bureau of statistics. I want to state now that, in my opinion, no factory inspector can escape the charge that because his reports do not contain intelligible statistical information, they are deficient in value and interest, by saying that his appropriations would not permit the hiring of persons to prepare such tables. Any person who is intelligent enough to be a factory inspector — who plans and 148 Uniform Systems of Child Labor Statistics directs the administration of the laws committed to his depart- ment — who possesses a mind keen enough to grasp the facts brought to Hght through the service, so as to be able to prepare the text of his report — surely can very readily devise simple statistical tables to contain in condensed form the information regularly gathered by this field staff. This being done, any ordinary clerk can carry out the scheme. Such condensed tables would enhance the value of reports of inspection. When we consider the intense public interest in the subject of child labor, it is astonishing how unresponsive some factory in- spectors have been and how meager and uninteresting are the statistics bearing upon the subject as contained in their reports. A public officer whose duty it is to enforce laws for the amelioration of labor should not stifle his humane instincts. As a matter of fact, his close contact with the ills and woes of those who toil should stimulate him to greater activity — to a keener sense of his obligation to see that the full benefit of all laws for their protection should ac- crue to them. When a factory inspector reaches that stage in his official career as to be indifferent or callous and unresponsive to a reasonable and intelligent and wisely directed public sentiment in regard to matters affecting his official duties, he has outlived his public usefulness. The National Child Labor Committee realizes the importance of uniform child labor statistics. Therefore, what I have to say upon the subject is not intended as an argument addressed to those participating in this conference. I want to point out, however, a line of duty in respect to this matter which opens out to you, namely, that an earnest effort be made to lead every depart- ment of factory inspection to consider very carefully the advis- ability of agreeing upon some plan of uniform statistics whereby the problem can be broadly and correctly gauged. It seems to me that this Committee could, with entire propriety, formulate a definite plan and have it submitted to the official head of each state department charged with the enforcement of child labor laws, with the request that the plan or system be adopted. It is idle for us to criticise the shortcomings of governmental agents unless we are prepared to go farther and make our criticism constructive. We must suggest methods of improvement; otherwise, our criti- cism assumes the character of faultfinding. Uniform Systems of Child Labor Statistics 149 I hope I may be pardoned for presuming to think that the statistics of child labor, published by the New York Department of Labor, furnish as satisfactory and as comprehensive a state- ment of the problem as can be found in any official report published in this country. Our tables are quite simple and do not require for their preparation an advanced degree of statistical skill. At the close of our departmental year, within one week after all the in- spection reports covering the work done on the last day of the year are received at the office, we can state definitely the full extent of the problem of child labor in each county in the state. This record is arranged for our report in tabular form and shows how many boys and girls fourteen to sixteen were found at work legally, and how many were illegally employed ; we also show how many boys and girls under fourteen were at work. By means of this table we centre the attention of our people upon the extent of child labor in our industrial communities, thereby emphasizing the need of vigilance on the part of the friends of the children wherever it appears that the ratio of children to the adult factory workers is abnormally high. The preparation of this special table is quite simple and the work is done wholly within the bureau of factory inspection. Of course, it will be understood that the data for the table are gath- ered by the field staff, and are sent to us on special slips provided for that purpose. Upon this slip the deputy factory inspector, if there be occasion for such a course, separates the children employed in each factory into three groups, namely, legally employed, illegally employed, and under fourteen years of age. This slip is really an analysis of the children reported at work in the regular inspection schedule. When received they are filed away by counties until the end of the year, when they are available for use as heretofore men- tioned. Statistics of child labor grouped by industries are also of supreme importance, for by no other method can the relative de- gree of responsibility be properly determined and fixed. The ques- tion of restricting the freedom of children to engage in certain oc- cupations is attracting more and more attention, and nobody doubts the need of its serious consideration; but before we undertake re- strictive legislation affecting a given industry, we ought to know whether or not children are engaged in it. Nothing should be taken for granted. A spirit of absolute 150 Uniform Systems of Child Labor Statistics fairness should be manifested towards every manufacturing busi- ness. It is the duty of every factory inspector to furnish his people with a clear statement of the number of children at work in each industry represented in the manufacturing interests of his state. I will admit that this would involve statistical work of more intricate and technical character, but as to its importance and value there can be but one opinion. New York publishes statistical tables showing the facts just mentioned. We can tell how many children were at work in a given industry in any stated year. I also conceive this grouping by indus- tries to be important to those who appear before legislative commit- tees in states where efforts are being made to secure the enactment of child labor laws, especially so if the representatives of certain interests argue against the proposed laws on the ground that such enactments would paralyze their industries. If it can be shown that similar industries have been able to survive restrictive legis- lation in one state, it can be urged that they ought to be able to do so in another. Thus the arguments of the opposition could be suc- cessfully met. I do not believe we are very much concerned whether John Smith, who manufactures carpets, employs five, ten or twenty children, except when it is alleged that he employs them illegally. But we are interestd in the question as to how many children he and all other manufacturers of carpets in our state are employing, and' it is our business to know it and to report it. Another feature of the report of the factory inspector which vitally affects the problem of child labor is that relating to punitive activity. In New York we have had a fair trial of both methods of law enforcement. Our experience proved that the moral suasion idea as applied to our work was a total failure. There is one way to enforce the law — a fair warning, then a grim demonstration of the fact that the note of warning was just exactly what it pur- ported to be. I am not sure that uniform statistics can be prepared in respect to this phase of our work because of the great variety in the provisions of law relating to child employment on the one hand, and on the other the very striking differences in judicial procedure in the several states. I think, however, that a detailed statement in tabular form, giving the name and address of the defendant, nature of violation, and result of proceedings, should be printed in the factory inspector's report. Those who deliberately Uniform Systems of Child Labor Statistics I51 exploit children should be criminally prosecuted, and in addition, their unworthy practices should be exposed in the printed perma- nent record of the department of inspection. A factory inspector cannot permit himself to be under any sort of obligation to shield violators of the law. I cannot close my remarks without expressing the hope that in the near future each Commonwealth will have awakened to its full responsibilities with respect to the protection of its children. It is generally conceded that age limit and educational tests, as a bases for determining the right of a child to work in a factory, are unscientific and unreliable. The mere fact that a child has reached a certain age is no proof of its physical fitness to en- gage in the stern realities of the conflict or struggle for a liveli- hood. New York has authorized the employment of a medical inspector of factories. We expect to utilize the services of such officer to observe the children who are employed in certain indus- tries, and to gather such data regarding their physical condition and development as will prove helpful in solving the problem. Dur- ing the year just ended he recorded examinations of a number of children of different nationalities, and the results, while by no means conclusive, point to the great complexity of the whole sub- ject, owing to the cosmopolitan character of our population. I am confident that in due time the introduction of medical science into the intensely practical field of factory inspection will leave an indelible impression. I predict that as New York demonstrates the value of this new departure, other states will follow her lead. I believe the time will soon come when a conference may be called of the medical inspectors of factories representing every industrial state. Such a conference would wield nation-wide influence in respect to factory sanitation, female labor, and particularly the regulation of child labor. I think our report just published demonstrates clearly that from a sanitary standpoint a wise step was taken when provision was made for a medical inspector. We feel assured that our work on behalf of the children, along the lines indicated herein, will furnish not only a complete justification for the money expended, but will point out the need of extension in order that the whole field be promptly and properly covered. I have not kept very closely to my subject. I was asked to ^52 Uniform Systems of Child Labor Statistics outline a scheme of uniform child labor statistics. I have not presumed to do so. I have tried to suggest a few things in re- gard to an important phase of the question. I have undertaken to point out the duty of the National Child Labor Committee in relation to this matter. If I have succeeded in awakening, even in a small degree, a new sort of interest in the dry side of the child- labor question, then I shall feel that my trip to the city of Chi- cago was not in vain. And should this Committee see fit to under- take a campaign for uniform statistics. I shall be happy to col- laborate in the preparation of a plan to be urged upon the chief factory inspectors. I am personally satisfied that a large majority of our factory inspectors are in full sympathy with the work of this splendid organization. As a closing word, I assume it to be unnecessary for me, while discussing the importance of uniform systems of statistics of child labor, to emphasiz the great need of comparative uniformity in the laws relating to the same subject. THE PRESENT SITUATION IN ILLINOIS By Edgar T. Davies, Chief State Factory Inspector of Illinois. Any intelligent discussion of the present situation in Illinois, with regard to child labor, must necessarily be prefaced by a brief retrospect and a comparison between present and past conditions. While the Illinois Child Labor Law, by reason of the excellence of its provisions and the beneficent results accomplished under its enforcement, is generally known to students of the Child Labor problem, it would seem advisable at the outset to briefly recall its more salient features. The present Child Labor Law, which became effective July i, 1903. (i) Prohibits the employment of minors under the age of fourteen years. (2) Abolishes night work for all minors under the age of sixteen years. (3) Limits the employment of children to eight hours per day. (4) Requires an educational test consisting of an ability to read and write legibly simple sentences, and provides that in the absence of such ability the child must go to night school if he wishes to be employed. (5) Prohibits the employment of minors under the age of six- teen years in any occupation which may be considered hazardous or dangerous to the child, or which may injure its health or morals, and the law specifically prescribes what are considered hazardous and dangerous employments. (6) It makes it unlawful for an employer to employ children under sixteen years of age in any place of amusement where intoxi- cating liquors are sold. (7) It prohibits the employment of children under sixteen years of age on the theatrical stage after seven o'clock at night. (8) It abolishes the notary public affidavit as means of pro- curing employment for children under sixteen. (9) Provides that a fine of $5.00 to $25.00 be imposed upon any parent who permits a child to be employed contrary to the pro- (IS3) 1^4 The Present Situation in Illinois visions of the law, and that a fine of $5.00 to $100.00 be imposed upon any employer violating the law, such employer to stand com- mitted until such fine and costs are paid. This, in brief, is the Illinois Child Labor Law. What were the conditions in 1902, previous to the enactment of this law, and what are the conditions to-day ? Total Per cent, of Children Inspections. Employees. Children. to total Employees, 1908 84,997 720,203 9,92s 1.3 1902 19,535 511.902 19,225 2-7 Increase 65,462 208,301 Decrease .... 9,30O Child labor reduced over 52 per cent. The following industries in Chicago show a remarkable decrease since 1902: Industry ^^"^^J"" ^""'IToI! Percentage Decrease. Glass 360 37 90 Bakeries 232 56 75 Cigars and cigarettes 167 28 88 Clothing 2641 1504 45 Paper box and bag 606 177 68 Laundry 280 59 80 Confections 434 147 66 Wood working 1474 374 75 Leather goods 468 41 89 It is interesting to know what the reduction in child labor has been in some of the different stores and factories in Chicago, and your attention is called to the following: Name. Children Employed 1901. 1908. Boston Store 275 173 The Fair 500 420 Marshall Field & Co 227 152 A. M. Rothschild & Co 237 119 F. W. Rueckheim (candy factory) 181 ps National Biscuit Co 304 3 American Can Co 135 32 Swift and Company 86 45 Nelson Morris & Co 89 27 Libby- McNeil & Libby 74 o Armour and Company 160 45 The Present Situation in Illinois 155 So much for Chicago. Now we will look to the territory outside of the city of Chicago and Cook County. To give an illustration of the reduction in child labor in the glass factories in Illinois I refer to the following: Illinois Glass Company, Alton, employed 377 chil- dren under the age of sixteen in 1901 ; to-day they employ 73. Adolphus Busch Glass Company, Belleville, employed 109 in 1901, and now employ eighty-two. Streator Bottle and Glass Company have ten children under sixteen in their employ now, while in 1901 there were 257. American Bottle Company, Streator, employ two children to-day, and in 1901 there were fifteen. Headly Glass Com- pany, of Danville, now employ ten, and in 1904 they employed thirty. The above statistics are but a few of the many good results brought about through the enforcement of the law. In 1893 the percentage of children employed in Illinois was 8.2; the percentage has been reduced to 1.3. We make the statement, and we make it advisedly, that we have the lowest percentage of child labor of any state in the Union. In making this statement, I include not only factories and workshops, but every other character of places of employment, above and beneath the ground. Child labor has been driven from the coal mines of Illinois. This was accomplished by my interpretation of the clause of the law governing hazardous employment — an interpretation that was combatted by the Coal Operators' Association. A test case was subsequently brought in the courts, in which I was sustained, and as a result 2,200 children were emancipated from a life of under- ground servitude. Consequently to-day no child under the age of sixteen can work in a coal mine in Illinois. These results could not have been achieved if our efiforts had been confined to moral suasion. Persuasion is a divine and beautiful thing, but the enforced law, with a penalty attached, is more effec- tive, as you will see by the comparison of figures, as follows : In 1893, the year the first child labor law was in force, it hav- ing taken effect July i, of that year, there were 2,452 inspections, and of this number there were thirty-nine prosecutions for viola- tion of the law. In 1901, the year I took office, there were 18,913 inspections, or an increase of 16,461 over the year 1893, which is 87 per cent. Of this number there were 719 prosecutions, or an increase in prose- cutions of 94 per cent. 156 The Present Situation in Illinois In igo8 there were 84,997 inspections, or an increase over 1901 of 66,084, which is yy per cent. The number of prosecutions for 1908 were 473, which is a decrease of 34 per cent, in prosecutions. Thus our statistics show that, while our inspections have greatly- increased, only 473 of this number (84,997) have been prosecuted, which demonstrates that employers are becoming educated and are complying with the law's requirements. Consequently, the law has been effective and has been of great protection to the children of our state. In 1901 there were forty-one children employed to every 1,000 employees; in 1908 there were thirteen children to every 1,000 employees. Ours is the only department which has been able to report, during the past five or six years, the actual percentage of the children at work, because the Illinois Department of Factory In- spection covers every character of establishment in the state. Perhaps the greatest benefit of the many achieved by the pres- ent law, is the effective prohibition against the employment of minors under the age of fourteen years. Under the old law thou- sands of small children were employed in the various industrial plants throughout the state, which employment defied the very laws of nature, and robbed these little ones of their birthright of child- hood, while more fortunate children were enjoying the advantages of good homes, wholesome surroundings and careful nurture and education. Thousands of these little victims of child labor were daily offered as a sacrifice, either to the greed of the employer, or to the ignorance and inhumanity of their parents. Furthermore, many under the age of fourteen years were not only employed dur- ing the day, but hundreds were ofttimes compelled to work all night in glass factories and foundries and similar institutions, wear- ing away their young lives before the hot glare of furnaces and stunting their growth by the unnatural influences under which they were obliged to live and labor. An enlightened conscience demanded, and obtained, the pro- vision of the new law, providing that children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years should not be permitted to work between the hours of seven o'clock p. m. and seven o'clock a. m. The statute also recognized the justice of the claim of all friends of child labor legislation, that if eight hours was long enough for a man to work, it should also be long enough for a child The Present Situation in Illinois 157 to work — at least, at arduous and incessant toil — ^which is the third important provision of the child labor law. The eight-hour clause of our law applies to every day and every month of the year. Some states permit the employment of children, without limit as to hours, but we protest that, as has been done in Illinois, childhood should be protected at all seasons — that the need of the child is greater than the exigency of the business. The child life is a consideration im- measurably more important than commercial gain brought about by the sacrifice of the child's life, health, morals and happiness. The present child labor law, in force since July i, 1903, strictly prohibits the employment of a boy or girl between the ages of four- teen and sixteen, at any occupation whatsoever, for more than eight hours a day. Through my experience as the chief officer in enforcing the old, as well as the present law, I am somewhat inclined to believe that the interest of the minor could best be conserved if, in some of the lighter occupations, in which the work is not of a burdensome nature, the limitation on the hours might be changed, if the changing of the law could be made without affecting the constitutionality of the eight-hour provision. There is great need of uniform laws governing child labor in the various states, not only for the better protection of children, but for the purpose of preventing the manufacturer in one state from having the advantage over a competitor in another state, be- cause the laws governing child labor are different in the respective states. At present we have a diversity of laws. There is no uni- formity of age limit, required number of weeks in school attendance, proof of age and educational test. There is also a lack in many states of that great spirit of humanity and benevolence that should place a restriction upon the hours of labor of children, and upon the employment of juvenile wage earners in hazardous vocations. No child — native or foreign-born — should be permitted to go to work unless it is able to read and write in the English language, and can pass a reasonable educational test. In the enactment of all child labor laws, employment should be prohibitive for any girl under the age of sixteen in any vocation where she is compelled to remain standing. The employment of minors at night should be absolutely prohibited. The employment of children in theatres should be regulated. 158 The Present Situation in Illinois and no girl under the age of eighten years should be permitted to be employed as a chorus girl, and no boy or girl under the age of eighteen years should be permitted to perform or be employed in any capacity in a concert hall, or place of amusement where in- toxicating liquors are sold. Factory inspectors should be endowed with greater police power. There are many establishments where employers are defiant, others who seek to evade the law on technicalities, and frequently the in- spector will find a boy or girl employed at occupations where their lives and limbs are in danger, or where the child's health may be injured, and not infrequently we find them employed in places where their morals might be destroyed. In all stich instances the factory inspector should have author- ity to immediately remove the child from employment. And as the purposes of the law are constantly being defeated, because of the inability of the inspector to disprove the statement of the child and the employer that the child is of an age beyond the application of the law, it is essential that the statutes should provide that, in cases where dispute arises regarding the true age of a child found employed contrary to the law's provisions, the burden of proof of age should rest on the parent and on the employer, and not on the state. The employed should be required to prove the child of age, rather than the inspector to prove the child is under age. It was but natural, in preparing the draft of the Illinois Child Labor Law, that its provisions should be made specially applicable to the employer of child labor; but in the desire to reach such em- ployers who were the chief offenders, the disposition on the part of the parent and the child to evade the law and secure employ- ment for the child, with its consequent income for the family, was in a large measure overlooked. The result has been, that in a surprisingly great number of cases, which have come under my observation, many well-meaning employers have suffered injustice through the connivance of the parent with the child, in representing the child's age as sixteen, or above, when such child was under sixteen. Frequently the em- ployer has been subjected to the penalties of the law, which should have been visited upon the conniving parent. It would be well if the child labor law could be so amended that it would protect fiie honest employer of labor, as well as the helpless children who are employed. The Present Sitttation in Illinois 159 Under the present law, when a child signs an application for the purpose of securing employment, and states that he is sixteen years of age, and in many instances the parent indorses the state- ment, the employer has no legal means of protection. He has but few reliable means of ascertaining the correct age of the child, should he doubt the child's statement. Unscrupulous parents have discovered this weakness in the law, and have taken advantage of it, to the injustice of the em- ployer, deceiving him with regard to the child's age, with the result that the employer has been prosecuted, while the party guilty of an intentional violation of the law, the child, parent, guardian or cus- todian, has too often escaped. I have given this matter much thought, because I feel it is one of the most serious objections that can be properly raised regarding the present law, in its practical operation. I am of the opinion that it would be well to amend the present child labor law, so that the well-meaning employer might protect himself against the cupidity of the child, its parent, guardian or custodian. There are numerous ways in which the law could be amended so as to accomplish this purpose. If the law were amended so as to require parents, guardians, or custodians of children, be- tween the ages of sixteen and seventeen years, who are seeking employment, to secure a certificate as to the child's age before a Court of Record, we should have greatly improved the existing conditions. Courts of Record exist in every county in the State, and there ought to be no reason why this plan could not be made to work admirably. The law should further provide that if the employer demands, and obtains of the child, a certificate from, the Court of Record, certifying that the child is of the required age, and it later develops that the child is not of legal age, the employer shall not be held responsible or guilty of a violation of the law, but that the parent, guardian or custodian of such child, who files his applica- tion in the Court of Record for such certificate, and who furnishes the evidence of age upon which the certificate is issued, shall be deemed guilty of contempt of court ; and that such parent, guardian or custodian may be summarily punished by the court by severe censure, fine or imprisonment, as for contempt of court. If such an amendment were secured and put in operatioh, and the courts i6o The Present Situation in Illinois should vigorously enforce this provision, and punish the of5f ending parents, guardians or custodians, either by censure, the imposition of a fine or light imprisonment, the practice of defying the pur- pose of the law, through the false statement of the child's age, would soon cease. When, without the knowledge of the parent, guardian or cus- todian, a child misrepresents its age, in order to secure employment, I believe such child should be cited before the Juvenile or County Court, for correction and punishment, as the court may decide. It is my opinion that every foreigner who has children should be compelled, upon arriving at our shores, to give the names and ages of all the children belonging to, or in the custody of, such immigrant, and that such immigrant should furnish to the immi- gration officer, proper birth records or other satisfactory evidence of the age of said children or dependents, and such immigrant should be obliged to secure from said immigration officer a proper certificate, testifying to such registration, which certificate should be kept by said immigrant at all times, as an evidence of his com- pliance with the Federal regulations. One serious limitation in the scope of the Illinois Child Labor Law is its inapplicability to newsboys and girls, and other juvenile merchants who live in our streets. Our law does not apply to newsboys, because the courts hold that they are merchants in their own right. While I thoroughly believe that these street gamins are every bit as worthy of our most solicitous attention as are the chil- dren employed in the factories, I believe they should be given proper protection through the passage of a special statute covering the entire matter. Laws of this kind have already been passed in some states, and I have prepared and presented to the last two sessions of our General Assembly a bill calculated to protect this class of child labor, but because of complicated difficulties at the time of the in- troduction of the bills, they have thus far failed of passage. There has been criticism, not altogether without merit, that the legal limit in the employment of children should be based on the educational qualifications and physical fitness, rather than upon an arbitrary age. My experience has shown me that many firms who do not employ children under the age of sixteen years, employ them as soon as they become sixteen years of age, and such chil- The Present Situation in Illinois i6i dren are then started at learning a trade as a common apprentice. Some change might be made as to certain classes of children above the age of fifteen years, qualified by a proper preliminary educa- tion and general physical fitness, so that they might be permitted to enter upon a proper apprenticeship, certain limitations apply- ing, and learn a trade, though they might be within the arbitrary age limit now prescribed. In other words, children are not all alike as to physical and educational qualifications, or as to circum- stances of life, and some account should be taken of these dif- ferences. THE FORWARD STEP IN LOUISIANA By Jean M. Gordon, State Factory Inspector, New Orleans, La. A few Sundays past I had the pleasure of hearing a very ex- cellent sermon by Rabbi Saal, of St. Louis, in which he used the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate his point, and all the time he was applying it to his story I was applying it to the history of the child labor movement, putting in the place of the priest who saw the sick man, but passed by on the other side, the great organized Christian church, which, instead of bringing its united strength to bear upon this sickness of our present day civilization, passes by on the other side. Again, as the story was told, I saw in place of the Levite, who also passed by on the other side, our great school system, with its splendid organization in every town and village and its great national and internationl influence, passing by on the other side instead of using its organization to make and enforce compulsory school attendance laws for the thousands of little ones who have been permitted to remain out of the schools, endangering our civili- zation through the illiteracy which is bound to result from such negligence. And then I saw the National Child Labor Committee in the place of the Good Samaritan having compassion on these little ones and trying to lighten the burdens which an ignorant, selfish, self-satisfied, grasping community has laid upon our children. In thinking this question out it would seem that the organizations which had the care of the children should have been the forces which would have worked for their protection. The state, the school and the church should have been the Trinity to prevent this outrage against civilization and Christianity from ever having as- sumed its present proportions. The strongest reason which sug- gests itself to me for this lack of action is the fact that in the state, the school and the church the will of the women has not been given an opportunity to act. (162) The Forward Step in Louisiana 163 Except through indirect methods the motherhood of the land has had no chance to protect what is dearer to her than all else. Had the state said it proposed to place citizenship above manu- facturies, had the school said an educated community was better than fine raiment or houses, had the church followed the teachings of its Great Teacher, who threatened dire results to them who did any harm unto the least of these little ones, there would have been no need for such an association as we have here to-day. But that there is need, great need, of our association is being borne in upon me more and more each day I work as a factory in- spector. Louisiana took a forward step this past year, when through legislative act a fairly good Child Labor Law was passed, but al- ready efforts are being made by one of our largest department stores to have the entire act declared unconstitutional, thereby to side-step our forward movement. To one who went through those seven weks of pleading and arguing with men, most of them fathers, for a law to protect little children from the greed and neglect of those who should pro- tect them, the merest hint that another fight is on makes the heart sick and faint, for the memory of that struggle is still fresh in our minds. As usual, the cotton mills were the most powerful opponents, ably seconded by the canning industries. To hear the representa- tives of both industries, one, not knowing any better, would have been convinced that the most healthful, remunerative, educational place in the entire world in which to develop children was in a cotton mill or an oyster cannery. One fairly tingled to spend the rest of life shucking oysters or peeling shrimp. A marvelous condition was unearthed when our Committee arrived at Baton Rouge. Our bill asked for a nine-hour work day for women and children, while another bill was introduced by the representatives of the Federation of Labor asking for a ten-hour day for women and children in mills and factory, while at the same time they introduced another bill asking for an eight- hour day for railway clerks. Of course, it is much harder work for grown men to s-'t in a comfortable office writing figures in a book than for women and children to stand all day watching six, eight, ten or even fifteen shuttles dashing back and forth, 164 The Forward Step in Louisiana getting snarled and tangled and taking many minutes to unravel, for which time lost there is no pay ! The battle raged around that nine-hour day. Finally both bills were sent to the Committee. Our bill was pigeon-holed, the Federa- tion of Labor's bill was reported favorably with an amendment making the work day nine hours. This bill of the Federation of Labor was a striking illustration of a bill drawn in the interest of the manufacturer. In the first place, the word "mill" was con- spicuous by its absence, there were absolutely no sanitary or safety regulations, and what was very significant, the penalty for any violations was so arranged that the enforcement was out of the jurisdiction of every court in the state. If that bill was drawn by a lawyer his seeming ignorance of the laws regulating the courts of his state should be sufficient reason to deprive him of his license, if written by a member of the House, the state should have the right to ask for his resignation — for any one so abso- lutely ignorant of the requirements necessary has no right to a voice in the making of laws regulating the life and health of thou- sands of members of society, especially that part of society whom the state does not permit to protect themselves. Finally a compromise was effected whereby our Committee waived the nine-hour day in return for some of the provisions con- tained in our original bill, and on the promise of the Governor that a conference of the Governors of all the Southern states, the manu- facturers, the labor organizations and representatives from the Women's Clubs would be called to agree upon a uniform work day. It gives me great pleasure to announce to this Committee that the conference will be called as soon after the Mardi Gras festivi- ties as possible — sometime in March, I think. This compromise bill was won by just the requisite number of votes in each branch of the legislature. In the Senate we needed twenty-one votes and we got twenty-one — in the House we needed fifty-eight and we got fifty-eight. It was the most bitterly fought, longest contested bill before the legislature. It went in among the very first, and came out next to the last. In all those seven weeks a few men and women sat by the side of their very sick hope, working and talking and pleading until sometimes the very soul revolted against a state of society where it was very evident a dollar counted for more than the souls and bodies of helpless women and little children. The Forward Step in Louisiana 165 The results under this law are most gratifying. There is a marked change in the appearance of the children going to work; especially is this the case with the messenger boys — they are much larger and stronger looking. I want to say to the credit of our business men in New Orleans the response has been most hearty. Already we have issued 3600 certificates. The greatest trouble in getting at the correct age of the child is among the Italians. They are flocking to Louisiana by the thousands, bringing with them their dishonest methods, born into them for generations. They swear they have lost their passports, they give the wrong towns in Sicily, so it is imposssible to trace their birth record. I have wondered if it would be possible to get an amendment to the immigration laws, requiring the authorities to send a list of all children under fourteen years arriving in this country to the state Factory Inspector, and from there a list be sent to each deputy inspector. I should like this point discussed. We have several very excellent provisions in our bill. Our age certificate is all right, I know, because next to the nine-hour day it was the most bitterly fought. Another provision makes it a penalty for any employee to give warning of the approach of the inspector. Another makes it prima facie evidence of guilt for any child under fourteen to be seen hanging around the establishment. The bill covers every occupation but domestic and agricultural service and newsboys. Altogether we won a good bill, by a good fight, and it will take a good fight to deprive us of it. There are several men and women in Louisiana who have served long apprenticeships in charitable organizations, and we intend to prevent the need of a great deal of our present-day philanthropy by stopping the supply, and, in my opinion, child labor is one of the most fruitful sources of the need of charity. THE DIFFICULTIES OF CHILD-LABOR LEGISLATION IN A SOUTHERN STATE By Hon. James R. McDowell, Jackson, Miss. In the discussion of the subject assigned me, I shall, of neces- sity, confine myself principally to the recital of those difficulties which confronted the advocates of such legislation in Mississippi during the past few years, and especially during the session of the state legislature a year ago. The National Committee has from time to time been advised of the status of child-labor legislation in other Southern states by those familiar with the subject, by reason of having personal knowledge of th,e many difficulties they have themselves encountered. Since Mississippi is the only Southern state to which my personal knowledge extends, I shall not attempt to dis- cuss the situation in any other state; and since the enactment of such a law in Mississippi is recent in point of time, it may be of interest to members of the National Committee and others to be advised of some of the experiences of those of us who took a hand in the fight for the protection of the children of our state. Mississippi is the last state in the Union to enact a child-labor law, except Oklahoma and Nevada, and be it said to the credit of Oklahoma, the legislature of that state, at its first session, enacted such a statute, but it was vetoed. The necessity for such a statute in Mississippi is not so great as in many of her sister states, prin- cipally because there are so few children employed at work which is injurious to them. There are no mines ; no glass factories ; no sweat shops ; less than twenty cotton and woolen mills, and not more than half a dozen canning factories in which child labor is em- ployed. There are no large cities in the state and consequently few paupers. Thus the evil is reduced to a minimum, and this condition is no doubt responsible for the long delay in the enactment of suit- able statutes for the protection of helpless childhood. Public senti- ment was not aroused to the magnitude of the child-labor evil throughout the country, because the people were not advised and did not have the matter brought directly home to them in many parts (i66) DiMculties of Child Labor Legislation 167 of the state. It has been through the persistent efforts of the sev- eral organizations in charge of the campaign in Mississippi that public conscience has been awakened to the necessity of a law which would prevent children of the state from suffering because of neglect on the part of the legislature to properly protect them. This, then, was the first great difficulty encountered, and it took many years of earnest and persistent labor to arouse sufficient in- terest in the cause to wage a winning fight. The credit for the work is due principally to the good women of Mississippi, through whose efforts the importance of enacting child-labor laws has been brought before the public mind. After the fight had assumed sufficient proportions, bills were in- troduced into the state legislature to prohibit children of tender years from being employed in factories. Members of the legislature were, however, not sufficiently advised of the importance of the measure, and those who hailed from mill towns were so bitter in their opposition that for several sessions all efforts were unsuccess- ful. At the session of 1908, however, many legislators had an- nounced in advance of the convening of the legislature that they would support a child-labor bill. Literature was forwarded to them giving statistics in other states, and the secretary for the Southern States made a personal visit to Mississippi and sent a special agent to the various cotton mills to procure data for use before the leg- islature, so that when the hour of battle arrived the advocates of child-labor legislation found themselves equipped and armed with facts. In spite of the lobby which had always been maintained by the mill interests, and in spite of the stubborn opposition which fol- lowed the introduction of the bill, the members of the legislature who opposed it seemed to be unadvised on many of the important points under discussion. The Opposition It was my privilege to draft the bill. It was introduced early in the session and required the persistent efforts of those interested in its passage to keep it from being unfavorably acted on in com- mittee, since the mill interests kept representatives at the capital constantly, who on several occasions appeared before the committee to present their side of the question and to argue what they claimed would be an injustice and hardship to the mills and families em- i68 DiMculties of Child Labor Legislation ployed therein. Not only did these men appear before the commit- tee, but they talked with members of the legislature whenever the opportunity presented, and endeavored to persuade them that busi- ness interests would be injured and the mills subjected to a heavy loss if deprived of the labor of the children. They seemed forget- ful of the fact that the state owed a greater duty to the children than to any moneyed corporation within its borders. They seemed to forget that the health, education and moral training of children was of more importance than dividends of stockholders in factories where these children spent their lives. Just as in the commercial world the dollar is the unit of value, so in the body politic the child is the unit of value, and upon the soundness of the child depends the future of the state and nation. In most instances, the mill interests secured the support and influence of the local representatives, this being due no doubt to a feeling on the part of the legislators that great damage would result if poor children were forced out of employment. Perhaps they also feared that the advocacy by them of child-labor legislation might not be approved at home and that their course would meet with condemnation by the influential citizens of their respective counties, many of whom were interested in the mills. They may have feared also that children thus thrown out of work would be- come a charge upon charity, or that a dependent parent might, by the loss of the child's wages, suffer for the necessities of life. They seemed to forget that their first duty was the protection of the small children, whose property is so well protected by the laws of the state, but whose physical, mental and moral welfare has been with- out the protection of the law. They seemed to forget that no one ever died of starvation in Mississippi. They seemed to forget also that no community has ever permitted a deserving woman or child long to want for the necessities of life. The only argument we could use against the contention of the mill owners was to take the high ground of justice and right, and appeal to the humanity of the legislature. Even then we were met with the proposition that the children and their families were better off in the mills, and that it was to their interest to be allowed to remain in the employ of factories without restriction. We were also met with the proposition that the state should not inter- fere with a parent's right to control his own child. In this latter Difficulties of Child Labor Legislation 169 contention, however, we had no trouble in convincing the members of the legislature not only that they had the right, but that it was their duty in many instances to do so. It is the duty of the state to save the child, not only from corporate greed, but from its own par- ent, if necessary. Compromise rather than Defeat After having obtained a favorable recommendation from the committee, when the bill was called for passage it was very bitterly assailed, and a motion to re-commit was carried after a discussion of certain features most strongly attacked by its opponents. After recommitment a subcommittee was appointed, and I appeared before this subcommittee and decided to make certain concessions by way of compromise rather than risk a defeat of the bill, since the vote was very close; and I had hopes that two or three members who had opposed the bill when first offered would support a compro- mise measure. In this conclusion I was correct. Practically the only concessions made were to change the age limit from fourteen to twelve years and the elimination of that feature of the bill re- quiring employees under the age of sixteen years to have attended school for a portion of each year in which they accepted employ- ment in factories. The bill then came up for final passage in the senate. The mill interests were strongly intrenched, having a num- ber of their representatives on hand. When the bill was called section by section for passage, amendments were offered to almost every section in an effort to get the bill so amended that it would be of no service whatever, or unacceptable to its own advocates. The hackneyed provision with reference to " invalid fathers, wid- owed mothers and orphan children" was offered, but defeated by a close margin. Then came a fight on the number of hours per day which the children should be permitted to work. Following the recommenda- tion of the Nashville Conference of 1907, I had agreed on a ten- hour day, though personally I preferred to see an eight-hour limit inserted. Even a ten-hour day was opposed on the ground that the mills should be allowed to use their own discretion as to the number of hours of employment. They objected to any regulation whatever in the number of hours of employment per day, but were willing to accept a sixty-three hour week. The bill, however, finally 170 Difficulties of Child Labor Legislation passed with a provision restricting a day's employment to ten hours, fixing a fifty-eight hour limit per week. Night work of children under sixteen years of age is prohibited, and applicants under that age required to furnish a certificate from their parents showing their age and educational advantages, and one from the county health officer showing their physical condition. The enforcement of the law will necessarily be somewhat handicapped by reason of the fact that no provision was made for the appointment of a factory inspector, this duty having been assigned to the sheriff of the county where the mill is located, and to the county health officer. It was thought useless to ask the creation of a special office of factory inspector, because there were so few mills in the state where child labor is employed, and so few children employed therein, that the duty could be performed with less expense and with almost as great efficiency as by a special officer. After the bill was sent to the house of representatives, the fight was renewed. The mill interests feared to have the bill called on the calendar, since its passage was practically assured if it ever came to a vote. Dilatory tactics were adopted, and it was some time before the matter was taken up in committee. The committee set a date for hearing objections to the bill, and after arguments on both sides had been heard, recommended the bill just as it came from the senate, except that a sixty-hour week was fixed, with no regulation as to a day's employment for children under sixteen years. This amendment was defeated on the floor of the house, and the bill was passed on the day before adjourment, and received the Governor's signature on the last day of the session. Continued Opposition to the Law The statute went into operation October i, 1908, and I am advised that the various mills have regulated their schedules so as to come within the pale of the law. The mill owners, however, have not been silent in their protests since the enactment of the law, but have announced their determination to fight for its repeal or modi- fication at the next session of the legislature. So it will be seen that not only were we confronted with difficulties in the passage of the law, but we must keep it on the statute books over the pro- tests of the manufacturers. This we believe we can do, as the more the question is agitated, the greater will the interest in the welfare DiMculties of Child Labor Legislation 171 of the children become. When the issue is clearly defined, and be- comes in reality a battle between the dollar and the child, the people of Mississippi, as well as those of every other Southern state, will respond to the cry which comes to them from helpless children, unable to protect themselves from slavery of body, dwarfing of mind and neglect of soul. The people of Mississippi have the Anglo- Saxon pride of race which will not deny to struggling children an opportunity to acquire strength of body, development of mind and expansion of soul necessary to fit them to become strong and influ- ential citizens, the fathers and mothers of future generations. This movement has been frequently characterized as fanatical. It has been said that it is the work of women and preachers. If this be true, then all the more credit is due the good women and preachers who have undertaken such an unselfish work, and have fought such a winning fight. God pity the woman whose heart is not touched by the cry of a child ; God pity the child of such a woman ; God pity the minister who has forgotten the words of the Master, " Suffer little children to come unto Me." Reports from State and Local Child Labor Committees' KENTUCKY CHILD LABOR ASSOCIATION. The Kentucky Child Labor Association was organized in February, 1907. Its declared purposes were the collection and dissemination of information concerning the working children of Kentucky, the cultivation of a public opinion favorable to a reasonable regulation of child labor and the proposal of measures for such regulation by government. It was contemplated that its activity should be state-wide. In this respect the hopes of its promoters have been, up to this time, only partially fulfilled. In Louisville, which is the chief industrial city of the state, its organization has been thorough and its influence considerable. In other parts of the state it cannot be said to have exerted any marked influence, except through the passage of the Child Labor Law, hereafter described, which is, of course, applicable to the entire state. The law of Kentucky in force when this association was organized (Act of March 17, 1906), may be summarized as follows: Act of March lyth, igo6. Children Affected. Class I, children under fourteen; Class II, children between fourteen and sixteen. Employments Prohibited. To Class I (under fourteen) : (a) At all times, employment "in any factory, workshop, mill or mine." (b) During school term, employment "in any mercantile establishment, in any service of any telegraph, telephone or public messenger company, laundry, or printing establishment." To Class II (between fourteen and sixteen) : Employment "at any occu- pation dangerous or injurious to health or morals." Exception. As to children under fourteen years, the following proviso was added to the prohibition : "unless said children shall have no other means of support." This clause was interpreted as reserving to each county judge in the state the power which he had possessed under an earlier law, to grant a "permit" authorizing the employment of a child under fourteen in cases where he was satisfied by proofs submitted to him that the earnings of the child were absolutely necessary to the support of the family. Hours of Work. Children under sixteen : "In any manufacturing establish- ment, mine, mill or work-shop," no such child could work "after 7 o'clock in the evening or before 6 o'clock in the morning", nor more than ten hours in one day or sixty hours in one week. Penalties. For any violation a fine of not more than $50.00 for the first offense and not more than $200.00 for any subsequent offense. iFor the report from the Illinois Child Labor Committee, see the stratement of the Sec- retary, Mrs. H. M. Van der Vaart, page 214. (172) Reports from Child Labor Committees 173 Proof of Age. Affidavit by parent or guardian; if neither, affidavit by the child. Investigation. Right of visitation given Labor Inspector; "Inquisitorial" powers of investigation given to Grand Jury. The act contained the usual sanitary regulations. Defects in the Old Law. The two chief evils which were developed in the practical application of this law were, first, the abuse by parents of the power given the county judge to make an exception to the prohibition by the issuance of the "per- mit" ; and, second, the utter breakdown of the method provided for proving the age of applicants for employment. A careful investigation, extending over a period of one year, disclosed an appalling amount of perjury and fraud on the part of parents who sought to put at work little children upon the false' pretext of family necessity. A similar investigation showed that, in securing employment for children, the practice of swearing to a greater age than the child had really attained was very common. How these faults were attempted to be remedied by the new law appears in the following synopsis of that law. Child Labor Act of March iSth, 1908. Employments Prohibited. Section One. — Children under fourteen not to be employed : (a) "In any business or service" during the term of the schools in the district wherein the child resides; (b) Nor at any time in, nor in con- nection with any factory, workshop, mine, mercantile establishment, store, business office, telegraph office, restaurant, hotel, apartment house, or in the distribution or transmission of merchandise or messages. Section Two. — Children between fourteen and sixteen not to be em- ployed in any factory, workshop, mine, or mercantile etablishment until they have obtained an employment certificate. Employment Certificates. Section Three. — Employment certificates to be issued by school authorities (superintendent, if any). How Obtained. Sections Four and Six. — Preliminaries to issuance of employment certificate are : 1. Proof of age (i. e., proof of date and place of birth). 2. Filing of "school record"; i. e., a certificate from the principal of the school last attended that the child has been at school for one hundred days in year next before reaching fourteen, or next before the application for the employment certificate; that he can read and write simple English sentences; and that he has had instruction in geography and the simple parts of arithmetic (i e., through common fractions). If school record is not obtainable, an examination on these points may take its place. Contents. Section Five. — Employment certificates shall state: 1. Date and place of birth of child. 2. Color of hair and eyes, height and weight. 3. That the required preliminaries (Sections 4 and 6, supra) have been observed. 174 Reports from Child Labor Committees Record. Section Seven. — School Board to furnish Labor Inspector monthly with list of certificates issued. Hours of Work. Section Eight. — (a) Children under sixteen not to work longer than ten hours a day, nor longer than sixty hours a week, (b) Hours of work for such persons, to begin not sooner than 7 a. m., nor to continue later than 7 p. m. , (c) Printed notice of hours of labor to be conspicuously posted. Penalties. Sections Nine and Eighteen. I. Against Employers. (a) For the first violation of this Act, a fine of $25.00 to $50.00. (b) For each subsequent offense, imprisonment (10 to 90 days) or fine ($50.00 to $200.00) or both. (c) For continuing an illegal employment after notice from Truant Oificer or Labor Inspector, a fine of $5.00 to $20.00. (d) For failure to surrender certificates when demanded, $10.00 fine. II. Against Parents or Guardians. (a) For permitting a child under their control to be illegally employed, a fine of $25.00 to $50.00 for the first offense. (b) For each subsequent offense, imprisonment (10 to 90 days) or fine ($50.00 to $200.00) or both. III. Against Ofiicers Issuing Certificates. For a known false statement, $10.00 to $100.00 fine. Visitation. Section Ten.— Right of visitation given Truant Officers and Labor Inspector. Sanitary Regulations. Section Eleven. — Certain employments, dangerous to health or life, forbidden to children under sixteen. Sections Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen. — These contain sani- tary regulations for establishments where children under sixteen are em- ployed. Prosecutions. Section Sixteen. — Inquisitorial powers for investigating violations of this Act given to Grand Juries, County and Circuit Judges. Section Seventeen. — Copy of this Act to be conspicuously posted. When the Act Becomes Effective. Section Nineteen. — Act to go into effect September i, 1908, except that the requirement of a "school record," or in default thereof, an examination, shall not be effective until September I. 1909. Objections to the Passage of this Act. 1. That it would throw out of employment more children than the existing schools could accommodate. 2. That it would make loafers of many children who, having had no schooling at all, could not be expected at the age of thirteen or fourteen or fifteen to enter classes with children who were four or five or six years younger than themselves. 3. That the penalties were too heavy and particularly that the penalty of imprisonment was unnecessarily offensive. Reports from Child Labor Committees 175 4. That the requirement that children should not be employed after 7 p. m. would necessitate discharge of large numbers of children from retail stores where, on Saturday evening particularly, work must continue to a later hour. 5. That the educational test was too severe, even for children who had attended school up to their fourteenth year. 6. That the office of the school superintendent would be overwhelmed by the additional duties imposed upon him. Operation of the Act. In order to meet the objections last named and those which had to do with the educational test, it was provided that no part of the Act should go into effect until September i, 1908, and that the application of the educational test should not be made until September i, 1909. Out of deference to the wishes of the employers, the Kentucky Child Labor Asso- ciation consented to two amendments of the bill, which had already been introduced. These amendments permitted the employment of children be- tween fourteen and sixteen until ten o'clock on Saturday night and elimi- nated the penalty of imprisonment. The legislature, however, would not consent to these amendments, but passed the bill in its original form. The predictions of the opponents of the bill have not been fulfilled. Unquestionably some children have lost employment which they would other- wise have retained, but in no case which has been brought to our attention has this resulted in any serious or irremediable distress. On the other hand, it can safely be asserted that this result has, in nearly every instance, been of great benefit to the children. Here and there an employer has been found who has refused to retain or employ any children under sixteen, upon the plea that he did not want to "take any chances" or desired to avoid the trouble of seeing that the children had proper certificates. These cases have, however, been very few. The point at which it was expected that the effect of the Act would most clearly appear was in the attendance on the public schools in Louis- ville. The same legislature which passed the Child Labor Bill also passed a new compulsory education law, by which a more numerous corps of truant officers was obtained and its duties more clearly defined. It was naturally anticipated that the joint operation of these two acts would be to increase the school attendance. The facts are as follows : The school census shows that there are 65,000 children of "school age" in Louisville; that is to say, children between six and twenty years of age, all of whom are entitled to attend the public schools if they so desire. Of these, 3S,68o are between the ages of six and fourteen, and therefore pro- hibited from working by the new law. A comparison of the enrollment of the public schools and the average daily attendance for the month* of September, October, November and December, in the years igo6, 1907 and igo8, is as follows : 176 Reports from Child Labor Committees Table I, All Schools. Increase September. 1906. 1907. i9o8. 1908 over 1907. Enrollment 26,109 26,155 26,216 61 Attendance 22,707 22,652 23,525 873 October. Enrollment 27,609 27,231 27,103 —128 Attendance 24,131 24,118 24,325 207 November. Enrollment 28,199 27,686 27,103 —583 Attendance 24,193 23,505 24,110 605 December. Enrollment 28,447 27,887 27,756 —131 Attendance 23,826 23,274 23,718 444 Table II, High Schools (5) Only. Increase 1906. 1907. 190S, 1908 over 1907. Enrollment 2,692 2,813 2,516 —297 Average Daily Attendance. September 2,202 2,243 2,218 —25 October 2,548 2,352 2,287 —65 November 2,301 2,340 2,147 — 193 December 2,151 2,296 2,214 —82 Table III, District Schools Only. Increase Enrollment. 1906. 1907. 1908. 1908 over 1907. December 25,755 25,074 25,240 166 Average Daily Attendance. September 20,505 20,409 21,307 898 October 21,583 21,766 22,038 272 November 21,892 21,165 21,963 798 December 21,675 20,978 21,504 526 The first noticeable thing in this tedious parade of figures is the falling off in enrollment, both in 1907 and 1908, from the 1906 enrollment. This is attributed to the late commercial unpleasantness which began in the Fall of 1907. It is believed by the superintendent of schools that many- children were taken from school and put to work in order to help support the family at a time when the father of the family was either out of em- ployment or working at reduced wages. The second noticeable thing is that, in the comparison between 1907 and 1908, whereas there is a falling off both in enrollment and attendance in the high schools, there is a slight increase in enrollment and a marked increase in attendance in the district schools where, of course, the effect of the Child Labor and Truancy Laws would be felt. This, we think, may fairly be attributed to the joint operation of these laws. The reports of the Labor Inspector, the Truant Officers Reports from Child Labor Committees lyy and the agents of the charity organizations agree in stating that there are very few children under the age of fourteen who are not at school. The oflS- cial figures do not bear these statements out. As to these children the figures are as follows: Table IV. Children Between Six and Fourteen. School census 3Si68o Enrolled in District Schools 25,240 Subtract children over fourteen in District Schools Zfi7Z 21,567 Add children under fourteen in High Schools 184 21,751 Children enrolled in Parochial Schools 7,988 Children enrolled in Private Schools 200 29,939 Children (six to fourteen) not in school 5,741 Children (seven to fourteen) not in school 4,781 Thus the enrollment in all schools is almost 6,000 below the census. The average daily attendance would fall more than 3,000 lower still; but this does not indicate that g,ooo children are regularly out of school. It will be observed that the average daily attendance is from eighty-five to eighty-eight per cent, of the enrollment. The Superintendent of Public Schools advises us that not more than one-sixth of this discrepancy is due to chronic truancy, five-sixths being attributable to sickness and those other domestic disorders which occasionally bring about an absence of a day or two from school. We cannot view with any complacency the working of an anti-truancy system which lets escape seventeen children out of each one hundred. We shall make a better report next year. Attendance of Children Between Fourteen and Sixteen. To date (January 20, 1909), the Superintendent of Public Schools in Louisville has issued 1,508 employment certificates. The school census shows that there are in Louisville 8,567 children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. Of this number, 3,673 are still in the district schools (as dis- tinguished from the High Schools), although the average age of graduation from the eighth grade (next below the High Schools) is thirteen and one- half years. The enrollment in the High Schools is (in round figures) 2,500, of which number 184 are under fourteen. Of children of this age there are enrolled in parochial and private schools of this city about 500. This makes the following showing: 178 Reports from Child Labor Committees Table V. Children Between Fourteen and Sixteen. School census ^3^67 Enrolled in District Schools 3,673 Enrolled in High Schools 2,332 Enrolled in Parochial Schools 332 Enrolled in Private Schools 160 6,497 Children between fourteen and sixteen, not at school 2,070 Children holding employment certificates i,So8 562 This remainder (562) represents the children in Louisville, between fourteen and sixteen, who are not at school and are either loafing or working without certificates. Now it is not, in all cases, unlawful for a child, although under sixteen, to work without a certificate. The New Child Labor Act says that no child between fourteen and sixteen shall work "in any factory, workshop, mine or mercantile establish- ment" without a certificate. The Attorney General of the state has held that this means that in the other employments prohibited to children under fourteen, no certificate is required of children between fourteen and sixteen. Those other employments are "any business office, telegraph office, restaurant, hotel, apartment house, or the distribution or transmissions of merchandise or messages." This circumstance makes it impossible for us to know exactly how many of the 562 children who are not at school and do not hold certificates, are loafing and how many are working. Of this number we suppose that 200 or 300 are engaged in employments for which no certificate is required. If this assumption is not wide of the mark, there remain 200 or 300 children of this age who are either loafing or working unlawfully. We submit that this is a better record for our Labor Inspector than that shown by the Truant Officers. He leaves only 200 or 300 children unaccounted for, whereas the Truant Officers have almost 6000 of whom they can give no account. It is of course probable that some of those 6000 are at work, and this must of course be put on the debit side of the Labor Inspector's account. The Christmas Trade. The rush of business in retail stores, which everywhere characterizes the Christmas holidays, brought out in its acutest form the difficulty with reference to the employment of children after seven o'clock in the evening. Our very competent Labor Inspector, in view of the newness of the regula- tion, and in pursuance of his excellent plan of securing a general acqui- escence by a process of friendly co-operation with the employers rather than by a rigorous enforcement of penalties, took the position that he Reports from Child Labor Committees 179 would not institute prosecutions, as he had done under other circumstances, for slight infractions of the law during the Christmas rush. We have had made an investigation of the conduct of the large retail dry goods stores in Louisville during Christmas week. Four of them em- ployed no children under sixteen more than ten hours a day; that is to say, strictly complied with the law. Two employed older girls and boys to wrap and deliver bundles after seven o'clock. Two of these em- ployed older boys to deliver bundles after that hour and had the wrapping done by their regular force of clerks. Two concerns required their em- ployees who were under sixteen to work until ten o'clock on each of the five evenings preceding Christmas; that is to say, they openly violated the law. One of these establishments served its employees with hot lunches and supper on every day in the holiday week. One of them gave meal tickets for both lunch and supper on every day in that week. One of them served a supper to its employees on Christmas Eve. One served its em- ployees with hot coffee each evening during that week ; one of the two which kept its children at work until ten o'clock made no such provision at all. All of these stores, during Christmas week, allowed thirty minutes for lunch and one hour for supper. Investigation and Relief. Before the Kentucky Child Labor Association came into existence and while that law was in force which permitted the County Judge to issue "permits" to children under fourteen, the Consumers' League, of Louisville, had established a "Scholarship Fund." This was managed in the following manner. All applications to the County Court for "permits" were reported to a Committee of the Consumers' League, and by them an investigation into the merit of the application was undertaken. If the family to which the applicant belonged was discovered to be worthy and in great necessity, the Consumers' League entered into an undertaking with the County Judge that, if he would refuse the application and so require the child to remain in school, the league would pay to the child's family, so long as it was needed, a weekly sum equal to what the child would earn if at work. This work was later undertaken by the Kentucky Child Labor Association. When the new Child Labor Act went into effect, it wiped out that line of classifi- cation according to which this aid had been given, because there was no longer any power to grant permits. Since all children under fourteen must now go to school, and none can go to work, all cases of want or distress fell into a general class calling for relief by those organizations devoted to that purpose. However, partly through the mere persistence of a habit and partly from a sense of obligation to see that the new law did not produce the distress which its opponents predicted, the Association has continued this work. During the months of October, November and December, 1908, its Committee on Investigation and Relief, upon reports made to it by the Truant Officers, visited 100 homes and made a careful investigation of the conditions. To many of these children shoes and i8o Reports from Child Labor Committees clothing were given which enabled them to go to school. In some cases "Scholarships" were awarded; that is to say, a weekly payment of fTom one to three dollars was made to the family. These payments are not continued indefinitely, but every effort is made to put the family in the way to be self-supporting. Situations were sometimes found for other members of the family, and in the majority of such cases the scholarship payments were stopped. When the child receiving the scholarship attains the age of fourteen, some employment is found for him or her, unless the child is enabled to stay at school by means of some other provision for the family. The largest sum paid to any one child since this work was underT taken by the Association is $48.00. It is not expected that the Association will continue this work indefinitely, but is expected that it will gradually be assumed by other agencies better equipped both for making the investigation and providing the relief. Outlook. We anticipate that new and larger difficulties await us. So far we have not had to deal with the results of the application of an educational test. This part of our law will go into effect on September i, 1909. It cannot confidently be predicted what its effect will be. The Superintendent of the Public Schools reports as follows with reference to certificates here- tofore issued. "The applicants as a rule come from a class that should have much more education than they now have. I have been compelled to issue certi- ficates to a number of applicants who could neither read nor write. Many more had gone no higher than the third or fourth grade in Public School work. Unfortunately the Compulsory Attendance Law will not reach children of the ages covered by the Child Labor Law. If it had I should have compelled many children to go to school to whom I issued certificates." And he adds, "I anticipate that during the next vacation and before September ist, that great difficulty will arise about renewing a great many of the certificates, for I am convinced that fully one-third of the permits that have been granted cannot be re-issued on educational qualifications." The educational test which it is thus asserted could not be satisfied by one-third of the children to whom certificates have been issued, requires that the applicant shall be "able to read and write simple sentences in the English language, and" shall have "received instruction in reading, spelling, writing and geography and" shall be "familiar with the fvmdamental opera- tions of arithmetic, up to and including common fractions." It appears at a glance that this does not demand a very high order of scholarship. The requirement is more than satisfied by the training received by a child who has gone through the fifth grade in the Louisville Public Schools, a stage which the average child reaches at the age of ten. The average of com- pleting the eighth grade in Louisville (next below the High Schools), is thirteen, or thirteen and a half, and such children have learned not only to read and write and do their sums, but have completed the study of Reports from Child Labor Committees i8i English grammar, arithmetic, geography, history of the United States and of Kentucky, and have had some instruction in physiology and hygiene, in music, in drawing, and one year of algebra. Of course many of these children will have reached the age of sixteen when the educational test becomes effective; but many of them will not have done so and doubtless a new crop of illiterates will come on to take their places. This would not be so if the Compulsory Education Law were strictly enforced. It is, of course, probable that the application of this test will produce some inconvenience and hardship. If it did not do that it would probably fail of its purpose. You cannot get the wagon out of the old rut without administering some jolts. We hope to jolt it just enough to wake up some of the occupants without inflicting any serious or permanent injury. Our experience under the Child Labor Act has been too short to warrant any emphatic expression of opinion as to any faults in the law. We are, however, keeping an eye on these points : 1. More inspectors. 2. Assistance to the school superintendent in the labor of issuing certi- ficates. 3. Greater freedom in the matter of vacation work. 4. Perhaps the authorization of some sorts of work out of school hours. 5. Raising the Compulsory School Attendance age to sixteen. Lafon Allen, President. MAINE CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE. There is nothing new that I can report for the Maine Child Labor Com- mittee as to laws, since our legislature meets biennially. The legislature is now in session. We have introduced a bill in the senate asking for an educational test for all children between the ages of fourteen and fifteen years who desire to work during school hours, this to be in charge of the school superintendents under the state superintendent, who issues the certi- ficates. The bill calls for a fifty-eight hour law for women and minors under sixteen years of age, prohibits night work for minors under sixteen from 7 p. m. to 6 a. m. in all manufacturing, mechanical and mercantile establish- ments, the messenger service and street trades. How much we shall be able to carry remains to be seen. We have had one hearing, which developed the bitterest opposition. Another hearing will be held February 17th, when the shoe makers and woolen manufacturers are to oppose us. The members of our committee are doing strenuous work. It is all a labor of love. We have no money. Everyone pays his own bills and gives his services, but so far we have had plenty of help. If we can only convince "the powers that be" that right will prevail in spite of the money power, we shall win out. Ella Jordan Mason, Secretary. i82 Reports from Child Labor Committees MARYLAND CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE. The Maryland Child Labor Committee was reorganized in November, 1908, and a Council of Fifty was elected. From these were chosen a Chairman, Douglas M. Wylie; Treasurer, De- Courcy W. Thorn; Secretary, Joseph C. Judge; and these three officers, with two members at large. Dr. George E. Barnett and Miss Catherine M. McLane, constitute an Executive Committee for the current year. A Finance Committee, consisting of Robert Garrett, Chairman; Dr. Jacob H. Hollander, Mrs. B. W. Corkran, Jr., Mrs. T. B. Harrison and Dr. T. R. Hooker, has in hand the collection of a guarantee fund for a proposed campaign of education with the hope that when the next Legislature meets in 1910 public opinion may secure at least a better enforcement of the present law, even with its unsatisfactory twelve-year limit. The execution of the Maryland child labor law is in the hands of the State Bureau of Industrial Statistics. The present chief of the bureau is a political appointment, being also Chairman of the Democratic Committee for Baltimore County. Most of the inspectors are inefficient, and the general conduct of the bureau is not what the people have a right to demand. The chief requirements of the law in this state at present are as follows : Children under the age of twelve years are prohibited from securing employment, except in the counties, from June i to October 15. Between ages of twelve and sixteen, only those who secure an employ- ment permit are permitted to work in any office, establishment or other place of business. These permits are issued by the Bureau of Statistics and Infor- mation in Baltimore City, and by the Board of Health or principal Health Officer in the counties, only to such children as can give satisfactory evidence of normal mental and physical development, can read at sight and write legibly simple sentences in the English language, and is physically able to perform the work which he or she intends to do. Fines of from five to fifty dollars are provided as penalties for the violation of this law by em- ployer, parents or guardian. Enforcement of the law is lodged in the hands of the Bureau of Statistics and Information in Baltimiore. Farm labor is excluded from the provisions of the child labor law. Joseph C. Judge, Secretary. MASSACHUSETTS CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE. The Massachusetts Child Labor Committee was organized Novem- ber 28, 1908, at a meeting called by E. W. Lord. Hon Curtis Guild, Jr., Governor of Massachusetts, acted as chairman. The speakers were President Charles W. Eliot, Governor Guild and Meyer Bloomfield. A constitution was adopted, naming thirty-three active members and providing for as many associate members as can be secured. The plan of the committee is to spend a year in investigating the conditions of child labor in Massachusetts and in Reports from Child Labor Committees 183 preparing and working for a model child labor law. This, it believes, should precede any active support of child labor legislation. An executive com- mittee of eight and the officers are beginning the work of organization and investigation. The officers are : Chairman, Hon. Grafton D. Gushing ; Vice- Ghairman, Hon. Frank Leveroni; Treasurer, Professor Charles F. Bradley; Secretary, Richard K. Conant; Executive Committee, Henry Abrahams, Miss Georgie A. Bacon, Meyer Bloomfield, Howard W. Brown, Miss Alice L. Higgins, Miss Edith M. Howes, Mrs. Mary Morton Kehew and Everett W. Lord. RiCHAKD K. CoNANT, Secretary. MICHIGAN CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE. The Michigan Child Labor Committee has been instrumental in intro- ducing a bill, now before the state legislature, changing and improving the present law in regard to the employment of children. If this bill is passed, without bad amendments, Michigan will have a fairly good law. The State Federation of Women's Clubs and organized labor are aiding this committee. Frank T. Carlton, Secretary. INTER-CHURCH CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE OF GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN. The Inter-Church Child Labor Committee of Grand Rapids, Michigan, has held regular meetings on the last Monday of each month, except during the summer. Many interesting topics have been discussed, including "Work in the Soft Coal Mines of Pennsylvania," "Sweatshops and Tenements," "The Michigan Labor Laws Relating to Women and Children," "Some Weak Spots in the Laws and Their Remedies," "The Dangers of Overwork and Idleness," "Benefits of Playgrounds and Industrial Schools," and "Local Conditions." The subject, "The Newsboys," was ably discussed at different times by Judge Alfred Wolcott of the Circuit Court, and Judge Harry D. Jewell of the Probate and Juvenile Court, and others. Helpful addresses and talks have been given by the different ministers of the city, including Rabbi Kahn, of Temple Emanuel. Letters were written to our Representatives in Congress, urging the passage of the District of Columbia Child Labor Law Bill. On January 27, 1908, a Committee of five was appointed, which is known as the Industrial Scholarship Fund Committee. The object is to assist to attend school worthy children who would otherwise be obliged to stay out and work to help support the family. Contributions have been received from Women's Clubs, Church Societies and individuals, amounting in all to $186.10. The amount paid out is $85.23. Balance on hand, $100.87. i84 Reports from Child Labor Committees Last Spring two boys were assisted at $1.50 per week each. One finished the seventh grade in June, and is now working. He will soon be able to return the money which was loaned to him from the fund. We are at present helping one boy and three girls. The boy is taking the eighth grade, and receives $2.00 per week. He is fifteen, the oldest of five children, the mother a widow. The girls receive one dollar per week each. All are members of large families. Two of the mothers have been deserted, one is a widow. In several instances children have been out of school for the want of shoes. In those cases, shoes have been purchased from the fund. Incidentally, and in a quiet way, much personal work has been done by the members of the Scholarship Fund Committee. Where clothing and bedding were needed by these families, they have been provided. At Thanks- giving time, provisions and other useful things were sent; and on Christmas the members of each family were remembered by the Committee or their friends. The encouragement and inspiration of this personal interest are of great value. Law infractions and unfavorable conditions are quite often reportefl to the Child Labor Committee. The Deputy Factory Inspector or the truant oificer is at once notified, and when possible, the evils are corrected. Eleven denominations are represented on this Committee. The interest is growing, and we hope during the coming year we may be able to do still more work along practical lines. March 21, 1908, we sent $25.00 to Mr. Macy, the Treasurer, thus becoming a sustaining member of the National Child Labor Committee. Mks. H. Gaylord Holt, Chairman. MINNESOTA CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE. The Minnesota Child Labor Committee is just old enough to answer to roll call, but not old enough to offer an annual report, having been in 4 existence (as fully organized) just one week. It owes its existence to the efforts of the National Child Labor Committee, through its field agent who, last October, suggested to a little group of persons the feasibility of such an organization in Minnesota. The Woman's Club of Minneapolis became interested in the movement and appropriated the sum of sixty dollars ($60) to defray the expenses of preliminary investigation and organization. The preliminary investigation covered: First. The laws relating to children. Second. Local conditions, and means of enforcing these laws. Third. Canvass of organizations already in existence, with a view to co-ordination of existing forces. Laws. The laws governing child labor and compulsory education are good. Slight amendment will bring them fully up to the standard submitted by the National Consumers' League in its Handbook of Advanced Child Labor Legislation. Reports from Child Labor Committees 185 No child under fourteen years of age may work during school term. No child between the ages of fourteen and sixteen may work without a permit from the superintendent of schools or some one appointed by him to issue such permits. Personal examination of children by the person issuing the permits is required. The requirements are those suggested in the so-called "Standard" Child Labor Law except, however, that children of poor parents are exempt from the full protection of the law. The school record required by the law shall be signed by the principal of the school which the child attends, and is in the form approved in other states with good child labor laws. Sixty hours per week or ten hours in any one day is the maximum number of hours of labor allowed any person under sixteen years; or be- fore the hour of seven o'clock in the morning, or after seven o'clock in the evening, except on Saturday and on ten days prior to Christmas. Local Conditions and Facilities for Enforcement of Laws. Child labor and child loafing both exist in Minnesota. It is not possible at present to secure accurate statistics. All that can be said is that truant officers and factory inspectors are constantly finding them. Some evade the law under cover of change of residence ; others are lost because of lack of co- operation of private schools in efforts to trace them. Minnesota has no school census. It is believed that when such a census is provided, better results may be accomplished. The state provides a Bureau of Labor as follows: Section i. How Constituted — Terms — Employees. — The Bureau of Labor, Industries and Commerce shall consist of a commissioner of labor, as assis- tant commissioner and a statistician, and shall have its office in the capitol. The commissioner shall be appointed by the governor, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, for a term ending on the first Monday of January in the odd numbered year next ensuing. The two other members shall be appointed for like terms by the commissioners, but all the mem- bers shall hold office until their respective successors qualify. The commis- sioner shall also appoint, and at pleasure remove, three deputy commis- sioners, five factory inspectors, five assistant factory inspectors, and such other employees as may be necessary, and for whose compensation provi- sion is made by law. Two of the said factory inspectors shall act as inspec- tors of railroads. The factory inspectors and the assistant factory inspec- tors must be persons possessed of practical experience and knowledge in and of the operation of factories, and the appointment of any not so quali- fied shall be void. The commissioner shall be the head of the Bureau, and may assign any other member or employee thereof to any duty imposed thereon by law. The total number of cases investigated by the factory inspectors while acting as truant officers for the several school boards, was 684 (From September, 1908, to January, 1909.) Their work was done in seventeen cities of the state. l86 Reports from Child Labor Committees The disposition of cases was as follows : Returned to school 423 Granted employment certificates 93 Moved out of district 35 Excused by school board 66 Excused for illness, doctor's certificate 26 Over sixteen years of age 17 Attending private schools 21 Graduates of eighth grade 2 Committed to state school I 684 During the fall term the superintendents of schools issued 935 permits to work to children under sixteen. One year ago 1045 were issued in the same period, making a reduction of no, or 10.5 per cent. Canvass of Organizations and Organization of State Committee. Lists were procured so far as possible of organizations throughout the state interested in any way in the welfare of children. As a basis of organi- zation, a circular letter was sent out to these organizations in which it was proposed to form a State Child Labor Committee to be composed of delegates from other organizations. The result was that November 15th, twenty-eight delegates in meeting assembled decided to form a Mirmesota Child Labor Committee. The first meeting of the Executive Committee occurred January IS. 1909- A Committee has been appointed to formulate a plan for securing and issuing labor scholarships. The Minnesota Committee is in cordial sympathy with the work of the National Committee. Resolutions in support of the bill, asking for a Federal Children's Bureau and for the observance of Child Labor Day, have been offered, and it is the ambition of the local Committee to attain such strength and power that it may be worthy of the responsibility imposed upon it by its membership in the National Committee. Meta Jackson Barnard, Secretary. THE CHILDREN'S PROTECTIVE ALLIANCE OF MISSOURI. The legislative work of the Missouri Committee, which is organized under the name of the Executive Committee of the Children's Protective Alliance of Missouri, has been largely delegated this year to the Committee for Social Legislation, a grouping of various organizations interested in social betterment through improved statutes, upon the managing board of which the Alliance is largely represented. The Social Legislation Committee has secured the introduction of eleven bills, which constitute its special pro- gram for the present session; of these, six provide for modifications in the Reports from Child Labor Committees 187 child labor and the compulsory school attendance laws of the state. The pro- posed provisions are as follows: First. To make the child labor act applicable throughout the state, instead of only in cities of more than ten thousand inhabitants. Second. To make compulsory attendance obligatory under the age of fourteen for the whole, instead of one-half, the school year, in all parts of the state. Third. To strike out the poverty exemption clause from the Compulsory attendance law. Fourth. To submit a constitutional amendment removing the present age restrictions on public education in cities of fifty thousand inhabitants and over. Fifth. To put the factory inspector's office on a salary basis, in place of the fee system. Sixth. To prohibit boys under ten and girls under sixteen from selling newspapers or other articles in streets and public places in cities of more than fifty thousand inhabitants, and to prohibit boys under fourteen from doing business on the streets between 10 p. m. and S a. m. The first of these amendments in the Child Labor law is made necessary by the action of the last Legislature in limiting the applicability of the law to cities having a population of more than ten thousand. This was done in the closing days of the session at the instance of Mr. A. A. Speer, a mem- ber of the House of Representatives, after the bill had passed both Houses. The Committee, believing that Mr. Speer's purpose in wishing to amend the bill of 1907 was reasonable, though the method and the result were unfortu- nate, requested Mr. Speer himself, who is this year Speaker of the House, to introduce the bill repealing the restriction, but meeting in other ways the objections to which his action had been due. This Mr. Speer very cordially agreed to do, the bill being the only one which, as Speaker, he has introduced during the session. The new bill, besides forbidding the employment of chil- dren under fourteen- in factories, mills, laundries, foundries, theatres and stores, in which more than ten persons are employed, also prohibits the em- ployment of such children in any gainful occupation whatever during the hours in which the public schools are in session. The regulations respecting hours of labor, certificates and dangerous trades remain as in the present law. All of the bills, with the possible exception of that concerning the fac- tory inspector's office, seem likely to pass without much difficulty. The fac- tory inspection amendments meet more opposition, but the committee hopes also to convince the General Assembly of the necessity of the proposed changes (which will involve some expense to the state treasury) in order to give real eflSciency to the enforcement of the labor laws. A. O. Love JOY, Chairman. i88 Reports from Child Labor Committees NEBRASKA CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE. Under the operation of the child labor law in Nebraska, with superin- tendents of schools handling the issue of schooling and age certificates (which are the permits to work) less than 700 such permits were issued up to the close of the school year in 1908. The law went into effect on March I, 1907. Most of these permits were issued in Omaha and South Omaha, naturally, as the large establishments likely to employ children are located most numerously in those two cities. Lincoln followed in number issued, while in the state outside the permits were very few in number. This condition exists in Nebraska: The attorneys of many of the larger factories, and of the packing houses advised against taking any chances with the law, and as a consequence some boys were discharged whose employ- ment was not really a violation of the spirit of the law. Only in a few cases, comparatively, was stubbornness exhibited in continuing to employ children illegally after fair warning. Barring the Greek boys who are farmed as shoe shiners, court prosecution was not resorted to, except incident- ally. We met the Greeks in court, and they virtually defeated us. Those who watched the cases carefully became convinced that the Greek plan of cam- paign had been mapped out before the boys left the old country. On the first trial some of them, talking out of court, admitted they were not quite fifteen. Next day, on the stand, they were all sixteen or over, and when the case threatened to become serious, all were seventeen or over. A great many insisted they had come into the country with their fathers, but in a big majority of the cases the father had "gone back to the old country." The State Labor Commissioner took part in investigating and attempting to prosecute these cases, and a special agent of the United States govern- ment also took a hand; but the latter seemed as much at a loss how to reach and remedy the evil as the local authorities. However, the hearings had a good effect, at least for the time being. A continual excuse of merchants who need messengers and boys for other purposes about stores, is that we permit under-age Greeks to work, but will not allow American boys to do so. Up to this time the plan of having school superintendents issue permits, under the direction of the State Labor Bureau, has worked very satisfac- torily. The retiring labor commissioner reports that he found it unnecessary to issue even one permit over the heads of the superintendents, although he did advise the issue of perhaps half a dozen where superintendents were in doubt. A peculiar and gratifying development of the operation of a group of correlated laws in Nebraska (child labor law, compulsory education law, and Juvenile Court law) has been a great lessening of the commitments to the reform schools for boys and girls, especially the former. The retiring superintendent of the Nebraska Industrial School, Mr. Sherman, has re- ported that the number of boys sent to that institution has been decreasing so steadily that, if it continues, there will be no use for at least one of the buildings. Reports from Child Labor Committees i8g Two of the volunteer inspectors provided for under the Nebraska law- have aided very effectively in having its provisions carried out. These two are Rev. James Wise, of South Omaha, Chairman of the Board of Inspec- tors, and Mrs. Draper Smith, of Omaha. The three other inspectors have been such in name only, two of them being located where there was no call for their services, in small rural towns, the third evincing no interest after being appointed by Governor Sheldon. An effort is to be made to have in- spectors located hereafter in towns where their services are very likely to be needed. There are several such towns in the state outside of Omaha and Lincoln. On the whole, it can be asserted without fear of contradiction that Nebraska is quite free from abuses of child labor, with the possible ex- ception of the messenger service. Employers have been commendably willing to obey the spirit of the law. The law here can be regarded as mainly preventive, a closing of the door on possible danger in the future. John J. Ryder, Secretary. NEW YORK CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE. The New York Committee has had a year full of activity, and is pleased at this time to report considerable progress. By far the most im- portant gain has been the enactment of legislation to place the inspection of department stores and all other mercantile establishments under a new bureau established in the State Department of Labor. This marks the end of a twelve-year struggle against powerful mercantile interests. The cam- paign attending the passage of this measure was the hardest fought since the radical amendments were obtained to the child labor laws in 1903. The chief credit for the victory is due Commissioner of Labor, Hon. John Williams. The New York Committee, the National Child Labor Committee, and a number of other organizations were unceasing in their support of his efforts to secure the enactment of this bill. As but three months have elapsed since the new Mercantile Bureau was organized in the Department of Labor, it is too soon perhaps to judge of its permanent effectiveness. However, the Committee feels an important piece of work has already been accomplished since the law went into effect October ist last. This bureau, with but eight inspectors for the three largest cities of the State — New York, Buffalo and Rochester — made ap- proximately 2100 inspections and found a few over 1000 children working illegally during the last quarter of 1908. Thirty-five prosecutions have been instituted against employers violating the law. From these results we are confident that children working in department stores, small mercantile es- tablishments, and for telegraph companies, will receive much greater pro- tection from the law during the coming year than ever before. The work of the Department of Labor in its inspection of factories has shown very substantial progress. Illegal child labor, which in igo6 represented twenty-seven per cent, of all children employed and in 1907, IQO Reports from Child Labor Committees seventeen per cent., during 1908 has been still further reduced to thirteen and eight-tenths per cent. Fines, as a result of prosecutions by this department during the year ending September 30, 1908, amounted to $4455— an increase of $1745 over the previous year, and fourteen times that of 1903. The issuance of "working papers" has received more attention from the Committee than ever before. This is explained by the fact that in New York City alone, 23,000 children received employment certificates during 1908. In Buffalo and Rochester the number was 2800 and 1059 respectively. An agent, placed at the Committee's expense in the Manhattan office of the Department of Health, New York City, where employment certificates are issued, had done very effective work in helping parents find satisfactory evidence of age for children otherwise unable to present such proof. More important, however, has been the opportunity thus afforded the Committee to observe constantly the law's actual enforcement. It has also been possible, through this channel, to suggest important improvements towards making more effective the administration of the law. A concrete example of the work done may be seen from this illustration. It was found that many children were unable to obtain a transcript of their birth record from the Bureau of Vital Statistics, although their parents insisted that the birth of such children had been properly registered. It was suspected that this was due to lack of thoroughness on the part of the clerk who examines the records, partly through failing to look up the name under a slight variation in spelling often existing among foreign-born children. The agent accordingly secured the use of a duplicate set of the index books of these records. As a result, in a period of about eight months, entries were discovered of the birth of over two hundred children whose names had not been found by the department clerk. With such evidence it was a simple matter to go to the higher officials and to secure better atten- tion to this subject. The presence in the office of such an agent has brought about greater regularity in testing the education of the children by the reading and writing test prescribed in the law. Some improvement in watching the physical fitness of children applying for certificates is another outcome of the presence of this agent. This kind of co-operation has proved so acceptable to the officials, and the results so satisfactory, that another agent has recently been appointed by the Committee to carry on the same work in Brooklyn. Last summer the secretary visited thirty cities throughout the State to observe the workings of this law. Rochester was found to be the only one giving serious attention to the physical fitness of children desir- ing employment certificates. The investigation revealed a considerable number of officials who failed (usually through ignorance) to enforce properly these important provisions. The most common irregularities noted in the issuance of "working papers" were the failure to test the education of children by a reading and writing test, and the acceptance of parents' affidavits as sole evidence of age when other proof could not be produced. Many officials, however, were exercising due vigilance. In some cases the work was being conducted under laws three and four years old, the authorities learning with surprise of recent amendments. As a result of the investigation, a better compliance with the law is expected during the coming year. Reports from Child Labor Committees 191 Improvement is to be recorded in the enforcement of the law regulating the sale of newspapers by young boys in cities of the first and second class. This is particularly noticeable in New York, Rochester and Troy, where badges indicating that the holders are legally licensed to sell papers, are beginning to be more generally worn by newsboys. In New York, consider- able was accomplished during the first two weeks of the present school term by the assignment of fifty truant officers to enforce this law. The Committee feels that the present squad of four men permanently assigned to this work is too small, and hopes to bring about an increase in the near future. Our child labor scholarships, established in 1905, have been continued. These are for the purpose of meeting the criticism frequently heard — that hardship would result to many families by cutting off, through the law's enforcement, the child's contribution to the family income. Last year, out of 320 applications, only 84 scholarships were granted. The balance repre- sented instances where, after a careful home investigation, there appeared to be no need of outside financial assistance, or ones which required special treatment, such as advice as to how to obtain "working papers", temporary relief in the form of shoes and clothing, or help towards securing work for older members of the family. The cost of this work last year was ap- proximately $4000, contributed by friends of the Committee. At the present session of the legislature, it is expected that a number of important amendments to existing laws will be introduced, which will receive the support of the Committee. Among them will be a bill to extend the factory law so as to cover clearly the employment of women and children in the sheds adjoining the canneries, and one with reference to the employ- ment of children in dangerous occupations. The Committee has now in progress an investigation of the employment of boys in bowling alleys — a phase of child labor in New York State not yet covered by law. As in the past years, co-operation has been accorded Health Departments, Schools Boards, the State Department of Labor and many civic organizations. A beginning has been made to extend the work of the Committee to the larger cities throughout the State, through conferences in Buffalo and Rochester, and by adding to the Committee a representative from each of these cities. While a look ahead reveals much remaining to be done, the Committee feels not a little encouraged over conditions as they now exist with respect to children who work in New York State. George A. Hall, Secretary. NORTH DAKOTA CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE. At the call of the National Child Labor Committee, a number of Grand Forkers met at the Hotel Dacotah on Monday evening, October 26, 1908, to discuss the feasibility of forming a Child Labor Committee in North Dakota. It was the sense of the meeting that while we have practically 192 Reports from Child Labor Committees no child labor problem in the state, it would be wise to guard against a day when we would have one, and that as such an organization would be of assistance to the National Committee, we should organize. Dr. John M. Gillette was chosen President, and Elizabeth Abbott, Sec- retary-Treasurer. Power was given to the President to appoint a general Committee of thirty, from which Committee an Executive Committee of seven was to be appointed. To date there have been three meetings of the Executive Committee and one of the general. The result is that at the present meeting of the State Legislature, a bill is to be presented modeled on the bill recommended by the National Child Labor Committee. Elizabeth Abbott, Secretary-Treasurer. OHIO CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE. ■ Since the last annual convention of the National Committee, the Ohio Committee has been reorganized, an executive board of ten members having been appointed to take charge of the Committee's affairs, and this board has already taken up actively the consideration of the need of the child labor situation in this state. By special arrangement with the National Committee, every resident of Ohio who contributes financially to the National Child Labor Committee becomes, ipso facto, a member of the Ohio Child Labor Committee without additional expense, and by agreement a portion of such contributions is reserved for the use of the Ohio Committee. The new Ohio law which took effect on the first of last July, is working satisfactorily and its constitutionality has already been upheld by the Common Pleas Court and Court of Appeals in Cleveland, in a case brought by the Department of Factory Inspection for violation of the eight-hour provision. The Legislature last Spring also passed a bill providing State relief for poverty stricken families to enable them to keep their children in school until they are qualified to go to work in accordance with the requirements of the State child labor law. This law provides that a truant officer shall report to the local board of education every case of a child of compulsory school age whose earnings are needed to support either himself or others dependent upon his earnings ; and it then becomes the duty of the president of the board to furnish free text books to the child and such other relief to the family as may be necessary to enable it to keep the child in school. The money for such relief is to be paid out of the contingent funds of the school district. This provision makes the child labor and compulsory education laws harmonious in their bearing upon the factor of poverty and makes it unnecessary for private organizations to undertake the work of providing such relief in this State. In the city of Cincinnati, the board of education has arranged with the local Associated Charities to have such cases as are reported by the truant officers properly investigated by the social workers of this organization and the relief will be paid only in the event of its being recommended by the Associated Charities. Reports from Child Labor Committees 193 The State law does not provide protection for children engaged in street trades except for messengers and delivery boys. The newsboys, boot- blacks and children who work in the markets are not restricted in their labor, except in so far as the compulsory education law applies to them. The Executive Board of the Ohio Committee is considering the advisability of regulating the work of children in the various street trades in Cincinnati by municipal ordinance, and has drafted a proposed measure with the intention of urging the City Council to put it in force. Albert H. Freiberg, Chairman. WARREN (OHIO) CHILD LABOR LEAGUE. Thus far the Committee has confined its attention to local conditions. Its Investigating Committee acts, for the most part, through the superin- tendent of the public schools and the truant officer. Few cases of minors illegally at work have been found. The officials themselves consider that the Committee has stimulated them to greater alertness and activity, and the employer to a more careful observance of the child labor laws. Per- haps this is the most valuable work of the Committee. An excellent truant officer and an equally excellent humane officer have usually been able to secure aid from the proper authorities without our help, for the few children who need such aid in order to remain in sctool. Phebe T. Sutliff, Chairman. CHILD LABOR COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF OREGON. The child labor work in Oregon for the past year has been of steady upward growth. The enforcement is in the hands of a commission of five — three of whom are women. The law makes no provision for salaries or even for the expenses of the work. Curiously, Oregon, so advanced in the spirit of the law, has systematically remained silent on this point. At each ses- sion of the Legislature, an effort is made to provide for the expenses of the work but through some curious combination of circumstances, the conscience of the Ways and Means Committee has not yet responded to needs of the Child Labor Commission. Oregon tries to believe that it has no child labor, yet a glance at the following list will soon prove the contrary. We find children under the age of sixteen in the following factories: candy, cracker, tin can, rope, wire, broom, bag, bolt, box — ^both paper and wooden — chair, found- ries, gum, glass, fruit canneries, cigar; in stores of every description; mes- senger service, offices, in hotels and boarding houses. We have noted the steady growth also, of the tendency to "fit the child to the machine" as far as it could be done, and still remain within the law. In several factories in Portland, where we find the largest number of children employed, we 194 Reports from Child Labor Committees have seen each year the younger age of the operators at certain machines. Three years ago the workers were women; a year later, they were girls over sixteen years of age, and last year, they were girls just over the legal age of fourteen. Were it not for the fact that the Oregon law forbids the em- ployment of children under the age of fourteen in factories, we have not the least doubt that we should find next year, children of still younger age at these machines. Within the past year we have issued 850 age and schooling certificates to children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen who have passed beyond the 6a grade in school — the majority of the applicants are below the sev- enth grade. This is too large a number for a city the size of Portland with her progressive ideas, her boasted wealth and culture. Our law has also a vacation clause which permits children between the ages of twelve and fourteen to be employed during the summer vacation, at any employment not injurious to the health or the morals of the child. It is as yet a difficult thing to convince our people that the vacation time should be summer time and play time for the children at that most critical period of their lives; and to silence the criticism which for a time threat- ened the life of the law itself, the Commission yielded to misguided public opinion, and permits are granted to children to work in the fruit canneries. The work is not continuous as in the factories of the first group, but if we would believe the testimony of women who have worked in them, the moral influences are bad. Wherever men and women, half-grown girls and boys work in the same rooms, there seems to be a lax code prevalent, and the children unconsciously absorb this atmosphere. There is a growing spirit of co-operation between the school authorities and the child labor workers that is most encouraging. There is occasionally a teacher or a principal who thoughtlessly recommends to the tender mercies of the factory or department store, the boy or girl with whom he has failed. We do not believe this spirit is confined to Oregon, and it is to be deplored that the schools do not fully realize that children who leave school at the fifth or the sixth grade because "they have lost interest" or "are not doing well in school and might just as well be working" are a reproach to the school system and to the teacher who has turned them out. The child is handicapped and the school and the teacher discredited. Few children at the age of fourteen are able to earn enough to make the sacrifice worth while, even if the economic factor were the main consideration. We have also had a closer, heartier co-operation on the part of the Juve- nile Court, due to a larger appreciation of the influence of environment over the destinies of the child that factory, store and workshop do not exert; the restraining, refining, constructive influences that are to be desired. Again, also, have they realized that many of the children who were so bravely "earn- ing their own way" when child nature demanded play instead, have found their way to the Reform School. We have not had, however, the help most needed from our Juvenile Court people in the matter of the theatre cases. This conflict of opinion has resulted in the passage of a law taking the Reports from Child Labor Committees 195 stage children from under the jurisdiction of the Child Labor Commission and placing them under the Judge of the Juvenile Court. The Child Labor Commission contends that exploitation of children is exploitation whether the child sings sacred songs on a concert tour through the country, or comic opera or rag time in vaudeville. The Juvenile Court on the other hand be- lieves that "if in the artistic development of a play, a child were needed, no law should stand in the way" — analogous to the spirit of the old-time legend that gave to the bell a sweeter tone if the body of an innocent child were sacrificed to the molten metal. We are, perhaps, extreme in our view that in work for children, the child himself must be the central thought — not the convenience of the family, the school, the probation officer, or even the play- wright, but at present we seem to belong to the minority as far as Oregon is concerned. We are not expected to moralize, however, in these reports, but to note the points of strength and of weakness in our laws and in their enforcei ment. The weakest point of the Oregon law is in the "age clause" of the child. Parents will swear falsely. We have arbitrarily demanded that the age given by the parent on the age and schooling certificate shall corre- spond with the age given several months previously to the school on the census form. Failing this, in the case of a foreign-born child, we demand the passport, birth or baptismal papers. At the close of each school year in June we gather up the census forms from the city schools and as each child presents himself for his permit with the parent he is checked up on his census form. In this way we have prevented many cases of false swearing. On every hand, is the improvement in the messenger service noted — the boys are older and the service better, and there are fewer messenger boys going to the Reform School. We cannot close this report without sounding a note of grief. The greatest hindrance to the effective enforcement of child labor laws lies not with the poor, the ignorant, or even with the greedy employer, but with the educated man and woman, the superficial thinker, the sentimental classes who are deprived of an evening's entertainment through the law, or whose purses are directly or indirectly affected. They make no effort to find the real history of each case — form their opinions from the sentimental gush of some newspaper reporter, and count of no value whatever, the expe- rience of the workers who have given years of service to the cause — indeed, our latest compliment from a well known clergyman in our midst was as follows : "With respect to our own child labor laws, one cannot but regret the fanatical view regarding their administration that some of our Port- land people have. The interference with the public performance of talented children where a price of admission is charged, or otherwise, is a sample of the intemperate and indiscriminating tendency." In the case above re- ferred to the Commission refused to allow a well-known concert company of boys ranging from ten to fourteen years of age to appear in Oregon, holding to the view — possibly "intemperate and indiscriminating" — that the law applied to all children alike. It was due to this element, and to the 196 Reports from Child Labor Committees interference of a Juvenile Court Judge of national reputation, from another state, that the first entering wedge has been driven in the Oregon law. These we feel are the greater enemies of the work and it is to these that the National Child Labor Committee should direct some of its attention. The workers themselves must be thoroughly grounded in the fundamentals, or they are too easily turned aside from their ideals by individual cases. I plead this for the sake of the cause lest Oregon's experience with her stage children may furnish a painful precedent for other states. We have not dared to touch the newsboy problem as yet, although we are constantly censured for not taking the "baby newsboy" off the streets. This comes more directly under the Juvenile Court until our child labor law shall have a section covering it. We had hoped to provide for this de- structive class of child labor at this session, but our experience with the theatres, and distrust of the Legislature, said "hands off". As long as pub- lic opinion is willing to sacrifice hundreds of children so that we may have an occasional genius, we must wait for public opinion to change its tone before attempting any radical legislation along this line. We must have our ideals high, and hold to them, but we must not forget that public opinion is a capricious, hysterical dame who loses her poise when her pocketbook is affected, or her sympathies touched. Millie R. Trumbull, Secretary. THE PENNSYLVANIA CHILD LABOR ASSOCIATION. Since the report made in April, 1908, the local child labor organizations in Pittsburg and Philadelphia have federated under the name of the Pennsyl- vania Child Labor Association. Local branches have been organized in other cities and during the fall months an active campaign of education was carried on in preparation for the introduction of two child labor bills which have the following for their purpose : 1. To require proof that children are fourteen years old before they shall be allowed to work. 2. To place the issuance of employment certificates in the hands of school officials. 3. To raise the age for work in soft coal mines from twelve to fourteen. 4. To allow only a ten-hour day for children under sixteen years of age. 5. To prohibit all forms of night work for children under sixteen years of age. The Federation of Women's Clubs, Mothers' Congress, the Consumers' League and various local organizations are all co-operating to this end. Eleven different types of literature have been distributed, some in 30,000 quantities, bearing upon the issues of the campaign. The prospects are encouraging for a bill which will stop parental perjury and give school officials the issuance of certificates, but determined opposition has already Reports from Child Labor Committees 197 shown itself to the ten-hour day and the abolition of night-work provisions in our second bill. Another court decision — the fourth within four years — has overthrown an additional part of the existing child labor law. This, however, only makes the passage of our bills more necessary. Feed S. Hall, Secretary. ALLEGHENY COUNTY (PA.) CHILD LABOR ASSOCIATION. The Chairman of the Legislative Committee of the Child Labor Asso- ciation of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, has authorized me to make the following report of the work done by this Association : Since April, 1908, the Association has been occupied mainly in working in co-operation with the Pennsylvania Child Labor Association in framing bills to be presented to the Legislature now in session. Since December ist, active measures have been taken to create public opinion throughout the district and in organizing the work here. The services of a directing secre- tary have been secured to extend the work. Alida Lattimore, Directing Secretary. THE RHODE ISLAND JOINT COMMITTEE ON CHILD LABOR. The Joint Committee on Child Labor — formed in Rhode Island in January, 1908, and composed of representatives of local educational and philanthropic societies, as well as sub-committees of the Rhode Island State Child Labor Committee — is continuing during the present winter its active campaign for an improved child labor law. A bill amending the law in four particulars was introduced in the assembly in 1908. It passed the House, but failed of passage in the Senate. A bill similar in its provisions has been introduced this year and is now in the hands of the Senate committee on special legislation. A public hearing on the bill is promised within a few days. Meanwhile the Rhode Island State Federation of Women's Clubs has published a simplified statement of the present Factory Inspection Law of the state, which con- trols the labor conditions of the women and children, and has also supple- mented the statement with the amendments proposed to the present law and the reasons why such amendments are deemed wise and practicable, asking each member of the Federation to bring these amendments and the arguments in their favor to the attention of their local representatives in our assembly. The Committee is hoping for the successful passage this year of these four amendments : — ist. 7 p. m. instead of 8 p. m. shall end the day's work for children under sixteen years of age in all factories, manufacturing or business establishments. 2d. The privilege now held by mercantile establish- ments of keeping children under sixteen years of age late on Saturday nights and for the four days preceding Christmas shall be withdrawn. 3d. An 198 Reports from Child Labor Committees educational test, viz., the ability to read and write simple sentences in Eng- lish, before granting working certificates to children under sixteen years of age. 4th. The employer of a child who claims to be sixteen years of age but whose appearance causes the factory inspector to doubt it, shall be re- quired to furnish satisfactory proof of the claim. Mrs. Carl Barxjs, Chairman. CITIZENS' CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE, WASHINGTON, D. C. A law for the regulation of child labor in the District of Columbia was passed by the National Congress and approved by the President on May 28th, of last year. This law is the result of three and a half years' effort on the part of the National Committee and of the local Committee organized at the suggestion of the National Committee. The law as passed contains some features which were opposed by the friends of the measure, but which finally had to be accepted. The measure was passed practically in the shape recommended by the National and local Committees, with several sections added which regulated street trading on the lines of the New York law. A proviso was inserted by the Senate permitting the judge of the Juvenile Court to exempt children under the limit of fourteen years, but over twelve years of age, if they were the support of dependent relatives. Unfortunately the appropriation bill as passed by Congress contained no provision for the inspectors authorized by the act. The Commissioners of the District did the best they could under the circumstances by detailing two policemen for this duty, and these officers are engaged in filling these positions at the present time. Owing to the lack of appropriations, it was not possible to announce the enforcement of the law until August first of last year, and even then, the first month was taken up in the preliminary work of explaining the provisions of the law to dilatory employers and parents. The actual enforcement of the law therefore took place about the first of September, 1908. The following report on the effect of the law refers only to the four months ending December 31st, 1908. For this period, the most important event has been the work of pro- viding the children with age and schooling certificates. The law provides that these certificates shall be issued by the school board and experience seems to show that for this jurisdiction the school authorities are best qualified to perform this duty. The age of children is secured for school purposes some time before the question of employment arises and is there- fore likely to be reported correctly. By requiring each applicant for an employment certificate to bring with him his last school report, the officials are enabled to secure immediate information on the point of educational qualifications. For the greater part of the applicants — approximately ninety per cent, of the whole number — the school authorities are thereby in a position to decide immediately as to the age and educational qualifications of the children seeking employment certificates. In addition to these two points, the board of education took the commendable action of detailing Reports from Child Labor Committees 199 two of the school medical inspectors to the work of examining each child who applied for a certificate. While the physical examination was neces- sarily somewhat restricted, each of the 3200 children was examined as to heart, lungs, spinal curvature and general physical development. Although certificates were refused on account of poor physique in but few cases, a number of provisional certificates were issued, such as certificates per- mitting only outside work in cases of children having weak lungs, etc. The problem of securing proper evidence of age in the case of children who had not been recently in attendance at the schools, has proved a source of considerable difficulty. In the first place, registration of births in this city has been strictly enforced only during the last few years, so that the records of the board of health have been of little assistance. In the second place, few of the children possess baptismal or other church certificates containing information as to age. The result is that for the great majority of the children not possessing school records, the oath of the parent or guardian as to the age of the child has to be accepted. Such evidence is frankly conceded by the administrative officials to be of little value, but in such cases the only course open has been followed — namely to emphasize the educational test and the examination by the school physician. The effect of the exemption clause in the law, which reduced the age limit from fourteen to twelve in cases of poverty, has been observed with especial interest because the census of 1900 showed that approximately one-third of the child bread-winners of this city were orphans. The power to make exemptions is vested in the Juvenile Court. The head of that court has shown a full appreciation of the importance of this phase of the problem, and has granted such exemptions only after the need of the child's earnings has been clearly established. In view of this fact, it may be said that the harm of the exemption clause has been restricted to a minimum. The number of children under sixteen years of age who have received employment certificates is as follows: Street trading certificates, 1700; general employment certificates, 1478. The working children, according to these figures, constitute approximately one per cent, of the total population, and approximately ten per cent, of the total number of children under sixteen years of age. Henry J. Harris, Secretary. WISCONSIN CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE. Wisconsin child labor conditions are not materially changed since re- ported upon in the spring of 1908. The biennial session of the Wisconsin Legislature is just beginning and several amendments will be offered to the child labor law, as amended by the legislature of 1907. It has been a custom in Wisconsin, and we think a wise custom, to allow a child labor law, when radically amended, to be tested for four years without important amendments by the intervening legislature, that the law may be given a chance to demonstrate its useful- 200 Ref'orts from Child Labor Committees ness and its weak points. That plan will be followed this year and it is hoped that there may be an improvement in the educational test by a re- quirement of a teacher's certificate. At present the burden is thrown upon the officers granting the permit to test the child's knowledge of English. This is wrong in principle and works out inconveniently in practice. The factory inspector's office, upon which much of the work of granting permits falls, requests that a teacher's certificate, as to education, should be required be- fore permit is given. It is hoped that the legislature will improve the law in various minor but important details. Very little harm has apparently resulted under the "perishable goods clause," on which report was made in 1908, because of a strict construction of the act by the attorney general's department, and perhaps because there have been many prosecutions; but the clause is thoroughly bad in principle and condemned by experience in other states. We hope that it will be struck out of the law this winter. As to the fifty-five hour clause, the testimony of those who know is that it is working well and that on the whole it is being faithfully obeyed and that it is not resulting, as it has in some other states, in children working sixty hours a week instead of fifty-five. We trust the time will come, and speedily, when Wisconsin can have a ninehour day. There is increasing dissatisfaction felt with the exemption of news- boys from the general operation of the child labor law and a growing feeling that there should be a special newsboys' and street trades act along the line of the acts in New York and Massachusetts. It is hoped that a law of this kind may be passed at the present session of the Legislature. Under the Wisconsin law of 1907, the number of permits issued to children under sixteen has been reduced to about thirty-five per cent. This is a striking feature in view of the great demand for children's work. In addition to the possible reduction of child labor because of the financial stringency (not always operating largely to reduce child labor) the reduc- tion in the number of permits issued results from the dangerous employ- ment clause of the law of 1907, which we believe to be one of the most thorough and complete of its kind in the United States, and because of the increasing strictness in issuing permits, especially in the factory inspector's office, where probably much more than half of the permits of the state are issued. The most striking recent feature of the child labor situation in Wiscon- sin is the increasing demand for young girls' work in factories, including tanneries, and there are many instances reported where men have been re- placed by girls and often by girls between fourteen and sixteen. We have grown accustomed to the demand for girls in household work and the fact that it was hard to fill that demand, but it is a newer feature of the situation to have a demand for young girls in factories which is in excess of the supply. The factory inspector's office asks for two more assistant factory in- spectors and they seem to be thoroughly needed. In closing it should be said that the cause of child labor in Wisconsin Reports from Child Labor Committees 201 is greatly helped, especially in Milwaukee County, by the increasing efficiency of the work of the probation officers in the Juvenile Court and by the most helpful work of the truancy department of the public schools. Experience has shown that the best results can only be obtained when child labor. Juvenile Court and compulsory education laws are kept as nearly as possible at an equal state of efficiency so that each may help the other in handling its peculiar problems. Edwakd W. Frost, Chairman. REPORTS FROM THE SOUTHERN STATES. Virginia. The age limit for the employment of children in factories went to thirteen in Virginia the first of January, igog, and will reach the standard of fourteen in January, igio. Virginia has also a rudimentary compulsory attendance law which should help the cause of child labor reform when both laws can be enforced. The principal need in Virginia is factory inspection. North Carolina. The North Carolina Child Labor Committee met early in January and agreed to press for two or three changes in the present child labor law : — the shortening of the hours from sixty-six a week to sixty, the raising of the age limit for night work from fourteen to sixteen and the provision for a factory inspector under the Bureau of Labor. A bill has been intro- duced by Representative J. W. Hinsdale, of Raleigh, going farther than these proposals in the line of child labor reform, but the result is problem- atical. I note that the Committee of Manufactures and Labor, of the Senate, is composed mainly of cotton mill owners, and any bill that gets through the Senate must be passed in spite of an unfavorable report from this Committee, or must be subjected to their tender mercies by way of amendment. A large lobby, of fifty manufacturers, is urging, in Raleigh, the defeat of the Hinsdale bill. Nevertheless, some advance may be gained. At present the commissioner of labor has no authority to enter a factory for inspection, though it is to be hoped that the new commissioner will do something more for the enforcement of the child labor law than his prede- cessor did. South Carolina. The South Carolina Legislature is also in session. One or more amend- ments have been offered to the child labor bill, and a compulsory school attendance bill has also been introduced. As already noted, the cotton manu- facturers have said they will not object to the raising of the age limit to fourteen, if the compulsory attendance bill is passed, but I have heard of no great activity for the passage of the latter measure, which they claim to have been favoring for years. I understand that an amendment forbidding 202 Reports from Child Labor Committees night work for children under sixteen will not be objected to, as there is very little night work in South Carolina. I have described elsewhere^ how flagrantly the present child labor laws are being violated in both the Carolinas without factory inspection. Governor Ansel, in South Carolina, as did Retiring-Governor Glenn and Governor Kitchin, in North Carolina, advo- cated the initiation of a factory inspection system in their messages to the legislature. Florida. The Florida Legislature meets in March. Preparations are being made by the labor unions, the women's clubs and other organizations standing for the cause of the working children, to raise the age limit in Florida from twelve to fourteen, and to make the law more effective in other ways. Tennessee. The principal need now felt in Tennessee is greater authority for the factory inspector and better provisions of law relating to sanitary and safety appliances. These measures, which, I understand, are already being advo- cated by the labor unions, are to be pressed to a conclusion with the help of the Tennessee Child Labor Committee. The Legislature is now in session. Georgia. The Georgia Legislature meets in June. The Georgia Child Labor Committee has been contending for some time for the sixty hour week, the repeal of the exemption clause of the present child labor law, and the inauguration of factory inspection. It is hoped that these efforts will be successful at the approaching session of the Legislature. Alabama. In Alabama we have only to note that the recent law has not been enforced owing partly to the long illness, followed by death, of the factory inspector. Dr. Shirley Bragg. His successor has recently been appointed. Dr. Thomas G. Bush, and a new chief mine inspector, Edward Flynn. It is hoped that the new force will be able to carry out the provisions of the inspection law and that there will result a more careful observance of the child labor law. Mississippi. One of the amusing things about the Mississippi situation is the attitude of the manufacturers over the passage of what they call the "drastic" law forbidding children under twelve to work in factories and children under sixteen to work more than fifty-six hours a week or more than ten hours a day. At first they went into the newspapers with the threat to discharge all their employees under sixteen years of age. But as it had already been ascertained that twenty-five per cent, of the employees were under fourteen, See pp. 63-72. Reports from Child Labor Committees 203 this proposition was reconsidered. So the expedient has been adopted of keeping the actual time at which the doffer boys are at work, and letting the girl spinners come an hour later in the morning or leave an hour earlier in the evening. There is printed elsewhere in this volume an article by- Senator McDowell, author of the child labor law. The Mississippi Child Labor Committee has been a vigorous defender of the cause of child labor reform in the public press, and numbers among its members some of the most distinguished citizens of Mississippi. Louisiana. The fight for the passage of the best child labor law yet enacted in any Southern state is described in the article by Miss Jean M. Gordon, published in this volume. The passage of this law was mainly due to the persistent efforts of Miss Gordon, the state factory inspector of Louisiana. Texas. There is no organized effort as yet to amend the Texas Child Labor Law, especially as it has an age limit of sixteen in mines and there are compara- tively few factories where children are employed. The Texas Legislature is now in session, and I have been in correspondence with individual citizens with regard to raising the age limit in factories from twelve to fourteen. Arkansas. No report has been received from this state. Oklahoma. A new child labor bill has been introduced into the Oklahoma Legisla- ture, 'now in session. It has passed its second reading in the Senate, and, I understand, the Governor has agreed not to veto it this time. It is an excellent bill as it stands and it is hoped that Miss Kate Barnard, the Com- missioner of Charities, will have her long and persistent fight for its passage rewarded with speedy victory. A. J. McKelway, Secretary for Southern States, National Child Labor Committee. Annual Report of the General Secretary of the National Child Labor Committee For the Fourth Fiscal Year, Ended September 30, ipo8. I. Legislation — State. In the fourth fiscal year important changes were made in the child labor laws of eight states: Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Virginia. The advance in standards of protection in Southern States is marked, notably the laws enacted in Kentucky and Louisiana. In Louisiana a four- teen-year age limit is established, with the prohibition of night work for boys under sixteen and girls under eighteen years. The Kentucky law removes the poverty exemption, which weakened the old law, and requires proof of age, lengthens the compulsory school year, limits the hours of labor and forbids night work of children under sixteen. The new laws in Mississippi and Virginia show a healthy appreciation of the importance of child pro- tection. A law was passed in Massachusetts limiting the hours of labor for women and children under eighteen to fifty-six per week. The law takes effect January i, 1910. New Jersey enacted a compulsory education law, requiring school atten- dance of all children between the ages of seven and seventeen, except that children of fifteen who have completed the grammar grades and are regularly employed may be excused. This places the age limit for employment during the school period at fifteen years. In New York a law was passed transferring the enforcement of the mercantile child labor law from local boards of health in cities of the first class to the State Labor Department, and providing for the creation of a bureau of mercantile inspection. This law became effective October ist. In Ohio an important measure was passed limiting the hours of labor for boys under sixteen and girls under eighteen to eight per day and forty- eight per week. This measure met earnest opposition from textile and shoe manufacturers, who contended that such a law would result in great hard- ship to industries and people because of interstate competition. Many of these manufacturers are adjusting their operations to comply with this law, and it is believed some of them will gladly co-operate in our eflforts to secure an equally high standard in other states. In Oklahoma a compulsory education bill and child labor bill were drafted by Dr. McKelway, who went to Oklahoma at the request of citizens of that state and by a special appropriation to cover his traveling expenses. The compulsory education bill was enacted. The child labor bill passed (204) Secretary's Annual Report 2o'3 the Senate by a vote of thirty-four to eight, and the House by a vote of seventy-nine to sixteen, but was vetoed by the Governor. Federal. The District of Columbia child labor bill, already presented in two ses- sions of Congress, was again urged by this Committee, and after some amend- ments, became law on May 28, 1908. The contention of many residents and certain Congressmen that no child labor existed in Washington was disproved by the number of applications for employment certificates immediately following the enactment of this law. Thirty-seven hundred and fifty-four children, at last report, had applied for employment certificates. Of these 3,579 were granted and fifty-four refused because lacking either in age or educational qualifications. The Committee gave hearty support to U. S. Commissioner of Education, Dr. Elmer E. Brown, in his effort to secure an appropriation of $40,000 for special investigations under the Bureau of Education, but the bill providing for this increased appropriation was denied by Congress. The bill to establish a Federal Children's Bureau was not actively urged, as it was deemed wise to concentrate our efforts in aiding the campaign of the Commissioner of Education. By action of the Board of Trustees on April 29, 1908, the Secretaries were instructed to use all diligence at the coming session of Congress in seeking the enactment of this measure. Since that date the members of this Committee and representatives of kindred organizations have been circularized in its behalf. II. Investigation. Extensive investigations have been carried on in Georgia, Mississippi, North and South Carolina and Virginia under the direction of Dr. McKelway ; in various parts of New England, especially in textile centers and the east coast of Maine, under the direction of Mr. Lord; in the glass, coal and mercantile industries and street trades of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and West Virginia under the direction of Mr. Clopper; and in Kansas, Missouri and Colorado by Mr. Morris. In the investigation of cotton mills in Mississippi, Dr. McKelway and his assistants reported 25 per cent of the cotton mill operatives under the age of fourteen and 50 per cent of the children under that age as illiterate. It was largely as a result of this investigation that Senator McDowell was able to secure the adoption of the child labor bill. The opposition to this measure was from a lobby of cotton manufacturers, who succeeded in reducing the age limit from fourteen to twelve, with a sixty-hour week for children under sixteen. The bill provides for factory inspection by the local authorities of each county. A tour of investigation through South Carolina mills revealed conditions similar to those in Mississippi with respect to the employment of children and the literacy of children employed. A similar investigation in Georgia showed somewhat better conditions, though laxness was discovered in the matter of issuing certificates , of literacy and school attendance. 2o6 Secretary's Anmud Report While the conditions revealed throughout the South indicate the need for vigorous legislative campaigns, there are more children at work in the fac- tories of North and South Carolina than in all the South besides. North Carolina still allows the sixty-six-hour week, and South Carolina allows all children of any age to enter the mills if they are children of dependent parents. Mr. Lord, the Secretary for New England, has made personal investigation of conditions in the cotton factories of Maine and New Hampshire and in the sardine canneries of Maine. He reports few children illegally employed in the cotton factories. He finds in the sardine canneries a very large number of young children, and conditions that warrant vigorous action to secure a law prohibiting their employment. Mr. Clopper, Secretary for the Ohio Valley States, has made an investiga- tion and presented a report pn children in the street trades of Cincinnati, and has traveled extensively through the mining and glass regions of Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia, securing information as to the operation of the present laws and the need for further legislation. The work of .forming state committees in Indiana and West Virginia progresses encouragingly, and the published results of the investigation should prove a valuable factor in the legislative changes these committees will seek in the coming winter. The work of Mr. Morris, special agent of the Committee, from July 15th to November isth, was begun in Kansas, and his field study has been made in the factory centers of Kansas and Western Missouri and in the beet-sugar fields of Western Kansas and Eastern Colorado. In those states, because of the predominance of native parentage, a healthy sentiment prevails as to the necessity for the education of children and aside from the beet fields the agricultural situation is good. In the beet fields it is becoming a common practice to employ young children for excessive hours and sometimes in large groups, resulting in the introduction of many of the objectionable features of factory employment. III. Research. On November i, 1907, a special appropriation of $500 was received to render available for the use of students the existing official information on child labor in America. Thus far the work has consisted in collating and indexing excerpts from annual reports of departments of labor and factory inspection and from state educational reports. A balance of $161.13 of this appropriation is shown in the Treasurer's report. IV. Travel and Public Speaking. As public interest in this subject increases, demands for aid in local and state campaigns and calls to address public gatherings multiply. The secre- taries have been called to fill a large number of public engagements, while volunteer speakers have been secured in many cases to respond to invitations coming to this office. The personal assistance of our secretaries was given in the legislative Secretary's Annual Report 207 campaigns in Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Virginia. The Committee has been officially represented at the meetings of the Southern Textile Conference, Nashville, Tenn. ; the National Conference of Charities and Correction, Richmond, Va. ; the National Education Associa- tion, Cleveland, Ohio ; the American Institute of Instruction, Burlington, Vt. ; the International Association of Factory Inspectors, Toronto, Canada; the National Playground Congress, New York; the International Congress on the Prevention of Tuberculosis, Washington, D. C. ; and the Biennial of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, Boston, Mass. V. Organization of State and Local Committees. State Committees have been formed during the year in Virginia, Missis- sippi and Kansas, and committees are in process of formation in Louisiana, California, West Virginia, Indiana, JSTorth Dakota, Minnesota and Massachu- setts. Local committees have been formed in Newport News, Va., Benson- hurst, L. I., N. Y., and Los Angeles, Cal. The reports from state and local committees presented at the fourth annual meeting attest the value of these organizations, and show an increas- ing appreciation of the importance of regulating child labor conditions by local forces. Fourteen state committees and two local committees reported, VI. Publicity. The report of the fourth annual meeting held in Atlanta, Ga., April 2, 3 and 4, was published in full as a Supplement to the July, 1908, number of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the principal papers and addresses were published as separate reprints for distribution. Many of our earlier publications have been reprinted, and pam- phlets, leaflets, charts and photographs issued dealing with special phases of the subject. To keep the work of the Committee before the public, we have a carefully selected list of newspapers, to which interesting material is sent as occasion warrants, and an index of 12,000 clergymen enables us to communicate directly with the leading churches of the country. Our reports are sent regularly to all state commissioners of labor, state factory inspectors and state superintendents of education. In the investigations conducted, wherever practicable, photographs and descriptions have been secured. These are published from time to time, either in the official publications of this Committee, or through the columns of magazines and newspapers. The total publications of the Committee to the end of the fourth fiscal year form a series of eighty-four pamphlets and nineteen leaflets. The total number of documents issued in the year is 242,000, and the total pages aggregates 1,763,400. There should also be added 68,204 letters sent to individuals describing the work of the Committee. One hundred and thirty- eight volumes of the first, second and third annual reports have been sold and distributed to fifty-five libraries. 2o8 Secretary's Annual Report VII. Child Labor Day. Child Labor Day was observed January 25 and 26, 1908. We reached the churches through the religious press, which generally published the official call and in many instances added able editorials in behalf of the work. It has been impossible to estimate the number of pulpits in which the subject was presented, but requests for literature came from many hundred pastors and our clipping bureau reported a large number of special church services. In the coming year it is proposed to send a personal invitation to 3S,ooo clergymen, asking them to observe the fourth Sunday in January as Child Labor Day. , VIII. Exhibits. The charts, photographs and literature which were at Jamestown, Va., during the Exposition, were removed to Atlanta and exhibited in connection with the fourth annual meeting and have since been used at the National Conference of Charities and Correction, Richmond, Va., at the New York State Conference of Charities and Correction, Albany, and in the Atlanta, Boston and New York offices. IX. Finances. The receipts and expenditures of the Committee as shown by the Treas- urer's report for the fourth fiscal year are summarized in the following items : Treasurer's Report for Year Ending September 30, 1908. As examined, audited and found correct by Haskins &■ Sells, of New York, certified public accountants. Debits. Cash on deposit, October I, 1907 $2,971.84 Receipts : Paid subscriptions $30,662.39 Special subscriptions : — District work, Ohio Valley States $2,500.00 Compilation of child labor literature . . 500.00 3,000.00 Sales of publications 311.68 Interest on bank balances S4.6i Miscellaneous receipts 68.95 34,097.63 Total debits $37,069.47 Secretary's Annual Report 209 Credits. Expenses : Salaries — Administrative $8,200.01 Clerks and stenographers 4,244.36 $12,444.37 Stationery and office supplies 619.01 Postage 3,059.27 Investigation expenses 6,199.21 Rent i,S3S4i Traveling 1,695.58 Printing 3.773-92 Telephone and telegraph 297.45 General expenses 425.22 Legal expenses 79.00 Purchase of material on child labor 107.45 District work, Ohio Valley States 2,501.84 Jamestown exhibit 538.57 Compilation of child labor literature 338.87 $33,615.17 Miscellaneous : Furniture and fixtures $457-75 Expenses of third fiscal year 74.46 532.21 Total credits $34,147.38 Cash on deposit, September 30, 1908 $2,922.09 X. Membership. During the year this Committee has lost the following members : Through death, Hon. Grover Cleveland; by resignation, Rev. John G. Anderson and Mr. Hugh F. Fox. There have been added to the Committee : Dr. Albert H. Freiberg, Mr. John Golden, Hon. Curtis Guild, Jr., and Mr. John Mitchell. In the development of contributing memberships, the record of the Committee shows at the end of the year the following total : Guarantors ■ 23 Sustaining 484 Associate 2199 Contributing 176 XL Administration. At the first meeting of the Trustees, October 24, X907, Mr. Lovejoy, who had been appointed Acting Secretary at the meeting of the Trustees, April 22, 1907, was appointed Secretary. 2IO Secretary's Annual Report At the same meeting the Secretary was authorized to co-operate with the special committee on district work in attempting to secure a secretary, for the New England States and one for the Ohio Valley States. Pursuant to this action, Mr. Everett W. Lord was engaged on January ist to represent the Committee in the New England States. He at once established an office at loi Tremont Street, Boston. Meanwhile, the disturbance of financial conditions in the country rendered the possible resources of the Committee doubtful, and it was deemed unwise by the members of the Finance Com- mittee to carry into effect the action of the Board by establishing the Ohio Valley office, unless special aid could be secured. Application was accord- ingly made to friends of the National Child Labor Committee for a special fund of $5,000 for the organization of state and local committees and for the study of conditions of child labor in the Ohio Valley States. This applica- tion was granted January 6, 1908, and on February nth, Mr. E. N. Clopper was engaged conditionally to represent the Committee at Cincinnati and make a study of the local field. On April 15th, by action of the District Committee, Mr. Clopper was made Secretary for the Ohio Valley States, and on August 1st opened an office at 803 Union Trust Building, Cincinnati, Ohio. The development of intelligent interest in New England and in the Ohio Valley, the sections covered by our offices established last year, justifies a careful survey of other parts of the country to ascertain whether other district offices may wisely be established at this time. At the meeting of the Board of Trustees held February 21, 1908, the following official titles were designated : General Secretary, Secretary for the Southern States, Secretary for New England, Secretary for the Ohio Vallej^ States, Membership Secretary. On August 15th, Mr. Lewis W. Hine was engaged to work under the direction of Mr. Clopper in securing photographs of working conditions in the Ohio Valley States. The results of Mr. Hine's work will be apparent in the photographs from which enlargements, slides and cuts for newspaper and magazine publicity are being secured. Many requests for illustrated lectures are received at the office, and to meet these demands we have added to the stock of stereopticon slides. We have at present 256 slides, including duplicates. On July 15th, Mr. Stephen P. Morris, formerly Secretary of the Asso- ciated Charities, Omaha, Neb., was engaged temporarily to aid in the forma- tion of committees in the Western States, and his engagement was continued to November 15, 1908. The development of district organization has considerably increased the staff of workers, while the enlargement of our correspondence with persons and organizations interested in this subject has greatly added to the work in the New York office. At this date the pay-roll consists of the following: 4 Secretaries, I Membership Secretary, i Special Representative in the Wes- tern States, 5 Stenographers, two in the New York office and one in each of the district offices — Atlanta, Boston and Cincinnati, 4 clerks in the New York office, i Photographer. Secretary's Annual Report 211 At the final meeting of the Board of Trustees for the fourth fiscal year the chairman, Dr. Adler, expressed his desire to be relieved during the coming year of the chairmanship of this Committee, on account of his absence in Europe as Theodore Roosevelt Professor of American History and Institu- tions, at the University of Berlin. The members present responded by ex- pressing appreciation of Dr. Adler's able leadership, and the belief that his resignation from the chairmanship would do incalculable injury to the cause of child labor reform. Following this discussion, a resolution was offered by Dr. Lindsay, and seconded by Mr. Folks, the two Vice-Chairmen of the Committee, that Dr. Adler be given leave of absence for one year, and that Mr. Isaac N. Seligman be elected Chairman pro tempore during the period of Dr. Adler's absence. This motion was unanimously adopted. The Secretary desires to express his appreciation of the assistance ren- dered by members of the Board of Trustees; the able work of the District Secretaries, the record of whose activities constitutes so large a portion of this report, and the cordial harmony in which all members of the staff have worked together. Respectfully submitted, Owen R. Lovejoy, General Secretary. The Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference on Child Labor Under the Auspices of the National Child Labor Committee Chicago, III., January 21, 22, 2^, ipop. The first annual conference of this Committee was held in New York City, February 14 to 16, 1905. The second was held in Washington, Decem- ber 8 to 10, igos, with supplementary sessions in Philadelphia and Chicago. The third was held in Cincinnati, December 13 to 15, 1906, and the fourth in Atlanta, Ga., April 2 to 5, 1908. At the fifth annual conference held in Chicago, January 21 to 23, the following program was carried out : General Topic : The Child Workers of the Nation. /. Thursday Afternoon, January 21st, 3 o'clock. Chairman, Isaac N. Seligman, New York, Chairman pro tempore National Child Labor Committee. Organization, enrolment of delegates, etc. Reports and papers from District Secretaries and General Secretary. 1. "Some Unsettled Questions About Child Labor," Owen R. Lovejoy, Gen- eral Secretary. 2. "The Child and the Law," Dr. A. J. McKelway, Secretary for the Southern States. 3. "Child Labor in the Canneries and Textile Industries of New England," Everett W. Lord, Secretary for New England States. 4. "Child Labor in the Ohio Valley States," E. N. Clopper, Secretary for Ohio Valley States. //. Thursday Evening, January 2ist, 7.^5 o'clock. Chairman, A. C. Bartlett, Chairman Chicago Committee on Fifth Annual Meeting. Prayer, Rev. Smith Thomas Ford, D.D., President Chicago Church Federa- tion Council. 1. Opening address by Isaac N. Seligman, Chairman pro tempore National Child Labor Committee, "The Duty of a Rich Nation to Care for Her Children." 2. Response, Prof. Charles R. Henderson, representing the Governor of Illinois. (212) Proceedings of the Fifth Anntud Conference 213 3. The Federal Children's Bureau. Ten-minute addresses : Leo Arnstein, New York. Prof. Charles R. Henderson, University of Chicago. Judge Ben B. Lindsay, Denver, International Juvenile Court Society. Jane Addams, Hull House. Dr. Henry Baird Favill, Chicago, National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis. Samuel McCune Lindsay, Ph.D., Professor, Social Legislation, Columbia University, New York. 4. Stereopticon address, "Types of Working Children," Dr. A. J. McKelway. ///. Friday Morning, January 22d, 10 o'clock. Chairman, Isaac N. Seligman. State and Local Committees — Reports and Discussions. 1. Exemptions to child labor laws on account of poverty, vacation, etc.; whether such exemptions exist, and if not, when and why repealed. Discussion opened by Edward W. Frost, Chairman, Wisconsin Child Labor Committee. 2. Employment certificates. Should they be issued by school authorities, members of health boards, judges, notaries, factory inspectors? Dis- cussion opened by Mrs. H. M. Van Der Vaart, Secretary, Illinois Child Labor Committee. 3. Evidence of age. When documentary evidence cannot be procured, what procedure to obtain further evidence? Discussion opened by George A. Hall, Secretary, New York Child Labor Committee. IV. Friday Afternoon, January zad, 2.30 o'clock. Chairman, Dr. Frank Billings, Chicago. Child Labor a Menace to the National Health. 1. "Overworked Children on the Farm and in the School," Dr. Woods Hutchinson, New York. 2. "Some Effects of Improper Posture in Factory Labor," Dr. Albert H. Freiberg, Cincinnati. 3. "Child Labor and the Juvenile Court," Dr. James A. Britton, Chicago. 4. "The Roentgen Ray as a Factor in Child Labor Reform," Dr. Thomas Morgan Rotch, Boston (with Stereopticon). Discussion by Dr. Henry B. Favill, Dr. Frank Billings and others. V. Friday Evening, January 22d, 7.4s o'clock. Chairman, Isaac N. Seligman. Contributions to the Protection of Childhood. I. "The Relation of Public Education to Child Labor," Andrew S. Draper, Ph.D., State Commissioner of Education, Albany, N. Y. 214 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 2. "Practical Restrictions on Child Labor in the Textile Industries under Higher Educational and Physical Qualifications," Howell Cheney, Cheney Silk Mills, South Manchester, Conn. 3. "Scholarships for Working Children," Mrs. Florence Kelley, New York, General Secretary, National Consumers' League. 4. Stereopticon address, "Injurious Physical Eflfects of Premature Employ- ment," Dr, Albert H. Freiberg, Cincinnati. VI. Saturday Morning, January 23d, 10.30 o'clock. Chairman, Homer Folks, Vice-Chairman National Child Labor Committee. Symposium of Factory Inspectors. 1. "The Present Situation in Illinois," Hon. Edgar T. Davies. 2. "Uniform Systems of Child Labor Statistics," Hon. John Williams, New York. 3. "The Forward Step in Louisiana," Miss Jean M. Gordon, New Or- leans, La. 4. "Accidents to Working Children," Edwin W. De Leon, New York, First Vice-President, Casualty Company of America. 5. Discussion of : (a) Vacation work and vacation permits. (b) Acts regulating street trades. (c) The regulation of child labor in sweat-shops, home industries, etc. (d) Advisability of prosecuting parents as well as employers. (e) Child labor statistics. VII. Saturday Afternoon, January 23d, 2.30 o'clock. Chairman, Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay, Vice-Chairman, National Child Labor Committee. 1. "Handicaps in Later Years from Child Labor," William E. Harmon, New York. 2. "The Difficulties of Child Labor Legislation in a Southern State," Hon. James R. McDowell, Jackson, Miss. 3. "Children in Dangerous Occupations," Charles W. McGinniss, Wheeling Stamping Co., Wheeling, W. Va. 4. Reports from State and Local Committees. (Continued.) 5. General Discussion. Effectiveness of State Labor Departments. Adequate school law enforcement. A reception to delegates was given by the Chicago Woman's Club at the Fine Arts Building, Thursday afternoon, at five o'clock. Speakers and members of the Local Committee were entertained at luncheon at Hull House, 335 South Halsted Street, on Friday, at one o'clock. The various Committees in charge of the local arrangements for the meeting did excellent work and their efforts, as well as those of the Chicago Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 215 Federation of Woman's Clubs, the residents of Hull House and various others were given an enthusiastic vote of thanks by the conference, at its close. The local Committees were composed as follows : Officers. — Chairman, A. C. Bartlett; Vice-Chairman, Mrs. H. M. Wil- marth; Secretary, Mrs. H. M. Van Der Vaart; Treasurer, W. F. Dummer. Executive Committee. — Jane Addams, Dr. Frank Billings, Mrs. I. S. Blackwelder, Mrs. Emmons Blaine, Supt. E. G. Cooley, Hon. Edgar T. Davies, Dr. Henry B. Favill, J. Fitzpatrick, Mrs. Henry Hart, Prof. Charles R. Henderson, Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin, Dr. Emil G. Hirsch, Judge Julian W. Mack, Cyrus McCormick, George Perkins, T. W. Robertson, Julius Rosen- wald, Dr. Graham Taylor, T. K. Webster. Committee on Halls.— F. T. Hopp, Henry Thurston, Sherman Kingsley. Prese Committee.— Graham R. Taylor, Luke Grant, H. E. Fleming. Finance Committee.— Mrs. J. T, Bowen, Allen Pond, W, F, Dummer. First Session. At the first session, held in the banquet room of the Auditorium Hotel, the Chairman, Mr. Isaac N. Seligman, presided, and reports on the work accomplished during the past year were presented by the General Secretary and the District Secretaries and appear in full in other parts of this volume. Second Session. At the second session, Mr. A. C. Bartlett, of Chicago, presided, and the meeting was opened with prayer by Rev. Smith Thomas Ford, D.D., President of the Chicago Church Federation Council. Mr. Bartlett said: Members of the National Child Labor Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen : While the delegates to this conference are cordially welcomed to Chicago, it does seem a travesty upon the much boasted civilization of the twentieth century that you have come together at the very heart of this great pros- perous Christian country to consider the fundamental, — yes, the elemental questions of common humanity which you are here to discuss. While the men and women, and a very large proportion of the children of the United States are living in the twentieth century, a comparatively small number of helpless boys and girls are living in the Middle — in the Dark Ages. And this condition is not by common consent of our citizens, adults and minors, but is due to the greed for wealth, the enterprise of a few manufacturers, miners, and sweat-shop conductors, and to the ignorance or poverty of natural, or the rapacity of unnatural, parents. It is difficult to conceive that in this what I have called Christian country, it is necessary to enact and enforce laws against depraving, against the more or less slow murder of children, for the sole purpose of acquiring dollars, but experience has taught that the process of Christianizing some of our otherwise respectable and Christian citizens is too slow, and that we must appeal to the law-making bodies and to the executive branches of government for relief from this condition of child enslavement. And so this National 2i6 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference Committee and other kindred organizations are informing, educating, arousing our intelligent people to a realization of this injustice, of the crimes which are committed against these wards of ours, and urging promptness and universality of action. Much has been accomplished in the different states, but if I understand the situation correctly, you are not asking for action in the individual states of the Union so much as for federal legislation that shall be at once comprehensive and conclusive. In furtherance of this object, you are holding this conference, confident that the good work done in former meetings of this kind will be continued through wide publication of the discussions, by eminent men and women, you are here holding. Among those who will be prominent in these discussions is a gentleman of whom a New York citizen recently said: — "No real reform is inaugurated and prosecuted in our city which does not have the moral and financial support of this gentleman." I have the honor and pleasure of introducing Mr. Isaac N. Seligman, of New York, who will address you upon "The Duty of a Rich Nation to Care for Her Children." Following the opening address by the Chairman of the National Child Labor Committee, Prof. Charles R. Henderson responded as the personal representative of the Governor of Illinois, and read the following letter from the Governor: "My Dear Sir: — I acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 17th inst., enclosing tickets to the annual meeting of the National Child Labor Committee. I thank you very much for your courtesy in enclosing the tickets and for your kindness in consenting to represent me at the confer- ence, which I regret I am unable to attend personally. "I am very much interested in industrial questions, and especially in the problem of child labor. I have been much gratified at the progress which Illinois has made in recent years in lowering the percentage of child labor employed in our manufacturing establishments. This has been steadily re- duced and is now but 1.2 per cent, of the total number of employees, the lowest percentage shown by any state from which reports have been ob- tained. "These results have been achieved through the co-operation of the State Factory Inspection Department, school officials and others. I am informed that the present policy has restored to the schools of Chicago alone more than 16,000 children. "Two years ago the maximum age of compulsory school attendance was fourteen years and children between that age and sixteen were no longer subject to the control of the school authorities. The last General Assembly enacted a law providing that between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years children, when not employed, must attend school. Great benefit Has followed from this enactment and the school attendance throughout the state has been increased by many thousands. "I trust that the deliberations of the conference will result in the further Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 217 amelioration of conditions surrounding children and you have my hearty good wishes to that end. "Kindly express my regret at my inability to attend the conference. (Signed) "Charles S. Deneen." The addresses of Mr. Seligman and Prof. Henderson are published in full elsewhere in this volume. The special topic of the evening was the Federal Children's Bureau and brief addresses urging the establishment of this Bureau are reported in the symposium under that head. The session closed with a stereopticon address on "Types of Working Children," by Dr. A. J. McKelway. The speaker presented a large collec- tion of photographs taken from Southern cotton mills and from Northern child-employing industries, tending to show not only the types of children employed, but various effects of such employment. Third Session. At the third session, reports were presented from state and local Com- mittees and appear in this volume under their proper titles. The special topics for general discussion were as follows : (i) Exemptions to Child Labor Laws. In leading the discussion on this topic, Mr. Edward W. Frost, Chairman of the Wisconsin Child Labor Committee, said: "Exemptions in child labor laws are to child labor workers what indis- criminate giving is to the laborers for scientific charity. They are our thorn in the flesh — our constant provocation to wrath. "The man or woman who is responsible for the passage of a child labor bill and its management before the legislature, can never know at what moment some harmful amendment exempting certain classes of children or all children in certain industries will be sprung upon the legislature. Eternal vigilance is indeed the price of a good child labor law. However moderately and carefully it may have been drawn, and whatever smooth sailing may seem to be before it, there are rocks and perils ahead until the last vote has been recorded and the governor has attached his signature to the bill. Even then constitutional questions in the courts and the ever-present dangers from lack of public interest and understanding or from inefficient enforce- ment confront our law on every hand. "When those of us who have come to bear these responsibilities meet at times like this in 'experience meetings,' we naturally recount our struggles and compare the widely differing conditions which confront us North and South. Uniformity seems often almost hopelessly far away and sometimes we are almost ready to wonder whether the struggle is after all worth while. Or sometimes forgetting the division of powers in our scheme of govern- ment and the necessity of local initiative and responsibility we are tempted to seek some royal road to uniformity, some short cut to our goal in the visionary form of a federal child labor law. We must fairly face the fact that exemptions represent an inevitable stage of progress in the development 2i8 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference of child labor laws. They are quite as often the product of good though often ignorant purpose as of evil intent. They represent a natural step in the evolution of the model law. Without them the first child labor law of your state, the hardest to get, whose passage was the greatest victory in your long war, could never have been obtained. Be patient as the framers of good laws have ever been patient. In our frequent mourning over harm- ful exemptions, let us not forget that the brewer or tinware manufacturer, proud of his business and confident that young boys and girls working for him are well cared for, and exposed to no undue risks, feels the same discouragement and wrath when he is confronted by a law which excepts or exempts his business and refuses him the right to employ children as other manufacturers do. With what enthusiasm would he not echo the statement in the National Consumers' League handbook — 'The best child labor law has no exemptions?' "For many years at least there is little likelihood of such uniform child labor laws as would be possible in a small and compact European state and under a highly centralized government. While we may hopefully advocate great central points for every child labor law, the wide diversities of climate and population will make exceptions and exemptions necessary. Who among us, however high his motive and faithful his service, has yet attained to his own standard of a child labor law? Do we not all regret the exemptions in the laws of our several states? And who has not seen to his sorrow an exemption once struck out, re-enacted in response to the demand of some 'interest' or at the request of some well-meaning and misguided friend of the children. "In this short paper, whose purpose is to state the general situation and to open the way for discussion of special exemptions and specific problems, there is no opportunity to discuss the wisdom or unwisdom of the most common exemptions. For general purposes they may be grouped in two classes. "(a) The harmful exemptions whose purpose is apparently to keep certain occupations and certain classes of children outside of the beneficent protec- tion of child labor laws and "(b) Exemptions benevolent in their purpose, but often harmful in prac- tice. "Under the first class would clearly come exemptions which permit night work for children under sixteen, work in school hours for children under fourteen and work at certain dangerous or unwholesome employments where their work is believed to be economically productive. Fortunately each year lessens the number of such exemptions though they are sadly common still. Under the second class would come such exemptions as that which is such a blot on the new District of Columbia bill, permitting little children to work in school hours to aid in the family support, and in some states to work late on Saturday evenings or in the holiday season, or, lest little children should play too much, permit them to work without permit or re- straint in street trades, as newsboys, or in messenger service. Vacation work Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 219 for children under fourteen would be placed by many students in this same class. "There is such a thing as righteous wrath. There is more rarely than we think, a time roundly to denounce unwise exemptions and possibly the men who advocate them. But we who often grow impatient of public ignor- ance and indifference as to child labor dangers must remember our own recent indifference and ignorance and how much we have yet to learn. "And especially, if I may speak from the standpoint of one who has appeared before many legislative committees on behalf of many children's measures, must we guard ourselves, there and elsewhere, against wholesale and indiscriminate denunciation of employers and against a scornful or uncompromising attitude toward amendments which seem to us unwise or do not tit into our general plan. Few endeavors call for more patience, tact and skill than a legislative campaign for a stronger child labor law or in defense of a threatened law. "The men and women who are working for the improvement of condi- tions of children, and especially for better child labor laws, have an ines- timable help in the confidence that they are engaged in one of the noblest and most unselfish of human endeavors and that for the present, at least, they have behind them the best and most intelligent spirit of the age. It is pre-eminently the children's day, their needs, their rights, their possibilities have never before loomed so large on the world's horizon. The stars in their courses are fighting for the children and whether or not there are oc- casional defeats and the weariness of hope deferred, we are certain that by others if not by us this victory will be won on behalf of the children of the world." Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, added : "I wish to call the attention of the conference to the fact that every statute dealing with child labor which has been pronounced unconstitutional by any court in the last five years has been so pronounced on account of its exemptions." (2) Employment Certificates. This discussion was opened by Mrs. Harriet M. Van Der Vaart, Secretary of the Illinois Child Labor Committee, who said in part: "A child labor law is effective or ineffective very largely in proportion to the method that is used in giving the working certificate. "A number of years ago, here in Illinois, these certificates were left in the hands of notaries. We found on investigation that the law was almost ineffective. In the factories one-third of the children at that time were below the required age. An undertaker, the proprietor of any little shop in the neighborhood, could become a notary and give certificates to the children of his acquaintances in that neighborhood. Parents did not seem to realize that a solemn oath was required on their part to obtain this certificate, but looked at it simply as a permit which it was necessary to obtain before the child was allowed to go to work. Sometimes the parent did not even accompany the child, but would write a note to some friend who was a notary, asking him to make out the necessary papers to allow the child to go to work. 220 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference "It would, in my judgment, be a mistake to place the issuing of certifi- cates in the factory inspector's office, as the inspector would then be placed in the position of investigating his own work. "The placing the responsibility of issuing the final certificate in the hands of the school authorities is perhaps the best plan, but this, too, must be safe- guarded. The experience in Chicago illustrates the necessity for this. When our present law went into effect, the issuing of certificates was left in the hands of the school authorities, which was interpreted to mean that the head of every parochial school and of every public school throughout the state had the responsibility of giving the necessary paper allowing the child to work. "For three months investigations were made of the schools located in the industrial districts to learn if the working certificates were being given to the children of fourteen. Many facts were secured showing that children were getting certificates who were not entitled to them. In a very short time it was discovered that the law, because of this system, would again be largely ineffective. "Conferences were held with Archbishop Quigley and Superintendent Cooley, which finally resulted in establishing a central office for the giving of these certificates. A representative of the parochial schools and a rep- resentative of the public schools give the certificates. "Since this time the child who wishes to go to work must first get his school, birth or church record, and then, with his parent, go to this central office where the child is measured and weighed, the oath of the parent is taken and if the proof of age is satisfactory the working certificate is given. For the last five years this central office has been a part of the regular en- forcement of the law in Chicago. This clause should be in the law and enforced throughout the state. It was also discovered that there was another loop-hole to the law, viz., a clause which says children seeking certificates without having regular proof of age may go before the county court and the oath of the parent or guardian will be accepted in place of the required proof of the child's age. As the law did not provide any means of ascer- taining the facts about these children and learning if there were any proofs of the child's age, parents were not slow in finding out that the certificate could be easily obtained from the county judge. Judge Carter, of the county court, called a conference of interested people, which resulted in the Secretary of the Consumers' League undertaking the investigation of the ages of the children who come to the county court. Her recommendation is accepted by the judge, who sends the child to the central office, where the paper from the court is taken in place of the school, birth or church record, and the working certificate given. In these two directions voluntary work is doing much for the effective enforcement of the child labor law in Chicago. Ex- perience has proven to those interested in the enforcement of this law in Chicago that the giving out of labor certificates from one central place is the most effective way of safeguarding the working child." Mr. Ryder, of Nebraska, urged the importance of having employment certificates issued by school authorities. He said, "I find that they will not Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 221 abuse the privilege, that they rather lean to the side of keeping the child in school than exempting him." A delegate inquired about the issuing of certificates for parochial school children and Mrs. Florence Kelley replied: "Parochial school evidence is no better than public school evidence. In New York it is taken in exactly the same way as public school evidence. The child must bring the statement of the executive officer of the parochial school that the child has finished five years of the work of the school. In addition to that, it must bring its birth certificate entirely independent of the school, must read and write to the satisfaction of the examiner for the Board of Health." Mr. Davis, of Massachusetts : "There is no child labor law in the State of Massachusetts which the parochial school is obliged to keep. They keep no register unless they feel like it; they make no reports to the truant officers unless they feel like it; the parochial school will not invite the truant officers of their own account and the truant officers need not visit the par- ochial schools. From all that I can learn here in Chicago, I understand that almost the same difficulty exists here. Without any question, in my judgment, our law regarding compulsory education and the issuance of certificates breaks down absolutely at the point of parochial schools." Another delegate replied : "I am a truant officer of the city of Chicago. We always go to the parochial schools and have for one year. Before that time, in my eight years' experience, I found that almost every priest welcomed me and helped to explain the difference between the private and public school. They are not compelled by law, but there is an agreement between the arch- bishop and the superintendent of compulsory education and they are glad to make the agreement." (3) Evidence of Age. When documentary evidence cannot be procured, what procedure to obtain further evidence? Mr. George A. Hall, Secretary of the New York Child Labor Committee, opened the discussion as follows : "In view of the great tide of immigration at the port of New York, prob- ably no other city in the country has had to face so much difficulty in en- forcing the requirement of the New York State law that children who desire employment certificates must produce proof of age. Recognizing this situa- tion, the New York Child Labor Committee has been making, since its or- ganization in 1902, a constant study of this whole question. Having ample proof that parents' affidavits as sole evidence of age could not be safely relied upon the Committee in 1903 amended the law so as to require the filing of documentary evidence (birth certificate, baptismal certificate or passport) it was found, after two years under this law, that some two thousand children in New York City could not produce such evidence, and being refused 'working papers' in many instances went to work illegally. To prevent this, and to obviate a growing antagonism to the law among school officials and others, the Committee amended it to permit the acceptance as proof of age (provided only that the usual documentary evidence could not be furnished) of what was called 'other documentary evidence' such as transcripts of Ellis Island record certifying as to the age of the child on date of arrival, transcripts of hospital, relief society and institutional 222 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference records, family bibles, vaccination certificates, etc. This change was benefi- cial in helping a considerable number of children to obtain certificates who otherwise would have failed. During the year 1908, in one borough only (Manhattan) in New York City, 890 children were granted certificates upon evidence described above. While refusals for insufficient evidence of age were thus materially reduced, it was learned that many children were still unable to get any of the kinds of evidence allowed by the law. As this difficulty existed chiefly in the larger cities the Committee again secured an amend- ment to the law, making it possible for children in New York, Buffalo and Rochester, in case none of the other kinds of evidence mentioned in the law could be produced, to obtain certificates after having undergone a physi- cal examination independently by two physicians of the Department of Health, if such physicians were willing to sign a certificate that in their opinion such children were fourteen years of age and upwards. The amend- ment provided an interim of ninety days between the filing of the applica- tion for such physicians' examination and the actual examination in order to allow sufficient time for a thorough search for any of the regular kinds of documentary evidence. This law has been in effect a little over a year and seems to be working satisfactorily, although the Committee believe that the physical examination should be more thorough than at present. During 1908 one hundred and eighty-eight children made application for such an examination, of which number one hundred and twenty-five passed the ex- amination and secured certificates. Of the remainder, nineteen were refused because unable to pass the examination, thirty secured, during the ninety day period, documentary evidence on the basis of which certificates were granted in the regular way, and fourteen cases are now pending. "To facilitate the securing of documentary evidence of age in October, 1907, an agent was placed at the Committee's expense in the Manhattan Borough Office, New York City (Board of Health), where certificates are issued. With facilities at her command, such as a card catalogue of steamers and steamship lines, detailed data from foreign Consuls in New York City, showing how to write abroad for birth certificates, and in countless other ways this agent has been of great value in helping the parents to secure satisfactory documentary evidence. As a source of information as to the actual enforcement of the law both by school officials and by officers issuing certificates, this agency has been of very great assistance to the Committee in its work. Summing up our experience in this matter of securing evidence of age for children, our Committee strongly feels that under no circum- stances should affidavits of any kind be accepted; that school records as evidence are not reliable; that documentary evidence should be insisted upon, and that physical examinations and other such expedients should be used only as a last resort. That documentary evidence can be secured in the great majority of cases has been abundantly proved by the study of this question in New York City." Important suggestions were made on these topics by State Senator James R. McDowell, of Mississippi, who especially discussed the beneficial re- Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 223 suits in that state from the new law requiring certificate of age and refusing to exempt orphans and the children of dependent parents from the operation of the law. Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay, Vice-Chairman of the Committee, who discussed the importance of having legislative bills carefully drawn, said: "I do not think that up to the present time we have been sufficiently careful in the language of our statutes and in the work that we put upon the actual technical framing of the laws. We can avoid a great deal of the necessity for further legislation with a little more care at the right time, not only in determining what things we want in a law, but also in thinking how those wishes are to be expressed and made effective. "A very distinguished writer, once giving advice to a company of young authors, said: 'The number of times a book will be read depends upon the number of times it has been written;' it is likewise true of a statute, that its effectiveness in operation will depend upon the number of times it was written before it was enacted. "Some of you may know that in the British Parliament where there has been a longer period of experimentation in legislation than in any other legislative body and in which we are more or less interested, there is now a legislative drafting department made up of experts, to whom every bill is sent. No member of the British Parliament, and many distinguished and able lawyers are members of the British Parliament, would think of such a thing under present conditions in England as writing a bill. A member may formulate in a definite way in the form of a brief what he wishes to ac- complish in a proposed measure, but he sends it to this drafting department made of men trained for years, and they put it in legal phraseology, with reference to what the existing law isi, and to the changes it requires. Tie drafting expert brings in the text of a bill with comments and memoranda accompanying that text, and a very great deal of labor is saved to members of Parliament in their discussion of a bill, and many legal controversiss are avoided after a statute has been enacted. "We have made a very small beginning in a similar way in two or three of our states, where we have, as in New York and Wisconsin, a legislative reference library and librarian, but in no case in this country kave those departments of our state service done just exactly what is being done in England in the way of legislative drafting. They help in getting informa- tion for legislators, but they cannot do much in the way of formulating legis- lation. "In the report from Kentucky, we heard, yesterday, that the Kentucky law is a very excellent law. We heard, in the report of Miss Ingram, this afternoon, of the changes that were recently effected in that law. I notice that in the Kentucky statute as read, it is possible now, under this law for a child to go into a factory as a helper, because the word 'employed' is used instead of following the language which has been carefully worked 01* in the standard child labor law prepared by the Consumers' League and published by our National Committee. It is especially valuable as a standard, 224 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference not in the fact that all of the facts necessary to be covered in every state can be put into a standard lav?, but in the phraseology of the general features of all good child labor laws. It is not vvrithout previous thought, a great deal of previous thought, that these words are suggested. Where a prohibition of child employment is to be enacted, we should say 'No child, etc., shall be employed, permitted or suffered to work in or in connection with any fac- tory except,' then put in the extent to which you propose the law to go. Now, that will prevent an evil that will undoubtedly arise in time, of chil- dren allowed to work in a factory, but not technically employed or on the pay roll. "A stricter phraseology will usually meet with no opposition, probably in Kentucky there would not have been the slightest opposition to the addition to these words in the act had it been thought of at the time. I believe that we should deal very practically and plainly with such questions in these state Committee conferences. We ought not merely to discuss whether we want the age limit increased, whether we want factory inspection, whether we want this, that or the other thing that we feel would improve the condition of our child labor legislation, but we ought to confer together through the office of the National Committee and send the actual draft of these pro- visions for discussion, so that we may bring the experience of the older Committees or those who have had longer experience in such legislation to bear upon the situation in places where this legislation is needed, and thus anticipate a good many of our difficulties. "My point is simply this, that a little greater care in the formulation and framing of such amendments to our laws which we shall from time to time ask the legislature to enact will probably be productive of good results and save us a great deal of trouble in the future and also save us from the neces- sity of asking for additional amendments." Miss Gordon : "I would like to suggest that Louisiana has been a little doubtful about having so many exceptions. The district attorney drew up the original bill and then the minute it was attacked went into court and declared every section in it unconstitutional, so we will be a little bit wary in the future in drawing up our bills. "But I would suggest that Kentucky and South Carolina could overcome that question of the children coming under the head of not being employed by putting in the section that the Louisiana law has, that the presence of any child around a mill or factory, except during meal hours, so that they can bring in meals to the parent or sister or brother working there, is prima facie evidence of his employment in that mill." Mr. Lindsay: "That is a very good suggestion. I think that it might be well to say again that the practical thought I had in mind was this, that if in every case where legislation is contemplated or desired, a draft of what you intend to frame was sent to the secretary of the National Committee, with a request that it be sent around to be scrutinized and suggestions offered concerning it, I think it would be a little better and would enable us to embody such provisions as the one which has just been mentioned. "Of course you cannot always rely upon lawyers. They are generally Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 225 very good men, but they will make mistakes, like a lot of other men. I recall one instance of a bill that I was particularly interested in myself and spent a great deal of time in drawing. It was submitted to three of the ablest constitutional lawyers in the state where that bill was to be introduced, all of them disinterested men, and I have not the slightest suspicion to this day that any one of those three men had the slightest desire to nullify the act. Each of the three said unqualifiedly that the bill would stand the con- stitutional test in that state. It was passed, and within six months, the superior court of the state declared the law unconstitutional and its decision was affirmed afterwards by the supreme court of the state." Others who took part in this discussion were Miss Frances Ingram, of Kentucky; Mrs. M. J. Barnard, of Minnesota; Mr. John J. Ryder, of Ne- braska; Factory Inspector Edgar T. Davies, Mr. Edward W Frost, Miss Jane Addams, Mrs. H. M. Van Der Vaart, Mrs. Florence Kelley and others. Miss Ingram explained that Kentucky has the provision suggested and that the local committee was aided in drafting the law by the General Sec- retary of the National Committee. Mr. Ryder objected to the amount of time consumed in the reading of papers and urged upon the Committee the importance of devoting a larger portion of the sessions to an open discussion from the floor. Fourth Session. At the fourth session, devoted to the subject, "Child Labor a Menace to the National Health," Dr. Frank Billings, of Chicago, presided. The papers by Dr. Woods Hutchinson, Dr. Albert H. Freiberg and Dr. James A. Britton appear in other parts of this volume. Marked interest was shown in a paper by Dr. Thomas Morgan Rotch, of Cambridge, Mass., on "The Roentgen Ray as a Factor in Child Labor Reform." Dr. Rotch suggested the substitution for the chronological test of a physiological age based by means of the Roentgen Ray. He produced a number of charts, showing various stages in the physical development of the child and explained the tentative nature of his suggestion by the fact that investigation has only begun. His charts, showing the development of the wrist bones as affording a possible index of general physical development, led many members of the Committee to express the hope that this investi- gation, carried far enough, might offer a basis for conclusions leading to a more scientific classification of the physical fitness of children for the forms of employment in which they seek to engage. In discussing this address. Dr. Abt, of Chicago, said: "If this plan of undertaking to indicate the physical development of the child shall be developed into a system that is perfectly reliable and easily managed, as I hope and think it will be, I think that we will have a system by which we may have the proper indica- tion of the development of the individual child. Dr. Rotch is doing a great work. It is necessarily pioneer work, and none of us are yet able to pass judgment upon it. But I predict for it a great and brilliant future." The Chairman, Dr. Frank Billings: "I was requested by the Secretary 226 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference to say a word to you this afternoon. I hesitated, but finally consented Finally I was asked if I would act as Chairman, and as Chairman, make such remarks as I desired. Inasmuch as I have had considerable to do with the public affairs of the city, county and state within the last few years in reference especially to the care of dependents who suffer mentally and physi- cally, I may be able to say something of practical interest to you. "In the state institutions of Illinois to-day, there are about 17,000 in- mates, and 11,000 of these are insane. Fifteen hundred of them are in the Institution for the Feeble Minded at Lincoln. The remainder of them come under general charities. In the almshouses of the state, outside of Cook County, there are about 700 dependents, and in Cook County about 2500; so that there are in round numbers about 20,000 dependents in the state. The cause of insanity and the causes of feeble mindedness have direct relation to delinquency in childhood, to child labor and to the laws which permit of marriage between individuals who are degenerates, often insane or feeble minded. While the question is far-reaching when we come to discuss it from the side of the cause, still it does bear a certain relation to juvenile delinquency and to child labor. "It is unfortunate that neither the National Government nor many of the state governments have taken any definite and controlling action in reference to child delinquency and child labor. In our own, big, rich city, it was not until within the last few years that a Juvenile Court was established. Even with its establishment, there was no attempt made by those in authority to look into the physical or mental condition of the children brought to the court, and finally it devolved upon individuals and private corporations to take the matter up. "The excellent paper you have heard this afternoon from Dr. Britton has been made possible by the work of the Children's Hospital Society, of Chicago, which has taken care of all the expenses of the Juvenile Court in relation to the care of the sick. Not only has it tended to the sick, but it has watched and cared for the children after leaving the hospital, and in many instances has furnished medicine, spectacles and other helps to those unable to obtain this sort of assistance from the county government. The county now sees the importance of the work and from this time on the expense of the care of these children who are usually physically sick and often suffer from some mental impairment, will be borne by the county. "What Dr. Hutchinson says of the farm is true, and yet I think he over- drew the picture. I wonder if any of you have any idea of the number of agriculturists in America. Do you know that out of fifteen millions of votes cast in the last presidential election, about nine millions were cast by agricul- turists ? Do you know, therefore, that with five or six children in the family, how many there are of the children of the agriculturists? You see the number is enormous. "I was brought up on a farm, too. I imagine Dr. Hutchinson was also, from what he said. I also taught school in the country, so that this gave me a wider acquaintance with the condition of children in the country. Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 227 There are many hardships and privations on the farm. There are cold winter mornings when the boy must get out of a warm bed, but it is a good warm bed, and he may be obliged to light the fire in the kitchen before he attends to the stock in the barn; and his fingers and his toes are chilled, and often frosted, as he performs his chores; but he returns to a warm kitchen and a plentiful breakfast. At the district school he is taught the simple rudiments of the three R's until he has mastered the simple books afforded him. "Renan has said of the people of France that the scientists and the great men come from the peasantry. A common expression in our own country is that great and rich men pass from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations. We may ask them why the country boy makes a good man. Because he may see the sky in the day with the sun passing from horizon to horizon. He may see the moon and the stars. He may see nature in the grass, in the trees and in the birds. He does not see them as an artist at the time, or he does not know that he sees them at all. But this sort of thing soaks into him. He cannot help it. And in spite of himself he is a good man, because he has communed with nature and has been down to Mother Earth. Why does this boy often develop when removed from such sur- roundings? Because the brain lies fallow. "Now as to the work on the farm and its effect upon the child. Work does not hurt him because he does not work hard. He cannot, for he does not know how to work. It is true that his body grows physically tired; but he has good air, much sunshine and the food, while perhaps not well pre- pared, is given to him in plentiful amount and furnishes the proper nour- ishment for his growing tissues. You do not have to beg a boy or girl in the country to eat. The life they lead makes them hungry and hence they grow strong, sound bodies. In such a body there is a mind which may be developed. Those who have minds to observe, go to the city. If more of them went to the city, it would be better for all concerned. "The city child needs just the environment of the country. There is a place for all of them on the farm. If, instead of erecting schools for them for manual labor in the city, they could be sent to the country and upon farms, I believe it would be the place for them. If their school opportuni- ties were less there, so much the better in most instances. If the majority of them are well grounded in the three R's, they would be better off than with a smattering of a greater number of things and with an inability to write, read or use the elements of arithmetic. From what I have said you would infer, and I mean it should be so, that the farm is a good place on which a boy may grow up and it is also a good place for him to leave at a later date." Dr. Henry Baird Favill, of Chicago: "From my point of view this program to-day is the sounding of a note of hope in the situation for the future, not so much because of its specific bearing upon the child problem, as because of the fact that it brings into proper relationship to all these questions the medical profession. It calls upon the medical profession to depart from its time honored and traditional duty of caring for those dis- 228 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference eased and to bring its contributions to the vast question of social improve- ment. The profession has in certain directions superior knowledge which should be expended, not upon what some call the narrow problems of sick- ness, but upon the constructive problems of health. For that reason I feel that not only is the community to be congratulated at the participation and contribution of the medical profession, but that the medical profession itself is to be congratulated at these evidences of inroads upon its traditional conservatism and its assumption of the moral obligation on the part of the individuals of the profession to contribute to every extent possible to these public problems. "The question is one which appeals to us very strongly and oftentimes sentimentally, this question of the work of children. I am not going into any discussion now of the propriety or impropriety of child labor. That has been discussed and the situation is generally clear on that. Yet we are liable to drop into some misconceptions as to what we mean by child work and child play, and upon that score one could talk indefinitely. Assuming that child work, in the sense in which we are now using that term, is per- nicious ; what have we to say about child play as contra-distinguished from child work? Is it so beneficent; is it all good; is it the thing by which the child reaches its own best estate, whatever its possibilities may be? "Now, that depends altogether upon circumstances. For children in the normal life of children in the country, in the small towns, in the town with open spaces, in the community with a simple life and simple conditions, the more or less primitive community of society, the play of the children is normal and to that extent is satisfactory. But the minute you come to con- sider urban conditions, you have to consider conditions abnormal to an in- expressable degree, and I am not so much disposed to draw the line in favor of the well-to-do as against the poor in this comparison. "What happens to the poor child who is not allowed to work, who goes to school for a few hours of the day and then goes home to its more or less unhealthful habitation? What happens to that child for the rest of the day? Where does it play, how does it play, and what are the conditions of its play which tend to bring that thing which we are trying to bring to it when we shut it off from labor? I need not say to you, you know it perfectly well, there is nothing but emptiness for that child. It plays, to be sure, but what does it amount to? It must depend upon circumstances. But what worse off is that child, may I ask, than the child of the wealthy, in early years walking up and down the boulevard with a nurse and afterwards idling around in some sort of indifferent endeavor before he goes away to school? What does either of those children know of the matter that we are now talking about, the normal, healthy, joyous activities of children? "Do you not see that at both extremes of this proposition we are missing the point? Therefore, we have to consider that there is a supplemental need, and this is the situation to put it in a nutshell: For every child we turn out of the workshop and every child we turn out of the school for many hours of freedom, we must provide suitable, we will say, playgrounds. "There is the very crux of this proposition. We cannot conduct operations Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 229 of this kind one-sidedly and reach anywhere. We cannot, for example, put into effect child labor restriction laws without compulsory education laws, and we cannot put into effect child freedom laws without child amusement laws. Therefore, I think we may say that there is something more to con- sider in the question of child development than mere child freedom. That is the thing that I have in mind at this point. "What do we mean by child development? What do we mean by the growth of a healthy body and presumably, under that condition, a healthy mind. Our whole notion on this subject of what is a healthy body is dis- torted. We are too apt to talk about a healthy body as though it was a question of a healthy anatomical body. The point of our mental system, as we Americans look for it to-day, is a great, big, overgrown and distorted product, and that is college athletics. "What do I mean by that? That sounds radical and as though I had some sort of a grudge against college athletics. Not at all. Perfectly willing am I that college athletics should develop along the proper lines ; that they should incorporate into their grossly distorted form of development all those individuals who are fit for it, who could stand the dangers involved in it. But I am now talking about the vast mass of boys, the mass of stu- dents who get no development at all; whose contribution to college athletics consists in a capacity to root in unison. Am I not right about that? Is not the whole mass of students engaged in holding up and applauding and back- ing in one way or another the few who have been able to stand the test and make good? "The statement as to college athletics may be a little overstated. I will admit it is not quite a fair statement, but after all, it makes my point. What are we doing for the mass of students, the hundreds of students untrained, but interested in the ten students that can amount to anything in athletics? What are we doing with those thousand students? I want to say that I do not think there is one — well, there may be one per cent. — there is not five per cent, of the students of a college who could not be materially improved in physique and consequently in health by a development of physical powers under intelligent methods. "All colleges have gymnasiums, some of them have more or less compul- sory gymnastics, but I assure you gymnastics are not looked upon as a thing of real development in any college or school, and the consequence is that we have the mass undeveloped physically, and you would find it very strongly so if you should carefully examine into it. That serves only to make this point that I want to make, that we must bring up our children, if we are going to bring them up healthy, we must bring them up with the facilities for development, not of muscle, which is the coarsest kind of development, but of nimbleness, of activity, of respiration, quickness and accuracy, and all the things that go to make up the idea of the gymnastic ideal as against the athletic ideal. "That is the crux of this whole developmental question and it is just the same for adults as it is for children, but the opportunities for results in children are incomparably greater than in adults. Therefore, I am going to 230 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference simply leave that proposition as I make it and say that we have got to push our lines of child culture and child succor together, and bring to bear upon the child proposition the developmental proposition of intelligence upon all the lines in order to make the freedom virhich we are trying to secure for children effective and productive. "I do not know that I shall be called upon to speak again to-day, and I also hope not for your sake, and therefore I am going to make no allusions to the things that I have wanted to say in regard to Doctor Rotch's contri- bution, which will be very superior and impressive, but the point that I want to add is to say simply this one word : We all believe that the co-operation and co-ordination of the forces working to the same end and through various channels is absolutely necessary in order to get results. Things will concentrate at a focus or they will dissipate into thin air according to the co-ordination and concentration of machinery. After thinking it all over, after arguing the question in all its bearings, the people who know most about this — and this does not include myself, for I do not know much about it, but the people that do know most about it, have concluded that a bureau of child study, of child interest, of child investiga- tion or child development, whatever you choose to call it, as a central fed- eral matter, having its influence — I won't say its authority — having its influ- ence over the whole country — is the only rational procedure upon which the hope of any real progress in this direction rests." Fifth Session. At the fifth session, held in Orchestra Hall, Mr. Isaac N. Seligman, pre- sided, and papers were presented by Hon. Andrew S. Draper, Mr. Howell Cheney, Mrs. Florence Kelley and Dr. Albert H. Freiberg. These papers appear under their titles in this volume. Sixth Session. The sixth session, held in the Banquet Room of the Auditorium Hotel, was devoted to a discussion of the problems of factory inspection. Mr. Everett W. Lord presided, and papers were read by Hon. Edgar T. Davies, of Illinois; Hon. John Williams, of New York; Miss Jean M. Gordon, of Louisiana, and Mr. Edwin W. De Leon, of New York. These papers, which are reprinted in full in this volume, were followed by discussions in which many of the specific problems of factory inspection were considered. Added to the exhibit of the work of the National Child Labor Committee, there was displayed, at this session, an exhibit of the charts and office file system of the Illinois Department of Factory Inspection. Sixth Session — Second Section. Because of the limited time and the great interest expressed by many delegates in a discussion of the problems of street trading, a special section on Saturday morning was devoted to this discussion. Mr. Edward W. Frost, of Milwaukee, presided, opening the meeting with the following remarks : "In Wisconsin we have no street trades act. We have in our child labor Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 231 law an exemption of newsboys at certain hours, but without prescribing any educational or other requirements, and permitting them to sell papers. By a sort of tacit action the newsboys have never been considered regularly under the child labor law. But this exemption is one of those things every one of us dislikes and there is always danger in an exemption of an attack in the courts on the ground of special legislation. Therefore it is our feeling that we should take the newsboy clause from the child labor act, and in its place have a newsboys' and street trades' act. "In Milwaukee we have the newsboys, boys who distribute handbills, and bootblacks who, save as the Juvenile Court or the compulsory education people follow them up, are not touched by legislation. We want, if possible, to find a way to regulate all this street trade for boys. "In the National Consumers' League Handbook there is a model street trades law, and I suppose the discussion might properly take this form. What state, represented here, has a good street trades act which is working well, or what state is represented in which there is about to be introduced a good streets trades act, and what is the general outlook for it? "Mr. Hall represents a state with a good street trades law, and I suggest that he tell us about it." Mr. George A. Hall, Secretary of the New York Child Labor Committee : "Our street trades law applies only to the sale of newspapers, periodi- cals and magazines in cities of the first and second class. It does not apply to boys who may be peddlers, distribute handbills, or handle other articles referred to. In fact, only a year ago the 'magazine and periodical' clause was inserted in order to include boys selling the Saturday Evening Post. "In the first attempt in 1903, the enforcement of this act was placed with the police authorities in each locality. It was soon found that such a provision was absolutely futile. Not only were they not interested in it, but they could not be made to see its importance, or to do anything about it. After a strenuous effort, a small squad of four men in plain clothes was secured to go about and do a little enforcement, but even they found on an average only two boys a day who were violating the law in the big city of New York, although our Secretary found thirty in one afternoon. In 1907, the law was amended, and its enforcement put in the school authorities' hands, in addition to the police. The school people asked that the enforce- ment should not be taken entirely from the police, because they might want to call on them for aid. The present system of enforcement in our state is therefore by the police and the attendance officers. It has not progressed greatly, so far as adequate enforcement is concerned. I think in only three of the nine cities in which the law applies, has there been any serious attempt to enforce it. In New York, Rochester and Troy, some fair efforts have been made in this direction, largely through the efforts of the Committees and other interested people who believe in the law. "In New York City our Committee secured and exhibited twenty-five large pictures which showed the non-enforcement of the law— young boys selling at three o'clock in the morning, for example. This aroused the offi- cials to action and something was accomplished. 232 Proceedings of the Fifth Animal Conference "But first, in order to get the situation cleaned up, the superintendent of schools assigned fifty of the seventy-five attendance officers to that one task during two weeks of the school term beginning last September. The men were divided in day and night squads and covered the entire five boroughs of the city. The public had a right to expect them to accomplish something ; they would be a pretty poor lot of men if they did not do some- thing with so large a number. They did clean up the situation by explaining to the boys that they must have badges, telling them where to get them, so that after two weeks' work by those fifty men, one began to see badges blossoming out nearly all over the city. But that was not enough. "An efltort was then made to secure the co-operation of the school author- ities to make this work permanent. As a result, they now have a squad of four men giving their entire time to it. They go on at three in the after- noon and work until eleven, being on duty during the busiest time of news- paper selling. They move about to different centers and try to cover the different boroughs in the course of the week. There has been considerable improvement since they began, though not all we would like to see. "In Rochester there has also been a serious attempt to enforce the law. That is again through the personal efforts of the women and others inter- ested in the subject. By going to the President of the Board of Education and the other school officials, they have brought home the importance of the subject and have gotten them to take up the subject seriously, with the result that badges are being pretty generally worn in Rochester and also in Troy. "The following are, in my judgment, the weak points in the New York law : The minimum age of ten is absolutely bad ; it should be at least twelve. Our Committee stands for the twelve-year age limit. The night-closing regu- lation is another bad feature. I can see no reason why boys should be per- mitted to work on the street until ten o'clock when the law requires boys in stores to stop at seven and in factories at five. We urge at least an eight or nine o'clock closing hour. "The penalty clause is perhaps the weakest feature in the law. It was drawn in conference with some of the judges of the Special Sessions Court in our city, but it has proved ineffective. It provides that for violation, the boy may be arrested and brought to the Children's Court and dealt with according to law— whatever that may mean. It permits the court to commit the boy to an institution of the faith of its parents. Of course, we do not favor the commitment of a child who, for instance, leaves his badge at home. But some adequate penalty is greatly needed. We should like a penalty that would make is possible to fine the parents for the delinquency of the child. That cannot be done under the present New York law, because the statute does not contain a delinquency clause by which the parents can be reached, as in some other states. We are working toward that and hope to get such a provision in the law. "In the distribution of handbills, I think our law would hold the em- ployer under the provision regarding children working in mercantile and other establishments. By that law, children under sixteen shall not be employed, without a certificate, in the distribution or transmission of goods Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 233 or messages. However, I do not know of any attempt to reach them in that particular way. "The law requires the boy to wear a badge in a conspicuous place, and here we find a great difficulty. The boys often claim, as a reason for con- cealing them, that the older boys snatch them away to 'put them out of business.' Sometimes we have to almost undress a boy to find where the badge is. Perhaps another real reason for concealing the badge is that the boys like to give a dime novel effect by suddenly flashing the badge from somewhere underneath. In order to aid in determining whether the proper badge is being worn, the color of the insert card is changed every year. "Our law also fails to require proof of the age of newsboys. In New York, the parent merely signs an application blank showing approval, but it does not prove the boy's age. I believe a provision should be added requiring the same documentary evidence as is required for other forms of employ- ment." A delegate asked if the law applied to newsgirls, and Mr. Hall replied that "newsgirls are absolutely prohibited under sixteen," and also in Massa- chusetts. As to the question of "contributing to the delinquency of children," the Chairman said: "I have grave doubts whether there could be a conviction for permitting children to sell newspapers. We have that law in Wisconsin, but it is not easy to enforce. We took the law largely from Denver, and have had several convictions under it, but they have to be pretty strong cases, as where little girls were permitted in hotels with men, or allowed in saloons under immoral conditions. I do not believe that, in ordinary cases, the court would enforce that delinquency law against a father if he permitted a child to sell papers up to ten o'clock at night. I think the Massachusetts plan is the one we ought to follow." The issuance of badges was discussed, Mr. Hall explaining that in New York City there are twenty-six district superintendents who issue them. Mr. Frost explained the Massachusetts and New York laws and Mrs. E. J. Bissell, of Rochester, N. Y., said : "A good point in the Massachusetts law is that requiring the badge to be worn on the right arm. We have had con- siderable trouble and are now changing the badges, slipping a strap through and strapping it to the right arm." (The method employed in English cities. — Ed.) Mrs. E. Gaylord Holt, Grand Rapids, Mich: "We have no street trades law in Michigan, though we have tried hard to get something done. Mr. Lovejoy has advised that perhaps a city ordinance is better than a state law, because the state law would be hard to enforce. We have in Grand Rapids, an evening press association, which is doing a great deal for the newsboys, giving the Sunday afternoon pleasant hour and things of that sort, which are very helpful to the boys, and such work has given the idea that we do not need an ordinance in our city when the conditions are apparently so good. They are certainly doing much good to the boys, but we have as many as 250 boys under ten years old selling papers, and some not more than five or six years old. 234 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference "Last year we had a little boy of six years old killed by a street car at night, and we know of other bad things. There are a few little newsgirls, perhaps a dozen in the city, and some of them are down on Market street, a low part of the city, standing by saloon doors to sell their papers. 1 would like a little light on what we can do by a city ordinance or otherwise." The Chaik: "It would be better to try to get a state law along the lines of the New York law, applying to cities of the first, second and third class. It is hard to pass such a law through a city council, and even if it were passed, it would be put in the hands of the local police. You can bring more pressure to bear in the legislature. Mr. Hall has suggested two or three changes in the New York law. We would probably agree as to age limits, the prohibition of young newsgirls and the limitation as to hours, but what shall be the penalty? Shall the child be punished, as in Massachu- setts, or can a law be framed that will reach the parent, or the newspapers, or both?" Mr. Hall was asked if the newspapers oppose the law in New York, and he replied that, when the bill was introduced there was a little opposi- tion, but of no account, and that since the law is in force there is no opposi- tion on their part. In New York, there is no way of reaching the newspaper that employs a boy contrary to law. It is held that the child is his own em- ployer. Julius F. Wengierski, of Rockford, 111. : "About two years ago, when I was probation officer here in the Jevenile Court, I especially looked up the night newspaper trade. A conference was sought with the newspaper men. but none of them came. We had hoped they would help us solve the problem. We thought that, with their help, we should not have much trouble with the boys at night. Of course, when they did not show up, it meant that we had to do the best we could. I stayed out at night and picked up boys and girls on the streets, found where they lived and sent them home. Then, through the co-operation of the relief and aid societies and partly through the co-operation of the Bureau of Charities, I got a full report of the home conditions of these children. "This report was, given me within a few days after I had picked up the child. At the time of my picking up a child, I would tell him that he was not to be out on the street alone at night. I had no law to back me, but the moral law and the real purpose in finding out the home condition was to find out whether these children were really dependent. "Out of about seventy-five cases investigated, we found there were only two cases of dependency, and Mr. Kingsley, of the Relief and Aid Society, found work for one woman who needed help, and in another case where a boy who was employed had to help support the family, another position was secured, whereby he would not have to work on the streets at night. "We went further. I tried to get Mr. Davies, the factory inspector, in- terested. I wrote him a letter. He forwarded that letter to the attorney general to get an opinion regarding the child labor law. Of course, the opinion was that a boy that was selling newspapers was not in the relation to the newspapers as an employee, but was really a merchant. He made a contract to purchase from the newspapers and he could sell these papers. Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 235 "We ascertained that some of these papers were being sold on commis- sion. He said, notwithstanding that fact, they were still merchants, so we were handicapped all around. We could not do anything. We had no law to back us, with the exception of the Juvenile Court law, which is the same as in New York, and no children under ten years are allowed to peddle any- thing at any time. But the children between ten and sixteen we were after especially. "But we did go in one case to the extreme. There were three little boys, ranging from eight to twelve, whom I picked up several times here in the loop district and sent them home every time. Upon an investigation of the home conditions, it was found that the father was working and was earning five dollars a day, and they owned the property they were living in, that these boys were earning on an average fifteen dollars a week peddling papers down town. We also had an investigation made of their school records and found they were truants. They were at school about five days of the month, and when there, they usually slept most of the day as they naturally would after being out until two or three in the morning. We arrested this father and had him tried by one of the municipal judges. Fortunately, the judge saw the case as we did and fined the man two hundred dollars for contributing to the delinquency of these boys ; but he suspended the fine on condition that the father, in the future, would keep the boys off the streets. I never saw those boys on the street again. "I wrote a complete report of this work and gave it to Judge Mack and also to Mr. Kingsley, and the result was that we now have in Chicago an officer of the police department especially delegated to this work between six and twelve. Those are his regular hours. Of course, all that he has to back him is that he is a police officer. He has no law, except the Juvenile Court law, which gives him the privilege of keeping children ten years old and under off the streets." Mrs. Florence Kelley: "Last night I saw a little girl peddle just around the corner from our meeting. In New York that would be a mis- demeanor and the child would be taken up and the parents fined." Mr. Wengierski : "In that case we would find the conditions at home and learn whether the child is a dependent or a delinquent, and charge the parents with contributing to the one or the other." Mrs. Kelley: "But in New York, the doing of it is a misdemeanor. The peddling itself is a delinquency. We do not want peddlers under sixteen on the streets." Miss McDowell, Chicago University Settlement: "I was astounded to find the other day that my newspaper comes to me, in the morning, because two little boys, one twelve and the other thirteen, get the paper at half-past two at night at the corner of 47th and and Halsted streets. Those little boys, who go to school, carry papers around so that we get them in the morning at four o'clock, all the year around. They are working for a man with whom we contract for our newspapers, and I wish, in some way, we could get at that question. "Then there is the question of the little girl selling newspapers, I was 236 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference quite shocked in St. Louis twice this fall to find a girl five or six years of age, selling newspapers just as I came up from the big station there; in the worst part of the town, after dark. There is a little girl between six and seven years of age selling papers every morning at ten o'clock in front of one of our great bank buildings right here on Monroe and Wabash streets, so it does seem as though we ought to get at this. We cannot touch the newspapers. We hear a great deal of sentimental talk about newsboys' societies doing so much for newsboys, but they do not seem to care anything for work of this kind." Mrs. E. J. BissELL, Rochester, N. Y. : "Rochester is a city of 200,000, with 700 newsboys. We have this law in New York state, and up to a year ago, the board of education did not even know they were responsible for issuing the badges. We found perhaps one boy in thirty, in some cases one in fifty, with a badge. The Committeee on Child Labor visited first the board of Edu- cation and had a serious talk. The board promised to co-operate with the police commissioner or to get his assistance. "The policemen themselves had had a fee of twenty-five cents for issuing every badge, so they were disposed to give no help, and the only way even under our good law was through a mass meeting called for another pur- pose, a mass meeting of about 1200 women. The subject was brought up, the city was districted, each woman was asked to consider herself a member of a Vigilance Committee in her hours of shopping. Every woman whose business took her to the city at seven or eight o'clock in the morning was asked to co-operate and to follow out one little plan. The moment a boy was found, or two boys, in some cases there would be five before you would walk a hundred feet, that woman would get to the nearest telephone and say to the board of education and the police department, I found so many boys at such an hour at such a place. "It took but five days to send in such a fire to both these departments that the school superintendent and then the president of the board of edu- cation called up the Chairman of this Committee and wanted to know what they could do in the matter, and arranged for a meeting. "We had our meeting and called attention to the fact that badges should be issued, and they asked for two weeks in which to secure new badges and enforce the law, and of course, for two weeks we stopped telephoning. "At the end of two weeks the badges came and the superintendent had, in the meantime, called up each principal. The principal was to send his boys desiring badges to the board of education. The truant officer came there, also the Chairman of the Child Labor Committee, and each child had an ordinary little card which had to be signed, and the badges were issued and the children were instructed to wear them. For possibly three or four weeks we saw a great many badges on the streets, and then the badges dis- appeared gradually. We felt we ought to begin our campaign over again. We found one little boy four times in ten days, a child of seven selling papers and pleading for money — he had 'lost twenty-five cents,' and, of course, he was obtaining money. Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 237 "We secured the help of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and we made this a test matter. As the outgrowth, the board of education appointed one truant officer, the commissioner of police ap- pointed another policeman and he then districted the city, and those two men were required to report every child found. In the new compaign, they took away, in three days, fifty badges from boys. No badge was reissued until the parents, at least one parent, accompanied that child back to the office of the board of education. That had a very good effect on the child as well as on the parent. Many of the men became interested and to-day I think we have an unusvtal city. "Just before I left I had a report from a business man, saying that he had one serious charge to make against the Child Labor Committee of Rochester. He said that where formerly anyone, at seven o'clock or six o'clock in the morning, could find any number of small boys selling papers ; now he had to walk two blocks before he could get one at an early hour." The Chair: "To rectify such conditions as these, I understand that the New York and Massachusetts laws combined, seem to make the best basis for a law at this time. A state law, when limited to the larger cities as it is proper to do in most states, is probably better than to attempt to secure the passage of an ordinance by the common council of a city. First, the child must be directly proceeded against, however uncomfortable that may be to many of us in many cases, but the child labor laws do not reach the employer save when the direct relation of employer and employee can be established. "A child labor law, or a law amending it, should provide strictly against the employment of children to sell newspapers, but the merchant newsboy, as has been said, is a factor that must be watched very carefully. He can only be reached, it would seem to me, through the Juvenile Court and the taking away of his badge. I personally greatly object to the fining of a little child. I am in favor of a penalty, if it could be drawn in legal and practical form, by which we could bring in the father and fine him. The statutes for contributing to delinquency are good, and in very strong cases might be effectual." Miss Jane Addams, Hull House: "I think about six years ago we made an investigation of a thousand newsboys within twenty-eight hours. We tried to do it in twenty-four hours, and at least eight hundred were taken in twenty-four hours, and two hundred more afterwards. The one thousand boys were very carefully questioned; we found exactly what made them leave school, the circumstances of their family, how much their earnings were needed, their truancy record and all the rest. It was con- sidered, I think, a very good piece of work. "The conclusion we reached was that there was no law practically de- signed to reach such a situation. A newsboy is a merchant and does not come within the child labor regulations. This matter was taken before the publishers' association here with the hope that with the example of the New York and Boston newspapers before them, we might be able to secure some 238 Proceedings of the' Fifth Annual Conference favorable action. But the publishers' association here put us oii, I regret to state, and did not finally take any action in the matter at all. So far, we have been unable to secure any legislative action on the subject. It is a very disgraceful situation, I think, for Chicago to be placed in while the Illinois child labor law is so good. The City of Chicago is a little careless, if not recreant, towards the children who are not reached by the operation of the state law." A Delegate: "Mr. Chairman, I was just wondering if it would be prac- tical for this meeting to gather the main points of the law that we want to work for." Mrs. Florence Kelley: "I want to say a word as to the New York law. I think perhaps we are all saying, with reference to street trades, a great deal more than we need. It is all pure nonsense to say that a little newsboy who is selling papers is doing anything essentially different from a peddler who is selling chewing gum. We have in New York, under the penal code enforced by the Gerry Society, a provision that no girl under the age of sixteen can peddle anything on the street. A girl can- not sell violets, she cannot sell chewing gum or anything else; and the penalty for violation is a very stringent penalty and is very rigorously enforced. We do not know of such a thing as a girl under sixteen years of age peddling. There is no essential difference between selling informa- tion, selling papers and selling chewing gum. The trouble is we are afraid of the newspapers. We are not afraid of the chewing gum manufacturer and the other people who sell goods to the children to sell on the streets, but we are afraid of the newspapers, and so we have worked out a com- bination that a newsboy is a merchant, which is simply ridiculous. Is a newspaper merchant different from a chewing gum merchant? He is not. He is just a little boy under sixteen years old. "The largest city in this country has stopped absolutely peddling on its streets for girls under sixteen. It has enforced it as to girls. It is enforced almost absolutely with regard to peddling other things by boys, but there was a little winking at it during the panic. There were a few children peddling things around at that time. "There is no excuse whatever for our keeping up this fiction as to 'merchants' any longer; let us tell the truth. Let us say that we know that we can stop girls from selling anything until they are sixteen years old. We know that we can stop boys from selling all other things, and how absurd it is to say that we cannot stop them from selling newspapers ! There is a very large body of convalescent tuberculosis patients who would be glad to enter the field in that work of selling papers if they did not have the odious competition of these little boys. There is a large number of one- legged and one-armed men in New York who do now have stands. Some- times three or four or five of them together, of whom I know, can be found at different times at the corner of Twenty-third street and Fourth avenue selling papers. If we could prevent children under sixteen years of age from selling papers as we keep them from selling other things, it would 'Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 239 be a perfect Godsend to those handicapped men, and the men who, lacking an arm or a leg, can perfectly will tend a stand. "Any suggestion that we make as to what ought to be done about news- boys I think should carry with it a very urgent request that from now on the juvenile courts make an effort to card their records. There is not a Juvenile Court in this country which has any adequate record whatever of the previous occupation of the children who come before it. I know whereof I speak, because I have met a majority of the judges and the probation offi- cers. If we could get trustworthy information as to the previous life of the children who come into the Juvenile Court, I do not think it would take us three years after we had such records printed until we had brought about a marked improvement in the employment of children." Miss McDowell : "I would like to explain that we do not make any difference between the peddlers of newspapers and of chewing gum in Chicago. We make no difference between the chewing gum merchant and the newspaper merchant. We have no such provision in our law as you have in New York. We gave the matter up, not because we were afraid of the newspapers, but because we could not proceed without the help of the newspapers." As to the proper age limit for street trading, there was a difference of opinion. It was agreed that no girls under sixteen years should be allowed to peddle anything on the streets. The age for boys, Mr. Hall believed, should be twelve years instead of ten. Mrs. Kelley urged that it should be sixteen. She said: "When you get your Juvenile Court records, you will find it just as bad for boys as it is for girls." It was agreed that a careful educational test should be required, thus making it possible to determine more accurately the effects of street trading upon the school record of the children. The question of penalties proved a difficult one. Mr. Hall severely criticised the New York law which is preposterous in its penalty clause. To the question why the newspapers cannot be held responsible, the Chair said: "You must remember that we are compelled to work along certain legal lines. You must establish the relation between the newspaper and the boy selling papers, and in most cases you cannot do that. You can forbid the boy from doing something which your law defines, but you cannot touch the newspaper unless you can show the connection." Mrs. Kelley suggested that the father of the child should be brought into court and dealt with under a quasi-criminal statute. Mrs. Bissell : "Someone has suggested that they fine the parent a dollar. In Manchester, England, where I looked this matter up last spring, I found that they often have to fine the parent a dollar. That is the minimum fine, the maximum being five. They found it worked a very great effect. They also prohibit selling papers within a mile of the city center." E. N. Clopper, Cincinnati : "In discussing street trades, we^ ought not to confine ourselves too strictly to newsboys, for there are so many other kinds of street trades that I think they ought to be considered. There are many children who are employed in the markets of our large cities and they 240 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference work just as hard as the newsboys and are exposed to just the same in- fluences. There are boys employed by the postmasters of the cities to deliver special delivery letters, who work until ten o'clock at night, and they do not have any time except some ten minutes for lunch between three o'clock in the afternoon and ten o'clock at night. It may be that the postmaster even is violating the child labor law in getting those boys. There are so many children in America, particularly children of foreign parents, who are selling a great variety of different things that any measure adopted along this line should include the means of getting at those children also," Seventh Session. The seventh and closing session of the conference was held in the banquet hall of the Auditorium Hotel on Saturday afternoon. Mr. Lovejoy, General Secretary of the National Child Labor Committee, presided. Papers were presented by Mr. William E. Harmon, of New York; Hon. James R. McDowell, of Mississippi, and Mr. Charles W. McGinnis, of Wheeling, W. Va. The papers of Mr. Harmon and Senator McDowell appear in other parts of this volume. Mr. McGinniss, in discussing from his practical ex- perience, "Children in Dangerous Occupations," said : "I remember my first day at work. I was ten years old. I cried all day, wondering why I should be taken out of school and put to work. I had the best mother one could desire. I was not old enough to understand the conditions that made my mother and other poor mothers send their little boys to factories and mills, too young to guard against injury from the cruel machinery. "While I worked during the first year, I one day heard the scream of a boy who had been a schoolmate of mine, but was now also working in the factory. Looking toward him I saw one of the cruel tack-making ma- chines' gear wheels chewing the skin and flesh off his chest. I ran toward him, keeping my eyes on him the while. The gear wheels were now twisting him around, now chewing the flesh and skin off his arm, and by the time I reached him had reached- his back. He lay in bed for six months trying to regain what he had lost. As long as I knew him afterwards, he was never strong. "One day I almost lost some of my fingers in the same kind of gear wheels. I was cleaning my machine with a piece of waste. The gear wheels caught the waste and snatched it from my hand. I should have been dragged into the wheels had I tried to hold it. But some unseen power seemed to save me. "No matter how many times a boy has a close escape from injury, he soon forgets about it and becomes careless again. His mind is not mature enough to comprehend the dangers that surround him. Just as a child in the light of day has no regard for the fear that comes to him at night in the dark, the boy in the factory, at work at his machine, gives no thought to the possible injury that will follow his play or inattention. I have had per- sons working for me who were hurt three times, and I have known of others who were hurt four or five times. Proceedings of the Fifth 'Annual Conference 241 "Another little boy working in the factory with me — he was about eleven or twelve years old — started to clean his machine before the time appointed. He was not old enough to realize why rules required that no cleaning be done while the machinery was in motion. The waste caught in the gear wheels, and his index finger was crushed off close to his hand. I could mention from one to two hundred other accidents, mostly through carelessness on the part of those not old enough to comprehend the rules of factories and mills. In Milwaukee I saw a little boy lose three fingers at the second joint of his right hand. He was about twelve or thirteen years old and worked in a mill. It was his duty to stand at the back of a press and sort the elbow blanks cut from the small sheet of iron fed into the press by an older boy standing in front of it. A piece of iron was not released in the usual way, and without stopping to realize the danger, the boy put his hand under the die, to extract it. The larger boy continued in his work at the other side, not knowing of the other's attempt to dislodge the iron. He put the press through its regular operation — ^and with the next 'elbow' there were cut off three fingers of the little hand. "A girl who is now working in our factory worked previously in a glass factory in West Virginia, and had the ends of two fingers cut off when she was twelve years old. She relates that one day she put her arm under one of the big dies, while she had her foot on the treddle, just to 'show off' to another girl. I have seen young boys trying to see how close they could hold their fingers to the die without having them cut off. Older boys never think of taking such risks. "I do not believe it pays to hire children. My records show that I can get a better output, with less percentage of bad work, from employees over sixteen. Under that age, they require close supervision both in attentiveness to duty as well as in the kind of work produced. This means the loss of the foreman's time and temper, the output of the machine is reduced, orders are delayed, and the work of other employees is held back. I have been foreman in five different factories. When I took charge there were always better results than before I came. There was quicker work done and there was a smaller percentage of bad work— for I did not hire children to do the work. "There are exceptions. Some boys are so strong physically, so full of life, they rush right into danger, in their heedlessness. Where a boy is alert and not strong physically, he sometimes comes to harm in dangerous work where physical strength might save him. So you see, the boy with fair chance is he who is strong both physically and mentally. Only a small percentage of boys are fortunate enough to have both qualities. The large percentage, failing in one or the other, is in need of protection. "At the Wheeling Stamping Company, I have instructions to keep the wages of employees at a high standard. In our press department we have a system of piece work by which each employee— whether girl or boy or woman or man- earns the same wage per piece. All have the same chance — it is not the case of having a boy do a man's work at a boy's price." These papers were followed by a general discussion on various topics 242 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference of interest relating to the conference. The Chairman said: "I regret, in the deliberations of the Chicago meeting, that our program has been so exceed- ingly full with the excellent papers, that we have had altogether too little time for a floor discussion of the various problems presented. People have come from all parts of the country with reports from their state committees covering a wide range of topics and many phases of experience. We ought to have had all of them read and each one discussed. Those who have had no opportunity to read their reports are requested to send them at an early date for publication in the proceedings of this meeting." Under the two-minute rule, the Chair then gave an opportunity for general discussion. Mr. Frost was requested to refer again to the subject of vacation permits, previously discussed. Mr. Gebson, of Omaha: "We grant certificates under a ruling of our county attorney and we are able to call back the certificate at any time. When school convenes, we take back the certificates and send the children back to school. It is done under the regular certificate plan, except we can call them back at any time." Miss Todd, Factory Inspection Department, Illinois : "I think that after all is done and said, there is an increment of the people who are doing the work, the people who are going through the factories and inspecting them, who get impressions that are infinitely valuable, and we ought to get from them the contribution of their impressions because they are the people who know certain things that nobody else knows. They ought to get up and state those things as nobody else can state them. "What I wish to say is this : From an experience of two years in Illinois, it is apparent to me that we must have some humanizing social influence to go with our work. For instance, we go into a factory and find that a child is working ten hours a day in violation of the law, as the child is fifteen and can only work eight hours. The employer is brought into court and that child is thrown out of work and we never know what becomes of the child or its family. A few months ago I found a child that had been thrown out of work where it was getting six dollars a week, and I found that child working at home sewing; it was the only support of the family and I had put the child out of this position. "In our work we see constantly the greatest misery and suffering and we simply go on like a snow plow and enforce the law. Those children come from parents either very poor or very ignorant, they go out of the school at fourteen and the teachers do not know anything about them. They come from the worst and most poverty stricken homes, and there is no social influence whatever for them. Therefore, I feel that the work of factory inspection in Illinois should be supplemented by a Committee on child labor; to which we, when we see these heart-breaking instances of wretchedness, sickness and poverty and misery, can give information so that the cases will be followed up and the human element will enter into the factory inspection. We can not do it; it is not our business to do it. If you people could see what we factory inspectors see as we go through the factories, you would realize how absolutely necessary it is to bring the social humanizing element Proceedings of the Fifth Anmuil Conference 243 into the lives of these children. The settlements do not get them, the schools do not know anything about them, they are simply segregated in wretched homes and in these great factories that exploit them for their profits. The parents are poor and can do nothing for them and we can do nothing for them. "We must enforce the law, but we must also have this humanizing ele- ment, and I am convinced that we must supplement our work by something on the humane and social element side." Mrs. Florence Relley: "I want to speak a word on that subject because Miss Todd has now, after fifteen years, expressed the same old need that we felt in the first month after we went to work as inspectors in Illinois, and felt increasingly every month that we worked throughout the four years of our term; and which we feel in New York now with every improvement in the law and in its enforcement. The better the law and the better the enforcement and the longer the children are kept out of work, and the longer they are kept in school, the greater the need not only of scholarships to eke out what the child would have earned, but the greater the need of another entirely different function also to be performed by a child labor committee. "Many children between fourteen and sixteen years old, who need scholar- ships because they have not finished their school work, need that help and have failed in that work because the community in which they live slipped the first stitch when the children failed to make their first promotion away down in the first grade of the public school. Who are the children who need scholarships? Who are the children who come into the juvenile court as all sorts of delinquents between the ages of ten and sixteen years? They are very largely the discouraged school children, the children who are older than their class, taller than their class, ashamed to be in the class to which they have to be sent back when they fail of promotion. They are the chil- dren, perhaps, who were sent out of school by ,the school doctor, quarantined because there was scarlet fever or something else at home; who thus lost their first promotion and stayed two years in the first grade and fell behind and were ashamed and again spent two years in the second grade. Thus we have a mass of children, who, when they ought to be in the eighth grade are in the fifth, fourth or third. A large part of the children who are not equipped to go to work when the law allows them to work, are these who needed just a little watching and help and pushing forward at the beginning of the story. "We never shall deal wisely with our working children until we follow up those who get belated early in their school life, those who are so cruelly on the street at work when they ought to be in the early grades of school. There is not an honest factory inspector or an honest truant officer in this country who does not feel this need, and there are sadly few really patiently- working committees backing up the factory inspectors and the truant officers with this much-needed work. "While I am saying the better the law and the better the enforcement, the greater the need of this auxiliary work with the school children in the 244 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference earliest grades, I want to put in a word on behalf of the children for whom here in Chicago, the second city of this Republic, there is no effective pro- tection. On the way to our meeting last night I saw on the street a most miserable little chewing gum peddler. I do not think he was twelve years old. I am told there is no law which could banish him from the streets. He could not have worked in a factory so late; he could not have worked in a store so late. But there he was out in the rain in Van Buren Street in a part of this city which is not salubrious for little boys at night; there he was working, and it was nobody's business so far as I could learn to look after him. "Why do we shirk the street children? Why don't we give exactly the same protection to children in the street trades that we give to those in the factory trades and the stores, and to the messenger boys? Surely the requirements ought to be made the same for employment in all occupations. There are no other occupations so bad for the children as the street trades, including the messenger service. As I understand it, Illinois does give the messenger boys now the same care that it gives to the cash children and the factory children. But we keep up a queer fiction that a child who sells things on the street differs in some way from the child who works where things are sold in a store. Let us clear our minds up about that, make it plain to ourselves that it makes no diflference to a child whether he sells goods in a store or papers on the street, except that work on the street is worse for bim rather than better. "Let us state the fact that most of us are afraid of the newspapers; we do not try to get the same legislation for the protection of the newsboys that we have for the factory children and the store children because we do not believe that the newspapers will help us. The factory employers were not all like Mr. McGinniss; they did not all help us get the factory laws. They were not all like our New York manufacturer who is the largest contributor to our scholarships. The newspapers may not all be like Mr. McGinniss or Mr. Arnstein, but let us get clearly in our minds that nobody is so directly headed for the juvenile court as the newsboy, and let us get exactly the same protection for the newsboys that we have for other children. Since the Illinois law is the second best in the country, why don't we, when we get this new child labor committee of which Mr. Lovejoy speaks, — ^take for its first task getting the best laws in the country for the newsboys, just as Illinois set the standard for the whole country when it was the first state to establish the eight hours day for the older children?" The Chair: "This is a most significant appeal from Miss Todd, who represents the State Department of Factory Inspection of Illinois, and brings to us forcibly one of the most important functions of such committees as this. While I have no authority to do so, I would suggest that, as one of the im- mediate results of this meeting, the present small Child Labor Committee known as the Hull House Committee, be enlarged to become an Illinois Child Labor Committee, and I hereby appoint Miss Jane Addams and Mrs. H. M. Van Der Vaart, the Chairman and Secretary of the present Committee, and Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 245 Miss Todd, as a provisional Committee of three to get together at the earliest opportunity and formulate the plan and personnel of such a committee as I have suggested." Mr. Julius F. Wengierski, of Rockford, 111.: "All of the Chicago papers, especially the Sunday papers, distribute their Sunday papers Saturday night. This means that every newsboy peddling Sunday papers has to stay up all night Saturday in order that you may get your Sunday morning paper. The newspapers should be educated. Let us not stop for a moment in our efforts to make the newspapers realize that they are robbing the youth, rob- bing our future citizenship. They are bringing out a good deal of publicity, but they are not telling us what they are doing themselves in robbing the future public. The newspapers will not do this thing until we demand it. If we do not get our newspapers on time we find fault with the newspapers. Let us say to them that we would be willing to get these papers a little later if necessary. Let us say that we would much rather have men deliver them than boys. The newspapers will do it if we demand it." The Chairman then called upon Mr. John M. Glenn to speak briefly of the importance of systematic and scientific investigation. Mr. Glenn : "Some one has said very appropriately that what we want most is not investigation, but doing things. I think the answer is that we want the facts before we can get other people to do things. You cannot get the newspapers, who are the greatest educators of the people, to work for you until you get your evidence very strongly together and have them present it to the public. I think whatever we do in the way of investigation, we should do very thoroughly. Unless we do that, it sets us back rather than ahead." Miss McDowell : "I think we have enough facts on the newspaper ques- tion now. What we need is money to popularize those facts until we reach the common people who read the newspapers and are able to let the reading public know how they get their papers, we cannot do very much. When that information is brought home to them, something will be done." Miss Todd : "That is why we need a Committee. I cannot tell you how rejoiced I am to think we are going to have the public back of us, helping to work out these things which we know are wrong, and which we cannot remedy without this Child Labor Committee, that will give us some sense of co-operation and work together with us. The inspectors must have that assistance. Children who go to school and sell papers get up so early in the morning that they are so stupid during the day they cannot do anything. That was clearly demonstrated to me during my experience in teaching school." A delegate replied: "I have had instances in school where children have gone to sleep over their desks because they got up at two or three o'clock in the morning to put out city lights and to sell papers. In those instances we warned the parents to take the children away from their work. Where they v/ould not do it, we prosecuted them for contributing to the delinquency of their children." 246 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference Dr, Ryan, St. Paul : "I have not been able to attend the meetings of this conference in previous years, so I am sorry that I missed the opportunity of learning so many things, and perhaps also what I have to say has been said already, better than I could say it ; but the thought occurred to me this after- noon that this child labor movement has a much wider significance than merely in connection with the welfare of the children themselves. I think it has an immense importance for the betterment of labor conditions in general. As I view the matter, the social industrial system of the future will have to be either socialism or a humanized and regulated system of competition. One of the essential methods of humanizing and regulating competition will be to secure what has been called the national minimum; the national minimum of advantages or of welfare for all workmen. The national minimum of safety and sanitation and protection against advantage, against non-employment, against accidents and sickness, and last and per- haps most important of all, a national minimum of wages ; that is to say, a wage which will be sufficient to maintain men decently. Then above that wage let men go as far as they can through their productivity or through their efforts in any way that is honorable. "I think this child labor movement is an important move towards that national minimum of wages. We know very well the deplorable conditions in England during the period known as 'wage slavery' which were brought about largely because women competed with men and thereby brought down the whole wage scale. "Women to-day are doing the same thing. That is, of course, a tremen- dous problem. I do not know how that can be remedied, the fact that women are bringing down the wage scale of men by competing with them and work- ing for less wages ; but the competition and the bringing down of the wage scale by children can be prevented and will be prevented to a great extent by the child labor movement. "If we can get conditions eversnvhere so that the children will not work generally until they are sixteen years of age, the number of children at work will be much less, and the general effect on the wages of adults will be much smaller than it is at the present time. Those children who are at work will be much better able to take care of themselves and to get fairly decent conditions of wages and employment than the children working at present are able to get." Miss Jean M. Gordon, New Orleans: "I would like to ask any of the states that have a sixty-hour week provision, but no regular stipulated num- ber of hours per day, as to what is done in the matter of the length of the working hours per day. The Louisiana law is sixty hours per week, and some of the manufacturers contend that they can shorten up one day and lengthen another. "The point I have in mind is the laundry work. A great many of the laundries work the women until eight or nine o'clock at night two or three nights a week, and especially will that be so with the coming on of the winter travel South, when the Mardi Gras festivities are on and the city is Proceedings of the Fifth 'Annual Conference 247 crowded to overflowing, and the laundry work has to be gotten out in maybe a twelve or twenty-four hour limit. For instance, the women do not come to work on Monday until one o'clock; that gives them six hours off on Monday. Then they tack on to three other days of the week either two or three hours, as the case may be, to the night work." Miss Todd: "After sixteen years of age I know they work continually in Illinois. After sixteen years of age they can work all night and there is no law by which the hours can be restricted." Edward W. Frost: "We have the same rule in Wisconsin. No child under sixteen years of age can work in a laundry in Wisconsin, but after sixteen they have the inestimable privilege of working themselves to death." The Chair: "Is there anyone here representing a state that has regu- lated the employment of girls or women in laundries? The National Con- sumers' League made a substantial contribution to the literature on this whole subject by compiling material for the United States Supreme Court in the Oregon case, and I wish, if Mrs. Kelley is willing, she would say in two or three words what was shown in that compilation and as to its result." Mrs. Kelley : "Well, that was a terrible disillusionment. The United States Supreme Court ruled that the Oregon law is good law so far as the Federal Constitution is concerned. The Oregon law says that a woman may not be required or permitted or suffered to work longer than ten hours in twenty-four in any factory, mechanical establishment, or laundry. But now what do the state courts say? The Court of Appeals of the State of New York, when asked to sustain and enforce the substance of the Oregon law, says, 'Oh, the Supreme Court of the United States only meant that for Oregon. The Supreme Court of the United States only meant to restrict the working hours of women in Oregon. Oregon does not get into conflict with the Constitution of the United States.' "But the Constitution of the State of New York makes it impossible to restrict the working hours of women and so apparently the other fifty-one states and territories now have to amend their state constitutions to comply with the Oregon constitution." Mr. Edward W. Frost : "May I say one word as a lawyer on this last point? Every state is supreme on all these things, but the splendid victory won by Mr. Brandeis and the National Consumers' League in the Oregon case has silenced in each state the claim that it is unconstitutional and affect- ing federal rights to limit the work of adult women and girls over sixteen. That does not settle the law for each individual state; it cannot, under our constitution, but it has. given us great assistance and I think it will even ultimately bring around the Court of Appeals of New York." Miss McDowell: "We have been advised by experts, and by this won- derful brief of Mr. Brandeis, that I am told was worked up for him by various women, and I think personally that in order to have these laws be- yond the pale of unconstitutionality, we must put them under the head of health. If you get them there for the protection of the health and get them out of that realm of the freedom of contract which we shall have to fight 248 Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference for a long time, I think we are safe and that is what we intend to try to do here, to get our next law under the head of protection of health." Senator James R. McDowell, Mississippi: "I will say that there are certain provisions which in no wise affect a woman's right to contract in our state, except on the ground as Miss McDowell says, of health, and the fur- ther ground of moraHty. For instance, the law in our state forbids a girl, or a woman for that matter, working in any place where intoxicating liquors are sold. At least that was the old law when prohibition went into effect the first of the year. That was on the ground of public morals ; and there are others covered on the ground of public health, not only of the woman or mother, but of her children and the children that should come. But it is not interfering at all with her freedom to contract." Ms. Glenn : "I would like to say that Doctor Favill read, at the Inter- national Tuberculosis Congress, one of the ablest papers I have heard read on that line of thought, and I would advise everybody interested in the question of the police power and public health to read that paper. It was published in the tuberculosis number of Charities and the Commons, in April, 1908." In closing the conference, the Chairman said : "To me it is always a moment of sadness because while I appreciate the permanent value of the papers and addresses given and all the inspiration we have received, I in- stinctively look out into the next twelve months and think of the hard battles we must fight and of the many respects in which we shall fall short of the ideals and standards we have set for ourselves during these inspiring hours. "I trust that we may be encouraged by each other's help. The office of the National Child Labor Committee in New York does not claim to be the embodiment of a great amount of wisdom. What we do claim, however, is that we probably receive more inquiries and more suggestions from various parts of the country than come to any other point on this one subject, and we shall greatly appreciate it, when you have any question to ask or any knotty problems to be solved, and have no one nearer at hand with greater wisdom to whom you can refer them, if you will send them into the office of the National Child Labor Committee. We do not claim to be able to answer them, but we claim that we shall probably be able, without much delay, to refer them to someone in some other part of the country who has faced and met and perhaps solved the same problem that troubles you. "I want you to understand that I am not asking for your money in the invitation I wish now to extend, for it costs the minimum fee practically to carry to our members the literature we send you; and when we ask you to pay a membership fee of two dollars a year we are simply asking you to allow yourself to receive our publications, as that fee just about covers the cost of sending them to you. "We want you to join the National Child Labor Committee, because when any important measure comes up like this proposed Federal Children's Bureau, we want to know of several thousand people scattered through the Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference 249 country to whom we can send the latest news on the subject and ask them to do certain specific things. "Here is a case in point : To-day the interest in the minds of a number of Senators and Representatives in Washington as to this Federal Children's Bureau is due to the fact that there are several thousand people in the country who are writing them and getting other people to write them and getting the church to pass resolutions, and doing other things to impress upon these representatives what they want. A man cannot be a fair representative of his constituents unless he knows what his constituents want him to do, and the only way he can know that is for us to tell him what we want. For this reason we desire to have you join us in this great campaign. We are just at the beginning, as you can see by the points brought out in the papers presented at this conference; we are just at the beginning of the solution of this complicated national problem." A formal resolution of thanks to the local Committee, the people of Chicago and the newspapers for the publicity which they gave the proceed- ings, and to all others who helped to make the conference a success, was enthusiastically adopted, and the conference adjourned sine die. State and Local Committees in Co-operation or Affiliation With the National Child Labor Committee. ALABAMA Child Labor Committee.— Dr. B. J. Baldwin, Montgomery, Chairman. CALIFORNIA (State Committee in process of formation). Child Labor Committee of the Juvenile Improvement Association, LOS ANGELES. — Mrs. Oliver C. Bryant, 1503 Magnolia Avenue Los Angeles, Chairman; Miss Evelyn L. Stoddart, 1052 Beacon Street, Los Angeles, Secretary. SAN FRANCISCO Child Labor Committee.— Miss Alice L. Griffith, 2608 Webster Avenue, San Francisco, Chairman; J. C. Astredo, Diocesan House, San Francisco, Secretary. Citizens' Child Labor Committee of the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.— George M. Kober, M.D., 1603 Nineteenth Street, N. W., Washington, Chair- man; Henry J. Harris, 1429 New York Avenue, Washington, Secretary. GEORGIA Child Labor Committee. — Hon. Clifford L. Anderson, Atlanta, Chairman; Rev. C. B. Wilmer, D.D., 412 Courtland Street, Atlanta, Secre- tary. ILLINOIS Child Labor Committee. — ^Jane Addams, Hull House, Chicago, Chairman; Mrs. Harriet M. Van Der Vaart, 6710 May Street, Chicago, Secretary. INDIANA Child Labor Committee. — V. H. Lockwood, Lemcke Building, Indianapolis, Chairman ; Mrs. Helen W. Rogers, Lemcke Building, Secretary. IOWA Child Labor Committee. — Prof. Isaac A. Loos, Iowa City, Chair- man; Hon. Edward D. Brigham. Des Moines, Secretary. KANSAS Child Labor Committee.— F. W. Blackmar, Kansas State Uni- versity, Lawrence, Chairman; Mrs. Lelia Day Monroe, Topeka, First Vice- Chairman; Mrs. F. V. Bartlett, Kansas City, Second Vice-Chairman ; Hon. W. L. A. Johnson, Topeka, Secretary. KENTUCKY Child Labor Association.— Lafon Allen, Louisville, Presi- dent ; Louis B. Wehle, Louisville, Treasurer ; Mrs. R. P. Halleck, 1240 Third Avenue, Louisville, Secretary. LOUISIANA Child Labor Committee.— Solomon Wolff, New Orleans, President; Miss Jean M. Gordon, 1800 Prytania Street, New Orleans, Vice- President; Mrs. Cora Gumble Moses, Treasurer; Rev. E. H. Gilchrist, New Orleans, Secretary. MAINE Child Labor Committee.— Scott Wilson, 120 Exchange Street, Portland, President; Hon. G. L. Grossman, Saco, Treasurer; Mrs. Ella (250) State and Local Committees 251 Jordan Mason, Biddeford, Secretary; Mrs. Charles F. Flagg, no Emery- Street, Portland, Assistant Secretary. MARYLAND Child Labor Committee.— Douglas W. Wylie, Baltimore, Chairman; De Courey W. Thom, Baltimore, Treasurer; Joseph C. Judge, 828 Law Building, Baltimore, Secretary. Child Labor Committee of the Southwest District of the Federated Charities of BALTIMORE (Md.).— Miss Elisabeth Oilman, 614 Park Ave- nue, Baltimore, Secretary. MASSACHUSETTS State Child Labor Committee.— Grafton D. Cush- ing, 717 Barristers' Hall, Boston, Chairman; Hon. Frank Leveroni, 814 Tremont Building, Boston, Vice-Chairman ; Prof. Charles F. Bradley, 90 Mt. Vernon Street, Boston, Treasurer; Richard K. Conant, loi Tremoni Street, Boston, Secretary. MICHIGAN Child Labor Committee.— Prof. Frank T. Carlton, Albion, Secretary. Inter-Church Child Labor Committee, GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN.— Mrs. H. Gaylord Holt, 28 Wellington Place, Grand Rapids, Chairman. MINNESOTA Child Labor Committee.— Rev. John A. Ryan, D.D., St. Paul, Chairman; Mrs. R. G. Winter, 518 Groveland Avenue, Minneapolis, Vice-Chairman; E. G. Shulz, State Capitol St. Paul, Treasurer; Mrs. Mil- dred M. Barnard, 80S Seventh Street, S. E., Minneapolis, Secretary. MISSISSIPPI Child Labor Committee.— Mrs. R. L. McLaurin, Vicks- burg. Chairman; Judge T. E. Cooper, Jackson, Chairman Legislative Com- mittee; Mrs. Corinne Deupre Bailey, University, Secretary. Children's Protective Alliance of MISSOURI.— Prof. Arthur O. Lovejoy, University of Missouri, Columbia, Chairman; J. B. Chambers, Tenth and Chestnut Streets, St. Louis, Treasurer; Prof. Edgar James Swift, Washing- ton University, St. Louis, Secretary. NEBRASKA Child Labor Committee.— Dr. George Elliott Howard, Lincoln, President; Mrs. Draper Smith, Omaha, First Vice-President; Mrs. Frances D. Keefe, Walthill, Second Vice-President; John J. Ryder, Omaha, Secretary-Treasurer. NEW JERSEY Child Labor Committee.— Orlando F. Lewis, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City, Chairman; Mrs. G. W. B. Gushing, 50 Munn Avenue, East Orange, N. J., Vice-Chairman; Hon. William Fellowes Morgan, Taylor Road, Short Hills, Treasurer ; Charles A. McCall, 59 Wash- ington Avenue, Newark, Secretary. NEW YORK Child Labor Committee. — Mornay Williams, New York City, Chairman; Paul M. Warburg, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City, Treasurer; George A. Hall, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City, Secretary. Child Labor League of BENSONHURST, L. I, N. Y.— Mrs. Anna H. Hays, ISO Bay Thirty-second Street, Bensonhurst, Chairman. Consumers' League of BUFFALO.— John R. Howard, Jr., 404 Seneca Street, Buffalo, President; Miss Mabel Gillespie, 404 Seneca Street, Buffalo, Executive Secretary. 252 State and Local Committees NORTH CAROLINA Child Labor Committee— Clarence H. Poe, Raleigh, Acting Chairman; C. L. Coon, Wilson, Secretary. NORTH DAKOTA Child Labor Committee.— Dr. John M. Gillette, Grand Forks, President; Elizabeth Abbott, Public Library, Grand Forks, Secretary. OHIO Child Labor Committee.— Dr. Albert H. Freiberg, 19 West Seventh Street, Cincinnati, Chairman; E. N. Cooper, 803 Union Trust Building, Cincinnati, Secretary. Child Labor League of WARREN, OHIO.— Miss Phebe T. Sutliff, 234 High Street, Warren, Chairman. Child Labor Committeee of OKLAHOMA.— Mrs. D. M. Thorpe, Okla- homa City, President; Miss Kate Barnard, Guthrie, Secretary. OREGON Child Labor Commission.— H. G. Kundret, 30 E. Eleventh Street, North Portland, Chairman; Mrs. Millie R. Trumbull, 305 Jefferson Street, Portland, Secretary. PENNSYLVANIA Child Labor Association: PHILADELPHIA Child Labor Committee.— J. Lynn Barnard, 108 E. Greenwood Avenue, Lansdowne, Chairman; Fred S. Hall, 1338 Real Estate Trust Building, Philadelphia, Secretary. ALLEGHENY County Child Labor Association. — John W. Anthony, Pittsburg, President; Miss Alida Lattimore, 238 Fourth Avenue, Pittsburg, Directing Secretary. RHODE ISLAND Child Labor Committee.— Right Rev. W. N. McVickar, Providence, Chairman. RHODE ISLAND Joint Committee on Child Labor (representing the following organizations: The Providence Public Education Association; the Consumers' League of Rhode Island; the Rhode Island State Federation of Women's Clubs; the Local Council of Women of Rhode Island; the Providence Society for Organizing Charity; the Providence Public School Teachers' Association; the Barnard Club, and the Rhode Island Child Labor Committee of the National Child Labor Committee). — Mrs. Carl Barus, 30 Elm- grove Avenue, Providence, Chairman. TENNESSEE Child Labor Committee.— Dr. James H. Kirkland, Nash- ville, Chairman; Rev. J. R. McCuUoch, Nashville, Secretary. VIRGINIA Child Labor Committee.— Hon. Eugene C. Massie, Rich- mond, Chairman; Rev. James Buchannan, D.D., Secretary. WEST VIRGINIA Child Labor Committee.— B. F. Allison, Schmulbach Building, Wheeling, Chairman; Dr. Harriet B. Jones, 80 Fifteenth Street, Wheeling, Vice-Chairman ; Charles E. Blue, Wheeling Mold and Foundry Company, Wheeling, Treasurer; Miss Nola McKinney, Fairmont, Secretary. WISCONSIN Child Labor Committee.— Edward W. Frost, Wells Building, Milwaukee, Chairman; H. H. Jacobs, University S«ttlfement, Milwaukee, Secretary. RECENT PUBLICATIONS OF Single copies of these publications may be had gratis, except as otherwise noted, upon application to the Secretary of the National Child Labor Com- mittee, 105 East 22d Street, New York City. Earlier publications of the Committee, not given below, will be found listed in the following volumes published by the Committee: "Child Labor" (1905) ; "Child Labor, A Menace to Industry, Education and Good Citizen- ship" (1906); "Child Labor and the Republic" (1907); "Child Labor and Social Progress" (1908). /. SMALLER SERIES: Nos. I to ID out of print. No. II. Night Scenes in the City of Brotherly Love. Illustrated. Pp. ID. 1907. 12. Out of print. 13. The Child and the Machine. Illustrated. Pp. 4. 1907. 14. Children in the Glass Industry or Pennsylvania. Illustrated. Third Edition (Revised). Pp. 16. 1908. 15. Little Garment Makers or the Tenement. Illustrated. Pp. 8. 1907. 16. The Call of the Factory. Illustrated. Pp. 8. 1907. 17. Poverty and Child Labor. Illustrated. Pp. 16. 1907. 18. Out of print. 19. The National Child Labor Committee and Its Work. By Everett W. Lord, Secretary for New England, National Committee. Sec- ond Edition. Pp. 16. 1909. 20. The Song of the Shirt. Illustrated. Pp. 4. 1968. 21. An Act of Thanksgiving. Illustrated. Pp. 4. 1908. (Out of print.) 22. A Holiday Appeal. Illustrated. Pp. 4. 1908. (Out of print.) 23. Educated at the Coal Mine. Illustrated. Pp. 4. 1908. 24. Extracts From Fourth Annual Report of the General Secre- tary. Pp. 4. 1909. 25. What About the Children. Illustrated. Pp. 8. 1909. //. LARGER SERIES: No. 40. Child Labor and the Republic. A volume containing the ad- dresses and proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the National Committee. Pp. 196. 1907. Price, cloth bound, $1^25; paper, $1. 69. Child Labor and Social Progress. A volume containing the ad- dresses and proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the National Committee. Pp. 180. 1908. Price, cloth boun,d, $1.25; paper, $1. (253) 254 Recent Publications 83. A Federal Children's Bureau. Pp. 4- 1908. 84. Children Who Work in the Tenements. Illustrated. Pp. 8. ipcS. 85. Scholarships for Working Children. By Fred. S. Hall. Pp. 4. 1908. 86. Child Labor in West Virginia. By E. N. Clopper, Secretary for the Ohio Valley States, National Committee. Illustrated. Pp. 24. 1908. 87. Fourth vnnual Report of the General Secretary. Pp. 8. 1908. 88. Topics and Suggestions for Debates on Child Labor. By Ever- ett W. Lord. Pp. 12. 1908. 89. The Voice of the Church. Pp. 4. 1908. 90. Scripture Readings for Child Labor Day. Pp. 4. 1909. 91. Child Labor in Indiana. Illustrated. By E. N. Clopper. Pp. 16. 1909. 92. Child Labor in the Carolinas. Illustrated. By A. J. McKelway, Secretary for the Southern States, National Committee. Pp. 20. 1909. 93. Child Labor and Public Schools. By Everett W. Lord. Pp. 16. 1909. 94. Child Workers of the Nation. A volume containing the ad- dresses and proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference on Child Labor, held under the auspices of the National Committee, at Chicago, January, 1909; also the address of Miss Lillian D. Wald, on the Federal Children's' Bureau Bill, delivered at the House hearing before Congress, Washington, January, 1909. Pp. 256. 1909. Price, cloth bound, $1.25 ; paper, $1.00. The addresses presented at the Fifth Annual Conference on Child Labor, printed separately in pamphlet form, are available for free distribution as follovjrs : No. 95. Child Labor and the Juvenile Court. By Dr. James A. Britton, Chicago. Pp. 8. 1909. 96. Practical Restrictions on Child Labor in the Textile Indus- tries; Higher Educational and Physical Qualifications. By Howell Cheney, Cheney Silk Mills, South Manchester, Conn. Pp. 16. 1909. 97. Child Labor in the Ohio Valley States. By E. N. Clopper. Pp. 8. 1909. 98. The Present Situation in Illinois. By Edgar T. Davies, Chief Factory Inspector of Illinois. Pp. 12. 1909. 99. Accidents to Working Children. By Edwin W. DeLeon, First Vice-President, Casualty Company of Ameica, New York. Pp. 16. 1909. 100. Conserving Childhood. By Andrew S. Draper, LL.B., LL.D., Commissioner of Education of the State of New York, Albany, N. Y. Pp. 16. 1909. loi. The Federal Children's Bureau. A Symposium by (i) Miss Lillian D. Wald, New York, Headworker Henry Street Settle- ment (address at hearing on the bill in Congress, before the House Committee on Expenditures in the Interior Department) ; (2) Jane Addams, Hull House; (3) Leo Arnstein, New York; Recent Publications 255 (4) Judge Ben B. Lindsey, Denver; (s) Henry B. Favill, M.D., Chicago; (6) Professor Charles R. Henderson, Chicago; (7) Mrs. Florence Kelley, New York; (8) Samuel McCune Lindsay, Ph.D., New York. Pp. 28. 1909. 102. Some Effects of Improper Posture in Factory Labor. By Dr. Albert H. Freiberg, Cincinnati, O. Pp. 8. 1909. 103. The Forward Step in Louisiana. By Miss Jean M. Gordon, State Factory Inspector, Louisiana. Pp. 4. 1909. 104. Handicaps in Later Years from Child Labor. By William E. Harmon, New York. Pp. 12. 1909. 105. Overworked Children on the Farm and in the School. By Woods Hutchinson, M.D., New York. Pp. 8. 1909. 106. Scholarships for Working Children. By Mrs. Florence Kelley, Secretary, National Consumers' League. Pp. 4. 1909. 107. Child Labor in the Textile Industries and Canneries of New England. By Everett W. Lord. Pp. 8. 1909. 108. Some Unsettled Questions About Child Labor. By Owen R. Lovejoy, General Secretary, National Committee. Pp. 16. 1909. 109. The Difficulties of Child Labor Legislation in a Southern State. By Hon. James R. McDowell, State Senator, Jackson, Miss. Pp. 8. 1909. no. The Child and the Law. By A. J. McKelway. Pp. 12. 1909. 111. The Duty of a Rich Nation to Take Care of Her Children. By (I) Isaac N. Seligman, New York City, Chairman pro tem-^ pore, National Child Labor Committee; (II) Professor Charles R. Henderson, Chicago, Representing the Governor of Illinois. Pp. 8. 1909. 112. Uniform Systems of Child Labor Statistics. By Hon. John Wil- liams, State Commissioner of Labor, Albany, New York. Pp. 12. 1909. 113. Reports from State and Local Child Labor Committees presented at the Fifth Annual Conference on Child Labor. Pp. 32. 1909. 114. Children in Street Trades. Proceedings of the section meeting devoted to this subject at the Chicago Conference on Child Labor. Pp. 12. 1909. Members of the National Cliild Labor Committee Honorary Member— THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Oyster Bay, H. Y. Ex-President of the United States. MISS JANE ADCAMS, Hull House, Chicago, 111. FELIX ADLER, Mew York City. Leader of Society for Ethical Culture; Professor, Political and Social Ethics, Columbia University; Theodore Roosevelt Professor of American History and Institutions, University of Berlin. REV. NEAL L. ANDERSON, Winston-Salem, N. C. MRS. EMMOiVS BLAINE, Chicago, BL Founder, Emmons Blaine School for Teachers, University of Chicago ; Member, Chicago Cit^ Homes Association. JOHN GRAHAM BROOKS, Cambridge, Mass. President, American Social Science Association and National Consumers' League; Lecturer on Economics, Harvard University. FRANCIS G. CAFFEY, Kew York City. Attomey-at-Law; Lt.Col. Alabama Volunteer Infantry in Spanish- American War. EDGAR E. CLARK, Washington, D. C. Member, National Anthracite Coal Commission ; Member, Interstate Commerce Commission. MRS. SARAH S. PLAIT DECKER, Denver, Colo. Ex-President, General Federation of Women's Clubs, HON. ROBERT W. DeFOREST, New York City. Attomey-at-Law; President, Charity Or- ganization Society, City of New York; Chairman, New York State Tenement House Commission,. 1900; First Tenement House Commissioner, City of New York, 1902-03; Vice-Pres., Central Railroad of New Jersey. EDWARD T. DEVINE, New York City. General Secretary, Charity Organization Society of the City of New York; Editor of "Charities and The Commons"; Professor of Social Economy, Columbia University. CHARLES W. ELIOT, Cambridge, Mass. President, Harvard University. ARTHUR F. ESTABROOK, Boston, Mass. Banker. HON. N. B. FEAGIN, Birmingham, Ala. Judge in the City Court. HON. HOMER FOLKS, New York City. Secretary, State Charities Aid Association; formerly Commissioner of Public Charities of New York City. ALBERT H. FREIBERG, M. D., Cincinnati, O. Chairman, Ohio Child Labor Committee. EDWARD W. FROST, Milwaukee, Wis. Attomey-at-Law; President. Children's Betterment League; Chairman, Wisconsin Child Labor Committee. HON. J. B. GASTON, Montgomery, Ala. Member of Alabama Child Labor Committee. CARDINAL JAMES GIBBONS, Baltimore, Md. JOHN GOLDEN, Fall River, Mass. President United Textile Workers of America. RIGHT REV. DAVID H. GREER. New York City. Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of New York. HON. CURTIS GUILD, Jr., Boston, Mass. Ex-Governor. WILLIAM E. HARMON, Kew York City. Real Estate Broker. HON. CLARK HOWELL, Atlanta, Ga. Editor of "Atlanta Constitution." ROBERT HUNTER, New York City. Author of "Poverty." JOHN S. HUYLER, Hew York City. President of Huyler's. MRS FLORENCE KELLEY, New York City. Secretary of National Consumers' League. JAMES H. KIRKLAND, Nashville, Tenn. Chancellor of Vanderbilt University. SAMUEL McCUNE LINDSAY, New York. Director, New York School of Philanthropy; Professor of Social Legislation, Columbia University. HON. BEN. B. LINDSEY, Denver, Colo. Judge of Juvenile Court; President, International Juvenile Court Association. V. EVERIT MACY, New York City. Treasurer, People's Institute; Member of the University Settlement Societv; Trustee of Teachers* College. JOHN MITCHELL, New York City. Ex-President, United Mine Workers of America; Vice- President, American Federation of Labor. MRS. PHILIP N. MOORE, St. Louis, Mo. President, General Federation of Women's Clubs. HON. BEVERLEY B. MUNFORD, Richmond, Va. Member, Virginia Child Labor Committee. ADOLPHS. OCHS, New York City. Publisher, "New York Times". HON. GIFFORD PINCHOT, Washington, D. C. Forester, U. S. Department of Agriculture. ISAAC N. SELIGMAN, New York City. Banker. HON. HOKE SMITH, Atlanta, Ga. Attomey-at-Law; Ex-Governor of Georgia; Ex-Secretary of the Interior. HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT, Washington, D. C. President of the United States. GRAHAM TAYLOR, Chicago, 111. Professor of Social Economics, Chicago Theological Sem- inarv; Warden. Chicaero Commons. HON. BENT^MIN R. TILLMAN, Trenton, S. C. United States Senator. MISS LILLIiVN D. WALD, New York City. Founder, Henry Street Settlement. PAUL M. WA.RBURG, New York City, Banker. TALCOTT WILLIAMS. Philadelphia, Pa. REV. C. B. WILMER, Atlanta, Ga. Secretary, Georgia Child Labor Committee. JOHN W. WOOD, New York City. Corresponding Secretary, Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church. (256) FORM OF BEQUEST / hereby give, devise and bequeath to the "Nationed Child Labor Committee," a corpo- ration organized by Act of Congress approved February 21, I goy {Chapter I Q 3) Cotitribvticms may be sent to V. Everit Macy, Treas- urer, 105 East send Street, New York City. J^attnnal CJIyito Sator fflnmmtttfP INCORPORATED ORGANIZED APRIL 16, 190* 10S EAST 2a D STREET, NEW YORK CITY. 1114 CENTURY BU I LDI NG, ATLANTA, GA. 101 TR^MONT STREET, BOSTON, MAS.S. 803 UNION TRUST BUILDING, C 1 N CI N N ATI. OFFICERS «; Felix Adleh, homer folks, * i vice- chairman Samuel McCuNE l.iNDSAY,ici^AiRMEN ISAAC N. SELIGMAN, v. EVERIT MACY. Chairman pro tempore treasurer Owen R.LOVEJOY, GENERAL Secretary A. J. MCKELWAY, SECRETARY FOR THE SOUTHERN STATES . EVERETT W. LORD, SECRETARY FOR NEW ENGLAND . E. N. CLOPPER, SECRETARY FOR OHIO VALLEY STATES JOSEPHINE J. ESCHENBRENNER, M EMBERSHIP SECRETARY BOARD OF TRUSTEES FELIX ADLER, Chairman MRS. FLORENCE KELLEY FRANCIS G. CAFFEY JAMES H. KIRKLAND ROBERT W. DE FOREST SAMUEL McCUNE LINDSAY EDWARD T. DEVINE V. EVERIT MACY HOMER FOLKS ISAAC N. SELIGMAN WILLIAM E. HARMON LILLIAN D. WALD JOHN S. HUYLER PAUL M. WARBURG JOHN W. WOOD OBJECTS To PROMOTE THE WELFARE OF SOCIETY, WITH RESPECT TO THE EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN IN GAINFUL OCCUPATIONS. To INVESTIGATE AND REPORT THE FACTS CONCERNING CHltO LABOR. To RAISE THE STAN&ARD OF PUBUC OPINION AND PARENTAL RESPONSIBIIiTY WITH RESPECT TO THE EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN. To ASSIST IN PROTECTING CHILDREN BY SUITABLE LEGISLATION AGAINST PSEUA- TURB OR OTHERWISE INJURIOUS EMPLOYMENT, AND THUS TO AID IN SECURING FOR THEM AN OPPORTUNITY FOR ELEMENTARY EDUCATION AND PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT SUFFICIENT FOR THE DEMANDS OF CITIZENSHIP AND THE REQUIREMENTS Ol INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY. To AID IN PROMOTING THE ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS RELATING TO CHILD LABOR. To CO-ORDINATE, UNIFY AND SUPPLEMENT THE WORK OF StATE OR LoCAL' CHILD ^ Labor Committees, and encourage the formation of such com- mittees WHERE they do NOT EXIST. Penoai who contribate {rom $i to tis aanuallr toward tlie support of this work ar* sacoUed as associate aiombers, from $»s to $iOa as lusialning members, and $IM or more as gu»r»iltpr» of the Committea. MBinbers receive the publications of the Committee a Ad are kept in touch with the child labor movement throughout the couhtrv. RemittancU mky bo seat to V. Bverlt Macy, Treasurer, laj Bast tsd Street, New York City. .^^ ®llp CHljilb 2Iah0r iulbtin Volume Three Number Two In Two Parts AUGUST, 1914 Issued Quarterly Price 92 per Year Part I. mtU aiomra!)e0 1il|[0 Slot! PUBLISHES} BY National QlljtlJi Sjabor (Unmmttt?? INCORPORATED 105 EAST 22d STREET, NEW YORK CITY Entered ■■ second-elua matter, October 29, 1913, >t the Post OtBce at New York, N. Y., under the Act of AuEUst 24. 1912. TWENTY-FIVE CENTS n r. lovejoy, general secretary ^ mckelway, secretary for the southern ^ ;rett W. Lord, secretary for new englano>! i. Clopper, Secretary for Ohio valley Stat;! EPHINE J. ESCHENBRENNER, MEMBERSHIP SS BOARD OF TRUSTEES LIX ADLER, Chairman MRS. FLORENCE I RANCIS G. CAFFEY JAMES H. K|RKI:|| l»-IMr'ir«Mifc."KHBolkEirr- it|e (Hifilh mabar lulbtin Volume Three Number Two In Two Parts AUGUST, 1914 Issued Quarterly Price $2 per Year Part I. LITTLE OYSTER SHUCKERS AT WORK O, that we could show them Where the berries grow, Where the daisies whiten, Where the bougrhs hang low. On the picnic wagon. On the load oi hay. There are places for them— Let them come and play. Sarah N. Clegkorn. PUBLISHED BY INCORPORATED 105 EAST 22d STREET, NEW YORK CITY Copyrierht 1914 by the National Child Labor Committee Co Wiioit Wiio ^abe, on Peljalf of i:6o«c Who J^abt iSot FOREWORD Dear Young Friends : Helping those in trouble makes the very best sort of arithmetic examples; for it subtracts from your own troubles, adds to your joys, divides your time into pleasant occupations, and multiplies your interests. So we are offering you in this book some ways of getting up entertainments to arouse interest in your Little Comrades Who Toil, by which you can do much to help free them from their sad lot. Remember that all that is told of their hardships, even in the stories and playlets, is strictly true. If all the more fortunate boys and girls would do their best for these children, while the grown-ups are doing their best to make and enforce good child labor and education laws, so much sorrow and evil would be subtracted from these little comrades' lives, and so much joy, health and intelligence added, that this dear land of ours would be vastly better and happier to live in. To parents we would say : Since the employers of child labor claim that childhood possesses enormous industrial value, it is full time to show them that child- hood also possesses an enormous dynamic moral force through the activities of its generous sympathies. We therefore beg you to encourage your children in putting into effective action of some sort their ready pity for these other children in trouble. It is only when their emotions are allowed no ?""et in helpfulness, that sad tales breed morbidness m children. Let their feelings be made to turn the wheels of some noble endeavor, and no mill brook can whirl, singing on its way, with a gladder enthusiasm or more sparkling happiness. The Editor. CONTENTS Page The Whitest Gift of All 7 The Big Robbery 13 The Child Crusaders' Hymn . . . .17 The Good Samaritan 18 The Messenger Boy . . . . . .23 Newsboys 27 Blossom Time 31 The Avaricious As, the Banner B's and the Capable C's 38 How Grandmother Changed Her Mind . 41 The Story of the Medicine Bottle . . 49 The Story of My Cotton Dress . . .57 Mr. Coal's Story 66 An English Mill Child in 1834 . . . 74 The Present Day American Mill Child . 79 The Whitest Gift of All ER NAME was Maria Maud. She was only ten years old and she sat by the side of the muddy, hilly road with a dirty envelope held close in a very thin and work-hardened hand. Before we tell you what Maria Maud was about to do with that smudgy envelope we must tell you just a little of her life. She could never remember being anything but tired. She was tired when she went to her miserable straw mattress at night ; she was tired when she opened her eyes in the morning and contem- plated the long day — in the cotton mill ! She had never played with doll or game. She had heard of Christmas but had always supposed it belonged to the rich people. She had not resented this or been bitter — she just thought it. She did not know how old she was — it didn't matter. Girls and women in the Southern hills didn't go by ages : they went by health and strength and power to "last." Of course Maria Maud had a father and mother. The father had been unable to work for two reasons — he was lazy and proud. His pride forbade his working in the mill for wages no self-respect- ing man would accept while his wife and daughter could work ! His laziness was an excuse for believing he was sick. So he sat by the wretched fire the long winter through and on the tumble- down porch the long summer through — smoking, always smoking. The poor mother had no spirit or courage. She was a woman of the hills and she thought she saw her duty. "He" — so she spoke of her husband — "had to be fed and looked after" — so she worked in the mill. In a poor, sad fashion she loved her baby and wondered about it. She named it Maria Maud because that seemed to her the most beautiful name on earth and she wished, in a vague way, that she could keep the baby pretty and clean and dimpled — but of course she couldn't, because children never were that way in the hills, — not children like Maria Maud, for the mill got them early. It made them dirty and hopeless and sometimes^wicked. And right there the poor mother took a stand. She meant to do her part. in keeping Maria Maud from being wicked. And what do you think she did in order to achieve this? She took her baby with her always to the mill ! The father said he'd look after the child, but the mother said "No !" So she toted little Maria Maud to and fro, even when her back ached and her legs trembled and the whirring sound the machines made rang in her ears long after she left the mill ! In a soap box, under the trees, the lonely baby slept or cried or cooed with no one to heed until the noon hour, when the mother came and lifted the tiny form up and hugged it. After a while Maria Maud toddled from the box to the mill and the overseer laughed and said, "The kid knows what is good for her ;" and when the dear little fingers could be trained to "tie knots," they helped "muvver" and of course the overseer did not pay for that. "A child should be with its mother," he said, "and it couldn't learn too early to help along." Well, Maria Maud "helped along" and by the time she was eight she looked sad and hopeless. Then the father died. The overseer said, when he heard of it, that there would be less money needed in the home — so he cut the wages of the tired mother, and Maria Maud worked a bit harder to make up — she was given some money, by that time; not much, but enough to keep her content. Only one thing repaid the mother for her toil and suffering — Maria Maud was not wicked ! She had the most beautiful dreams and fancies and sometimes, when she was not too tired, she told her mother about them. They had a queer game they called "You first" — and they began to play it, or say it, after the father died. "What do you want most in the world?" Maria Maud would ask. "You tell first!" said the mother. "No, you !" "No, you !" and so it would go until the mother had to smile, though she thought she had forgotten how. Finally it came out that the mother wanted most of all in the world, a "tomb-stun !" When Maria Maud heard that, she was terribly shocked, for she wanted her mother, and a "tomb-stun" meant no mother and an empty, empty cabin and long black nights. "I knows," explained the mother, "that I be right selfish and perky, being as yo' pa ain't got no stun nor never .specs none; but 8 you knows, Maria Maud, that yo" pa didn't ever do a 'commodation job for us all and he had his baccy first and last and so I ain't jes' plain mean in wanting a tomb-stun. I ain't perticerler as to size or quality. I ain't proud or too perlite, but I'd jes' like to look down and see the spot where I'm lying, marked out ! Looking down is mighty confusing and graves are plenty — I jes' has an uncommon interest in knowing whar I is — or what's left of me ! And now, what you want most in the world?" "Well," and Maria Maud's face was very wistful, "I want — larnin' !" "What fur?" gasped the mother. "I doan't know. I jes' want it something turrible." "Ye'd have to go to — school." "Yes." "Ye'd have to leave the mill." "Yes." "And ye'd have to give something for larnin'. It don't get chucked to yer." "Yes. But that's what I want most — even if I never gets it." "Well, chile, I reckon you'll get that as easy as I'll get a tomb- stun !" And then they both smiled and looked at each other as mothers and little girls do look at times — the world over. And then the mother died. Died so suddenly, so unexpectedly that Maria Maud could not comprehend what had befallen her at first. Not until the thin, worn body was laid among the "many graves" and the long, black nights settled down upon the empty cabin. Even then Maria Maud did not cry — she suffered in a poor, dumb fashion and her eyes grew big and haunted, for a thought stayed ever with her when the wheels of machinery did not deafen her. "Looking down is mighty confusing — I jes' has an uncommon interest in knowing whar I is — or what's left of me !" Looking down was confusing ! Even if )'0U were only looking down from the height of a broken-hearted little girl of ten! The weeds grew so fast and the mound sank so quickly and soon — oh! soon, it would be hard to find "all that was left of muvver." And just then a "missionary lady" had an inspiration. Seeing how shabby and neglected Maria Maud was, and realizing that a mill hand hadn't much time for making clothing, she invited the child to come to her house when a certain barrel from the North . arrived. So Maria Maud went. She had no interest, especially, but she went because she was asked, and she looked , with dull eyes as the missionarj' lad\' took the things from the barrel. "I declare!" said the lady, "what were those people thinking of? Straw hats and party dresses. jPear me! And shoes to be mended ! As if you all didn't have enough to do now. And men's clothing — when the lazy fellows won't work anyhow. Dear me! And " here she paused and laughed aloud; "a dish eover, as you live, and no di.sh ! I call that plain scandalous !" But at that Maria Maud dashed forward and' gripped the dish cover. "I want it !" she panted, "I want it — something turrible. Please let me have it. I can do without shoes and things — but I must have this !" "Good gracious !" said the missionary lady. "Don't be so fierce. Here it is, you odd child ! — what are you going to do with it?" But before she could answer, Maria Maud was out of the house. She did not stop running until she reached the cemetery ; not until she found the grave that hid "muvver." Then she knelt down and with loving hands and rapt face, she placed the dish cover at the head of the mound. "Now us all can tell !" she whispered ; "looking down won't matter now, and you wasn't perticerler, muvver !" So one ambition was achieved. With strange courage Maria Maud got up and ran toward the cabin. She looked younger, hap- pier than she had looked since the days when she lay in the soap box under the trees and smiled as the leaves flitted for her and she had reached up to them. Dear little Maria Maud had always been reaching up. The mill could not kill her ambition : work could not blind the light of her soul. She had been able to give her mother the thing she wanted most in the world and now she was going to get what she wanted ! Yes, .she was ! The whistle blew and Maria Maud laughed aloud. She printed something on a piece of paper — ^how she had learned to do that, God and herself, alone, knew — she tied her few articles of clothing in a bag, then she set forth ! At first she ran — then she went slower, for it was a hard road 10 and the mill had not made Maria Maud strong or self-reliant. Finally she sat down to rest and that is where we first saw her with the crumpled envelope in her thin, work-hardened hand! "Only a mile morel" murmured she; "a mile more and — then !" The thought gave her strength. She had walked and run seven miles and she had had nothing to eat all day! The strange "tomb-stun" and her own adventure had kept her up, but she was near the end now. It was twilight time when Miss Mary Alvin, sitting on the porch of her tiny home-school, saw the draggled little Maria Maud coming up the path. Mary Alvin was not a missionary lady. She was a teacher; a tender woman and, at heart, the merriest soul that ever lived and loved a joke above anything. Lately she had been a bit home- sick, and was feeling rather low-spirited as Maria Maud came in view. "This is no joke !" she thought, and got up to welcome the stranger. "You want — me?" she asked so kindly that Maria Maud trembled. "Yes'm." She did indeed want her and need her, but she said "Yes'm" in a very hard, dry tone. "What — do you want, little girl?" "Larnin'! And I kin pay. I kin! I kin!" Maybe this was a joke after all I Miss Alvin's eyes danced. "Come up!" she said. "Now sit down in this nice, comfy rocker. No. Lean back — that's what the chair is for. I'm going to get you a glass of milk and some cookies." Maria Maud drank and ate, but she could not lean back ! She was rigid and cold with excitement. "And now, my child, tell me all about it !" They faced each other and Maria Maud began. She had not gone far when Mary Alvin was sobbing pitifully, but Maria Maud went on and on in her monotonous drawl. She was emptying her sad, troubled life into the heart of this woman who could- — understand. "And the tomb-stun is there. Miss, and I can find it no matter when I go back, and she, she can look down and — and see it and she'll wait until I get larnin' !" "And — and — you can pay? What have you to give, you poor, precious child?" 11 Then Maria ]Maud got up stiffly and walked over to Miss Alvin. "This!" she said simply and handed out the crumpled envelope. There was just enough light to see by, but the tears in Mary Alvin's eyes blinded her. She wiped them away and tore the en- velope apart. A scrap of paper was within. Brown paper, soiled and unlovely, and upon it was scrawled, "I give myself." Something happened to Mary Alvin then. She seemed to be in a holy place and she waited. .Then she heard words, plain words they were, words of the hills and of the people whom others had forgotten. The meaning of the words was what mattered and the meaning kept chanting over and over. "I give my life for thee, for thee ! What hast thou done for me?" The plain words were repeating : "I can work, I can work ! There's wood to fetch and tote, there's water to^ haul and the fires to mind. Early and late I'll work and work — for larnin' !" Maria Maud dropped beside Mary Alvin. She had come to the end of her strength. She could not talk or promise anything more, but she could hear, and something was happening, indeed. Arms were about her, and tears were on her cheeks. "Oh ! the white, white gift of self ! You poor child ! Yes, I will give you learning and we will — we will play together and find happiness and God among the hills, you and I together !" If you should see Maria Maud now, you would know that she and Mary Alvin had found their Holy Grail, for Maria Maud's face is happy and sweet and her back is never tired, nor the willing feet that carry her upon her tasks of love or mercy. Little children learn of her now and tired mothers come to her knowing full well that she will understand. But remember, all you who read this story — there are many, many Maria Mauds in our Southern hills willing to give themselves for learning, but whose feet cannot find the way, alone. And there are mothers looking down from their far places watching and wait- ing for the dreams to come true for them they love. They want that the most of anything in the world ! Harriet T. Comstock. 12 The Big Robbery (An Exercise for Boys and Girls.) (Si.r boys and six girls come in together, the boys apparently in earnefi conversation.) 1st Girl. What are you boys talking about? 1st Boy. About the big robbery. Girls. (Much startled) — A big robbery ! ! ! 2d Boy. Yes, one of the biggest we've ever heard of. 2d Girl. Where was it? 3d Boy. It is going on now, all the time, throughout our whole country; isn't it, boys? Boys. {Nodding their heads) — Yes, it is. 3d Girl. Who is being robbed? 4th Boy. Nearly 2,000,000 children ! 4th Girl. Nonsense! Children don't own anything. What can they be robbed of? 5th Boy. They are being robbed of health, and play-time, and the chance to become good men and women. 5th Girl. How in the world are they being robbed of all that? 6th Boy. They are allowed to sell papers and other things on the streets, and they are put into factories, and mills, and mines, and coalbreakers, and glass works, and many more places where they have to work for hours and hours. 6th Girl. But my mother says God has given children fathers and mothers to take care of them while they are growing and learning and getting ready to be workers. 1st Girl. And my father says that when children leave school too early they forget all they have learned there. Then when" they grow up they can only get the poorly paid places, because the people who know more will get all the better ones. 13 1st Boy. Well, thousands of these children begin work so young that they never even learn to read and write. 2d Girl. Then, of course, they are robbed of their education. But why do people make such young children work? 2d Boy. Because they don't have to pay them as much as they do older folks. 3d Girl. Our doctor says that it ruins children's constitutions to do just a single thing over and over again all day long. It overworks one set of muscles while the others aren't worked enough. 3d Boy. Well, about 6,000 boys, under 16 years old, work in the coal-breakers of Pennsylvania. They do the same thing over and over all day ; for they just sit and pick the slate and stones out of the coal as it rushes by them rattlety bang. In most of the breakers the coal dust is so thick that the boys can't help breathing it into their noses and lungs. And any doctor will tell you that is dangerous to health. 4th Boy. Thousands and thousands of girls, as well as boys, work in the cotton mills, where they have to do the same thing over and over for 9, 10, 11 or more hours a day and they breathe in the fine cotton lint that fills the air. .Sth Boy. Over 2,000 boys work in the glass factories of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. They have to work nights too, from 7 at night till 4 in the morning. Around the furnaces the heat is awful, and fine glass, like sparkling frost, floats in the air. I don't believe any doctor would call that good for growing boys. 6th Boy. Then, there are the children who work in the steaming hot canneries, or who pick berries all day, or mine coal, or shuck oysters or work in tenement houses making hundreds of different things. The fact is, I don't believe there is a person here who doesn't own or eat or wear something that children have had to work on. 4th Girl. We understand now what you mean by children being robbed of health. Don't we, girls? 14 Girls. Yes ;. and it is a cruel shame ! 5th Girl. My Sunday school teacher says she has heard news- boys and messenger boys on the streets use dreadful language; and she says they gamble and fight, too. 1st Boy. Well, they aren't the only boys who do all that, and worse, too! 5th Girl. But these were such little boys to know so much badness. 2d Boy. The messenger boys, especially at night, have to go into saloons, and to places where they sell opium, and into all sorts of wicked places. 3d Boy. The factories are often worse than the streets for teaching children badness. 6th Girl. Yes ; a judge of one of the children's courts told my father that in some cities nine times as many working children as school children have to be arrested and sent to reformatories. 1.ST Girl. But there are Sunday schools and churches for them to go to. 4th Boy. But, you see, Sunday is their only chance to play ; and, poor kids, they want a little play. Besides, they are often too used up and stupid to go to church and Sunday school. Though, I suspect the main reason is that getting wages makes them feel too big and inde- pendent for Sunday school. And, of course, if they've got in with bad folks they don't want to come. 2d Girl. Then, it is perfectly plain that these children are robbed of their chance to be good. 3d Girl. I don't wonder you boys called it "THE BIG ROB- BERY." Nearly 2,000,000 children robbed of their most valuable things : education, health and goodness. It is a wicked, shameful robbery ! And all just to save paying out a little more money in wages. 4th Girl. Why don't people get together and have a society to stop this robbing of children who can't help them- selves ? 5th Boy. Whew! Societies cost money! 16 5th GiRr,. Well, aren't children's minds, bodies and souls worth spending- money on ? 6th Boy. I know that all our parents think so. They spend a lot of money on us. I think I'll ask mine to give some of what they spend on me for those other chil- dren. All. And I, too. 6th Girl. Why can't we give some money ourselves? There are things we can save pennies and nickels on : soda water, and candy, and oh I ever so many other things. 1st Gikl. And there are plenty of ways in which we can earn money to give. Why, a little girl once dusted the books in her home for a whole year to earn $2 to help these children. I'm sure I could earn money, too. 1st Bov. Good idea ! I believe if we once took hold we could make things HUM ! ! ! 2d Gikl. And it would be a mighty practical way- of getting these children into our Sunday schools, by taking away their excuse for keeping out. 2d Boy We will be the Crusaders to start another Children's Crusade ; this time to save children from being robbed. 3d Girl. It would certainly be a more fitting undertaking for children than the Children's, Crusade hundred of years ago to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the Saracens. 3d Boy. Right you are ! Come, let's get hold of the other girls and boys and see if we can't do something BIG ! All. Yes, we will, we will ! ! ! (They go off the platform.) Lydia Hale Crane. 16 The Child Crusaders' Hymn (Tune, "Onward, Christian Soldiers") All, how long, Lord Jesus, Must our playmates stay Drudging, drudging, drudging All and every day? Bruised and sore their fingers. Dull and sad their eyes ; Heavily they slumber. Wearily they rise. Pale and tired comrades. Asking us to pray That the working children Might come out to play. Long enough, and too long. In the damp, hot room. Have they watched the bobbins. Breathing dust and fume ; Long with aching shoulders By the grimy hole Have they crouched and sorted Endless streams of coal. Thin and tired comrades, From our hearts we pray, That the working children Soon shall come and play. Oh, that we could show them Where the berries grow. Where the daisies whiten. Where the boughs hang low. On the picnic wagon, On the load of hay, There are places for them,- — Let them come and play. Jesus, may we never Cease to strive and pray Till the working children All are free to play. ScM-ah N. Cleghorn. 17 The Good Samaritan (An Exercise for Boys and Girls.) (A girl and a boy, about 14, conte in carrying, by means of a pole at each end, a strip of white muslin, on which is in- scribed in large letters, "The National Child Labor Commit- tee, THE GOOD SAMARITAN TO CHILDREN WHO LABOR." They stand so that with the strip they form a portal for all the children who take part to pass through.) Boy (With Banner) That there has been a big robbery of the children is true. It is true, too, that those who should have helped them ''passed by on the other side." At last came the Reverend Edgar Gardner Murphy, who had pity on them. With others he started a society called The National Child Labor Committee. That Commit- tee is the Good Samaritan for children who labor. But, as you know, "societies cost money." The thousands who have joined this one have proved by giving money that they think children are worth more than money. Here is part of what the National Child Labor Com- mittee has been able to accomplish through their help. The District of Columbia and six states have passed child labor laws for the first time. Every state in the Union has made new or better child labor or educational laws than it had before — such as raising the age limit, forbidding night work, shortening the working day, or requiring school atten- dance. Through these laws, thousands of children from mines, mills and factories have been added to the schools. In seven states it has been forbidden to expose young boys to the evils of the night messenger service. Several states have forbidden newspaper selling by girls on city streets, or by young boj^s late at night. Two states have forbidden children under fourteen to manufacture in the tenements. And much more has been accomplished. 18 Girl (With Banner) But the robbers of the children hate to give them up; so there are still states where boys and girls are work- ing at street trades late at night, where children are working long hours in the factories, and where 27,000 children, many of them very young, are working in the moist heat and noise of the cotton mills ; and there are still four states where children work all night long, either in glass factories or cotton mills. It is a hard fight, and the help of every one of you is needed in saving these children to the schools, the community, the Sunday schools and the churches. Here are little oyster shuckers and shrimp pickers for whom we need your help as Good Samaritans. Children of five years may be found among these working as long as there are oysters to shuck or shrimps to pick. (Enter under the banner little ones from the Primary Class. Three of them stand in front of the rest, and recite each a single verse.) Boy (With Banner) THE LITTLE OYSTER SHUCKERS We stand among the broken shells, Ragged, forlorn, on aching feet ; With rough and wounded hands, we "shuck" The oysters happy families eat. The boats may come at any time; — At dead of night, when we're in bed We hear the call, "The boats are in : Come, hurry to the oyster shed!" Our sleepy eyes peer through the fog. Our stumbling steps scarce find the way, Where, damp and chill through endless hours, We work at night, or work at day. (They pass on to the left and off the platform) Here are coalbreaker boys. Many of them get no chance to go to school. A boy like these, Peter got his chance in a pretty hard way : his arm was torn off at the shoulder, so he went to school. But his friend Steiney, who kept his arms, lost his school chance, and is still in the coalbreaker. 19 Girl {With Banner) 1st Child 2d Child 3d Child 4th Child 5th Child 6th Child 7th Child 8th Child 9th Child THE BREAKER BOYS' REQUEST (Boys of eleven to fourteen should be in this group. Two standing in advance recite each a verse.) Amid the rushing coal we sit, The whole day long in dust and murk : With aching back, and choking breath, — While you're at play, we're kept at work. So, when among the glowing coals Your fancy sketches fairy scenes. Picture the lot of breaker boys. And all the harm and loss it means. {They file around to the right and off the platform) It would seem as if berry and cotton picking in the open air might be fun. But when it is kept up all day long, day after day and week after week, the fun goes out of it. Children are taken out of school in May for the strawberry picking and hulling season and then the other berry crops come along one after the other. Last of all, the cranberries keep the children out of school in the fall, ^^'ill you not be Good Samaritans to the berry and cotton pickers ? LITTLE BERRY AND COTTON PICKERS {Nine primary children recite these lines with appropriate motions. Throughout the recitation three kneel to pick straw- berries from the ground, three sit on heels to pick cranberries higher up, three stand to pick cotton.) {Pointing upwards) Under the sun from morn till eve, {All pick) We pick, and pick, and pick, (Picks sitting on heels) Where cranberries, (Picks kneeling) Where strawberries, (Picks standing) Where cotton bolls grow thick. (All picking) We may not run away and play, (All picking) We may not seek the shade. (All picking very fast) Our backs are bent, our fin- gers fly, (All raising themselves up; each leaning with right hand at back as if very tired) Till day begins to fade. {They file around to the lefl, off the platform) « 20 Boy ilVith Banner) Boy (With Banner) Chorus. Girl (With Banner) Many children work at night while we are in bed having pleasant dreams. We want you to help us give them back their right to a good night's sleep. Here are cotton spinners from the one state where they still work the children at night in the cotton mills. THE SLEEPY NIGHT WORKERS (A group of girls ten years and over Hie under the banner. One girl recites, walking up and doxtm the length of the plat- form, before an imaginary spinning frame. She stops every few feet to tie an imaginary thread, broken in spinning from the bobbin above to the one below.) I am so sleepy, the night is so long, My eyes, how they ache and water and blink ; — I scarce see the threads I must tie when they break. The heat and the noise make me ready to sink. If I but had a chance to sit. And rest my hands and head a bit ! (One girl recites, making appropriate gestures which all others imitate.) We are so sleepy, the night is so long. Our backs are so tired, and so are our heads. If we could lie down just here where we stand. We would fall fast asleep without waiting for beds. Here are the carrying-in boys from the glass works, where the big furnaces are. (A group of boys as above. Recitation by one boy, walking fast, to and fro, the length of the platform. Boys and girls all join in the motions during the chorus.) I am so sleepy, the night is so long, Miles have I trotted with trays of hot glass : The glare from the furnace dazzles my eyes; And the heat of it scorches my skin as I pass. If I but had a chance to sit And rest my tired feet a bit! We are so sleepy, etc. (They file around to the right, off the platform) Thousands of children live in the city tenements, where many families are crowded into a single house, and each family is crowded into one, two or three tiny rooms. Here grown-ups and children work in bad light and worse air. Among them little three-year-old Marietta was found making forget-me-nots. By working all day, and into the evening, she could make 540 blossoms ; and for this long day's work she earned only five cents. 21 Little Marietta's story was told in a prison. After- wards, one of the prisoners, who was there for life, handed the speaker a small, shabby purse, saying, "For the little girl." The purse contained 45 cents, and a scrap of newspaper on which was pencilled, "Jerry Mason, to Little Sister." Will you not join with Jerry Mason in helping us to save these, our little sisters, who never have a chance to pick a real flower because they are so busy making flowers for others to wear? THE LITTLE SISTER {An older girl leads -under the banner a three-year-old girl, who might hold w wreath of forget-me-nots in her hand. The older girl recites.) She is but three years old, and yet Throughout long, weary hours, Her tiny fingers, one by one. Build up the tiny flowers. And more than sixteen hundred parts^ Slie places piece by piece. Ere baby hands, and baby eyes From toil can win release. Petals and leaves before her lie Apart, in heaps and lots. From which her baby fingers weave Wreaths of forget-me-nots. "Forget-we-not," she seems to cry, (^Puts her arm around the child.) Nay, weary, patient tot. Since thou our little sister art We will forget-thee-not. {They turn to the left and leave the platform.) Boy Don't you think if so many children are being robbed {With on our account, we ought to do something to save Banner) them? If every man, woman and child would join as Good Samaritans in this effort, the work of the Na- tional Child Labor Committee, the Good Samaritan to Children Who Labor, would soon be ended. Boy and Girl {Rolling up the banner on the poles till they are close to- gether, and carrying it thus off the platform) "And it would fold its tent like the Arabs, And silenty steal away." Lydia Hale Crane. 22 The Messenger Boy Net) Fatlier, I want to be a messenger boy. Father Wliat put that into your head? Ned Oh, I saw such a nice-looking boy to-day, with a fine Wue suit on. He looked altnost like a soldier; and he said he ran all around everywhere, and had a real good time, and smoked all the cigarettes he wanted to. Father Did he stand up straight like a soldier and have rosy cheeks and bright eyes? Ned (Thoughtfully) N-o-o. Jane said he had a "slouch on him" and was very "bad complected." He coughed, too. Father Yes, cigarette smoking boys always have a slouch and a cough. Ned (Opening his eyes very wide) Do they? (Shaking his head) I don't like coughing. Father, he said he was what was called "a knowin' one." Father Did he tell you what he knew? Ned No. Jane called me in and told me not to be palavering with strange boys. Father Jane was right. So you want to be a messenger boy. and have a slouch on and be bad complected and "a knowin' one" with a cough? Ned (Laughing) No, not all of that; but I would like the blue s'lit and the running about everywhere. Father Well, there's no law again,=t your having a blue suit with braids buttons and rimnine on messages for your mother and me and Aunt Susie and Cousin Tom and Jane and the cook. They would be glad to have someone to carry messages to the grocer, the butcher, the baker, the doctor, the dressmaker, the coal-yard, and Grandma and all the aunts and uncles and cousins, and ■ (Very emphatically) But. Father, T have to run with a lot of those messages now, and I don't like it one little bit. I get tired and it takes up too much of my play-time. (Shjiai't? much surprise) Play-time! Messenger boys are not supposed to have play-time. All they have is waiting time. When there are no messages to be sent out, they have to hang around the office with a crowd of other boys; and even if they get up a game of marbles they may have to stop in the middle to go out with a message. Ned (Tn dismay) No play-time at all? Father You get tired carrying messages, do you? Well, so do they. You mustn't suppose that they go only when they want to or to the places they like to go to. No, they have got to go even if they are tired out and have blistered feet. And they must go wherever they are sent, no matter where it is, or even if they "don't like it one little bit." Ned Father 23 Ned (/n o rather forlorn tone) But don't they have any fun? Father That depends on what you call fun. I myself shouldn't call it fun if just at lunch-time, when I was as hungry as a man- eating tiger, I had to start off with a message and had only a piece of cold pie or a roll from a bakery in my hand to eat as I ran. And from what I know of you, Master Ned, I don't believe you would call it fun if when six o'clock came and you knew that a fine hot supper was ready for you at home, you were sent so far away that it would take you 'till eight o'clock to get back. Ned {Anxiously) But is it always that way? Father It is that way so much of the time that the boys never know when or what they are going to have a chance to eat. It gives them very uncomfortable stomachs and not healthy- looking faces. Then, too, weather makes no difference ; sizz- ling hot or freezing cold, rain, sleet, snow, out they must go just the same as if it were fine. Ned (With renewed cheerfulness) But, Father, they do get a chance to go all about the city and see lots and lots of things. Father Poor fellows! So they do. But, Ned, lad, {smiling and shaking his hea-d), you're not over fond of drunken men, are you? Ned No, siree, I should say not! Father No, I thought not; especially since that man staggered irto you last week and tumbled you over onto the sidewalk so that you had nose-bleed. Ned That was bad enough but, ugh, the horrid rag of a handker- chief he tried to wipe my face with ! But, Father — Father Yes, I know; you are wondering what that has to do with messenger boys? How would you like to carry a message to a saloon-keeper? And have to go into the saloon no matter how many drunken men were there, or even if a fight was going on? Ned But, Father, I don't think messages ought to be carried to such places. Father But if a saloon-keeper's father sends him a message that he is sick, and wants to see him, the message has to be carried to him, hasn't it? Ned {Slowly) Y-e-s, I suppose so. Father Do you remember that dirty lane we looked down yesterday? The one that leads to the river and has the tumbledown houses? Ned Where those women were quarrelling? Yes, indeed I do. But you don't mean. Father, that messenger boys have to go into such places? Father Into much worse, my son, often late at night. Would you like to go there, say at midnight? 24 Ned I don't think any boys ought to be asked to go to such places! Father It is part of the "everywhere" in the city you were wishing to go to. Why do you say so emphatically that you "don't think any boys ought to be asked to go to such places?" Ned Because dreadful things might happen to them. I should think that a boy — even a boy bigger than I am would be afraid to go to such places. Father Poor fellows. They are often afraid, Ned, and "dreadful things" do happen to them, and they learn so much wicked- ness that it often ends for them by being arrested and shut up in reformatories. You are right, Ned, no 6031 ought to be sent with messages to the horribly bad and dangerous places. It is bad enough for strong men to have to go to such places. That is why it was made a law in New York State that no boy under twenty-one should carry night messages; and it is the reason why we are trying to get all the other states to make the same law. Really, Ned, I should hate to see you a messenger boy, no matter how fine a blue suit you wore. I should hate to have you lose your play-time and education, to have you obliged to get any sort of a meal at any old time, to have you sent into saloons and the worst places in the town, to have you weary and footsore, out in the worst of weather, or hanging around with crowds of rough, swearing, cigarette smoking young toughs playing craps. Why, Ned, I would rather you had small-pox or bubonic plague, or Ned But, Father, are all the messenger boys so bad? Father No, Ned, bless their brave young hearts, they are NOT. But a boy who keeps good and pure in such surroundings has got to have the real hero heart. And even the best boy going is in danger of coming out of it all with ruined health, and with no business learned that he can make a living' by when he is too old to keep on being a messenger boy. You see, Ned, it is a blind alley trade. Ned {With puzzled frown) "A blind alley trade?" I don't think I understand. Father Why surely you know what a blind alley is. There is one back of your Grandfather's garden, that is cut off short, around the curve, by Mr. Cook's garden wall. Ned (Laughing) Oh, it was so jolly before Grandfather put up the sign "Blind Alley" to see the folks that went down it come back madder than mad. Do you remember the coal cart that had to back all the way out? My, that man nearly had a fit. Father Just .so. A blind alley trade leads nowhere and when a boy gets too big for it, he too "has to back all the way out" and 25 Ned Father Ned Father Ned Father try some other way. Then, as he knows nothing about any worth-while worlc, he gets what you boys call "turned down." Blind alley trades for the hoy mean that the man must travel No Trade Lane, and generally for life, just because he lost all his chances for learning a good business while still young. But, Father, you don't seem to think being a messenger boy is a good business for even a boy while he is at it. No, you're right, I don't. For little boys, it is too hard, with too much bodily exposure and danger. For big boys, it isn't hard enough. It is a regular lazy-bones' job for a big, husky lad, with its hours of loafing and its irregularity of work. And for every boy it is too beset with temptation. When it comes to choosing a business, you boys must learn to think Long Thoughts. {Puzeled) What sort of thoughts are they, Father? Well, it seemed to me you thought fairly Long Thoughts when last Fourth of July you told me what you wanted for Christmas. Oh, I see; you mean to think ahead. Well, Father {jumping ■up), I'll tell you my Long Thought. I'll plan to be the Pres- ident of something Big: either a Bank or a College or the Board of Health, or the Board of Trade, or the United States, or a Base Ball Team — I haven't made up my mind which. {Rising and laughing) Whichever it is, Ned, mind you work hard to get it. Now, while you are finishing out your Long Thought, suppose we go to the Ball Game. [Exeunt.'] Lydia Hale Crane. 26 Newsboys (Sam comes in slowly and ihoughlfully, and sits down with his clbozL's on his knees and his chin in his hands in a brown study. Enter his Grandfather without seeing him; he sits dozim to read his paper} Sam (Suddenly) Grandpa ! Grandfather (Stnrts and looks up over his paper) Why, Sam, I didn't know yon were here. What is it, my boy? Sam Don't yon think the city streets are very interesting and — and amusing? Grandfather Yes, I do. Why do you ask? Sam Don't you think they are beautiful at night when all the elec- tric lights are on? Grandfather Yes, yes, of course. Well, what of it? Sam Grandpa, I think the newsies must have an awfully good time. No lessons, no going to bed early, skipping on and off trolley cars and running around as they please. I'll bet they don't have to brush their teeth or comb their hair and they can wear their old clothes all the time. Grandfather And is that the sort of boy you would like to be? S'am Why, y-e-s. Grandpa, I'd like to try it. I'm pretty tired of being the sort I am. You know how it is, "Sam, you must," or "Sam, you mustn't" all the time. (There is heard outside a boy calling, "Here you are, sir, Times, Sun. World, Herald, Tribune [substitute names of local papers], all the papers, sir!") Grandfather Call that Newsie in, Sam, and we'll get his views. (Sam runs out and is heard calling, "Boy, I say, Newsboy, my Grandfather wants you.") Newsie And what does your bloomin' grandad want of me, Mr. High- Brow? Sam Come in and you'll find out. (Sam returns with a limping, ragged, unkempt boy zvith a bundle of papers under his arm.) Newsie Here I be. Boss, want a paper? Grandfather Yes, I'll take them all. Newsie Gee! That's a quick sale. (The money is paid over and Grandfaiher drops the papers onto the chair beside him.) Grandfather Now sit down and tell us about the fun you have being on the streets early in the day and late at night. Newsie Fun, is it? Do you call it fun to be chased off your beat by another boy 'cause he happens to be bigger'n you? Is it fun to have the cops after you if you gets in their way? Is it fun to have your shoes split out and your toes on the pave- ment to be froze in winter and blistered in summer? 27 Grandfather But my grandson thinks it must be great fun to jump on and off the trolley cars? Newsie I thought so too at first. But it gets to be awful tiresome. And, gee! I didn't think it fun that icy day I slipped off into the middle of the street and broke my leg. I was laid up in the hospital for nearly a month and have had this limp ever since. Sam But not all the boys break their legs? Newsie Right you are ! 'But they does that kind of stunt oftener than you knows of, let me tell you ! Sam It is fun though, isn't it, to be a newsboy? Newsie (Gloomily) Search me ! If it is I ain't found it out. Some of the boys think it's fine; but they'd think anything fine that kept them on the street and let them run wild and get pennies for craps and movies. Now that ain't me. It's business with me. I've got a family to support and it's up to me now to quit chinnin' here and get a move on me. (Starts to rise) Grandfather No, I've bought all your papers and you must give me the time it would have taken you to sell them on the street. Tell us all about your business and what sort you would like better. Sam and I want to get at the bottom of this. Newsie (Jumping up ex-citedly) Well, I tell you if you go to the bottom you'll go mighty far down, as far down as 1 was goin' to say the name of the bad place, but p'raps you'd take me for the swearin' sort and that ain't me ! (Proudly draw- ing himself up straight) You see, I've got a mother that's the right kind. You won't find another to beat her, betcher life- Grandfather How did she happen to let you go out as a newsie at all ? Sam (Eagerly) Yes, tell us the whole story, do. Newsie (Seating himself and holding forth energetically) How'd she let me, is it? Well, she didn't. She was in the hospital, and me father dead of consumption, and our money used up, and Tom and Ann Cthey're 16 and 14) not gittin' enough wages for the whole six of us. So says I to Mary (she's 9), "Mary, after school you and the kids is to sit in Mrs. O'Fagan's room and pull bastin's out of the pants she gets from the factory to finish and I'll go out paper-sellin'." A feller what I knew put me wise and I got on fine. He told me the drunks was easy catches, so I went into the saloons or watched at the door for 'em. And they was easy for sure, 'cause they'd forgit to take the change. But it was bad when they was ugly drunk. Sometimes I got a good clip on my head or a kick before I could skip. Then, too, I had a stand with my pal, — well, of all the bad, dirty villains that was around there — drinkin', swearin', fightin', — the women 28 Grandfather Newsie Sam Newsie Grandfather Newsie Sam Newsie Sam Newsie Grandfather Newsie a sight worse nor the men. Bah ! ! (Spits as if getting some- thing out of his mouth) it leaves a bad taste yet. I tell you (jumping up and shaking his fist in his earnestness) that was the bottom of the business, and nearer to the really truly bad place than I ever want to be again, and don't you forget it ! ! Mbther changed all that when she got out of the hospital. She said I must make a clean business of it, cut out the drunks and the saloons and the other bad places, and get a beat in the respectable part of the town. That's why I'm around here. Did your pal keep on with the stand? He did that, till he was pinched for keeping back change and sent up. Sent up? To the Reform School. They say it ain't so awful bad there; but it'd kill mother if I got sent up. There's lots of the boys goes, though, and most of 'em more'n once, and I know several who've ended up in State's Prison. Poor fellows ! When they are trying to help their families ! Help their families, nothin' ! Nearly all the boys sell papers for their own pockets. Hardly any of them boys I know take a cent home. Most of 'em don't need to, they've fathers to support 'em. They've got the laugh on you sure, if you thinks they take money home. But isn't it fine to be on the street at night? You go chase yourself, sonnie. After you've been on the street once or twice at night, you've seen all there is to see. What's the fun after that? What's the fun of waitin' before daylight, cold mornin's, to get your papers hot oflf the press? What's the fun of sleepin' crowded together over a baker's gratin' to keep warm 'cause you ain't got no better place to go to? That's what some has to do. (Triumphantly) But you don't have to go to school!! Don't, eh? Much you knows about it. I ain't no truant, but I can't get ahead 'cause I'm too tired and sleepy to study. Honest Injun!! It shames me, too, to meet the school fellers on the street when I have on these togs. (Apologetically.) You see if I wear my glad rags out sellin', they get spoiled and besides the boys kid me for a missie. Would you like to give up selling so as to study harder and learn a better business? Wouldn't I just! Mother cries over this. She says I'll never get on in the world if I don't learn better. Father was a boss carpenter and knew a lot, and we lived fine till he took sick and was laid up so long that all the money was spent. 29 Grandfather Would you like a scholarship? Newsie (Suspiciously) What sort of bird is that? Grandfather You have paid to you what you would make each week selling papers on condition that you get good all-around marks at school, for lessons, punctuality, and deportment; and see that your younger brothers and sisters go to school and do their best. Newsie Aw, come now, you're kiddin' me. That's a cinch to get paid for doin' what you're dyin' to do ! Grandfather It is all quite true. People who think that boys like you should have a chance have given the money to pay for it. But of course, your story will have to be carefully looked into. Would your mother object to being called upon and questioned? Newsie (Jumping out of his chair and imth excitement) NOT SHE!! She'll fair go nutty at the idea of my gettin' a chance. Grandfather Remember, you'll have to make good or the scholarship will be withdrawn. Newsie ' Now you're shoutin' ! Just try me on ! Sam (Puzzled) Do you really want to go to school so much and ■lose all your freedom? Newsie Aw, go 'long ! Freedom to be a bum and a tramp ? Yes, I do want to go to school and learn so that I can get a home like this for mother and the kids. Grandfather Come, then, we'll go to the Committee on Scholarships at once. Newsie and Hurray, Hurray ! ! ! Sam (They go off together, Newsie and Sam each waving a paper in one hand and clinging to Grandfather with the other) Lydia Hale Crane. 30 Blossom Time ATALIE DALLAS touched the tips of her fingers and raised her arms as high above her head as they would go. She stretched out her feet till the buckles on her slender pumps looked almost as far off as Alice's feet were when she grew so unreasonably in Wonderland. Then Natalie hastily dropped her arms and pulled back her feet, sup- pressing the comfortable yawn she was beginning, because Miss Margaret Alton was in the room, and looked up at her. Miss Alton was visiting Natalie's mother. The little girl was growing some- what accustomed to her presence, but one — one who is but eleven — never can quite feel at home with the Truly Great who write stories and books which are printed and advertised in the magazines. Miss Margaret was an Author, with a capital A in Natalie's mind, and Natalie stood in awe of her. Now Miss Margaret smiled, with eyebrows inquiringly lifted. "Tired out doing nothing, Natalie?" she asked. "I guess it's spring fever," said Natalie, trying to appear grown up. "It's horrid in the city in May, so stuffy! I keep thinking about our country place. Salt Breezes. It's lovely there, lots of flowers and trees. We can't get off this year till the first week of June; father doesn't sail from England till next week, you know. It's so stuffy in town." Miss Margaret glanced around the room and back at the little girl with a sudden gleam in her dark eyes. Natalie was a pretty child, somewhat spoiled, but sweet natured, capable of fine things. She was exquisitely dressed, perfect from the crown of her well-tended hair to the pumps which she had hastily pulled in when Miss Margaret looked up. The child's every motion and belonging told of one who had been adorned and fed upon the best that great wealth can buy from her first hour of life. And the great room, spacious, high-ceiled, beautiful, was a setting as magnificent as a princess could ask. Yet Natalie called it stuffy ! Miss Margaret looked at Natalie. "The city is stuffy, as you say, in spring," she agreed. "There are parts of it which are deserving of that reproach in winter. Natalie, you are tired of all amusements. I think I'll show you some- thing that is not amusing, but which is at least arousing. You are only a little girl, but it is not too early for you to be shown some- 31 thing' rather worse than waiting, in such a house as this is, till the first of June to go to Salt Breezes. I'll ask your mother to lend you to me for this afternoon." "O! Margaret," cried Natalie's mother when she was asked to lend Natalie. "Pray don't take her where there's contagion. And don't make the child unhappy ! I don't want Natalie made wretched ; she's only a child!" . "She is eleven and utterly weary of luxury. Do yoii forget, Edith, all our plans to do great things, when we were in college? You have a little daughter to fulfil your dreams. It doesn't harm a child to pity till it is a pain. Natalie can be a fine woman, but you've got to make fine women out of little girls ; not wait till they are grown up ! I will not let Natalie come to grief. Let me take her to the other side this afternoon, Edith." Mrs. Dallas did not know how to refuse Miss Margaret, so Natalie went, not in the big car, as she usually went about the city, but in street cars, frequently changing one for another, till the last stage of her journey, which was made on foot. Natalie had fallen silent before this stage was reached. She clung to Miss Margaret's hand, half afraid, wholly shocked. Such dismal, narrow, dirty streets were beyond her nightmare dreams. In them, horrible people who might be hundreds of years old, so bat- tered, disfigured were they, lounged against boxes and dropped on curbings, staring with scowls at Miss Margaret and her dainty little companion. Worse than this were little children, babies, so wea- zened, thin, forlorn, that they did not look like human babies, lying on steps in rolls of faded rags, or hung on women's arms, while babies of larger size fell and toddled beside them, all with sad, empty faces that suggested anything rather than babyhood. Miss Margaret looked down on Natalie with a compassionate smile; she realized how this poverty must horrify the child who had seen nothing in her life worse than a beggar in the shopping district. "We are going into this house, dear," she said gently. She led Natalie up the black stairway which they mounted : Natalie could not see a step, but Miss Margaret guided her along. They stopped and Miss Margaret knocked at a door which Natalie could not see in the murky blackness of a passage that was filled with greasy, heavy odors which seemed to choke and darken it, like a sort of reeking wadding. 32 A child's voice cried, "Come in," and they entered. Natalie saw a tiny room which was filled by five figures seated around a pine table, the table strewn with flower petals, all pink and white and spring-like, in sharpest contrast to the wretched room. It was a moment before Natalie saw that the petals were artificial and that the five figures were making them into flowers. There was a gray half-light coming in from one window, a light so cloudy that at once Natalie was conscious of eye-strain as she looked at the petals to see whether or not they were real flowers. And the figures around the table ! One was a woman, thin, haggard, gray, but not old. The other four were children, a boy older than Natalie, a girl younger, another girl still younger than the other, and a baby, a little thin, sober creature of about four, whose dark head rose but a little way above the table as she worked. For the baby was working with the others, putting together the apple blossom petals into natural looking blooms such as that moment were rioting in thousands of country orchards, dropping in pink and white showers on little children like these, who laughed and romped under the trees, as these children could never laugh, while orioles sang and tilted, and sunshine flooded the earth. No one, woman or child, raised an eye from the work when Miss Margaret opened the door, yet they seemed to know who it was and they greeted her with a faint echo of pleasure in their dull voices. "Is that you?" said the woman. "It is I, and I've brought a little girl to see what wonderful things can be done by fingers far smaller than hers," said Miss Margaret gently. She pushed aside some of the petals and laid a bag of oranges on the table. "Oh, nonges," cried the baby, but still she did not stop her work for an instant, nor look up. "Please set 'em. off. Miss Alton," said the woman. "We can't mix our work. Or you set 'em over there, Kitty." "I wHll," said Miss Margaret, and did so. Natalie heard herself sob and was frightened by it, but she suddenly discovered that Kitty, the little girl who must have been about seven, had a crutch leaning against her chair. The oldest girl looked up at the sound, but instantly looked down again. 33 "It's tough," is all she said. "Miss Margaret, they can't do this all the time, every day?" cried Natalie, suddenly turning on Miss Margaret as if these flower- makers were not there. "Every day, from early morning till bed time, by this dim day- light and by the light of that small lamp," said Miss Margaret gently. "Don't you — don't you go out doors? Don't you go to school? Oh, don't you ever play?" cried Natalie in horror, trying to realize what this could mean. ^The Baby Works with the Others. "We do our buyin' late nights. There ain't been time to let the children go to school— yet. I guess they don't play!" the mother replied for them. "That — that little, little thing, too?" stammered Natalie. "She's pretty smart," said the mother. "She's worked this six months. She's some over four, Gladie is." "Oh, Gladie ! Glad !" cried Natalie, with a clioke in her voice. "How many dollars a day can you all make?" 34 "Gee, dollars!" cried the boy. "Listen at her! Mother and Maime and me make fifteen cents, some days, each of us does, and Kitty can make ten, if she digs in good, and the kid makes five. Fifty or sixty cents when it goes good." "Oh! Miss Margaret, Miss Margaret! Look how I spend for candy and soda!" cried Natalie. "I know, dear. You never thought there were little children workers, you know," Miss Margaret comforted her. "I guess Miss Margaret's doin' you a good turn, little girl," said the mother. "She's done us the many a one. It's bad to grow up not knowin'. You get to school ; my children know what books don't learn 'em. It's sore learnin'. They work all day, every day, the whole year through. They don't once get out into the air, not the real air. They're gettin' bad eyes at it. I can't half feed 'em right. Gladys' gettin' weaker ; she's too little. But they work good. Half a dollar a day among us. It keeps us. Pretty often Kitty gets sick. Her back's bad since she fell for me, when she wan't more'n two. She gets lamer. City doctor, he says it's workin' steady with her back bad. Can't be helped. It's bad enough to be old's I am workin' — but children ! Hadn't ought to be so, but so 'tis. Sometimes I think how queer 'tis, now in spring, making apple blossom.s in the dark, little tads like these, when off som.ewheres there's real apple blossoms smellin' all over, and birds and sunshine and country children, or rich folks' children like you, enjoyin' it all. I was in the country myself when I was this age ; I know what 'tis. Even up in the park it's grand, but there ain't time to go there. Sometimes I wonder what God, who made the flowers and children, thinks of m.en who keep little things like (^ladie and lame Kitty at it, with their wee fingers, all day, every day, in the dark, to earn five cents. But I hadn't ought to talk about it; before the little girl, I mean. She's all done up from us. Miss Alton." "I'll take her home," said Miss Margaret. "But I hope she will remember till the day comes when she can help." She put her arms around Natalie and wiped her hot cheeks, for Natalie was crying tempestuously. "Let me help now, a little," begged Natalie, choking back her sobs and hunting for her little silver mesh bag. She emptied its contents on the table, quite a little pile of silver coins. 35 "For Kitty and the baby. And do, please do stop just one day and take them somewhere to see apple blossoms," she begged. Then Miss Margaret and Natalie went away and the sad eyes of the little creatures around the table were lifted in farewell, for Natalie's silver had purchased them the right to steal one instant for a grateful glance of good-bye. The gray-pale, little faces smiled wanly and the high, weak voices said good-bye with something like affection in their tones. Natalie seemed to these children a lovely vision from another world ; they were moved to love her, but it was a dull, dim motion of the hearts. Little hearts that beat in half-fed, weary bodies, cramped behind sides daily bent over unchildish tasks, cannot throb quickly, even to love and gratitude. Before the door had closed behind them, Natalie, looking back, saw that ail the children and the mother were at work as if they had not been interrupted, little misnamed Gladys putting together the spring petals with her tiny, thin fingers like the rest. At home again, Natalie threw her hat and coat on a chair and herself upon a couch and gave herself up to crying as though her heart would break. Wisely, Miss Margaret did not attempt to console her ; she let her cry, knowing that it was a relief to the little girl's first agonized horror in realizing how cruelly life bears upon some little children from the first hour that it is given to them. At last Natalie began to sob less violently. She dried her eyes and lay quiet for a little while and Miss Margaret stroked her hair, waiting for her. "To think I called this stuffy I" sighed Natalie at last, looking around her beautiful chamber with its countless luxuries, its com- fort, its cool, shaded windows, its spaces, and on to the marble tiled bathroom that was her own. "Miss Margaret, O! Miss Margaret," Natalie cried suddenly, sitting erect. "It is horrible ! We are all in a Christian land, we aren't heathens ! And our Lord said : 'Suffer little children to come unto me!' We aren't letting them, are we?" Miss Margaret shook her head. "They have no chance to learn to come, such little ones as we have seen, Natalie," she said gently. "What can we do? What can / do? If you hadn't thought I could do, you wouldn't have taken me there," Natalie implored her. 36 "Help now, with money. You have a good deal to spend, Natalie, but even if you had but little you could share it with the little beings who are slaves as truly as those our fathers fought to set free," said Miss Margaret. "Send money to those who work to get laws passed to keep for the children some tiny bit of child- hood. There are people working hard to free our dear land from the awful stain of child labor. Help them, give to them. And by and by, dear, when you are old enough, use the influence and power that will be yours to right this monstrous wrong." "It sounds like being a knight, a girl knight, tO' fight for the helpless," cried Natalie, her eyes kindling. "My fine little Natalie!" cried Miss Margaret, "I knew you were true blue ! That is precisely what it is, a fight for the weak, and, girl or boy, no knight of old fought in a better cause than this!" "I'm going to save my candy money — not all of it," added Natalie, honestly, "but half, maybe, and send it to save children from — O ! Miss Margaret," Natalie interrupted herself with a sudden thought. "I'll try right away to help, but by and by I can do lots more. Won't it be as if this were the blossom time, and by and by will be the fruit? Begin with the children that I saw making apple blossoms and go on and on till, some day, everywhere, there can be no more little crippled Kitties and baby Gladyses work- ing and working in the dark?" "Yes, dear ; just like that. Now the blossom, then the fruit. And the fruit shall be all little children set free to play with the blossoms in the sun," said sweet Miss Margaret, kissing Natalie's glowing face. Marion Ames Tag gar t. 3'i The Avaricious As, the Banner B's and the Capable C's ROBABLY there are some among our readers who want to leave school and go to work ; and no matter how much has been said to them about school being best because they can do better work and earn higher wages if they wait and learn more, they still plan to begin work the very day they reach the legal age. Also, there are others who have no choice in the matter, for they know that their wages will be needed for the support of their families. I could give both of these a great many very good reasons why they are making a big mistake in leaving school ; but instead, I am going to tell them some stories. The first is from a book a good deal more than two hundred years old, and just as nearly as I can I shall tell it in the old-fashioned words of this old-fash- ioned book. It is about a man who was being shown around by a guide called the Interpreter. "The Interpreter took him by the hand and had him into a little room, where sat two little children, each one in his chair. The name of the oldest was Passion and the name of the other. Patience. Passion seemed to be much discontented but Patience was very cjuiet. Then the m.an asked, "What is the reason of the discontent of Passion?" The Interpreter answered, "Their Teacher would have him stay for his best things till the beginning of the next year, but he will have all now ; but Patience is willing to wait." Then One came in to Passion and brought him a bag of treas- ure and poured it down at his feet, the which he took up and rejoiced therein and, withal, laughed Patience to scorn. But when they beheld but a while, he had lavished it all away. Then said the man, "Now I see that Patience hath the best wisdom, and that on many accounts. First, because he stays for the best thinp;s. Second and also, because he will have the glory of his when the other hath nothing but rags. Therefore Passion had not so nv.ich reason to laugh at Patience, because he had his 38 good things first, as Patience will have to laugh at Passion, because he had his best things last." Now let me tell you another story to show how this old, old tale comes true in these days. There were Arthur, and Andrew, and Albert, and Annie, and Alice, and some hundreds of children whose real names I don't know; and so we will call them the A children. But I know some- thing about them much more important than their names; for this is a true story and happened in these United States not very long ago. The A children al! left school at 14, which in their State was just as soon as they could get working papers. Of course, they didn't know \rery much, so they had to take poorly paid places where the work was very simple — just doing the same sort of thing over and over again. They got very tired of that work and wanted more wages, so they changed froiii factory to factory, but it was always the same. They didn't know enough to get better places and better pay, and only a very few of them could even get positions where they had the chance to learn how to do better paid work. Thus the A children kept on as unskilled laborers and found that even when grown up they couldn't get much better wages, and that the}' were fast forgetting what they had learned at school and worst of all, that when hard times came they were the first ones out of a job. When the A children left school they had laughed at Ben and Bud and Bert and Betty and Bertha — in fact, at all the B children because the B children wouldn't leave school to go to work but said they meant to stay till they were 16, and learn all they could, and take some special courses so as to get good paying positions when they did go to work. When the B children were 16 they at once got better pay than the A children had ever had, and by the time the B children had worked two years they had been able to make more money than the A children had made by working four years. Thus it happened that when the As and the Bs were all of them 18, the Bs had a nice little sum coming to them, and were rising from good positions to better, with higher pay, and were learning more all the time, for they were skilled workers. But the poor As were standing still or even going backwards, and all because they wouldn't stay at school. as This is a true story, for an exact account was kept of these As and Bs by people who wanted to find out if staying at school really paid. But there was another set of children — Charles, Christopher, Clara and many more. They were the C children, who had to go to work whether they wanted to or not. Now, when learned men and women want to learn a good deal more than they have the money to pay for, they work hard to get what is called a Scholar- ship and it is considered a very fine thing to get one. You hear it said, "So and So has gotten a Scholarship at Columbia, or Harvard, or Barnard, or Radcliife ;" and he or she is thought much of because of it. ' So some people decided to start Scholarships for Public School children also; and now if a family is so badly off that it can't get along without the wages of the children, the children can earn these wages by going to school and being punctual, well behaved, and diligent in study, so that they get high marks all along the line. It may be nobody's fault that these C children need the Scho- larships. So many things happen to use up money, or perhaps their parents have been A children and never could earn much ; then if their children, too, have to be A children they will always be poor, and so will THEIR children after them. But if they can become C children they will have as good a chance to geit along as the Bs. Now remember, the As are the Avaricious children, who love money more than knowledge and wisdom, and are just like Passion. But the Bs are the Banner children, who always keep climbing higher. And the Cs are the Capable children who help support their families and climb higher at the same time. Thus both Bs and Cs are like Patience. So, just as in the old, old story I told you first, ive saj' of these children, "Therefore the As have not so much reason to laugh at the Bs and Cs because they themselves had their good things first, as the Bs and Cs will have to laugh at the As because they themselves had their best things last." Each of you is either an Avaricious A, a Banner B, or a Capable C, and I wonder which ? Lydia Hale Crane. 40 How Grandmother Changed Her Mind (A Playlet for Girls of 15 to 16) Grandma, who is Mrs. Caution, o very old lady and deaf, walking- with a cane. Mrs. Feeling, her granddaughter, a club woman. Mrs. Reason, a club woman. Mrs. Ardent, a club woman. Betty, about ten, Mrs. Feeling's daughter. Bill, about eleven or tzvelve, Mrs. Feeling's son. Grandma Mrs. F. Grandma Mrs. F. Grandma (Enter Grandma, leaning on her cane, rocker and takes out her knitting.') She drops into a It must be nearly time for Belinda to come back from her Club. Oh, here she comes now. {Enter Mrs. Feeling with out-door things on. As she takes them off, she talks excitedly and shouts into Grandma's ear) Oh, Grandma, I do think it is terrible, simply terrible and shocking about these poor children that work. Just think. Grandma, children working! (^Energetically) Why, my dear, I think it a very good thing for them. When I was a girl we were expected to work, and the mother who didn't teach her chil- dren to work, and to work properly, too, was consid- ered a very poor specimen of a mother. I should say that the terrible thing these days is the way children don't work. (Stepping closer and speaking louder) But, Grandma, you don't understand; These children don't work the way Bill and Betty work, — (Laughing and shaking her head at Mrs. F.) Well, I should hope not! The way Bill and Betty work indeed ! Why play is the only thing that Bill and Betty really work hard at, bless their merry little hearts ! 41 Mrs. F. (Fiercely) Well, I'm glad of it! And they shali play all they want to, and more, too, if they want to, if only to make up for these poor children who never play ! Grandma "Never play !" Don't teU me, child ! All children play. A child that didn't play would never amount to a row of pins. Play is bortl in them, just like in kittens. And nobody can help its leaking out. All the parents and teachers will tell you so. Mss. F. But these children don't go to school. Grandma What! Not go to. school? Little truants, are they? Mrs. F. No, they are kept from school to work, — thousands of them. Grandma (Dropping her knitting in her lap and looking over her specs and speaking severely) Belinda, if that is the sort of stuff you hear at your club, I advise you to stay away from it. I know there are some silly parents who don't care to have their children edu- cated, and there are foolish children who would . rather grow up dunces than go to school. But thou- sands of them! Why, Belinda, how can you swallow- all that nonsense? Mrs, F. (Very fast) But, Grandma, the speaker gave figures, and facts and pictures into the bargain I Grandma (Holding her hand cup-fashion around her ear) "The speaker pitched into the barn?" Belinda, when you get excited I can't understand a word you say. {A knock at the door. Mirs. F. opens it and a lady in out- door ivraps enters.') Mrs. F. Oh, Mrs. Reason, I'm so glad to see you! I can't make Grandma understand about the working chil- dren. Won't you tell her? Mrs. Reason (Shaking Grandma's hand) I am delighted to see you looking so well, Mrs. Caution. I only hope I shall be as hale and hearty when I am your age. Grandma Well, Mrs. Reason, it was a proper amount of work, properly done when a child, that built up my consti- tution. 42 Mrs. R. I'm sure, Mrs. Caution, you're right. If children were taught habits of industry and if children who expect tO' earn their living with their hands were taught how to use their hands right, there would be far less un- skilled labor swelling the army oi the unemployed. (Another knock at the door, which Mrs. F. Opens to admit another lady in out-door wrajrs.) Mrs. F. Oh, Mrs. Ardent, how good of you to run in ! Mrs. Arre.vi Didn't we have a wonderful meeting to-da.y, Mrs. Feeling ? Mrs. F. Yes, and we're trying to tell Grandma about it. Mrs. a. (Bowing and smiling to Mrs. Reason, and going to- ward Grandma) Oh, Mrs. Caution, it was the most heart-rending exposition! Grandma "Hard-ending exhibition" was it? Well, what of? What of? Mrs. F. The children who work. Mrs. R. The children who ARE WORKED. Mrs. a. Child labor in factories, and mills, and canneries, and coal-breakers, and — Mrs. F. Children working ten and eleven hours a day, and — Mrs. R. Children being worked at oyster shucking, as young as five years old, night or day, just as the cargoes happen to come in ; and-^ Mrs. a. And without any time limitation. Think of it; just kept at it and at it and at it. Grandma (Sitting up excitedly) "Children working day and night at oyster sucking!" My goodness! They'll have typhoid! Mrs. F. (Shouting in her ear) Oyster shrieking, shucking, Grandma, Getting the shells off, you know, for pack- ing the oysters in kegs for market. Grandma Oh, "shucking !" Yes, of course. But that's very hard on the hands, isn't it? Mrs. R. It i-s, indeed. But not as hard as shrimp picking, which the children do also. The part that has tO' be taken out in shrimp picking contains a fluid which makes the fingers sore. 43 Grandma But where are the children's mothers? Mrs. F. Working with them and keeping them up tO' their work. It's horrible of them, bUt they don't seem to know any better. Mrs. R. Then, there are the night boys in the glass factories, 2,000 in Pennsylvania and West Virginia who work from 7 in the evening 'till 5 in the mofning. Grandma But children should be in bed at night. I was always taught that we got all our beauty sleep before twelve' o'clock. Mrs. a. That is the dreadful thing about Child Labor, that no one seems to cafe about the children, but only about the dollars and cents. The employers think of the cheap wages and the parents, of the tiny extra income. Mrs. R. Even the children themselves learn to consider money the chief end of living. And the folly of both parents and children is that they are so eager to get the star- vation' wages a child can earn at the simplest sort of unskilled; monotonous labor, that they forget how much better wages could be earned later if the chil- dren were kept at school. Mrs. a. How can a child who has left one of the lower grades in school to go to work ever again get a chance to learn enough to command really good wages? Grandma , To be sure, to be sure! "Penny wise, pound foolish!" Mrs. F. And in one state it is allowed by law to put a child in the mill as young as ten years, if the child happens to be an orphan or has a disabled father. Just think if I had put Betty into a mill last winter when her father broke his leg ! Mrs. a. Mrs. Caution, over 2,000,000 children are wage- earners in this country. All are under sixteen. Most of them are allowed by law to begin at fourteen and thousands begin very much younger, even when it is against the law. 44 Mrs. R. The largest portion of them are shut up in factories for 8, 9, 10, 11 and sometimes more hours a day. Always with the whirr and clatter of machinery in their ears and dust in their lungs, and often among rough, evil companions. A far larger proportion of working children than of school children from the same grades of life get into the reform schools and jails. Mrs. F. Besides, there are the children in the tenement houses making artificial flowers, and heaps and heaps of other things. {The door flies open and a little girl of ten runs up, to Mrs. Feeltng.) Betty Oh, mother, need I pick out any more bastings ? I'm so tired! Mrs F. {Putting her arm around her) How long have you been at it, my darling? Betty The longest half hour I ever lived, mother ! Mrs. a. Betty, there are little girls younger than you that have to pick out bastings for hours and hours. Their mothers work at finishing off men's coats and trousers, and their children have to pull the bastings out before they go to school, and then right away after they come home. If they are too young to go even to the kindergarten, they have to pick bastings all day long. Betty But when do they play and pick flowers? Mrs. R. They don't have any time to play, Betty. And as for flowers, there are children so busy making artificial flowers that they never get a chance to pick real flowers. (The door Aies open and a boy betiveen eleven and twelve runs in) liiLL. I say, mater, need I shovel snow [or rake leaves, or pick peas, or pull weeds, or sort apples or potatoes, or whatever other zvork happens to be appropriate to 45 time and place] any more? I've done bushels, I guess; and I'm tired to death! Grandma How long did it take you, Bill? Bill. Just as long as Betty, Great-grandma. Mrs. a. Bill, there are hundreds of boys who have to work all day long in the coal breakers, sitting on hard board benches, and bending over the coal as it rushes past. They have to pick the stones and slate out of it; and their noses and throats get full of coal dust. Bill (With a long whistle) That's worse than going to school. Mrs. R., Mrs. F., and Mrs. A. Much worse. Bill. Betty Well, anyway, I've worked 'till I'm too tired to move ! Bill And I am, too. Just toO' tired to move a muscle ! Mrs. F. (Laughing) You poor children! Yes, you. may go and play now. Bill. Hi, Betty, catch me if you can ! (They race off the stage.) Gran'oma It looks as if they were too tired to move ! TheOthees (Laughing) It certainly does. (jRANDMA But all this you have been telling me is dreadful! I didn't know such cruelty could exist in this land of the free. Is nothing being done about it? Mrs. R. Yes, the National Child Labor Committee is trying to get laws against it all over the country. But progress is awfully slow — so few people are in earnest about it. Ycu say "people are hot as a furnace about it?" They have a good right to be ! Why, what's Uncle Sam thinking about to let all his little boys and girls get worked out this way? What will they be good for when they grow up if they haven't schooling, or trades, or strong constitutions, or anything else that makes them worth having for citizens? What's to become of our own Bills and Bettys if these are the 4G sort of fellow citizens they'll have to reckon with when they grow up ? Belinda, aren't you going to do any- thing about this? And you, Mrs. Reason, and all of you? Don't you care if your boys and girls have these ignorant, untrained boys and girls to deal with when they are all men and women together ? Ai.L. Of course we do ! Grandma. But what are you going to do about it? Everyone of us must do something and do it quick! (Rises from her chair) Belinda, get my hat and coat right away. I'm going down to Washington this very minute to tell Uncle Sam what I think of him. (As she speaks she emphasises her -vords znnth her cane on the floor.) I rather guess he'll find he has to "sit tip and take notice" when I get at him ! Boys and girls taking the places of men in the factories, and keeping the men out of work ! A pretty pass things are coming to ! A.nd the children only getting starvation wages at that! It wasn't so in my days! The children learned at home to work — I say, Belinda, where's my hat ? I'm going to Washington ! Mrs. F. Oh, Grandma! Mrs. R. and A. Oh, Mrs. Caution! , {Considerable confusion, while they hold on to the old lady, saying, "Oh, don't, oh, don't!" and slie cries, "I WILL, 1 WILL!") Mrs. R. I will tell you a better way, Mrs. Caution. You send in your subscription to the Child Labor Committee and be made a member. With the names and money from thousands of members they can make Uncle Sam "sit up and take notice" much better than if each one of us went by herself. Mrs. F. Then, too, you can write letters tO' the legislators, Grandma. Mrs. a. Why, even our children could do that — write a letter and all sign it, asking Congress and the state legisla- tures to stop this cruel child labor. Surely they would listen to little children, pleading for other children. 47 Grandma Well, if I join the Committee, will you all join, too? All. I will, I will. Grandma Will you each get ten more to join? All. Yes, yes. Grandma Then you'd better get at it noiv. I'm going right up to my room to write a letter to Uncle Sam that'll make his hair stand on end ! {They go out together helping Mrs. Caution.) Lydia Hale Crane. 48 The Story of the Medicine Bottle Georgie was in bed feeling very uncomfortable and what made him more uncomfortable still was to see the big bottle of medicine standing on the table by his bed. At last he said fiercely, "Mr. Medicine Bottle, I am going to smash you !" "Oh, please don't, Georgia," cried the Bottle, "I have had such a hard life of it and besides, you must remember, I had to take every drop of your medicine before a single teaspoonful was given to you !" "That's true," said Georgie, "I hadn't thought of that. But tell me about your hard life." "Well," and the Bottle spoke slowly, "I don't think, after all, my life was as hard as the boys' lives." "What boys?" asked Georgie. "All the boys excepting you that I've known. Yes, Georgie, all the boys I have known would be glad enough to be in your place. The Glass Factory where Medicine Bottle was born. * Reprinted from Child Laboe Bulletin, Vol. II, No. 2, August, 1913. Fourteen year old 'boys work all night in the glass factories of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. All other imiiortant glass manufaGtnfing states have forbidden night work under the age of 16, and' cenSus figures show that the industry has prospered under this restriction. 49 You needn't look as if you didn't believe me; for those boys often felt sick enough, but there was no soft bed for tlieni. No, indeed, only the same work day or night as it happened to' be. But I'll begin at the beginning. I became a member of the Bottle family in a dark and dirty factory in West Virginia, and it was in that same dark and dirty factory that the boys had to stay for eight and nine hours at a stretch, one week in the daytime, when you, sir, would be going to school or playing; and the next week in the night-time, when you would be sleeping in such a nice soft bed as not one of them- ever lay down in. The Furnace where Medicine Bottle first found himself melting hot. "The first I knew about myself, I was hot, just blazing, melting, white hot ; and a man caught me up on a long iron tube, all melted as I was, and jammed me into an iron mold. A boy was sitting down close to the mold to shut it and steady it. And his face was close enough to me to get the heat as I passed by, and I saw a big scar where once some hot glass had hit his cheek. All the time that 50 The "Mold Boy." 51 the man was blowing me into shape the mold boy sat cramped up with the heal pouring into his face. And he had to do that hour after hour for my brothers and sisters as well. When I was shaped, he opened the mold and another boy took me out and carried me to what they call the 'glory hole' to have my neck melted into a good shape when the tube had been broken away. The fire at the 'glory hole' was blinding bright for the boy's eyes, and almost blistering: hot for his face. The Snapping-up Boy carrying Medicine Bottle to the "Glory Hole." "I saw another boy take the tube the man had blown through, and knock off the pieces of glass that stuck to it. "The glass broke into small flakes and was bright and sparkling as it flew through the air. But it was very bad for the boys to breathe, and often got. into their eyes and hurt so much they had to stop work to get it out. Working in the hot factory made them catch cold easily, too, and they Often were sick with bad coughs." "It's very tiring to cough," said Georgie, who knew all about it, for he had been doing it a good deal. 52 "Yes," said Mr. Medicine Bottle, "but they had to keep on working just the same. The Cleaning-off Boy knocking the Pieces of Glass off the Blower's Tube. "Then another boy took me on a sort of shovel with a lot of my relatives, and ran with us to a hot, hot oven which was cooled down The Carrying-in Boy carrying Medicine Bottle on the Shovel. very slowly. For if we had cooled too quickly we would have snapped into a thousand pieces. This boy had to be very careful, 53 The Leer or Hot Oven, where Medicine Bottle cooled down slo'wiy. for other boys were running back and forth to the oven, and once two boys ran intp each, other, and their bottles flew all over and Lunch at Midnight. 64 bits of hot glass cut and burned them. There was broken glass on the floor, too, and I saw that the boys had their shoes all cut up, and one little fellow's foot was bleeding. "There was just one glad time, — when the whistle blew at mid- night. Then the boys would get out their lunch with oh, such happy shouts of relief, and enjoy it with an hour's rest before they must go back to work again. The Packing Room where Medicine Bottle was packed for Shipment. "When we had cooled down we were given to another boy, who packed us into a box for shipment. "But y/hile I was in the oven I saw and heard a good deal about the boys. No matter how their backs ached with stooping over the mold, or how their eyes smarted at the 'glory hole,' or how tired their feet were, nmning back and forth to the ovens, whatever they were doing they had to keep on doing it. f'At last when it was time for the night "boys to go home, they were often so tired that they dropped down in a little heap in some corner of the factory and went to sleep there. Sometimes theylwere too afraid to go home in the dark, for their, work would stop iat perhaps about three o'clock, before sunrise ; and in the cold nights it was awfully hard to run out of the factory heat into the winter winds and storms. 65 "One boy whom I liked was Joe/' "He had to sHnk to^ the factory with a dry lunch in his pocket, because, when he carried a pail, the people who didn't want such a little fellow sent to the factory knew by the pail that he was working and tried to stop it. The men used to send Joe to the near-by saloon to get beer for them. He never went to school, tho' he used to say, 'No, I ain't been yet, but I'm a goin'- ter learn somethin' soon.'. Pobr Joe, I'm^ afraid he never will. '' •*.'.:■. "Then there was poor, thin, tired looking little Jake. Oh, Georgie, if you could see him you would say as quick as a wink, 'When I get to be a man, I'll'see to it that the Jakes and the- Joes and all the other boys have a chance to play, to go to school, to sleep, not tO' work — at night — and to grow well and .strong:'" ' "You bet!" shouted Georgie. "When I'm a man I .won't let them make the children work like that, no, siree, sir!" The Story of My Cotton Dress* HAVE HAD another accident ! A big tear in my pretty new dress. This time / want to mend it. When, we went to Atlanta, Georgia, a few weeks ago, and saw the beautiful white cotton fields, mother told me how little boys and girls must help make most of the stuff used for our dresses- I used to think all other children had good times, and that going to school was very hard. Now I know better. The Cotton Field. UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD * Reprinted from the Child Labor Bulletin, Vol. II, No. 2, August, 1913. Alabama, North and South Carolina and Georgia, 4 large textile producing states, permit children 12 years old to work in the cotton mills, and Georgia's law permits them to begin at 10 years of age when they are orphans or have dependent parents. Even these weak laws are evaded or violated through lack of proper inspection. The U. S. Census on Manufactures, 1910, shows 26,794 children under 16 at work in Southern cotton mills. The 1910 report of the U. S, Commissioner of Labor, on the Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the U. S- (Senate Document 645) showed that 45 per cent, of cotton mill workers under 16 years old, in six Southern states, were unable to read and write. Spinning from one Bobbin to another. one bobbin to another, Until it is the from the tear in my- new dress.' The bobbins whirl around on large frames in the spinning room. Little girl "spin- ners" walk up and down the long aisles, between the frames, watching the bob- bins closely. When a thread breaks, ■ the Spinner must quickly tie the two ends together. Some people think that only children can do this quickly enough, but that is not so, for in a great many mills only grown-ups work. I appreciate my dresses more since I know that from the very beginning when the cotton is ripe in the hot sun, little boyS and girls must pick it for my dresses, while their backs grow tired and their heads ache. , Mother also took me to a cotton mill, on that trip. I saw how the cotton bolls are brought to the mill and the fluflfy soft white mass is combed and then spun from finest thread, like the ravelings The Spinner. 68 Mary. Mary is one of the spinnei'S. She was very sad. Standing all day long, she said, had broken down the arch of her foot and made her flatfooted, whicli is very painful. Some people say it is good for the girls and boys to work — that all children should be industrious. But they do not stop to think that there is a right and a wrong kind of work for little girls _gnd boys. Spinning for a little while a day could be made the right kind, but v/ork in a spinning room from 7 o'clock in the morning until 6 o'clock at night is the wrong kind. It keeps the children out 69 The Green Fields. of school, it gives them no chance to play, and they cannot grow strong. Many spinning rooms have their windows closed all day. because the rooms must be kept damp or the threads will break. Now, like growing plants, growing girls and boys need fresh air as well as light and sunshine. But there are more than a million children in this country who do not have fresh air, or play, or school because thev are working. And of these there are enough in the cotton mills to make a hisr citvful. GO The Doffer. When a bobbin is filled, the "doffer boy" comes along, takes it off the spinning frame and puts an empt}' bobbin in its place. Many doffer boys and girl spinners grow up without learning to read or write, and without even hearing of George Washington. 61 They Climb upon the Machine. length of the goods. I think the hardest work the girls in the mill did was to thread ever^- one of these warp threads through a tiny hole to prepare them for the loom that weaves the cloth. Sometimes the machine is so high and the boys are so little, they have to climb up to reach the bobbins. If they slip they can hurt themselves idly. At last the thread is ready be woven into cloth. It is put through a machine called the warper, which prepares the threads which run the W if- •• ' » ft fcf r'* -« f *-;*- » «« » 1 » ri^r *!_» i p? 1 W^m wrm: The Warper. 62 "Surely, mother," I said when we left the cotton mill, "little girls can't do any more work for a dress." "Ah, yes, dear," she said, "it is in the making of the dress itself that little girls take a big part. The cloth you saw woven is sent to factories in other large cities. It is cut into dresses that are carried in bundles into tene- ment homes. And such homes ! Often only one or two rooms for the whole family to cook and eat and sleep and sew in. Mothers sew the dresses, while their little girls help draw out the basting threads and sew on the buttons. "Not long ago I read the story about Rose, nine years old, who sews buttons on little girls' dresses. Her mother used to make dolls' dresses, and Rose had to snip them apart. She grew so tired of doing this for dolls for other little girls to play with, when she had no doll herself and when she wanted to read fairy stories, that what do you think she did? She snipped into the dolls' dresses with the scissors ! So now her mother makes big dress- es, for little girls, and Rose cannot use the scissors, but must work with a needle. She sews on 36 buttons to earn 4 cents." Rose 63 "The scallops of the embroidery trimming little girls like so well for their dresses," mother continued, "are cut out by children in tenement houses. These little girls generally go tO' school, but often fall asleep over their lessons because they worked long after bedtime the night before, and an hour or two before school in the morning. Cutting out Embroidery in a Tenement Home. 64 Pulling Ribbons through Garments in a Tenement Home. "The pretty ribbon trimmings are pulled through the dresses by children in still other tenement homes. You see, their mothers do not m.ean to be cruel but they must pay rent and buy coal and bread and shoes with the money the children can earn. More cruel than these poor mothers were the people who, when the fathers were little boys, made them do work that taught them nothing; for now the fathers do not know how to earn enough money, and they are idle while the children work. "If only everybody cared, and would not buy things that children make, the factory men would give the work to the fathers and not to the children." 65 Mr. Coal's Story* Our warm friend, Mr. Coal of Pennsylvania, tells us : I lay snug and comfortable for many years, way down in the middle of a large mountain, until I grew into a great big coal. Mr. Coal. The Miners at Work. One day a sharp steel pick cut through the rocks and I was pulled down from my bed and fell to the ground. All was so dark, * Reprinted from the Child Labor Bulletin, Vol. II, No. 2, August, 1913. 6,968 boys under 16 years of age were reported in the 1910 Census as employed in and about the coal mines of the country. Though the hazard to young children in this dangerous employment is very generally recognized, the large coal mining states Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri and Michigan prohibit this work only under 14 years. The recent mine explosion at Eccles, West Virginia, proved fatal to five little 14 year old boys. Work in the coal breakers of Pennsylvania, where anthracite is cleaned, is per- mitted by law to boys of 14 and over, although state reports show that the accidents to boys under 16 in this employment are 300 per cent, higher than to those above 16, 66 1 could have seen nothing if it had not been for tiny lamps which two men wore in their caps. The men were miners, digging for coal. My former neighbor, old Mr. Wise Coal, soon fell beside me. He used to tell about the great world outside, where every one, to be really good, must make someone else happy. When he heard the picks he said, "We are going there now, and we will make some children and grown-ups warm and comfortable. But I am sad when I think of the little boys who must help take us there. Watch to see what happens and you will understand." A Coal Car. A coal car, drawn by mules, came along. I thought they must be men, who threw us in and drove the mules ; but on looking closely I found that one of them was a boy about 12 years old. My com- panion shook his head. "It is only half past seven o'clock in the morning. Boys of his age should be eating breakfast and getting ready for school," he said. Driving through the mine we came to a big trap door. "When men work in mines, air is forced in to them from the outside," said old Mr. Wise Coal. "The trap doors must be kept closed so that 67 The Open Trap Door. the air will go where the men are working. Boys open and close these trap doors for the cars to pass from one chamber to the other. They are called trapper boys. Lonely Trapper Boy. John. Thev "Look back and see how lonely this one is. I heard him cough and tell one of the drivers that medicine didn't help him anymore. The mine was so damp, he always got a new cold." The next trapper hoy we passed was John wanted to go to school but his parents made him work, didn't know that he could earn better wages later, if he went to John James, A Greaser. are buried there." he said, "they often get killed in that way." As we came out of the mine we met James. They call him "a greaser" because he has to keep the axles of the car greased so that they run smooth- ly. He had grease all over himself and his clothes. Next we met Harry. He does odd jobs about the mine. When he first started at work, he wanted to go to school, but now he does not care. He is too tired to think about it, even. school now. The trap door was the near- est thing to a blackboard he had, so he drew pictures on that. John liked birds, and couldn't see any out-of-doors, be- cause it was after dark evenings when he left the mine. So he drew them on the trap door, and played they were aUv:e and he wrote on the door, "Don't scare the birds!" and this was all the fun he bad. When we passed a place where the roof had caved in, old Mr. Wise Coal shuddered. "I hope no boys and men Harry, a General Utility Boy. 70 The Coal Breaker. At last our car full of coal came to a building, called a "coal breaker." Here the coal was put into great machines, and broken into pieces the right size for burning. The Breaker Boys at Work. 11 Then the pieces rattled down through long chutes, at which the breaker boys sat. These boys picked out the pieces of slate and stone that cannot burn. It's like sitting in a coal bin all day long, except that the coal is always moving and clattering and cuts their fingers. Sometimes the boys wear lamps in their caps to help them see through the thick dust. They bend over the chutes until their backs ache, and they get tired and sick because they have to breathe coal dust instead of good, pure air. ^^^^^H K H^^^^^ %^' mmmm^ ^^■^H^^fjKiP^ '■^-^rZ^-^-^. ^ if'w ■■■'^^•MmS:' mSm^^ -*% •''•• " -■ «a ■■ '^r •'/V,r ^^ .-Vi ' ■ ■ \ i. -■ i ^^^[^^^ '"'m^^ ^^^Ww ^ i ^ 1 ^ S l^ mM ^ ^' ^^ ia. :* ^m-^'<^ wL-^ ."^v^R % "■ ii^ ^-^ '^'^i^^ ' jiiJ 1 ' '■^m „ ^Sl^0m ^Ik i^i^fle I^SSf '^al ^ K ^PB-fSVi^f^^V^l^FC lP^-a^^«;^ci^-"-«-*- ■ 1 ...^J Pennsylvania Breaker Boys. Hundreds and hundreds of boys work in the mines and in the breakers from early morning until evening, instead of going to school and playing outdoors. Do you suppose the little fellows sitting all alone in the deep coal mine, or bending over the chutes, ever think of the merry children sitting around the burning coal? 72 The Children Round the Fire. BKOWN BROS. This bright room is better than the dark mine. The happy talk is better than the silence. The warm fire glow is better than the cold. Do you suppose that the happy children made warm by the coal ever think of the boys who helped to get it ready for them ? Do they think of the children who make medicine bottles in glass factories and cotton dresses in mills and tenement homes? What can these children who play around the fire do to help the boys and girls who work in mines and factories? They can do this : They can ask their fathers and mothers to make laws to help these other children. Fathers and mothers can make laws. They know how to make laws that will help children. They also know how to make sure that the laws are obeyed. Sometimes fathers and mothers are so busy taking care of their own children — the children round the fire at home — that they forget the others — the children in mines and factories. But we must not let them forget the other children. The most important matter in the world is, that all the children — all the children — shall grow up healthy and intelligent and good. NOTE.--"Thc Story of the Medicine Bottle," "The Story of My Cotton Dress," and "Mr. Coal's Story," are reprinted from the Child Labor Bi;lletin, August, 1913, at the request of a number of friends who were unable to obtain copies of that issue We hope that they and our nezv readers may find the little stories as inspiring as did those who read them last summer. — The Editor. 73 An English Mill Child of 1,834 A Fragment from "A Manchester Strike." By Harriet Martineau. LLEN WALKED so rapidly as presently to overtake his little daughter Martha, who had left the factory somewhat earlier. He saw her before him for some y distance, and observed how she limped aiid how feebly she made her way along the street which led to their abode. It was far from easy walking for the strongest. There were heaps of rubbish, pools of muddy water, stones and brickbats lying about, and cabbage leaves on which the unwary might slip and bones over which pigs were grunting and curs snarling. Little Martha, a delicate child of eight years old, tried to avoid all these obstacles, but she nearly slipped down several times, and started when the dogs came near her, and shivered every time the mild spring breeze blew in her face. "Martha, how lame you are to-day!" said Allen, taking her around the waist to help her onward. "O ! father, my knees have been aching so all day I thought I should have dropped every minute." "And one would think it was Christmas by your looks. Child, instead of a bright May day." "It is very chill after the factory," said the little girl, her teeth still chattering. "Sure, the weather must have changed, father." No, the wind was south, and the sky cloiudless. It was only that the thermometer had stood at seventy-five within the factory. "I suppose your wages are lowered as well as mine," said Allen. "How much do you bring home this week?" "Onlv three shillings, father, and some say it will be less before long." That evening Allen was sitting with some fellozv operatives who were discussing the advisability of a strike on account of the reduction in wages, when Bray and his little daughter entered. Bray was formerly a spinner, hut, having been proscribed by the "mas- ters," zvas throzvn out of his trade and reduced to getting his living as a strolling musician. 74 "How we have wondered," exclaimed Allen, "what had become of you and yours. Is that poor little Hannah that used to be so delicate?" "The same that your good wife nursed through the measles. She would hardly know her now." Allan shook his head^ "Ah, I see what you mean," said Bray, "you had rather see her covered with white cotton flakes than with yellow ribands ; but remember that it is no fault of mine that she is not a piecer in yonder factory ; and I don't know that I need call it my misfortune any more than my fault. Look how strong and plump she is ! So much for living in the open air instead of being mewed up in a place like an oven. What can a man do," and looking round, he appealed to the company, "what can a proscribed man do but get his living so as not to have to ask for work?" Little Hannah went home with Allen to spend Sunday, and Martha confided to her, "My father is going to show my knees to Mr. Dawson, the apothecary. Do look how they are swelled; and they ache so, you can't think!" "O ! but I can think, for mine used to ache terribly when I walked and stood before the wheels all day." "But yours were never so bad as mine, or I am sure you could not dance about as you do." "No, not so bad, to be sure ; and my arms were never so shrunk away as yours. Look, my arm is twice as big as yours." "I wonder what's the reason," sighed Martha. "Mother says I get thinner and thinner." "You should have meat for dinner every day as I have," said Hannah, "and then vou would grow fat like me. Father gets such good dinners for us compared to what we used to have. He says 'tis that and being in the air so much that prevents my being sickly as I used to be. I don't think that I could do the work I did with all that noise and the smell of oil, and the heat." Before the operatives separated it ivas agreed that all em- ployed below a certain standard of wages should turn out the next morning, but it was thought desirable that the children should earn as long as alloived to do so. Allen, much against his zvill, was appointed leader. He returned to his home oppressed with a sense of responsibility. 75 "How is Martha?" was Allen's first inquiry on meeting his wife at the head of the stairs. Martha had been asleep when he had returned in the middle of the day, for it was now her turn for night work at the factory and what rest she had must be taken in the day. Her mother said that her lameness was much the same ; that she had seen Mr. Dawson, the apothecary, who pro- nounced that rest was what her weak limbs most required, and, as perfect rest was out of the question, her mother must bandage the joints while the child was at her work, and keep her laid on her bed at home. Here was the difficulty, her mother said, especially while Hannah was with them, for they were both fond of play, though poor Martha was often too tired to stir. She was now gone to her work for the night. The little girl repaired to the factory, sighing at the thought of the long hours that must pass before she could sit down or breathe the fresh air again. She had been as willing a child at her work as could be till lately ; but since she had grown sickly, a sense of hardship had come over her, and she was seldom happy. She was very industrious and disposed to be silent at her occupation, so that she was liked by her employers, and had nothing more to complain of than the necessary fatigue and disagreeableness of the work. She would not have minded it for a few hours of the day; but to be shut up all day, or else all night, without any time to nurse the baby or play with her companions, was too much for a little girl of eight years. She had never been so sensible of this as since her renewed acquaintance with Hannah. This night, when the dust from the cotton made her cough, when the smell and the heat brought on sickness and faintness, and the incessant whizzing, and whirring of the wheels gave her the feeling of being in a dream she remembered that a part of Hannah's business was to walk on broad roads, or through green fields by her father's side, listening to the stories he amused her with, and to sit on a stile, or under a green tree to practice a new tune, or get a better dinner than poor Martha often saw. She forgot that Hannah was sometimes wet through or scorched by the sun, and that Hannah had no home; and very hard and unpleasant work to do at fairs and on like occa- sions. About midnight, when Martha remembered that all at home were probably sound asleep, she could not resist the temptation to rest her aching limbs, and sat down, trusting to make up after- 76 wards for lost time, and taking care to be on her feet when the overlooker passed or when anyone else was likely to watch her. It is a dangerous thing, however, to take rest with the intention of rousing oneself from time to time; and so Martha found. She fairly fell asleep after a time; and dreamed that she was attending very diligently to her work; and so many things besides passed through her mind during the two minutes that she slept, that when the overlooker laid his hand upon her shoulder, she started and was afraid she was going to be scolded for a long fit of idleness. But she was not spoken to harshly. "Come, come, child; how long have you been asleep?" "I don't know. I thought I was awake all the time ;" and Martha began to cry. "Well, don't cry. I was past just now and you were busy enough; but don't sit down; better not, for fear you should drop asleep again." Martha thought she had escaped very well, and winking and rubbing her eyes, she began to limp forward and use her trembling hands. The overlooker watched her for a few minutes, and told her she was so industrious in general that he should be sorry to be hard upon her ; but she knew that if she was seen flagging over her work the idle ones would make it an excuse to do so, too. ,■ Martha curtsied, and put new vigor into her work at this praise. Before he went on his rounds, the overlooker pointed to the window and told her that morning was come. Martha knew that the sunbeams resting on the ceiling must travel down to the floor and be turned full on her frame and some way past it, before she could be re- leased ; but still it was a comfort that morning was come. The time came for declaring the strike and all propositions tending to a compromise were rejected. The first consequence uas that all the children were turned off, the idea being to force the men themselves to propose a compromise. This was thought by some parents far from being the worst thing that had happened. Many tender mothers stroked their children's heads and smiled when they wished them joy of their holiday, and bade them sleep in the morning without thinking of the factory bell. It was some days before the little things got used to so strange a change from their usual mode of life. Some would start up from sound sleep with the question, "Father, is it time?" Some talked in their sleep of being too late, and went on to devour their meals hastily, as if their 77 time were not their own. It would have amused some people and made others melancholy to watch the sports of these town-bred children. One little girl was seen making a garden — that is, boring a hole between two flints in a yard with a rusty pair of scissors, and inserting therein a daisy which by some rare chance had fallen into her hands. Others collected the fragments of broken plates and teacups from the kennels, and spread them out for a mock feast where there was nothing to eat. The favorite game was playing at bemg cotton spinners ; a big boy frowning and strutting and impersonating the master, another with a switch in his hand being the overlooker, and the rest, spinners or piecers, each trying which could be the naughtiest and get the most threats and scoldings. Hannah Bray took pains to stir up her little neighbors to what she called play. She coaxed her father into giving them a ball and tried to teach the children in the next yard to play hide-and-seek, but she often said she never before saw such helpless and awkward people. They could not throw a ball five feet from them, or else flung it into one another's faces so as to cause complaint and crying- fits. In hiding, they always showed themselves, or came out too soon, or not soon enough, or jostled and threw one another down, and they were the worst runners that could be conceived. Any one of them trying to catch Hannah looked like a duck running after a greyhound. Hannah began with laughing at them all around, • but observing that her father watched their play with tears in his eyes, she afterwards contented herself with wondering in silence why some children were so unlike others. The strike failed, and Allen, proscribed because its nominal leader, was reduced to watering and siveeping the streets for a livelihood. His children grew up one after another to be employed in the factory, while their father toiled in the streets with his water cart in summer and his broom in winter, enduring to be pointed out to strangers as the leader of an unsuccessful strike, as long as his family were not included with himself in the sentence of proscription. I Editor's Note. — The italicised passages are not Miss Martin- cau's. They were ivritten to better connect the passage reprinted from her longer story. 78 The Present Day American Mill Child The Factory and the Child HE WALLS trembling with the ceaseless, regular throbs of great and intricate machinery ; the maze of shaftings, pulleys, cogs ; the odor of oil and perspiration ; to this and to a thousand other factories, gather in from the fields and the streets, tens of thousands of children, strong and happy, or weak, underfed and miserable. Stop their play once for all, and put them out to labor for so many cents a day or night, and pace them with a tireless, lifeless piece of mechanism for ten or twelve hours at a stretch, and you will have a present-day picture of Child Labor. One other thing is essential to a realization of the evil; the child must do one thing which is neither of educational value nor fitted to develop him; but, on the contrary, much more likely to dwarf and brutalize him. A vagrant whom I once knew, had for five years, from the day he was 11 until the day he was 16, made two movements of his hands each second, or 23,760,000 mechanical movements each year; and was at the time I knew him, at the age of 35, broken down, drunken and diseased; but he still remembered this period of slavery sufficiently well to tell me that he had "paid up" for all the sins he had ever committed "by those five years of hell." But there is yet one thing which must be added to the picture. Give the child a tenement for a home in the filthy and muddy streets of an ordinary factory town, with open spaces covered with tin cans, bottles and old shoes, garbage and other waste, the gutters running sewers, the air foul with odors and black with factory smoke, and the picture is fairly complete. The intensity of modern methods of work, made possible by the machine, sets a pace so fast and uninterrupted as to tax the strength of the strongest men, and naturally, therefore, to rack the weaker bodies of the children. Carlyle saw this half a century ago when he said to the owners of the cotton mills, "Deliver me these ricketty, perishing souls of infants, and let your cotton-trade take its chance." 79 England was once proud of this same business, and talked much of how good it was for her children to be at work and how much the children liked it; but latterly she has become concerned about the physical deterioration of her people, and has about de- cided to weigh and measure every workman in England to see how far she has been ruined by her cotton and other trades. Many readers of Dickens will remember Muggleton, that 'an- cient and loyal borough, mingling a zealous advocacy of Christian principles with a devoted attachment to commercial rights ; in de- monstration whereof, the mayor, corporation and other inhabitants have presented, at divers times, no fewer than 1420 petitions against the continuance of negro slavery abroad, and an equal number against any interference with the factory system at home !' " ^ The Public and the Child "This is the grotesque thing that history will have to say about our generation : 'These queer people overworked those who were employed and used their little children to produce commodity for the benefit of the social group, while an ever-continuing multitude of those who might have worked were left out of work on these two grounds.' "Careful study of the character and condition of many of the unemployed reveals that a considerable percentage of these dere- licts upon the sea of life were those overworked in childhood. "Wicked as is the effect upon the boy, it is still more alarming in the case of the girl. The possible wife and mother has the reserved vitality of her womanhood stolen from her before that womanhood has dawned. It is the pledge of degeneration for the race in the next generation. Notwithstanding the laws, in coal mines and in cotton mills the life-blood of the race is being offered upon the altars of greed. "Look at the question as it is. If the family were hungry, the community would be tremendously shocked to hear that they had killed one of the tender children to supply food for the rest. It is even more shocking, though we do not feel it so, when the child is consumed, soul and body, in doing work from which he should have been saved, because it prevents his development and ruins ^Poverty, hy Robert Hunter, pp. 227, 229, 232, condensed. 80 his future. One child in a hundred may come through all these diffi- culties — but the success of these rare cases only emphasizes the common disasters which fall upon the rest." ^ The Labor and the Child Child Labor in Mills. "The position while working is constrained, and backs grow tired from stooping before the long day draws to a close. "The chief demand is constant watchfulness. Every thread must be mended as soon as it is broken, and a spinner has from 200 to 800 spindles to watch. No great demand is made upon the mental faculties, and the work is monotonous. The noise of the machinery, also, must have its effect upon the nerves, and indirectly upon the bodily well-being. Speaking broadly, the physical effect of the work is undoubtedly bad, though not all are affected unfavor- ably. Nevertheless, the confinement is enough to stunt the growth and lessen the vitality of a great number. This is particularly true of night-workers. Refreshing sleep during the daylight is difficult — and sometimes the children who finish their work at 6 in the morn- ing are up again when the day workers return for their dinners at 12. It is not surprising that the children fall asleep over their tasks, and that the work is poorly done. Yet a majority of the children, perhaps, prefer the night shift on account of the few hours gained for play in the afternoon. "The disadvantages of night work are recognized as many and serious. One manufacturer writes, 'Night work hurts worse moral- ly than it does physically, and every sane man knows what a strain on the system night work is.' "" The Employer and the Child "In forty-four mills in North Carolina there were found work- ing a total of eighty-seven little girls under 12 years, of whom twenty-one were respectively 7, 8 and 9 years old. In addition there were one hundred and fifteen boys under 12. "Concerning one North Carolina mill an agent reported : T asked five exceptionally small ones how old each was, and each answered, "I don't know." These children, the superintendent says, work from 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. One of the children is an emaciated 2 The Industrial Conflict. Dr. S. G. Smith, Dept. Sociology, University Minnesota, pp. 90, 93, condensed. ' Frcym the Cotton Field to the Cotton Mill, condensed. H. Thompson, 1906. A Study of the Industrial Transition of North Carolina. 81 little elf. SO inches high, and weighing perhaps 48 pounds, who works from 6 at night till 6 in the morning, and who is so tiny that she has to climb up on the spinning frame to reach the top row of spindles. "One girl of 10 years, a spinner, employed at night, had, during the preceding year, ordinarily worked 8^ hours on Saturday, after working 12 hours Friday night, making a continuous day of 20j4 hours with intermissions for meals only. She had also worked 6 hours on Monday about one-third of the time, and a few times she had worked all day Monday and all of Monday night — a con- tinuous period of 24 hours with about 35 minutes for dinner, and the same for supper. The mill did not stop during this time except for 35 minutes at midday." "In South Carolina, in thirty-four mills, were found a total of one hundred and seventy girls under 12 years. In addition, there were employed two hundred and twenty-seven boys under 12. These figures do not include the children under 12 for whom legal excep- tions had been made. "One woman said, 'They just keep at a person until they have to let them work whether they want to or not. I don't want them to know I've got another gal. They'd have her right in the mill, and I want her to help me.' The girl referred to was 9. Night Work "Mothers complain that the children who work at night are nervous. Even when they went to bed early in the morning sleep was not continuous throughout the day, nor could it be sound sleep. In the small houses with thin wood partitions, every sound in the house can be heard by the night-worker, even though he may sleep in a separate room. Lint " 'The fly,' or lint, consists of the short broken fibres, which, being exceedingly light, are easily carried in the air. "Lint is given off in all processes, up to and including spinning, which is very largely an occupation for women and children. "The prevalence of tuberculosis among cotton mill operatives is well known. A special investigation of the Bureau of Labor shows that the mortality from this cause is excessive to an extraordinary degree. The death rate of female operatives from this cause being in general more than twice that of non-operatives, and, in some of the race and age groups, running to many times as high. 82 Accidents "The rate for the child is more than double that of the older worker in this group, where the loss of part of a finger is usually the mildest occurrence. In these cases they varied among the children from a laceration involving the loss of a finger-nail to the loss of an arm. The child is then apparently more liable to all kinds of accident, and especially liable to those of severity."* The Parents and the Child "The May family live opposite the factory in a dirty, poorly-kept mill tenement. The father and mother were sitting on the veranda with four children. A lad of nine with whom I entered into conver- sation told me he liked to go to school, but he 'ain't got der time to go.' The mill whistle blew and this nine-year-old boy with an eleven- year-old brother hurried across to the mill, without a word from either parent. One was a spinner, the father explained, the other, a doffer. They have eight other children in the mill. The father continued to sit on the veranda playing with his jack-knife and the mother continued to rub snuff. "The father explained that the mill does not need men to work ; it has plenty of work for women, girls and children, but men are needed only to oversee, and to work some of the machines, and there is need for only a small number. "The spinning-room children in the C — mill did not seem under twelve years old, though some were puny and under-sized. The girls take care of from six to eight sides of the spinning frame. Seven girls of about fifteen work on the looms, and it was explained by the head weaver that each takes care of ten looms. The effect of taking care of these machines must be very serious for the deli- cate bodies of the young girls. There is a continual jolting of the floor. A guide in one of the other mills said he did not see how they can stand it. He couldn't." ° The Law-Makers and the Child "At the village of L — , in Georgia, where is located the largest mill in the state, I found a group of well-built mills, surrounded by well-kept grounds, homes that were, externally, at least, well- * Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage-Earners in the United States, 1907-1908. Vol. I. Cotton Textile Industry, pp. 176, 182, 198, 208, 289, 291, 355, 369, 385, 539 (condensed). Vol. XIV. Causes of Death Among Woman and Cliild Cotton-Mill Operatives, p. 31 (condensed). 'A Casual Visit to the Cotton Mills, J. J. Eschenbrenner, March, 1913. 83 planned and cared for, a school building and a church that pleased the eye ; everything provided for — apparently. "This favorable impression was deepened as I went through the mill — weave-rooms and card-rooms up-to-date. No use to look for Child Labor here, I thought. But upon entering the spinning-room I saw yougsters by the dozen, tiny little chaps, sweeping,, doffing, spinning — there were twenty-five of them that I judged to be under 12 years of age in the three .spinning-rooms alone (and I found some more in the weave-rooms, helping). These little ones were all well-trained, answering to the age of 12 or 14, no matter how youthful their appearance. Surely, not a thing was neglected — ■ except the children. "I visited the homes of some of the people, where some of them showed me their family records, life insurance papers, etc., and I proved nearly a dozen children to be working now or during the past year at 10 and 11 years of age — some had begun before they were 10. Many children who said they were 12 were really 'going on' 12 and too often have a long way to go before reaching 12. "Others, who were 12 now, had been working one, two or three years, beginning at 10 or before. "Undoubtedly, some of these ten-year-olds are working legally (if they are orphans or children of dependent parents, children may start work at 10 years of age in Georgia), but in nearly every case I examined, the wages of the children were not necessary if the older mem.bers of the family did their part. But so long as the Ordinary may be bribed, or the Overseer wheedled, so long as Inspectors do not inspect — what may we hope for ? "This mill has a sister mill in Lowell run by the same corpora- tion. The youngest workers there were not under 14 and only a few were under 16, and the new 1913 law has made the hours eight a day for Massachusetts working children." " ' "* Report of Lewis W. Hine (condensed). 84 SOME RESULTS OF THE National Child Labor Committee's Work FORTY-SEVEN states have enacted new or improved child labor or compulsory education laws since the Committee's organization in 1904. The UNIFORM CHILD LABOR LAW, drafted by the Committee, has been unanimously endorsed by the American Bar Association. The Children's Bureau in the Federal Government was secured in 1912, through a bill drafted and a six year campaign waged by the Committee. The PALMER CHILD LABOR BILL was introduced in Congress, January 26, 1914. Its promotion is one of the Committee's chief interests this year. The Committee employs expert investigators to study and photograph child lacor conditions throughout the country. Employs legislative experts to draft and help secure improved laws. Publishes the quarterly Child Labor Bulletin, a Study Course, and other literature on all phases of child labor. Provides Public lecturers. Rents typewritten lecture with stereopticon slides showing chil- dren at work. Furnishes exhibits of photographs, charts, diagrams and samples of children's work. Co-operates with physicians, officials, educators, etc., to provide to children excluded from work, the physical, mental and moral opportunities needed to develop efficient citizenship. Co-operates with relief societies to provide "scholarships" for poor families whose children are forbidden work. 7,500 members subscribed $56,602 in 1912-13. The work is supported entirely by these voluntary subscriptions. $100,000 a year are needed to do the work effectively. To V. EVERIT MACY, Treasurer National Child Lahmr Committee, 105 East 22nd Street, New York I enclose $ for the help of little children at work in tenement sweat- shops, coal breakers and coal mines, cotton mills, glass factories, etc. Enroll me in your membership and as a subscriber for the coming year for the quarterly CHILD LABOR BULLETIN for which $1 of above amount is intended. Signed ; Address. ^ Associate — Persons contributing annually $2 to $J^ MEMBERSHIP ENROLMENT \ ^^^«^ :: W Z 4^*^|« \ Donors " " " $100or7nore 85 We Have Reproduced tKfie Smmisrant ifHabonna By MARY ELLEN SIGSBEE Which appeared on the Cover Page of our Holiday Pubjication "^toriesf Stout tfje 0t^tx Cftilb" In Original Colors, Mounted on Art Stock, 9 in. x 9 in. No Printing 25c. a Copi; SEND ORDERS TO National Child Labor Committee 105 East 22nd Street, New York, N. Y. 86 T HE National Child Labor Committee's cam- paign is dependent entirely on voluntary contributions. The effort to develop an intelligent interest in the enforcement of child labor laws is as im- portant as the MTork of investigation to reveal existing conditions and of campaigns to secure good laws. The Committee needs a substantial endow- ment. We solicit the co-operation of our members in interesting persons who are disposed to make large bequests or legacies to philanthropic enter- prises. FORM OF BEQUEST / hereby give, devise and bequeath to the "National Child Labor Committee," a corporation organized hy Act of Congress approved February 21, 1907 (Chapter 103) Contributions may be sent to V. Everit Macy, Treasurer, 105 East 22d Street, New York 87 National Olljtlb iCabnr Olommim? INCORPORATED ORGANIZED APRIL 15, 1904 105 East 22nd Street . . New York City 204 Bond Building Washington, D. C. OFFICERS FELIX ADLER, SAMUEL McCUNE LINDSAY, Chairman HOMER FOLKS. V. EVERIT MACY, Vice-Chairmen Treasurer OWEN R. LOVEJOY, . . . General Secretai-y A. J. McKELWAY, . Secretary for the Southern States EDWARD N. CLOPPER, Secretary for the Northern States JOSEPHINE J. ESCHENBRENNER, Membership Secretary BOARD OF TRUSTEES FELIX ADLEE, Chairman ADOLPH LEWISOHN JANE ADDAMS SAMUEL McCUNE LINDSAY CAROLINE B. ALEXANDER V. EVERIT MACY FRANCIS G. CAFFEY CHARLES P. NEILL EDWARD T. DEVINE ISAAC N, SELIGMAN HOMER FOLKS LILLIAN D. WALD WILLLA.M E. HARMON STEPHEN S. WISE FLORENCE KELLEY PAUL M. WARBURG JOHN W. WOOD OBJECTS To PROMOTE THE WELFARE OF SOCIETY, WITH RESPECT TO THE EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN IN GAINFUL OCCUPATIONS. To INVESTIGATE AND REPORT THE PACTS CONCERNING CHILD LABOR. To RAISE THE STANDARD OF PUBLIC OPINION AND PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY WITH RESPECT TO THE EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN. To ASSIST IN PROTECTING CHILDREN BY SUITABLE LEGISLATION AGAINST PREMATURE OB OTHER- WISE INJURIOUS EMPLOYMENT, AND THUS TO AID IN SECURING FOR THEM AN OPPORTUNI- TY FOR ELEMENTARY EDUCATION, AND PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT SUFFICIENT FOR THE DEMANDS OF CITIZENSHIP AND THE REQUIREMENTS OF INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY. To AID IN PROMOTING THE ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS RELATING TO CHILD LABOR. To CO-ORDINATE, UNIFY, AND SUPPLEMENT THE WORK OF STATE OR LOCAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEES, AND ENCOURAGE THE FORMATION OF SUCH COMMITTEES WHERE THEY DO NOT EXIT. Persons who contribute $2 or more annually tozvard the support of the child labor campaign are enrolled as associate members, $5 or more as contributing members, $25 or more as sustaining members and $100 or more as guarantors of the Committee. Of each membership contribution $1 is applied as a subscription for the Quarterly Child Labor bulletin: members receive free other publications of the Committee and are thus kept in touch with the child labor movement throughout the country. Remittances mav be sent to V. Evcrit Macy, Treasurer, 105 E. 22nd Street, New York City. 88 ?ra™^ivv 1 // b> '^ DRAWN BY VERA M. RUEGER TK© C linker and Some Other Childron ThG ClinkGr and Some Other CKildrGn Published by the National Child Labor Committee Incorporated 105 East 22d Street, New York 1914 Copyright, 1914, by the National Child Labor Committee Redfleld Brothers, Inc P rinters New York City Foreword Once more we are offering to our friends, and to strangers whom we should like to count among our friends, a little volume of stories and verse about children who work. The stories are true, we believe, in having caught the essential tragedy of child labor. We hesitate to express our gratitude to the writers and artists whose generous enthusiasm has made possible the present volume — one may not thank fellow workers in a common cause. We only regret that limitation of space has made it impossible for us to include all of the contributions that were received. The message of the working children will some day have a sequel, telling of education instead of exploitation, goodness instead of vice, and happiness instead of tragedy. It must be written in the laws of the country and in the hearts of the people. Its authors must be the men and women who care. Will you who read this message help us to prepare the sequel ? [3] Contents Foreword 3 The Child James Oppenheim. ... 6 The Clinkek Edna Ferber 7 The Birthday Stella G. S. Perry 12 Cannery Kids Two drawings by M. M. Grimball 16 A Vision Anonjanous 18 Buttons and Bertha Louise DriscoU 20 A Christmas Doll Margaret Widdemer. . 27 Child Slaves Elbert Hubbard 28 How Long? Cartoon by William H. Woods — 29 You See Him Every Day Stella G. S. Perry 30 The City Children to the Story-teller Laura Benet 32 Illustrated by M. M. Grimball Used for Effect Helen C. Dwight 33 Newsie-boy Miriam Teichner 36 Illustrated by a reproduction from Life Willie: A Dead Issue Jessie A. McGriff 37 The Wicked Child George Creel 43 "Bargains" Miriam Teichner 46 Some Working People Mary Alden Hopkins. 47 For Mikey Eleanor H. Porter — 50 Illustrated by M. M. Grimball Ahmed, the American Helen C. Dwight 60 The cover head was drawn by Vera M. Rueger. The Child James Oppenheim You may be Christ or Shakespeare, little child, A saviour or a sun to the lost world — There is no babe bom but may carry furled Strength to make bloom the world's disastrous wild! O what, then, must our labors be to mould you. To open the heart, to build with dream the brain, To strengthen the young soul in toil and pain, Till our age-aching hands no longer hold you. Vision far-dreamed! But soft! if your last goal Be low, if you are only common clay — What then? Toil lost? Were our toil trebled, nay! You are a Soul, you are a human Soul, A greater than the skies by star-hosts trod, Shakespeare no greater, O you slip of God! Reprinted, by permission, from "Monday Morning, and Other Poems." [61 The Clinker Edna Ferbee Hannah Shakowitz is stuck in the grate. She will not bum as fuel. She can't be dislodged by the poker. So there she sticks, between the fire-pit and the ash-pan — a clinker. There isn't a more unpopular girl in the block than Hannah, and her unpopularity increases the nearer home she gets. When Hannah is in the bosom of her own family she is as welcome as pestilence in a war camp. This has been the state of affairs for four months, and it will continue for eight more. At the end of that time Hannah will be fourteen. Fourteen and free! Free to rise at six and go to the workshop and carry her lunch with the other Shakowitzes. Free to turn her earnings into the family coffers. When Hannah is fourteen she will no longer be in disgrace. Her unpopularity will fall from her as a load. It all started with Mrs. Shakowitz. Mrs. Shakowitz is the wife of Hannah's brother, and a lady of ideas. One of her ideas, gone wrong, was the cause of Hannah's unpopularity. It was her idea that Hannah should be sent for from Russia. She had heard her husband talk of Hannah as his baby sister. But Mrs. Shakowitz had two babies of her own by this time, and her unmarried sister and her more or less good-for-nothing brother were hving with her and her husband in the dark, crowded, ill-smelling tenement on Chicago's west side. Hus- band's baby sisters in far-off Russia had Uttle charm for her. The good-for- nothing brother earned little. The immarried sister showed unconquer- able tendencies to squander her earnings on willow plumes and white canvas pumps and blouses with a good deal of lace effect. Also there was a third Shakowitz baby on the way. Mrs. Shakowitz could be forgiven her lack of enthusiasm on the subject of her husband's baby sister. One day there came a photograph from Russia. It was for Nathan and he gave a little cry as he unfolded the wrappings and gazed at it. "A picture from my little baby sister Hannah!" Mrs. Shakowitz went calmly on with her preparations for supper. "Look how she is a big girl!" Nathan held the picture before his wife's lack-lustre eyes. And even as he held it the gleam of interest dawned in those eyes. Mrs. Shakowitz stopped stirring the mess on the stove and took the photograph between her thumb and finger, holding it off, studying it interestedly. She turned on her husband angrily. [7] 8 THE CLINKER "You said always she was a baby!" She glared at the picture of the apple-cheeked, sturdy, solemn little girl, whose babyhood, judging from her size, was a thing of many years past. "She is my baby sister," Nathan persisted, "only now she is grown up already like a young lady." The gleam in the eye of Mrs. Shakowitz crystallized into resolve. " She is big like Yetta almost." "Sure," boasted Nathan, proudly, "ain't she? A great big girl." Mrs. Shakowitz ate her supper in silence. But her unaccustomed brain was working so hard and so fast that you could almost hear it click. After supper she spoke when the untidy kitchen was at its untidiest. The good- for-nothing brother had loimged out to meet his crowd, and the sister, too, in her soiled white sUppers and her cheap lace finery that so pitifully expressed her love of all that is silken and soft and dainty — a legitimate love and all the more pathetic because perforce so inadequately expressed. "Your Uttle sister Hannah could to come by us," announced Mrs. Shakowitz. She was washing dishes at the sink, and she did not turn around. Nathan Shakowitz stared. His wife felt the stare, but she did not face it. "Hannah! Here by us! From Russia!" "Why not?" demanded Mrs. Shakowitz. She faced him now. "For a fine girl like that there is nothing in Russia. Here she's got it good. Look at Yetta." But Nathan, the slow-thinking, shook his head. "I would like it my little Hannah should come to America. But it costs too much." "Costs!" cried Mrs. Shakowitz in shrill triumph. "Sure it costs. But she can work and pay, ain't it? The Lipskis upstairs they sent for her cousin. She was a greeny, too, but now she earns more as Becky herself, because she is young and strong and awful qmck. Well, Hannah, she would be a greeny, too. But she would go by me to the factory and be a learner and in a month she would get her a job for money. She's smart, ain't she ? " "Smart!" Nathan flourished the picture from Russia. "Look in her face how she is smart! Sure is she!" "We send for your baby sister Hannah, eh, Nate?" cooed Mrs. Shako- witz. And so it was that a trembling, frightened, wide-eyed little girl who had knovra much sorrow in Russia, and who was to know more in this new America, landed at Ellis Island, was met there by a New York cousin of Mrs. Shakowitz, and sent on her way to Chicago. She looked her part, this THE CLINKER 9 little greeny, her mouth open, her eyes bulging, her moist brown hands clutching her bulging, untidy, bewilderingly numerous assortment of lug- gage. She came out of the slavery of Russia into the slavery of America. Nathan Shakowitz met her with real love, with an honest affection that had always been his for the baby sister. Mrs. Shakowitz saw what a really big little girl this baby sister was, and her kiss, too, took on a certain warmth. Yetta, of the willow plumes, felt a just contempt for this newcomer whose head was protected by the despised shawl, badge of the greeny. Hannah, still wide-eyed, but trembling no longer, looked upon her of the willow plumes, and as she looked a resolve grew in her eyes. Hers was the plastic mind of the young and it accepted willow plumes and meat every day and warmth in the imtidy kitchen and the tall buildings and the noise and the rush as part of what one might expect in this amazing America. They were kind to her, these relatives, and they made a place for her at table, and gave her a bed with Yetta and the elder Shakowitz baby, and life loomed up altogether blissful. On the fifth day of her entry into the family they arrayed her in her new American clothes, of which Hannah was almost tearfully proud, and she went off to the factory with Mrs. Shakowitz. Mrs. Shakowitz told her to stand up big and tall, and to say nothing. They were going to see the Boss, who would give Hannah a job. Hannah, her mind a delirious whirl of willow plumes, promised breathlessly to obey. The Boss looked at Hannah. "A greeny," he said. " She is awful quick," said Mrs. Shakowitz. " She learns." "All right," said the Boss, who was no time-waster. "Where's her papers?" Mrs. Shakowitz produced them. The Boss's eye traveled laboriously through the figwes, lighted on one. He raised a black and scowhng face to the two. " What you mean bringing here a kid that ain't fourteen ! Get out ! You think I'm going to be pinched by the child labor gang. Get out of here ! She ain't only thirteen." This last in answer to the bewilderment on the faces of the trembling two. Mrs. Shakowitz clutched her shawl. "But couldn't we to fix it by the — by the Settlement? Miss Loeb, she could to fix it." "Naw, she couldn't fix nothin'!" snarled the Boss. "I tell you the greeny can't work till she's fourteen. It's the law. It stands in the books. Now get out." 10 THE CLINKER And Hannah and Mrs. Shakowitz got out. And the greeny's aunt eyed the greeny with a look which froze that frightened little person to the marrow. The question in Hannah's face seemed to infuriate Mrs. Shako- witz ten-fold. She poured out an answer to it in a flood of Russian — a bitter, terrifying answer. And when she had finished she turned away toward the workshop. Hannah followed, dumbly. Her aimt whirled upon her, fist upraised. " Go home ! " she screamed, in Russian. " You can't stay here." "I do not know the way," Hannah answered. Mrs. Shakowitz shrugged her shoulders. "Find it," she said, and was gone. It was three or four hours later that Hannah, having traveled many blocks and having seen bewildering sights and having dodged street cars and trucks and motors, was brought, a terrified, stunned, tearful little bundle, into the office of Miss Loeb, head of the Settlement House. That capable and- understanding person dried Hannah's tears, gained her story piece by piece, and shook her head — that wise, sane, efficient head. And she put a hand on Hannah's head, which shows just how great-hearted she was, because she knew better than to do that with a greeny. "Well," she said, to her assistant at the adjoining desk, "at first glance you think the joke's on Mrs. Shakowitz, but I'm afraid it's really on Hannah. She's here now. They'll have to take care of her. I'll see to that. But she was to be a paying guest, and now she's a poor relation." She turned again to the great-eyed child before her. "Poor little Hannah," she said. "Poor little clinker." In a dim, vague sort of way Hannah understood. Perhaps it was because she had been brought up on laws and rules in far-off Russia. She realized that unhappiness was to be hers until she was fourteen. That magic age once reached, she might hope for things as they had been during those first wonderful five days. She hates her school, because she does not fit in at all — this great, ignorant woman-child of thirteen. But she does not know why. She does not fit at home, either. She doesn't seem to fit anywhere, this baby sister of Nathan's, except at the Settlement House. Miss Loeb has found a place for her in a comer of her great heart. And when little Hannah, still beshawled of head, comes creeping in to ask in her inadequate English, " When fourteen? " Miss Loeb smiles and nods, and says, "Pretty soon, Hannah, pretty soon," and under her breath, "Very soon now, heaven help you, baby." So Hannah is fed because the law insists that this is due her from the Shakowitzes, and Hannah is clothed, and Hannah has a place to sleep. THE CLINKER 11 Every week she creeps to Miss Loeb and asks her question. And every week brings her nearer to that magic fourteen. And Hannah twists the fringe of her shawl and waits. When she is fourteen the frowns that sur- round her will change to smiles. When she is fourteen the looks that follow her every morsel of food will cease to be black. As a French girl dreams of marriage, as a mother longs for her child, as a beauty covets silks and jewels, so little Hannah Shakowitz waits and dreams and longs for the time when she will have attained her magic fourteen. The Birthday Stella G. S. Peeey {A windy morning in Spring. A Mother and, later, a Nurse busy themselves gently in a pretty, modern nursery. A baby girl sleeps in a tiny white bed. Mother speaks in a low tone, not to waken her. Budding branches outside the window.) Mother: My baby's birthday! Four bright, perfect years! God bless the day and her! Bless all the dears Who make this earth a paradise for mothers! Bless mine a Uttle first (She laughs and blushes) — then all the others! Voices{outside): Motheisl Mothers! Mothers! Mothers! Mother: Was that an echo? Or did someone call? (Nurse enters) Good morning, Nurse. She did not wake at all; She's sleeping like a kitten in the sun. I've spread out all her presents, every one. I know she'll clap her hands. Now, let's prepare Her birthday breakfast. Are the berries there? It's early for them; but she loves them so! These came from farther south. How those winds blow! You'd tlunk that there were voices in the air. Is that the special milk? That big glass — there! She loves that fluted glass. What perfect milk ! (Bends over the little bed) Her skin has that cream tone — and soft as silk! These berries are no riper than her lips; Their stains are like her pinky finger-tips. Thank God for health! First Voice: They were my finger-tips That first those berries stained. A Httle one Am I, to pick them all day in the sim. So many days! It makes my back hurt so! No wonder Sister says I'll never grow. Not even get much bigger when I'm older — [12] THE BIRTHDAY For something has turned over in my shoulder From stooping, stooping, stooping every day. That baby's lips are red. You'd almost say With red of hers and mine. For mine are white, But my back's red enough — the sun's so bright! Second Voice: The sun? The sun's not hot. It's when you pass The dreadful furnace heat. I bore that glass And many others back and forth all night. My eyes were dizzied by the glaring light That burst within the blistering furnace heat, As back and forth I dragged my aching feet. And in the morning, when I faced the dark And cold and drizzle on my homeward walk, It hurt my chest so! — 13 Mother: What a murmuring wind! Like fairy voices bidding life be kind Unto my birthday darling. Nurse, ask Will Please to shake up the furnace. There's a chill In the air on these spring mornings, and my dear Must not take cold. (Exit Nurse) Third Voice: Nay, not while I am here, A small, bent figure in the breathless hole. Breathing in dust and sorting out the coal: From dawn to simset in the gloomy haze, Never to know the joys of sunny days, A boy in all but boyhood, I am here To keep your baby warm. {Enter Nurse) Mother: I fear She'll want to wear Aunt Mary's gift today; And it's too lovely to be worn for play. Is it not sweet? They told us in the store 'Twas like the frock a baby princess wore. Made from the self-same model. And this flower Gives such a dainty touch! 14 THE BIRTHDAY Fourth Voice: Hour by hour, In, out and in, my weary needle went. My eyes, my eyes are tired. I have spent So many hours sewing. I can't keep Awake a minute longer. Let me sleep! I do not ask to play. No more! No more! The dress is finished. Put me on the floor! Fifth Voice (a very infantile one): I made that wose. Fourth Voice: Rose/ She can't say it right. Fifth Voice: But I can make it. That one took till night, But that's because I was so tired then; I made them quicker when I twied again. It looks so pwetty on that little dwess! I'll have a birthday — some day — too — ^I guess. So many little petals — ^hard to make — Fourth Voice: Oh! Nothing's hajrd, if you can keep awake. Sixth Voice: Not hard? Not hard to walk the endless day Among the dashing shuttles? Easy, pray, With burning eyes, to tie the whirring thread While noises thunder in your whirlin g head. Rattle forever in your throbbing head? A cotton dress! I wish I wore it, dead! Mother: The wind again ! I'll put the wee dress here Among the pretty toys. She stirs — my dear! Seventh Voice: I dressed the doll. Eighth Voice: And I put on its hair. Ninth Voice: Those little bells! I tied them all on there, There were so many like them! When I slept They seemed still jingle-jangling and I kept On waking up. So Mother made me take Another boxful — since I wfts awake, THE BIRTHDAY 15 Seventh Voice: I dressed the doll. I'll not forget that day; My throat hurt so! And then I went away To such a lovely place! Wee beds, all white, And kind blue ladies by you, day and night, To care for you and love you! But the best Of all they did was that they let you rest. A lovely place! I had diphtheria then; I wish I had it now, to go again. Mother: They say there's good luck in a talking breeze. How it does murmur! An Angel's Voice: Mother! Unto these Mother: She's waking. Nurse, she's waking! Love, look here! A gay and happy birthday to my dear! The Angel's Voice: God pity those with ears who cannot hear! Pity the hearts whose very blessing smothers The motherhood that should be blessing others! Voices (wailing): 0, Mothers! Mothers! Mothers! Cannery Kids Drawings by M. M. Grimball Jack went to bed at twelve o'clock last night and got up at three o'clock this morning. "Gee! "he said, "it seems as if I was sleeping only a minute!" He worked until lo p.m. today with only a few minutes for supper. He snipped and snipped imtil his fingers "was broke," and then he carried the full box of snipped beans, weighing 20 pounds or more a distance of 200 feet to be weighed. After that he snipped more beans un- til he had filled another box, which then had to be weighed. He had snipped and carried, snipped and carried, since 4.30 in the morning, and he was "awful tired." He had tried several times to go home, but his mother kept him at his task imtil ten o'clock that night. Women beat the children to keep them at work in spite of the fact that the children are frequently so sleepy that they can hardly keep their eyes open. It is a common sight to see little children sleeping in the shed with a wooden crate as a head rest. And no wonder, for they are aroused in the midst of their sleep and ordered to the shed, where the beans are waiting to be snipped. Little tots of five or six years, wrapped in shawls, shiver in the cold morning air and heroically rub the sleep out of their eyes in the effort to coax up strength enough in their tired little bodies to commence work. [16] "Wake up there, Rosy," said Mrs. Peller, "it's six o'clock and you haint got nothin' done. What's the matter with you, anyway, that you can't sit up an' 'tend to yur work? " [17] A Vision Through the ether of space there roamed a cabn, dispassion- ate Spirit. Below him he saw the Earth, and he paused for a time in his eternal flight to see what manner of men lived thereon. From afar he heard the roar of cannon and the groans of dying men. A great sadness came over him, for he saw that on other worlds than this the Prince of Peace must abide. Then he heard that to the west there lay a mighty land that heard with horror that from the ether, whence came the Spirit himself, a bomb had been dropped on defenseless women and children. With hope in his heart he left for this fair land, where the suffering of children and women could rouse a whole nation. He came to a great city, whose skyscrapers breathed wealth and plenty. But what was this? Anger was added to sadness when the Spirit saw countless tenements where mothers and their children bent over their work. Tired baby fingers fashioned silk flowers. Children, with world-old faces, were tying fronds for miladi's plumes. Sadly the Spirit flew over green fields to the sunny south. There he would find good-will toward men. He stopped his flight when he drew near great factories and hovered over them just as the shrill whistles blew. Then, Slow feet dragged on the threshold; They came through the wide-flung door; Children and children and children, Children and children more. Children in whose white faces The eyes of the child were dead; Shoulders stooping and twisted; Hands where the wounds were red. [18] In the cities he heard earnest men and women voicing the bitter cry of the children. In vain. The fair land that thrilled vrith horror when a few children and women met death in the nations' struggle for supremacy txuned deaf ears to the piteous cries of children, forced into a living death that a few men in frock coats might prosper. Heavy-hearted, the Spirit flew farther west, past great cities, graft-ridden and ruled by men more powerful than Oriental potentates. Beyond the great water he came to another land where misery lurked. In coxmtless dens he saw men, dead to every moral sense. That a mighty nation might draw imtold wealth from her poppy fields, this unhappy land was held in bondage. Here was no evidence of brotherly love, and farther north the Spirit flew. There he saw prisons filled with starving men and women. Their faces were dulled from much misery, but their eyes were bright with the light of coming insanity. Naught could the Spirit see in that great land but oppression and misery. Farther he flew and again he heard the boom of cannon. He bent over a youth, lying where the enemy's bullet had found him. Useless but merciful was his death. On the quiet face was no sign of the living death that the Spirit had seen so often on his sad journey. One more glance the Spirit gave to the Earth where he had seen so much of man's inhxmianity to man. As he passed into the ether again, he sternly spoke the command of the Prince of Peace: "He that is without sin among you, cast the first stone." This contribution came to the National Child Labor Committee unsought and unsigned. [19] Buttons and Bertha LoxnsE Driscoll Bertha sat all day long by a window and sewed buttons on a card. She seldom looked out of the window and seemed oblivious of the rows of ash- barrels on the other side of the street and of the swarming life on the fire- escapes. The quarrels of the children and occasional street-fights aroused no interest. She finished a card and laid it by and took up another card and sewed buttons on it. She could hardly remember doing anything else. When her father was ahve Bertha had gone to school for a short time and she had learned to read a little. She could read now what was printed on the backs of the cards. When she was seven years old her father had died and after that, instead of sewing buttons on cards after school hours and in the evenings, Bertha sewed buttons on cards all day long and far into the night. She had many strong needles and she would thread them all with a fine cord and then sew rapidly all day long, day after day, days that ran into years. Bertha was not quite fourteen years old, but she looked twenty. She had a fine, graceful, voluptuous figure, graceful in spite of the fact that she had spent seven years in one chair, with only her hands busy. She had learned that if she sat pretty still and worked steadily she might escape the blow her mother was so ready to bestow. Susie was less than a year old when her father died. A teacher in a public kindergarten near by had discovered Susie and had coaxed her into the schoolroom. Susie was a troublesome child and the mother was willing to have her out of the way part of the time; and then, when she began to teach Susie to sew buttons, she found the child sUpping away whenever opportunity offered, and running to the kindergarten. So, at the age of six, when Susie ought to have been coimted a regular wage-earner, the mother was astonished and angry to find the child's wiU crossing her own. The mother was willing to have Susie learn to read and write. She had been refused a card from the Union because she was unable to do these things. Her plan was simple. She meant to show Bertha how to make the artificial flowers at which she herself worked endlessly, and for which slightly better pay was to be had than could be earned by buttons, and then Susie was to do the buttons. It was at this point that she was first baffled. She was an indomitable woman, quick with oath and blow. She had fought starvation from the door with her bare hands and she looked on the world as the wolf. She found that Bertha could not learn to make the [201 BUTTONS AND BERTHA 21 flowers. Bertha's hands had been trained to do one thing and they were clumsy at everything else. When Bertha tried to light the fire she dropped the match and burned her dress. When Bertha tried to cook, the dinner was scorched. Things sUpped through Bertha's fingers and were broken. "You are good for nothing but buttons!" the mother scolded, and Bertha shrugged her beautiful shoulders that were Uke white marble under her coarse dress, and went back to her chair and her buttons. Then the mother began to find that Susie was not easily controlled. Susie was learning more than reading and writing and sums. Susie made friends with her teachers and they put notions into the child's head. Susie went regularly to the Little Mothers' House on West Street and she learned to sew, which her mother approved, and she learned to cook, which her mother tolerated, sniffing at first over strange messes, but accepting them eventually. But Susie had not learned all these things without also learning to think, and now that she was eight years old she had no intention of giving up her pleasant school to spend her life sewing buttons on cards, as she had seen her sister do. Susie had heard of truant officers and, with the ingenuity of the slum-bred child, she invoked their aid, through one of her teachers. So the truant officer made more than one visit to Susie's home, and at last was able to make the mother understand that Susie would be taken from her and put in some institution if she were not allowed to go to school. The mother was wildly angry and struck Susie when the officer had gone out, but Susie, suddenly inspired by successful intervention from the world out- side, dodged the blow skilfully and remarked, with an irritating air of having the matter under consideration, that she wasn't quite sure she wouldn't like the institution — "for there nobody can't Uck you," she said. Bertha, drawing her needle through the card, fastening one button and another and another in its place, felt stir within her a faint thrill of interest, the first she had known for many months. Susie sewed a few cards full of buttons and then started to get ready the evening meal. Bertha watched her. A new element had entered the home. The mother had fought physical starvation; the starvation that her children knew, she could not understand. Bertha had begun to wonder why she could not do anything but sew buttons. She watched Susie's quick, accurate hands and looked at her own fingers that had never learned to do more than one thing. Her hands were like some machine that thrust a needle into cardboard and drew it out. again at evenly spaced distances. Bertha began to look out of the window. Susie grew more independent daily. At school her teachers praised her and she grew contemptuous of her mother's disapproval. A dressmaker who lived a few blocks above, in a slightly better neighborhood, noticed 22 BUTTONS AND BERTHA Susie as she went by to school and spoke to her. She asked Susie to do some small errands and paid her for them. Susie executed her commissions so promptly and correctly that the woman's interest increased and the child fell into a way of stopping regularly to see if she were needed. With the money she earned in this way Susie was very independent. Sometimes she gave it to her mother, sometimes she gave only part, and sometimes she spent it all as she saw fit, in strange extravagances. One day she brought Bertha a yard of crimson ribbon, shimmering, glowing stuff that brought an answering flush to Bertha's pale cheek. "Put it in your hair," said Susie; "you've got grand hair." And Bertha touched her own thick, dark braids as though she had just learned they were there. The mother was very angry and struck Susie, who smiled a Uttle and went out. The mother began to learn that when she struck Susie she got no money and she became more careful, but she brooded darkly. Susie was less and less to be depended upon in the home. One day there were piles of finished cards to be taken to the factory and Susie was not there, so Bertha had to go. Bertha went out so seldom that she shrank from the street at first. She was timid and the noise confused her, but as time passed and she went more frequently, she grew to like it and tried to work faster, so she could go more often. One day when she brought her box to the office of the factory there was a fat, red-faced man there who stared at her. When the clerk took her box to empty it and fill it again with fresh cards and loose buttons, the red-faced man put his hand under Bertha's chin and Ufted her face to his. "You are a very pretty little girl," he said, and then left her quickly as the clerk returned. Bertha almost danced home. She looked at herself in the dingy windows of the shops she passed, and craned her neck like a bird as she saw herself reflected there. There was a milliner's shop on a comer where she turned on her way to and from the factory, and here some hats were displayed. There was one that held Bertha's attention. It was a large black straw hat with scarlet wings that swept back over the crown. Bertha caught her breath and clasped her hands as she looked at it. Bertha's mind worked slowly, and when it reached a point dwelt on it. For years she had known nothing but buttons — she saw them, felt them, dreamed about them. Now she dreamed about the color and the shimmer of the red ribbon Susie had brought her. The wings on this hat were like that. She longed to possess it. She touched the thick hair Susie had said was pretty. The red-faced man had told her she was pretty. She was aroused from her reverie by the consciousness that someone was looking at her, and she met the eyes of a BUTTONS AND BERTHA 23 man who stood in the doorway of a saloon across the street. He smiled at her. She flushed and hurried away. He watched her go down the street. After that, every time Bertha went to the factory, she stopped and looked at the hat. It lingered through the spring and into the early summer, slowly marked down from $12 to $10, to $8.50, to $7.95. Bertha wondered why no one bought it and rejoiced each time she found it was still there. She called it her hat. And always the man was watching her. One day he crossed the street to meet her. "Pretty hat, isn't it?" he remarked casually, and Bertha raised her startled eyes to his, blushing furiously. "Yes, yes," she faltered, and she hurried away from him. "You needn't be afraid of me," he called after her, but she did not turn to look at him. Twice a week she went, and she grew used to meeting him. At first he only smiled at her, but by and by they exchanged a word or two of greeting, and over her buttons, all day long and half the night, Bertha dreamed of those meetings. She watched Susie and tried to imitate the child's self- sufficient, confident manner. Susie always touched things with a defimite purpose, intelligently, but Bertha could not. Bertha was not clever, but she had learned that she was beautiful. She lingered one day, talking with the man who always waited for her by the milliner's window where the red wings were still displayed. A huge tag, with all the preceding prices crossed by a black line, bore a final annoimcement, "For today only — $6.98." "WUl you let me buy it for you?" asked the man. "It would look fine with your hair." Bertha flushed deeply, beautifully hesitant; then she put her hand to her throat and fled from him. He did not try to follow her, but he smiled as he saw her go. The mother was angry because she had been gone so long. She took down the whip, not much used of late, and she beat Bertha sav- agely for a minute or two, working off her fretted temper. Her old absolute power was sUpping from her and she felt it, helplessly. It was a little world, these two dingy rooms, but she had been unquestioned there until these last few months, and now resentment burned within her soul. Bertha did not cry out, although the whip marked her white flesh. Her silence half frightened the mother, who struck harder once or twice and then stopped suddenly. She could battle with outcry and rebellion but this new enemy of stillness that seemed half scorn baffled and threw her back upon herself. Bertha hardly looked at her during the week that followed. Bertha was fourteen that week, but no one noticed her birthday. She looked much older. On Saturday she took the finished cards to the factory. 24 BUTTONS AND BERTHA "Don't get any more," said the man, who went with her to the factory door. "You needn't work," he said. "I've got plenty of money." She came from the factory that day for the first time with empty hands. She was like a creature made new. Her face glowed with excitement, half fear, half happiness. The man took her back to the millinery shop and they bought the hat. A few minutes later Susie saw them getting on a car. Bertha was wearing the black hat with its scarlet wings. Susie stood still for a minute, looking after them, and then she went home thoughtfully. At the age of eight Susie knew much of life. Life swarmed about the doorways she entered and the alleys through which she passed. There was no way by which she could avoid knowing. She entered cau- tiously, ready to call her mother's attention to the fact that she was not Bertha. The mother was very angry indeed. She had taken the whip from its corner and it lay on the table where she worked. She was making little purple violets, thrusting the bit of cloth through the wire stem and then twisting a strip of green paper around the wire. Her hands moved swiftly. She gathered the flowers into clusters and threw them upon the table, where they fell upon the whip and around it. Once or twice she looked ominously toward the door. Bertha had never been so long before. When Susie came in she rose. "Cut it. Ma," said Susie, dodging dexterously. "I ain't done anything. I mean, I haven't done nothing." Susie was tr3ang to consider her English these days. She spoke, as nearly as she was able, Uke the dressmaker whom she greatly admired. . "Where is Bertha?" demanded the mother. From a room across the hall there came the sound of a blow and of a falUng body. A woman's scream rang out. Susie pushed the door shut. "If I was Mis' Connerty," said Susie, fixing a steady, unchildlike gaze upon her mother, "If I was Mis' Connerty I wouldn't stand for that. Any justice of the peace 'ud stop it for her. She could get him sent up. That's what I'd do if any one was to Uck me." Truly Susie had learned many things. Her face and attitude were a curious, almost ludicrous contrast to her little figure. " Where is Bertha? " demanded the mother again, in tones trembling with something more than rage, the impotent struggle of old power against new power it cannot understand. "You can search me," said Susie. "I seen her get on a car with a guy — I mean a gentleman — about ten minutes ago, and I come right home to tell you about it. Now you needn't to hit me, 'cause I won't stand for it." The whip fell unused into its bed of violets; the scentless, cotton things BUTTONS AND BERTHA 25 received it. Susie saw it sink among them. The mother's hands opened and shut convulsively and her hps twitched. "The thing to do," said Susie, in her businesslike way, "is to tell the Gerry S'ciety. Bertha ain't eighteen, and until you're eighteen they can take you. That's what the truant officer said about me, you remember," she added, with discreet poUcy. It was six months before they learned where Bertha was, though she had not gone far. Her lover had hired three rooms over a Uttle shop and they had set up a sort of housekeeping. The man soon learned that Bertha could not work, but she was prettier every day and each new ornament he bought for her seemed to bring out new radiance. She bloomed hke some weakling plant set in warm light. She laughed and played and fluttered her little, useless hands at him, and he reaUzed that she really tried to cook and clean but simply could not. "You're the lady, all right," he said to her, and was rather proud of her inabihty. He was a gambler and in luck just then, so they were able to take their meals at a small restaurant that seemed like Paradise to Bertha's unaccustomed eyes. He hired a woman to do the washing and cleaning for them, and he took Bertha about with him and showed her beauty in lavish dress. When he saw how other men admired her he kept her jealously and he was kind to her because she fed his pride. When the mother was told where Bertha was she put out her hand for the whip. "I'll kill her," she told the neighbors. "Leaving her home and her mother like that." There were no more buttons in the room. Susie had declined to sew buttons. But the floor was littered with artificial flowers, and the mother muttered above white daisies and yellow buttercups when Miss Crosby came to see her. Miss Crosby was Susie's teacher and had been foremost in the endeavor to find Bertha. "I have learned where she is," said Miss Crosby, "and I am going to see her. I shall try to persuade her to come back. You must be very kind to her — it won't do any good to scold. Give her a chance to begin again." The mother looked voiceless scorn upon Miss Crosby. Miss Crosby foimd Bertha. Bertha greeted her passively, with a little pride in displaying her much ornamented parlor, but Bertha refused to consider going home. "Your mother will forgive you," pleaded Miss Crosby, who had not quite understood the mother's silence. " You can have everything you left back again." "I didn't leave anything but buttons," said Bertha, simply. Miss Crosby looked at the little room, with its gaily flowered carpet and ornate curtains. There was a profusion of cheap and elaborate ornament. 26 BUTTONS AND BERTHA This was what Bertha wanted. It was all hers. Everjrwhere there was evidence of an effort to please her. Miss Crosby recalled that other home and felt faint-hearted. "But don't you want to be a good girl, Bertha?" she pleaded. "What for?" asked Bertha. All the tragedy of her starved childhood was in her words. Miss Crosby felt hot tears sting her eyes. "She is only fourteen years old!" thought Miss Crosby, helplessly. "A Uttle girl!" Where must one begin, where should the blow be struck to change all this? And who shall give childhood to those unchildHke eyes? Bertha's eyes were happy. She was stupid and vain. She loved comfort like a Uttle animal. She looked at Miss Crosby serenely. "You'd better go," she said. "He won't like it if he finds you here." Miss Crosby grasped the straw. "Will he be cross to you?" she asked, with unnecessary sympathy. "Oh, no," said Bertha confidently. "He will be cross to you. He knocked a man down that spoke to me." " Bertha," said Miss Crosby, earnestly, " won't you Usten to me a minute? Think about Susie. Don't you want to set a good example to her? " Bertha shook her head. "Susie can take care of herself," she affirmed. Miss Crosby grew firm. " If you won't go home yourself," she said, " the Society will take you and put you in an institution. Probably they will send you to the Island. You won't like that? " "No," said Bertha, "but it's better than buttons." Miss Crosby wept as she left her. When the Gerry Society agent called later in the day he could not find Bertha, and the neighbors said that her lover had taken her away. Miss Crosby saw Bertha twice after that. Once she saw Bertha step- ping into a motor-car that waited before one of the Fifth Avenue shops. A person of prosperous appearance sat in the car and put out his hand to her. Bertha did not notice the proffered help but sat beside him quietly. She was wonderfully beautiful. The quiet of her face might easily be mis- taken for exquisite repose. Miss Crosby knew it was absence of feeUng and of intelUgence. A year or two later Miss Crosby saw her in Paris. She sat alone in a perfectly appointed victoria on the Bois de Boulogne. The people: in the street looked after her, admiring, but she did not seem to see them. Her little, useless hands were gloved and they lay idly in her lap. A Christmas Doll Margaret Widdemer "Smiling dolly with the eyes of blue, Was it lovely where they fashioned you? Were there laughing gnomes, and did the breeze Toss the snow along the sparkling trees?" " Tiny hands and chill, and thin rags torn; Faces drawn with wakeful night and morn; Eyes that strained until they could not see; Little mother, where they fashioned me." " Gold-haired dolly in your silken dress, Tell me where you found your loveliness. Were they fairy-folk who clad you so, Gold wands quivering and wings aglow?" "Narrow wails and low, and tumbled bed. One dim lamp to see to knot the thread. This was all I saw till dark came down, Little mother, where they sewed my gown." "Blue-eyed dolly on my Christmas tree. Tell the wonder-things you saw to me. Were there golden birds and silver dew In the fairylands they brought you through?" "Weary footsteps all, and weary faces, Serving crowded in the crowded places. This was all I saw the Christ-eve through, Little mother, ere I came to you." "Blue-eyed dolly in the Christmas green. What do all your stranger-stories mean? Are there children, then, who cannot say Thanks to Christ for this His natal day?" "Ay, there's weariness and want and shame. Pain and evil, in the kind Christ's name, Things the peasant Christ-Child could not know In His quiet manger long agol" [27] Child Slaves Elbert Hubbaiid Capital is king, not cotton. But occasionally capital is blind and deaf to all that is not to its interest. It will not act while child labor means increased dividends on industrial stocks. If the child workers of Southern mills could be marshaled by bugle call, headed with fife and drum, and marched through Commonwealth Avenue, out past that statue of WilUam Lloyd Garrison, erected by the sons of the men who dragged him through the streets at a rope's end, the sight would appal the heart and drive conviction home. Imagine an army of twenty thousand pigmy bondsmen, half naked, half starved, many of them yellow, weazened, even deformed in body, with drawn faces that show spirits too dead to weep, too hopeless to laugh, too pained to feel! Would not aristocratic Boston lock her doors, bar the shutters and turn in shame from such a sight? I know the sweatshops of Hester Street, New York; I am familiar with the vice, depravity and degradation of the Whitechapel district; I have visited the Ghetto of Venice; I know the lot of coal miners of Pennsylvania, and I know somewhat of Siberian atrocities; but for misery, woe and hopeless sufiering I have never seen anything to equal the cotton mill slavery of the South — this in my own America, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave! For the adult who accepts the Ufe of the mills I have not a word to say — it is his own business. My plea is in defense of the innocent; I voice the cry of the child whose sob is drowned in the thunder of whirring wheels. The iniquity of this New Slavery in the New South has grown up out of conditions for which no one man, or class of men, it seems, is amenable. The interest of the cracker, the preacher, the overseer, the superintendent, the president and the stockholders are so involved that they cannot see the truth — their feet are ensnared, and they sink into the quicksands of hypoc- risy, deceiving themselves with specious reasons. They must be educated and the people must be educated. So it remains for that small yet vaUant band of men and women in the South who are fighting this iniquity to hold fast and not to leave off in their work until the httle captives are made free. Right will surely win. And to these earnest men and women who are braving ostracism, and who [28] CHILD SLAVES 29 are often scorned in their own homes, who have nothing to gain but the consciousness of having done right, we reach friendly hands across the miles, and out of silence we send them blessings and bid them be strong and of good cheer. Seemingly they fight alone, but they are not alone, for the great, throb- bing, melting Mother-heart of the world has but to know of their existence to be one with them. WILLIAM l-J WOODS How Long? You Sec Him Every Day Stella G. S. Perry He lived on the slope where the olives ripen earliest, and he gave thanks that Greece, his fatherland, had accepted Minerva's gift. For he loved the olive trees as one loves the soft cuddle-spot imder the arm of one's mother. They had cradled, protected, fed and blessed him. He had no human mother now. I cannot be ruthless enough to tell you the boy's grief when his mother died. She alone of the Greek women about him had looked like the grand matrons of antique legend. And she had loved her son like the mother of Achilles. This boy was viewed without insight by his father, who saw in him only a handsome, healthy lad whose clothes and food became more aild more problematical. But he had a godfather, now in America, who understood him. The boy had had glorious talks with this adventurous and successful patron, who had returned to Greece for one summer, jingling with coin and experience. This one had told him of America, the land of promise, where industry brought an inf aUible, inevitable reward. He had succeeded there ; when the boy was old enough he would send for him. He kept his word. He sent. He said to his partner, "It pays, this god- father business. You shall see. He must return his expense money. Oh, he will be valuable a hundred-fold!" The boy lived in the spirit. He had been unhappy among the olive trees ; yet they themselves had been his happiness. He rose very early in the morning of the last day and, after peering care- fully about for the callous observer, he embraced the oUve trees, pressing his wet cheek against them for farewell. He crossed the seas in a golden dream of high achievement. He would learn, he would aspire, he would grow into the feeling of the new land, to use it. He would follow the best and greatest leaders. Some day he would be great and good himself. She should see, then, when he returned, that gray-eyed girl who flouted himl At New York his godfather met him on the pier. There was something lacking in his welcome. The boy, in his debt, must work for him, he said. "Oh, very gladly!" * Id * « [30] YOU SEE HIM EVERY DAY 31 In what seemed like ten years to him, he had worked for six months. He blacked shoes all day and late into the night. Then, when he was sick for sleep, he washed the filthy rags. That is what he saw of America. He slept in a sty with seven other boys — all godsons, carefully blessed by the same godparent on his earlier journeys to the fatherland. For this god- parent had the long vision and could see far ahead. The window in the sty was seldom open. The crowded street was thick with flying dust. The American air the Greek boy breathed had always been breathed before. The food he had to eat was vmspeakably dirty and often very scarce. By this time his fine, straight shoulders were bowed. For the first time in his Ufe he became conscious of his digestive apparatus. He was paid so little that now he knew he could not for many, many years be free from bondage of his debt. The tips he received he could not keep. They belonged to his patron. Then he rebelled. His godfather found him troublesome. But, as the months went by, the futility of revolt wrought its own cessation. He is still at the shoes by day; by night, still in the sty. The learning he aspired to he has no time for. He does not even learn English. The music in his soul has turned to wailing. The memory of the olive trees is a stabbing sword. The memory of the gray-eyed girl is humiliation. He has in his spirit all that makes poets, sages, leaders of thought and pioneers of feeling. He is a clod of bitterness. Those who pass him say scornfully, "Ignorant foreigner! Such will ruin us!" But nobody saves him. This story has no end. That is the pity of it. The City Children to the Story-teller Laura Benet Tell us a story to make us see Things that gleamed on us long ago; Daisy meadows and fairy rings, Greening woods, where the brown thrush sings, And the shining blue where a sea-gull wings. Teller of tales! TeU us a story to make us hear Murmurs we dreamed ere we were bom; Rippling water and running breeze, Bobolink's note in the windy trees, And the mighty silence of summer seas. Teller of tales! Tell us a story to make us feel Childhood's blood in our veins again. For we are tired of grown-up fears, Tired of grown-up pains and tears, Sick of the stretch of the sordid years. Give us a chance to laugh again, Give us a play hour in our pain. Teller of tales! [32] Used For Effect Helen C. Dwight "Lady to see Miss Vardon," called the doorman. "She's got a card." Out of the blackness behind him a voice answered, "Sen' 'er up!" "Elevator to yer lef," said the doorman, and Frances Brewster walked expectantly into the atmosphere of "behind the scenes." The hallway was dimly lighted, but she kept steadily to the left, looking for the elevator. As she reached it a man with a felt hat pulled down over his eyes peered out curiously. "Miss Vardon?" asked Frances. The man nodded, pointing a thumb over his shoulder into the unUghted elevator. Frances hesitated. But as she was about to step forward a small avalanche of screaming, shoving children rushed down the hallway, propel- ling her ahead of them into the elevator. " 'Ere — ^watch yer step ! Whaddye mean shovin' the lady? " growled the elevator man. "Aw, shut up, Sweeney," repHed a piping voice, quickly. "Can't y' see we're late an' ol' Marx'll give us hell?" Frances started. The last word had come out so shrilly in the darkness. She could just see a small figure in front of her, evidently a girl, perhaps ten years old. There were four other small figures and one a trifle larger that seemed to be a boy of about twelve. "Sureshe will," said this figure. "An' she's got her nerve. Didn't they keep us here till four this afternoon without any lunch? Mom says she ain' goin' t' stan' fer it. If they can't keep decent hours, she's goin' t' take me out." "Aw, a lot she will! Yes, she will not! Aw, get out!" shrilled the chil- dren together. "She will, too! I kin get a job with Flanchon doin' eccentric dancin' any day — ^jus' one turn a day, too," the boy insisted. "Aw, you make me sick!" This time it was the piping voice again. "Don' give me none o' that line o' talk. Don' I know you an' yer ma were sittin' in Dutton's oflSce every day till she kicked y' out? Don' I know you grabbed this job like a hobo grabbin' a drink? You couldn't do eccentric dandn' no more'n Sweeney!" The others burst into a scream of joy at this idea. "Sure — like Sweeney you'll do eccentric dancin' 1" they yelled. [33] 34 USED FOR EFFECT " You kids, shut up or I'll paste every one of you ! " shrieked the boy. " Miss Vardon to yer right," broke in Sweeney, grufSy, and Frances dis- covered that the elevator had stopped and she was expected to step out of it. " Say, catch on t' the sport — goin' t' see Vardon — don't she think she's it!" followed her from the elevator as she turned toward Miss Vardon's dressing- room. The great Miss Vardon greeted her with befitting graciousness. She had not yet put on her make-up; she sat, dressed in a loose, pale blue garment, while her maid brushed her hair. She reached out one long hand and said in a voice that Frances mentally described as "liquid velvet": "Ah, my dear child! It's so sweet of you to come. I can't tell you how glad I am to see Fanny Allen's daughter at last! But what's the matter? You look frightened or hurt, child. What is it?" "Oh, nothing — that is — ^I think — " Frances stammered. "The children — ^in the elevator — they upset me — they — they were so noisy — and they said such terrible things. It seems dreadful, you know — they are so small! " She looked at Miss Vardon, appealingly. "Oh, yes," said the liquid velvet voice. "It's too bad ! They do get quite objectionable sometimes. They pick up so many things they shouldn't. It's too bad. But it can't be helped. One has to use them, you know — for the effect." The liquid velvet voice possessed a soothing quality. Miss Vardon smiled, too, as she talked, in a quiet, assured way that somehow stilled Frances' jarred nerves. "Yes, of course," she found herself answering, and the interview went on smoothly. Finally Miss Vardon dismissed her. "You ought to be running along," she said. "I have to put on my war-paint, and you must find your seat. I hope it's a good one." So Frances said her farewells and thanks confusedly, and was at last in the elevator once more, being borne downward by Sweeney. Her seat was well to the front in the center, certainly a very good one, thanks to Miss Vardon, her mother's old friend. The play, a fantasy by a very modem poet, was decidedly the thing this year. Its stage effects, the great Miss Vardon with her stately ways and remarkable voice, the dashing incidental music and the carefully trained company had combined to make it the sensation of the season. Frances considered herself extremely lucky to be seeing it — to say nothing of having a personal interview with the star "behind the scenes." USED FOR EFFECT 35 The orchestra played a soft, tripping dance, and the curtains parted. The scene was laid in the depths of a forest and staged, not with the usual painted wood scene, but with what seemed to be innumerable tall gray trees, melting into a background of dark green. The audience gasped. The orchestra still played the tripping dance, and suddenly through the tall gray trees there came wandering, singing to herself and dancing lightly, a peasant girl in brown^ — ^Miss Vardon! The audience clapped spontaneously, but stopped almost as soon as it began, for, magically, from out the trees were springing wood-nymphs in pale green and white, surroimding the peasant girl, dancing about her, bewildering her completely. The music quickened; the audience held its breath — the play was on. The next act opened in the same scene. The peasant girl, captured by the wood-nymphs, had now become their queen and was holding court. Miss Vardon, in rich green, with a narrow silver fillet in her brown hair, sat on a moss-bank in the center of the stage. The nymphs were seated before her on the ground in semi-circular rows, their backs to the audience. A herald- nymph ran in. "Little mortals!" she annoimced, breathlessly. "Wandering through our wood!" And through the trees came slowly a troop of peasant children. In front a girl, perhaps ten years old, with long yellow curls, walked hand in hand with a taller, brown-haired boy of about twelve. They came through the forest with a wide-eyed simplicity that caught the heart of the audience. When they saw the wood-nymphs the Uttle girl hesitated and put her fingers to her lips, shyly. She edged closer to the boy and the other children crowded behind them. "Aren't they sweet!" exclaimed the lady next to Frances. But Frances was staring, horrified. The Uttle girl, with her yellow curls and wide, innocent blue eyes, was certainly the child of the piping voice. "She'll give us hell!" echoed in Frances' ears. The sturdy, brown-haired boy was the would-be eccentric dancer. " I'll paste every one of you," he had said. The children were standing shyly before the wood-nymph queen. The queen smiled in a quiet, assured way; the Uquid velvet voice began to speak. It was a wonderful scene. The effect was perfect. But Frances shivered a little as she watched it. In the back of her mind she saw an unlighted elevator from which issued childish voices saying coarse, rough things. While the liquid velvet voice recited beautiful lines to the audience, in Frances' ears it seemed to say, "It's too bad. But it can't be helped. One has to use them, you know — for the effect." Slowly the curtains closed. The effect had been achieved. Newsie-boy Miriam Teichner War is your stock-in-trade. A murder means More pence for you. You gabble of men's greeds And mud-splashed passions, and their blood-hued scenes With joy. You cry a crime and mouth foul deeds With sly-eyed pleasure. This the street has made Of you, with murder as your stock-ia-trade. And oh, you're just a little boy, a little, little, Uttle boy; Who ought to be a-brimming with a puppy sort of froUc joy. Your rat-sharp eyes should be all bright with baby wonder and delight, For oh, you're just a httle boy, a little, mother's-lap-size boy. The street is home for you. You eat and sleep With bigger boys and hark to what they say. And think them mighty men and, shamefaced, keep Your baby fears and thoughts all hid away. You're starved for food and sleep and love, though you Would scoff at this and call it all untrue. And oh, you're just a Uttle lad, a Uttle lad, a little lad, Who ought to think the world's a place for having fun and being glad, Who ought to be good friends with trees and chummy with the sky and breeze. And who's to blame, I wonder, if you grow up queer and gross and bad? [36] Dra-wn by George Htiffier Copyright, Life Publishins Co. And, oh, you're just a little hoy, a little, Utile, little hoy; Who ought to he a-hrimming with a puppy sort of frolic joy. Your rat-sharp eyes should he all bright with haby wonder and delight. For oh, you're just a little boy, a little, mother' s-lap-size hoy. Willie : A Dead Issue Jessie A. McGrut His name was WilKe, but the boys on the block called him " Billikin " and "Kewpie," because of his curiously inflated abdomen. They used to laugh at the queer figure he cut with his three-quarter length overalls flapping about his spindling legs, and his narrow shoulders, grown a bit lopsided with carrying his heavy burlap bag of newspapers. But WilUe never heeded their laughter and when, with the merciless mimi- cry of youth, they would fall in line behind him and imitate his jolting walk and flat, nasal cry, he would merely stretch his pale lips in a sickly smile and trudge on his pathetic way. One afternoon, when the fun had grown uproarious, I stepped on the porch in time to catch Benny Thompson sneaking behind the honeysuckle hedge with a bit of rock in his hand. I called out hurriedly: "Willie! Have you a morning paper left?" Willie quickened his pace and soon stood in the shelter of my doorway. "I want two evening papers, too," I said, and then I added in a lower tone: "Why don't you chase those scalawags, WilUe? You are lots bigger than they are." Willie raised his heavy Hds and gave me a flickering glance out of his weak blue eyes. "Hit's too much trouble," he said, with a sigh, "and I hain't got time." "But you owe it to yourself," I insisted. "You've no right to be mis- treated." He gave me a half-shy, half -foolish look. "Hit don't worrit me none, ma'am." "But why doesn't it worry you, Willie?" "I dxuino, 'm. I'm jes' so used to bein' pestered, I reckon." He gave a little hiccough that was meant for a chuckle. " Maw, she says all the color's been washed outen me — that's why." I looked at Vn'm again, very closely; at the scant, dust-colored hair, the pale eyes, the pasty complexion splotched with amber-colored freckles, and at the vincurved, magenta-tinged lips. And as I looked something gave way within me — something that before that moment I had been wholly unconscious of and would have denied stoutly to my inmost soul. It was an innate repugnance to Willie, the primitive, instinctive repugnance of the fit toward the unfit which makes the mother bird push the broken-wuiged birdling out of the nest to make room for those which will fly. In that flash of [37] 38 WILLIE: A DEAD ISSUE self-revealment I understood the feeling that tempted Benny Thompson to sneak behind the hedge with a stone. I felt the scorch of shame on my face and the prick of tears in my eyes. "Sit down, Willie," I said, laying my hand gently on his bony shoulder. " I want to talk to you. No, never mind your papers," as he cast a dubious glance at his bag. "I'll buy one every five minutes to pay for the time I take." He squinted up at the sky a moment. " I got to git home by sundown to deliver maw's bread. She's got a right smart line of customers and they git mad at me if I don't deliver before nine o'clock." "That's all right. I'll pay for the bread you lose, too." I caught hold of his bag and pulled him down on the step beside me. "How old are you, WilUe?" "Fifteen'm." "Fifteen! You don't look twelve." "No'm. My growth's been stimted." " Indeed. And how did that happen ? " Then he told me, in his languid cracker dialect, how his father had con- tracted tuberculosis in a Georgia cotton mill and died when WiUie was only five years old. At first his mother had taken him to the mill with her because there was nowhere else to leave him, but gradually his nimble fingers were pressed into daily service, and when he was eight— too young to replace the bobbins without climbing up on the machine — ^he was working twelve hours a day as doffer boy. Then the mother, thinking to better her condi- tion and give her boy a chance to attend the mill school, married again. The man proved a drunken loafer who worked in the mill when it suited him, and bullied Willie and his mother into supporting him when it didn't suit him. A baby was bom — dead — and afterwards, when the mother returned to the mill she found her speed had gone off. Another dead baby was bom, and this time, when she returned to the mill, her back ached so intolerably she could scarcely stand on her feet, so she was discharged and Willie put in her place. Willie, in those days, was what he called "peart, " and was able, through steady working, to double the $3 a week earned by his mother. Then a law was passed forbidding children under twelve years old to work in the mills. When Willie's stepfather learned of this law he got dnmk and, after beating Willie and abusing his mother, disappeared, only to turn up again when he learned later on that they had been shipped to the fish canneries on the west coast of Florida. At the canneries Willie and his mother, for a time, earned more than at the cotton mill, but the fish sheds were damp and unwholesome, and the living quarters so wretched and unsanitary that Willie, undoubtedly, con- WILLIE: A DEAD ISSUE 39 tracted hook-worm, and when the canneries closed on account of depletion of the oyster beds, the family shifted to Jacksonville, where the husband continued to loaf, and WilUe sold newspapers. It was a drab and commonplace enough picture Willie drew sitting there beside me on the steps — the shiftless, parasitical stepfather, the ignorant, heart-broken, health-broken mother, with another marasmic baby at her breast — and Willie, whose weary shoulders accepted the bread-winner's yoke with such gentle stolidity; Willie, with only one poor little chord in his sunless soul that Ufe had been permitted to reach — ^his immature, unreasoning love for his mother. His entire development had been confined to this primitive mother-and- chUd relationship. To him she was as simply and blindly the beginning and end of existence as if he still lay sleeping, unborn, vmder her heart. Once, when he had had a regular morning and evening route for his papers, which enabled him to peddle his bread in the noon hours, he had attended the Y. M. C. A. night school, but he would always fall asleep at his desk. Then he was dismissed from his regular routes by the newspapers because he made mistakes in his deliveries and permitted some of his customers to take advan- tage of his dulness to cheat in making their weekly payments. This was easily done, for all they needed to say was : " What ! You here again, Willie ? Why, I paid for this week in advance, don't you remember?" But Willie couldn't remember. A yoimg doffer boy, who has had all of his plastic mental faculties bent upon the problem of putting an empty bobbin where a full one had been, has little use for the memory cells in his brain. They become atrophied from disuse. So, Willie finally was forced to buy his papers outright, and when he was cheated — well, he was just cheated. When I asked him if he had no desire to go to school, the ghost of a dead hope flickered for a moment in his face — then went out. "I useter want ter go till sometimes it'd jist hurt, right here," he said, laying his hand on his narrow chest, "but now — the older I grow the less I keer about sech things. I've sort o' lost my ambition, I reckon." "But isn't there anything — anything in particular, Willie, that you would like above everything else to do?" "Yes'm. Theer's Maw's baby — this last one. She seems sort o' set on raisin' hit. The pore little critter's jist clean skin and bone, but Maw thinks if she could git into the country where she could git milk warm from the cow, she could raise hit. She's got an uncle down State on a farm, and I'm tryin' to git money to send 'em theer." "Yes, and that good-for-nothing husband of her's will be bound to follow her up and spoil everything. You and she will just have to stand together, Willie, and make him work steady or get out." 40 WILLIE: A DEAD ISSUE " Yes'm," said Willie, turning his weary eyes toward the west, where the sun glowed large and red through the trees. " The sun's most set. I must be gittin' home for ttat bread." " But see here a moment, Willie." I drew a pencil from his breast pocket and tore ofiE a margin from a newspaper. " You ought to go to a good doctor and have him examine you for hook-worm." "Yes'm. Maw, she don't take no stock in doctors." He picked up his bag with an air of finality. "But Willie," — ^I plucked at his sleeve. "Here's the name of a good, kind one. Tell him I sent you. He'll understand, and he won't charge you anything. Tell yoiu mother that, that he won't charge you and she's sure to let you go. Won't you, Willie? Will you promise? " "Yes'm," said Willie. But as I watched him walk joltingly down the street, with his chin on his breast, I realized that what he said about himself was true. He had no ambition to pull himself out of the rut he was in. He was like a bit of elastic that has lain too long on a shelf and breaks at a puJl, but never stretches. All that night Willie's eyes haunted my dreams. They had such a terribly stagnant look — dead eyes, except for the weariness that sickened them. AU the next day, too, the memory of the boy oppressed me, so that finally I sought council of the wisest and kindest man I knew. He is secretary of an organization that gives relief to the poor, one of a growing class that are defined loosely as Social Workers. "You see, we must do something for Willie," I asserted, firmly, to him, after I had finished my story. While I had been talking he sat shuffling through some cards in a cabinet near his desk. Now he swimg toward me in his chair. "Yes," he said. "I find we have a record of that family. They have never appealed to us for aid. We heard of them and tried to help in a roundabout way, but the mother became suspicious of ouj efiforts and barred us out. The story Willie told you was true, however." "Of course it was. He hasn't enough ingenuity to tell a lie. I'd feel better about him if he did. He's just the type that everybody takes advantage of." "Yes; it looks as if he'd been up against a skin game all his life," said the Secretary, drumming thoughtfully on his desk. " Well," I put in after a long pause, " what are you going to do about it? " "Nothing," he answered. " Nothingl" I cried. " You, the friend of the poor? " He smiled sadly at me. "I see you gauge my usefulness to society by my capacity to help WiUie." WILLIE: A DEAD ISSUE 41 "But what is your organization /oy, then?" I demanded to know. " What is the Red Cross Society /or, in time of war? " "Why, to help take care of the wounded, of course." "Yes, and don't you suppose that while they are doing that their hearts are breaking over the fact that war exists? They know that at.best they are only a necessary evil. When we stop to think we know that we, too, are only a necessary evil. Our success as social workers depends, I think, upon the fact that we are too busy most of the time to stop to think. Too busy, I mean, staunching the wounds in order to save what blood is left in the individual. "Now, we'll take this case of Willie's for example. Tragedies such as his almost invariably go vmrecorded. His class, or what is termed the Southern 'cracker' class, possess deep-rooted independence, coupled with an infinite capacity to bear. Society's mistreatment of them has taken a negative form which engenders dull suspicion rather than vigorous outbursts of pas- sionate resentment. That is why our work here in the South is so terribly uphill. We find so Uttle recoil from existing conditions among the people. There's no fight in them. If you should open the door of my inner oflSce you would find it filled with wrecks, entire families gone utterly to smash before we could get even within hailing distance of them. I grow heart-sick, sometimes, dealing with wrecks, wrecks, wrecks, when what I need is motive power to drive a dredge deep enough to dig up the rocks that caused the wrecks. That is the real problem." The Secretary's hands were clenched tight on his desk as he said this, and his passionate eyes were fixed upon a vision which I vaguely felt was far beyond me and my mission. And as I looked at him I felt myself grow a little impatient that he should sit there star-gazing while I was trying to hold poor Willie and his desperate need before his eyes. Presently I got up and said, rather crossly: "You say you can do nothing for WilUe, and I suppose you know your own business best ; but / am going to do something for Willie. He wants to send his mother to a farm in the country. I am going to raise a Uttle fund among my friends and send it to him anonymously." "I see," said the Secretary, dully. " But you don't really approve, do you? " He raised tired eyes, in which the vision no longer glowed. "My dear friend, what shall I say to you? WilUe is one of those wrecks I have just spoken of. As it happens, a wreck is much more stimulating to the human consciousness than the submerged rock that caused it. Chance threw Wilhe across your threshold and you are pained and excited at the sight. Now, if you wish me to prescribe for the pain in you, then by all means go out and 42 WILLIE: A DEAD ISSUE collect your fund for WilUe; but if you wish me to prescribe for the pain in Willie, then collect your fund and turn it over to the agency that is seeking to dredge up the rock that wrecked Willie. It is called Child Labor. Do you see what I mean? " "Yes, I see what you mean," I agreed reluctantly, for I hated to admit that Willie was a dead issue. "I'll let you know later on what I decide to do"— and I left the oflSce. 3t: 4: 4: 4: Now, dear reader, the proper conclusion to this story should be simply a few words telling of the great light that thenceforth flooded my path and sent me up and down the world, striving to dredge up the rock of Child Labor. What actually happened, however, was this: When I reached home that afternoon I foimd my own precious child was broken out with measles. It was the first time, owing to my excellent care of her, that she had ever been ill, so that I was considerably upset and sent at once for the doctor. He ad\ised, in view of the hot weather and the rather mild form of her attack, that I rent a cottage at the beach and spend the rest of the summer there. I took his advice and we were soon settled very pleas- antly, with the surf poimding at our very door and the keen salt breeze whipping our blood and tanning our skins. My little girl's attack proved very sUght indeed, and I was thankful to have escaped the discomfort of July and August in town. I thought of Willie, of course, but each day less- ened the poignancy of his appeal, and the thought of dredging up a Child Labor rock in midsimimer, all by myself, was too oppressive to dwell upon to any great extent. Besides, I wanted to enjoy myself, and I couldn't enjoy myself if I kept on morbidly thinking of Willie. When I at last returned home to famihar paths, I foimd a strange boy crying papers on our street. He knew nothing of Willie. Conscience- stricken, I called up a reporter whom I knew on the Times. "Oh, you mean Billiken," he answered, when I described the child. "No, I haven't seen him lately. The last I heard he'd borrowed some money from some of the boys down here to send his mother to the country. I guess he got tired trying to pay up and quit his job. Wait just a minute — ^here's one of the kids now. I'll ask him if he's heard anything from Willie." There was a blurred murmur at the other end of the line for a moment, then a voice in my ear. "Hello. Yes, I've found out about Willie. He's quit his job all right. The poor little chap is dead." Now and again, in my dreams, Willie's eyes haunt me. They are still sick, faded and unutterably weary — but they hold no reproach. The Wicked Child George Creel It was one of those wretched scenes that excite mixed emotions of grief, despair and disgust. So hopeless, tragic and revolting! Slow tears scalded the weather-beaten face of the old grandfather; the gaunt, unlovely mother cried through her knotty, blunted fingers; Pamela's sobs seemed certain to tear her throat, and the Judge looked sick to death. Unhappy little Pamela! Her widowed mother, working in a bakery, left the thing called home at five o'clock in the morning, not retiuming until seven in the evening. Yet even this exhausting toil, that robbed her of opportimity to tend and train-the four children, had not proved sufficiently remunerative to keep the wolf from the door. As a consequence, the small Pamela was torn from the nest and put to work in a factory to gain the addi- tional few dollars needed to span the gap between starvation and existence. Even the best of establishments is not a safe place for girls still in the bud. There is the noon hour, with its dawdling about the streets and in hallways, the unrestrained gossip shared in by all ages and all sexes, and the long walk home through the quick dark of winter evenings. About Pamela were older girls less than guarded in their confidences, and half-grown boys cheated of the wholesome expression that play gives, and demoralized and degraded by daily contact with the coarsenesses of Ufe. It was a foregone conclusion that these young-old sensuaUsts should prove her undoing, soon wheedling her into surrender of that of which she had never been taught the preciousness. What they commenced vicious men continued, a box of candy, a dime for a throat ribbon, seeming fair return to the child in whom character had never had chance to build. At the time of detection, the thing had been going on for months, and the face that should have been as fresh and sweet as a morning-glory at the dawn was blotched, sallow and dropping in repulsive sags. The arresting officials were certain of her " guilt." They did not hesitate to brand her as "depraved." Some of them had daughters of like age, safe in the home, wrapped in security and growing to the true strengths of womanhood under a mother's watchful eye, yet all of them seemed perfectly confident in the beUef that the Uttle drudge of a Pamela had been a free agent in working out her own damnation. The grandfather had come from a Western State to help his daughter plead for little Pamela. Each new revelation of the child's "gross miscon- duct" made the miserable mother cry the more, but with every sob she tightened her arms about the girl, kissing her and petting her. [43] 44 THE WICKED CHILD "Don't take her away from me, Judge." Out of her very wretchedness, the poor, shrinking creature gained courage to appeal to the Law — the Law that permitted the baker to demand ten hours a day of her time, and which stood idly by while Pamela was dragged from the home, from the school, from safety itself, and thrown into contact with vicious influences against which her youth and her ignorance possessed no safeguards. " For the love of God, let me keep my child. I'll be a better mother after this." The Judge winced at the pathos of it. " I'll promise you that it will never happen again. It's my fault. Judge. Pamela's a good girl. Just a baby. Judge, that's all she is. She needs me now more than ever. You can see that for yourself, can't you? Now's the time when she wants her mother." She smoothed back the hair from Pamela's tear-wet face and held her closer. " Don't cry, honey lamb," she whispered. " Mama knows. Mama understands." Again her hoarse, broken voice assailed the ears of the Judge. "You are not going to take her away from me, are you? Punish me. Judge, but don't hurt Pamela. I've neglected her, that's all. I haven't been a good mother." Ten hours a day in the burning heat of a bakery that her children might have food and shelter and clothes. And not a good mother! Surely God will know some of His angels by their lies. "They're all I've got, Judge. Just my babies, that's all. Pa's come back here to help me. You've heard him say so. Just give us a chance. My little Pamela ! My baby ! My girl ! " She could not see that Pamela had been taken away already. Society did that when it permitted the child to be thrown into the whirlpool of in- dustry at fourteen, an age when she most needed watchful care and incessant training. Pamela, as a matter of course, had to be sent to an institution, for she had reached a stage of moral disintegration where restraint was necessary. The mother, though she yearned until her heart burst, though her tender love took all blame unto itself, could not blot out the cancerous horror that had taken hold on the child. So they carried Pamela away, to an accompaniment of sobs and screams that left the courtroom sick and shaken. She was stained black with what the world calls " sin," but every stain called to the fond Ups of the loving, anguished mother. All the daily papers carried an account of the "case." One staid journal even went so far as to make it the basis for a ringing editorial on the "grow- ing lack of proper home trainmg." As it so happened, the same issue also contained a very vigorous letter from a certain prominent local employer of labor. The particular thing that stirred him to communication was " the paternalistic and pauperizing trend of legislation," and in unsparing fashion THE WICKED CHILD 45 he attacked the agitation for child labor laws as "destructive of the forma- tion of the habit of industry." There is not a juvenile court in the land that does not ring daily to the sobs of little Pamelas, to the cries of wretched mothers. It is well enough to put emphasis upon the fact that the wage-earning child is trading health, strength and hope of healthy children for the pittance that she earns, but let it not be forgotten that there is another and more terrible danger, and that the society which prepares this gauntlet for its little ones is, in the day of their ruin, an accessory before the fact. The theory of innate depravity is proved at last to be a he. Environment is all-powerful to make or break. In this time of gladness, when the birth of a Child swells the throat of the world with song, may it not be remem- bered that in every child there is a spark of divinity that can be fanned to flame or extinguished outright. "Bargains" MiEIAM TeICHNER I wonder — who was the girl who sewed The handsome bargain waist I bought? 'Twas wondrous cheap. Why, the clerk who showed And sold it me said that months had brought No bargain Uke it. The thing enticed, And I took it gladly, but now occur Strange thoughts of the girl who sewed. Low-priced, But — what was the cost to her? I wonder — what of the girl who twined These bright-hued silken blooms I found To'trimmy hat. They're a splendid find. And I'm smartly hatted as well as gowned. I don't see how they can sell them so, But — queer, the fancies that wake and stir. The girl who made them to sell so low — Just what was the cost to her?- I wonder — what of the girl who strained Her eyes o'er the white embroidered things I bought today ? One piece was stained With a drop of blood. Ah, this season brings Such tempting sales. Why they almost give The goods away. But the thoughts recur: The girl who made them — ^how does she Uve, And — ^what was the cost to her? Oh, lovely, feminine, luring wear That the brilliant counters spread for sale, You're really cheap; you are fine and fair, Your price is right and we do not fail To buy. But what of the girl who works In the gloom and the grime and the great wheels' whirr? The fear is there and it lurks and lurks — Just what was the cost to her? [46] Some Working People Mary Alden Hopkins The following incidents have been told me during the past few weeks by various women whose work takes them among the very poor people in New York City. I offer them to point no particular moral. They have interested me; perhaps they wiU interest others. Loretta is an Italian four-year-old. She is a charming atom, with black eyes much too large for her face. Her head is topped with a huge red hair- ribbon. When the ribbon slips off she trots confidingly to the nearest grown-up, holds out the bow, tips her head for it to be tied on, and stands mutely waiting assistance. Loretta's business is to sit in a high chair and pull the packed violet petals apart. Her mother makes the flowers. Loretta took her vacation at a fresh-air home. The first morning she came quietly up to the nurse and breathed a soft request: "Violets? Violets for Loretta?" "Yes, you darling," responded the nurse, heartily, "the precious shall have violets! We'll go out in the meadow this minute to gather them!" The adidts smiled at each other, saying, "Isn't it sweet of the Uttle love to want violets the very first thing! " Everybody went with Loretta to the meadow to enjoy her delight. But when they came to the violet bed, deep purple blossoms hiding in green grass, Loretta turned in bewilderment to the nurse. - "Violets?" she breathed. "Loretta's violets?" It was her work for which she was asking, the little scraps of purple cloth that she pulled apart, sitting in her high chair. Loretta, like our tired busi- ness men, has never learned to play. Rosie is a little Jewish girl, not over-attractive, and, up to a month ago, considered incorrigible. She played hooky from school to sell gum on the steps of the elevated. When moral suasion failed, Rosie was arrested, brought before the Children's Court and sentenced to school. Soon she was back on the hook. Again she was arrested for truancy. This time it occurred to some one that maybe something was wrong with her, and she was taken to a doctor. The doctor found she was blind. Oh, a modicum of sight; enough to trade in gum with vague shapes that 471 48 SOME WORKING PEOPLE held out pennies, but no more. Now she's in a bUnd class and finds school life somewhat less of a bore. The street loses one penny trader. Solomon Levinsky fled from Russia after one of those practical demonstra- tions of the superiority of Christians over Jews in the art of murder. He was very lucky in getting his entire family safely to New York. He was a quaint figure, in his ill-fitting frock coat, his derby resting on his ears, and his flowing beard. He knew a great deal of Hebrew and nothing much else. So he set up a pushcart. By the time winter came his two httle boys were selling papers on the street. They were small and puny enough to make good sellers. The more obviously unfitted for street-trading a boy is, the more customers he gets. One cold, raw morning, when rain drizzled down into two inches of slush, the district nurse found the father bathing the boys' feet after they had come in from paper selling, before they went to school. The children were resting. One of them had fallen asleep in his chair. Their wet stockings and shoes were in front of the stove. One of the shoes had no sole at all; it was just a top with a heel. The father knelt in front of the children bathing the red, chapped, dirty feet with warm water from a great brass schussel. He had taken off his coat but he was wearing his derby hat pushed onto the back of his head. Two black locks of hair were trained down in front of his ears to meet his beard. As he knelt before his children, bathing their sore feet, the tears ran down his face and he sobbed shamelessly and monotonously. After he had cleaned and warmed and dried the four Uttle feet, he again drew on the wet stockings and shoes. He woke the Uttle sleeper and the two children went off to school. A little chap was carrying two huge basted overcoats across his shoulder. He bent over so as to support their weight partly on his back. He looked like a funny, tiny old man, in his blue overalls and worn cap. He was crying and sobbing, "Mama! Mama!" His mother was not about, but he was so little that when he cried he just naturally said " Mama." The district nurse saw him from across the street and started over to help him carry the ulsters. But the Uttle chap had heard of inspectors. They are people who come and take the work away from you. You must never, never let them catch you. You must hide from them imder the bed or say that you don't Uve where you do and teU a wrong name. You are not safe from them until you are fourteen years old. SOME WORKING PEOPLE 49 When the little chap saw the lady in a uniform coming toward him, he was so frightened that he stopped crying. He tried to run, but the overcoats were too heavy. He did not know which way to go. If he went home she would follow him. He made little futile dashes in one direction and then another. He trembled so that he could hardly stand. His terror-stricken face was quite horrible to see. The nurse in kindness turned and walked away from him. Then the little chap hurried homeward in spasmodic, breathless rushes, half-turned to watch her, lest she steal up and catch him imawares. For Mikey Eleanor H. Porter It all happened because Sophie was ambitious — ^not for herself, but for Mikey. Just where Sophie and Baby Mikey came from nobody seemed to know, and certainly ten-year-old Sophie herself could not tell. Behind her lay shadowy memories of a gentle, white-faced being who was "mother," and of days filled with dolls and flowers instead of berries to pick and oysters to shuck; days when she was never hungry, never tired, just happy — she and Little Brother. But that was long ago. Something happened — she could not remember just what. She and Baby Mikey lived now with the Simpskys. There was no "mother" any longer. There was Mrs. Simpsky and she had six chil- dren; but she was not a "mother" — as Sophie knew mothers. Mothers do not swear and puU your hair when your back aches so you aren't right smart at shucking, nor scold because Little Brother takes so long to grow up "so's to be worth his salt." Then there was the Padrone — the Boss. "Old Max," Mr. Simpsky called him. Summers Old Max took them all into the big fruit fields and set them to picking berries. At first it had not been so bad. Sophie even liked it, and Baby Mikey had crowed with glee. But very soon Baby Mikey was crying with the heat that beat down so unmercifully, and with the flies and mosquitoes that buzzed and bit and stung, in spite of Sister Sophie's frantic efforts to keep them away with one hand, while she picked berries with the other — ^for, of course, whatever she did, she must pick the berries. Mrs. Simpsky had told her that. Also she must take care of Little Brother. Her mother had told her that, in the dear long ago. Whatever else she for- got, she could not forget that. Besides, as if she did not love Little Brother better than anything else in the world — and love best to care for him, too, if only it had not been for those quarts and quarts of berries that must be picked. And how tired she got — day in and day out under the fiercely burning sun! How her feet and her back ached! And how queer it was that the longer she worked the littler and littler grew the berries and the bigger and bigger grew her stiff, sun-blistered fingers, until she could scarcely pick the fruit at all! Hard and dreary as was the berry-picking, however, it was infinitely to [60 FOR MIKEY 51 be preferred, in Sophie's opinion, to the oyster-shucking down on the coast. How Sophie dreaded that! Along in October for three years now Old Max had biuidled them all into hot, stuffy cars, there to ride for hours and hours and miles and miles — which, indeed, would have been delightful if only there had not been so many men, women and children that wanted the same seat and the same air to breathe. At their journey's end there were always the same things awaiting them — long, tumble-down shacks to sleep in nights, eight to a room; huge, drafty sheds to work in days, prying oysters out of sharp, dirty shells. Always, too, there were the mosquitoes and sand-flies to bite and sting, and the horrid smell from the marsh when the tide went out. And there was the screeching whistle that seemed to 'blow the minute they got into bed, though it really did not blow, of course, till half-past two in the morning. Then came the wild scramble to get herself and Little Brother dressed, all in the dark, and the gulping down of something to drink, and the snatching of a couple of pieces of bread to eat on the way; for at three they must be at the cannery ready to work, else the Padrone would come after them — and it was not pleasant to have the Padrone come after you, as Sophie knew by grievous experience. For that matter, nothing was pleasant about shucking oysters, in Sophie's opinion. Even after you learned to be real skilful with the knife, the shells cut your fingers and made them bleed — vmtil they got calloused, of course. And for a while you were so sleepy, and after that you were so tired, that nothing else seemed to count much. You just kept going. To Sophie, indeed, it seemed as if always it was to "just keep going," whether it was stumbling over the shell-piles at three o'clock in the morning, or stumbling home again after a long day's work, draggiag Baby Mikey behind her. To be sure, some days she could shuck six pots — ^if Little Brother wasn't ^00 active or too fretful. If she could keep him asleep snuggled up against a warm steam box she was content. But she was anything but that when he was trotting about the shed, clambering over the dangerous shell-piles, or nmning out on to the dock, where the boats came in to unload, and where was that yawning abyss of black water waiting to engulf forever little, unwary feet. Always then she was running here and there with frantic calls of "Mikey, Mikey, where are you?" And that was not shucking oysters, as she found out to her sorrow when the end of the day brought her but the pay for three pots shucked — and a scolding from the Padrone and Mrs. Simpsky. Mrs. Simpsky said it was all Mikey's fault. She said, also, that he was 52 FOR MIKEY getting to be a big boy now, anjnvay, and ought to be put to work himself. And very soon after that, in spite of Sophie's protests, Mrs. Simpsky thrust a knife and an oyster into his tiny hands and said: "Ho, you can't open it — I'll bet ye can't open it ! " Which was the surest way to make him open it, as every one knew — ^who knew Mikey! Mikey was six now, and this year he was working nearly every day. Perched on a box to make him tall enough to reach his work, he was putting in hour after hour, imtil he dropped from sheer weariness. To be sure, he was only "helpin'," and the few cents his tiny little cut fingers earned went on to Mrs. Simpsky's pay check — to avoid any embarrassing questions that might be asked by prying outsiders who chanced to notice his extreme youth. Sophie cried and pleaded, but in vain. She even begged to be allowed to work, herself, all night, if only Mikey might be left to his naps and play; but Mrs. Simpsky was not to be coaxed. Mikey was old enough and big enough to work — and work he must. Then one day the catch was shrimp, and they put him on that. Sophie thought, then, that her heart was indeed broken, for bad as oyster-shucking was, shrimp-picking was worse, as she knew. True, the hoiurs were shorter — they had to be ; for so chilled and numb and raw did one's fingers become that they gave out very soon in spite of the almn Mrs. Simpsky rubbed into them to make them hard. For the shrimp were icy cold, and there was a terrible something about them that ate into one's fingers, and even into one's shoes on the floor. No wonder, indeed, that Sophie was nearly frantic when Mikey was set to picking shrimp! After all, it was the shrimp that stirred Sophie into determined action; it was the shrimp that crystallized into definite plans the vague ambitions for Mikey that had for so long haimted her soul. For herself, things were hopeless, of course. Sophie had long since conceded that. But for Mikey — ! First, Mikey must go to school. Without learning, he woidd be doomed always to oyster-shucking and shrimp-picking. But with learning — why, with learning he might become anything. He might even get to be a Boss! But how was he to get this learning ? There were schools, she knew. She had even attended one herself for a few months. But she had not learned much. She had been too tired — ^for, of course, she must keep up her work also, Mrs. Simpsky had said; and when one works four hours before school in the morning and four hours after school in the afternoon shucking oysters, one can't seem to learn very fast which letter comes first and which last — when there are such a lot of them, too, and such a lot of words! But after a while she had felt too sick to go to school, so she had had to give it up; though she had still tried to read and write by practising all by herself— for Mikey's sake. [53] 54 FOR MIKEY Schools were not for poor folks like them, Mrs. Simpsky said, anyway. They were for the rich folks that rode in automobiles. Always, after that, Sophie had especially envied the occupants of every automobile that she saw, particularly if there were children among them. They could go to school, while Mikey — It was this speech of Mrs. Simpsky's that gave Sophie her wonderful idea. If only, by hook or by crook, she could some day get Mikey smuggled into an automobile with other little boys and girls, he, with them, might go to school. Then, afterward, when he had become a big and wonderful and learned man, he could come back to her and be a Boss. And how proud she would be of him then! It was a pretty picture and a fascinating one. Sophie was soon lulling herself to sleep nights thinking of it. True, between Mikey, the little boy, and Mikey, the Boss, there lay long years — years that of necessity must be full of loneliness and emptiness for her, with no Mikey. But Sophie refused to let her mind dwell on that. She forced it to dwell, rather, on the thought that if Mikey were with her he would be shucking oysters or picking shrimp, while if he were gone he would be getting the wonderful learning that would one day make him the Boss. Confident as to results, Sophie was still imcertain as to methods of procedture, however. Automobiles were not plentiful on the horizon of her daily existence, and the few that did appear gave her no opportunity what- ever to carry out her plans. That she must smuggle Mikey into the auto- mobile secretly she knew very well. To introduce him openly and beg for him a place was too risky to be thought of for a moment. She must trust to his being found afterward when it was too late to return him. She thought, too, there ought to be a letter of explanation to go with him. She must manage that herself, somehow. She could print something, perhaps. Certainly, there was no one she dared to ask to write that letter for her. Convinced of this, and convinced, also, that she should be ready for any emergency, Sophie lost no time in collecting her materials and going to work. In due course she was the proud possessor of a carefully trimmed square of brown paper on which was printed the following: "deer lady. TfflS IS MIKY MY BROTHUR. DONT BLAME HIM. I DID IT. ITS ALL MY BLAME. HE IS A GOOD BOY AND WONT BE ENY BOTHUR. PLEZE LET HIM GO TO SKOL AND GET LERNIN ALONG WITH YUER LITTUL BOYS AND GIRLS SO HE KAN BE A BOS AND WONT HAVE TO WORK SO WITH HIS HANDS WHAT HURT AND KAN SLEPE AND PLAY SUM NOW AS LITTUL BOYS LIKE HIM ORTER. IT WONT KOST MUTCH TO KEEP HIM CAUSE HE AINT USTER EETDST MUTCH. BUT PLEZE PLEZE BE GOOD TO HIM. HES ALL I GOT AND I GOT TO GIVE HIM TO YOU. GOOD BY. YUER FREND SOPHIE." FOR MIKEY 65 The letter written, Sophie always carried it with her, wherever she went, for there was never any telling, of course, when her chance to use it would come. Days and weeks and months passed, however, and Sophie had begun to fear that she would never use it — when one day the chance came. They were back in the berry fields now, and it was when she was working near the main highway one warm July morning that she saw the big automobile come to a pufl&ng stop. The next moment the man at the wheel was out of the car and bending over something in front, with his head far down. The woman, too, on the front seat, leaned forward, intent on what the man was doing. Behind them was an empty seat. Sophie saw this, and knew that now, if ever, was the time for her to act. Nor did she hesitate. Weeks of planning for this very moment made her movements prompt and decided now that the moment had come. Catching Mikey by the hand she hurried him along to the fence and helped him through to the roadway on the other side. Fortunately some friendly shrubs hid them and the car from the sight of their fellow workers. "Mikey, now listen," she panted. "It's come — our chance. Now remember! I've told ye lots of times what ter do. Git down on the floor out o' sight. An' don't ye speak nor even breathe till they find ye — then give 'em the letter. Here 'tis. Now s-h-h!" she finished, thrusting the worn little brown paper note into his hands, and creeping stealthily along toward the back of the car from behind. Mikey, wild-eyed and plainly frightened, began to whimper and hang back. "No — no! I'd ruther stay with you! I'd ruther stay with you!" he whispered, hoarsely. Sophie tightened her grip on his hand and gulped back a sob; but she forced her lips into a gay smile. "Shucks, Mikey! Ye don't know what yer a-talkin' 'bout," she whis- pered back. "Think of the leamin' yer goin' ter have, and the big man yer a-goin' ter be! Do ye want ter go down ter pick shrimps next winter, and the next winter, and furever and furever?" "No-o," choked Mikey. "Then do as I say, an' yer won't. Come — quick!" Sophie's own hands were shaking and her own eyes were threatening to overflow. She knew she had not a moment to lose if she would avoid a breakdown herself. Just how it was done Sophie never knew; but at last Mikey was safely inside the car and she herself was back in the bushes, palpitatingly watchmg. Three minutes later the man was in his old place at the wheel and the car was off. 56 FOR MIKEY Until it was a mere speck in the distance, Sophie watched it, through streaming eyes. Then, with a little sob, she flung herself on the ground. Suddenly it had come to her how empty, empty now were her hands and her heart. "Oh, Mikey, Mikey, comeback. I wish't I hadn't 'a' done it. I wish't I hadn't 'a' done it! I know I'm just a-goin' ter die without ye, Mikey— Mikey!" Meanwhile, far down the road, chugging along in their touring car, were Mr. and Mrs. Horace Fairweather, quite unaware that crouching in the bottom of the tonneau behind them was a frightened little ciurly-haired boy. As they slowed up almost to a stop, however, for a passing load of hay, a half-stifled sob caused Mrs. Fairweather to look behind her. She screamed and clutched her husband's arm. "Horace, quick! Stop the car! There's something — on the floor — ^in back," she panted. " Why, Horace, it's a child ! " she gasped a minute later, as her husband pulled the sobbing little boy to his feet. " Well, sir, where did you come from? " questioned the man, sharply. Mr. Horace Fairweather plaialy was not pleased with his new passenger. There was no answer, save a convulsive intaking of the breath. "Come, come, httle boy, what is your name?" "Mikey." "Mikey, indeed! Well, how came you in my car?" Mikey gulped again. " Sophie, she put me here. I — I wants Sophie ! " "Who's Sophie?" "Mys-sister. I wants Sophie!" "Humph ! Well, we'll see if we can't find this precious Sophie — and inci- dentally give her a piece of our mind. Where is she? " The boy shook his head dumbly. " Come, come, where were you when she put you in my car? " prompted the man, irritably. Still the boy was silent, but he pointed backward, with sobbing httle breaths. "Humph! Of course! I needn't have asked," muttered the man. "Well, we'll go back and find Sophie." But just here, imexpectedly, Mikey gave a wailing cry and shook his head. Obviously, some sort of struggle was going on within him; and it was with very evident reluctance that he dragged his right hand forth from its hiding- place and held out a cnunpled, moist little fold of brown paper. " Sophie, she'll be mad. She wanted me to give you this," he sobbed. FOR MIKEY 57 The man took it gingerly, but, after a moment of scowling scrutiny, he passed it to his wife. "Great Scott! I can't read the stuff. What is it?" he snapped. Still more gingerly his wife took the paper in her daintily gloved hand. Then aloud she read the words Sophie had laboriously scrawled: "'deer lady, this is MIKY my BROTHUE. DONT blame him. I DID IT. ITS ALL MY BLAME. HE IS A GOOD BOY AISTD WONT BE ENY BOTHUE. PLEZE LET HIM GO TO SKOL AND GET LERNIN ALONG WITH YUER LITTUL BOYS AND GIRLS SO HE KAN BE A BOS AND WONT HAVE TO WORK SO WITH HIS HANDS WHAT HURT AND KAN SLEPE AND PLAY SUM NOW AS LITTLE BOYS LIKE HIM ORTER. IT WONT COST MUTCH TO KEEP HIM CAUSE HE AINT USTER EETIN MUTCH. BUT PLEZE PLEZE BE GOOD TO HIM. HES ALL I GOT AND I GOT TO GIVE HTM TO YOU. GOOD BY. YUER FREND SOPHIE.'" "Well, by Jove!" breathed Mr. Horace Fairweather, and his voice was not quite steady. His eyes, too, showed a sudden tenderness, not often seen there. He was hearing again the words his wife had just read: "With your own little boys and girls" — and in his heart was a great emptiness; in Horace Fairweather's home there were no Uttle boys and girls. He glanced at his wife. Her face was white and horror-stricken. Her eyes were goLag back and forth from Mikey to the note in her hand. "Horace, how terrible! Why, what — shall — we do?" she gasped. Suddenly, on the spur of the moment, the man uttered the first wild thought that came into his head; at the same time he laughed to hide his embarrassment. "Well, of course — we could — keep him." "Oh, Horace!" shuddered the woman. "How caw you!" And she shud- dered again. In Mrs. Fairweather's heart, too, was a great emptiness; but the longed-for children in her vision were clean-faced and happy-eyed, and were clothed in velvet suits and film y frocks. Never had they borne the slightest resem- blance to this dirty-faced, forlorn Uttle specimen of patched-up humanity before her. "Very well, then, there's nothing to do but to take him back," shrugged the man, "and you'd better get out and sit in here with him, so he can point out to you where he was when his sister put him into the car," he added. "Of course I'll drive slowly." On the back seat Mikey welcomed with flattering joy "the pretty lady." Mikey had been frightened and lonesome. He was neither now. More- over, he was going back to Sophie. So, close to the pretty lady he snuggled confidingly, reaching out his thin, work-scarred little hand for her to hold. 58 FOR MIKEY And all the way he talked bUthely of Sophie, the dear sister who was so good to him. Beside him the pretty lady sat silent, strangely moved. In her vision still were those longed-for children. But she was not seeing now the Faim- tleroy suits and frilly muslins. She was seeing, curiously enough, the wide blue eyes and curly head of a boy much like Mikey at her side — a boy who was not "used to eating much." It was not long before they came upon Sophie. She was still sobbing, prone on her face in the tall grass by the roadside. But, at Mikey's glad shout as he ran to her side, she sprang to her feet with a quick cry of mingled rapture and dismay. "Mikey, you darling! You naughty boy, what are you back here for?" she exclaimed, hugging him and shaking him both at once. Mrs. Fairweather, white-faced and trembling, stepped from the car and touched Sophie on the shoulder. "Tell me, child, why — ^why did you send him away — ^like this?" she fal- tered. And Sophie told her. It was a long story. It had to do with all the years since "mother" went away and with mother's command to take good care of Little Brother. It had to do with Mrs. Simpsky, who pulled hair, and the Boss, who swore, as well as with the dreary hours of shrimp-picking and oyster-shucking when one was so sleepy and tired. It had to do with her longing to get for Mikey the "learnin'," so that he might be a big man some day, maybe even a Boss; and it had to do with her own broken-hearted loneliness now, when she had realized that Mikey had really gone. It was, indeed, a lengthy story; but long before it was finished, Mrs. Fair- weather's eyes were wet, and her lips were trembling. What Mr. Fair- weather was doing could not be seen, for his back was turned, and his face was turned quite away. But he was listening. He was very plainly hsten- ing. And when the story was done he turned sharply at the sobbing cry from his wife. "Horace, Horace, why don't you say something? Why don't you do something?" she demanded. "Why, I never supposed there could be such awful things allowed. Think of it — those babies working Uke that! And at three o'clock in the morning! Can't you do anything? Can't anybody do anything?" " Why, my dear, I think there must be laws," began the man; but his wife interrupted with an impatient gesture. "Laws! Then why don't you enforce them? And if there aren't any laws, why don't you make new ones? Oh, you men ! Who was it that just FOR MIKEY 59 last night was reading to me about the money spent to protect your old fish and game from being killed too fast? And yet you let these children — it's just as if we thought more of our oysters than we do of our babies!" she choked. "Now, come; come with me," she cried, reaching out a hand apiece to the wondering Sophie and Mikey. "But, dearie, what — what are you going — to do?" ventured the man. "Do? I'm going to take these blessed babies home with me, of course! They're going to be my babies. Do you think I'd let them go back to that wretched Ufe, even for one minute? You can see that Simpsky woman and do whatever is necessary, of course, tomorrow, or next week, or never. I don't care. But now I'm going to take these children home and put them to bed. And they're not going to get up tomorrow morning till noon, if they don't want to. Three o'clock, indeed!" she shuddered. " Good! I'm agreed!" laughed the man. But neither the laugh nor the light words quite hid the shake that was in Horace Fairweather's voice nor the joyous content that had leaped to Horace Fairweather's eyes. "But there's those others — all those others like them," moaned his wife. "Can't you do something for them?" she begged, tremulously. "Well, we'U — try," promised Horace Fairweather, Ufting his chin a little. "I reckon, after all, they're worth as much as — oysters!" Ahmed, the American Helen C. Dwight Like a tall, white screen hiding the packed city behind it, lower New York jutted out against a clear autumn sky. On the ferryboat from Jersey, Ayesha, wife of Ali, the machinist, stared at the tall, white screen and mur- mured in her thick English, "Ees bee-uti-ful!" "Bee-uti-fu'," echoed baby Ali at her feet, his forehead pressed against the lower bars of the boat-rail. But Ahmed, the son of the house, fourteen and solemn-eyed, looked straight ahead of him, apparently ignoring his mother's ecstasy. He was looking at the tall, white screen too, but he was not thinking of its beauty. He was thinking that the city was his; that he had come into man's estate; that for him school and lessons and childish things were over, and that ujider the shadow of the tall, white screen he would soon be going to work with the best of them. He did not think it in those terms. If you had asked him what he was thinking, he would have scuffed his feet and said he didn't know. But those were the things that were dimly in his mind, and that was why he ignored his mother's remark, and why, possibly, he was so solemn-eyed. Ali, the machinist, once of Syria, had lived in New York seven years, and at the end of the seventh year had gone with his family into New Jersey to "take a job" in a factory. One month after he took the job there had been an accident and he had quietly died. Now Ayesha, stiU dazed by her husband's death, was going back to New York with the children to live with her brother. And Ahmed, in the strength of his fourteen years, was going to work. His uncle had said it was the best thing to do. His uncle had said, too, that according to the American law Ahmed could work — only papers were necessary to show that he was fourteen and that he had been to school long enough to be an American. Those papers would be provided. There was nothing to be done but to produce Ahmed and let the authorities see that he was well. " For Amer-i-cans," said the uncle, " cannot work if they are seeck." "Ah, my little Ahmed," sighed Ayesha then, "you are not so strong, but you are not seeck. Keep you well — and may the work not make you seeck ! " So Ahmed was facing the city and work. He was not afraid. He knew the city — ^for had he not gone to school there six years? There was nothing to fear. He was an American. With his uncle, his mother and the baby, lie went through the process of [60] AHMED, THE AMERICAN 61 getting his working papers. His birth certificate had been received after a long correspondence with the American consul in Beirut. It was clearly established that he was fovirteen. His schooling certificate, too, was ob- tained, and that very easily, for he had been a regular attendant at school for his six years, because of his ambition to be American, and was ready for grade 7A — that is, he had exactly fulfilled the New York schooling require- ments. His physical examination remained, and to this the entire family accompanied him, his mother urging him to keep strong and not "get seeck." He had never been very strong. Possibly that was another reason he was so solemn-eyed. But he had never been a sickly child, and so he had no misgivings when the doctor and the nurse began the weighing, measuring and testing process. The New York Bureau of Child Hygiene has found that the normal child of fourteen should weigh eighty pounds, and eighty pounds the candidates for work permits must weigh. Ahmed weighed seventy-seven. There was a great shaking of heads and Ahmed began to wish that, like his friend Ikey Simonstein, he had worn packages of BB shot in his pockets when he came to this ordeal. But, then, Ikey had been found out and the BB shot unfeelingly removed, and Ikey had weighed only seventy-five. So Ahmed took the situation philosophically. The doctor put strange things on his chest and listened through two tubes, like a telephone operator. Ahmed was made to breathe deep. The doctor listened from the front and listened from the back. She thumped him gently up and down the back. She took his pulse. She did a thousand and one seemingly unnecessary things and asked him many absurd ques- tions, such as if he ever had a cough. Had he not had a cough all last winter ? Finally she said to the nurse, "Incipient tuberculosis, I'm afraid. We'll have to see his parents." The uncle and Ayesha and the baby were simmioned from their bench ia the outer room. The doctor explained to them carefully that Ahmed was indeed "seeck" and would be dangerously "seeck" if he went to work. Therefore he could not work. At this point Ayesha wailed aloud and the uncle called on Allah to witness this oppression of the poor. Ayesha clasped the solemn-eyed Ahmed to her and cried, "Oh, say not he is seeck — say not he will have the white death ! He is my little boy. He is not so strong, but he is not seeck!" The doctor then went through further explanations. She made it very clear to Ayesha, that only through care, with the help of the city's doctors, could Ahmed be saved from the white death. He needed good food and plenty of air. Perhaps the city would send him on an outing to a place they provided. Then in a year, if he had grown stronger, he could go to work — at some healthy job. At first Ayesha wept, but finally the doctor's 62 AHMED, THE AMERICAN logic prevailed. Suddenly, as if a great light broke over her, Ayesha's face cleared. She kissed the doctor's hand, in gratitude, saying, "Ah, lady, if you will save my little Ahmed! " With assurances that Ahmed would be saved, the family was sent away. They walked home, Ahmed beside his uncle, who still called on Allah in muttered ejaculations, and Ayesha behind with the baby. She explained to the baby over and over -again what it all meant. "It is because he is Amer-i-can, my little one," she said, "that they save him. He has been to the e-school, and he is Amer-i-can, and it is written that the seeck Amer-i-cans they save. They may not get the white death when they are young, and when they are old, if they are seeck, they take them to the 'os-pi-tal. Your father, little son, was not Amer-i-can, and him they could not save from the beeg machine. But Ahmed — he is Amer-i-can, and him they save. And you, Uttle light-of-my-eyes, you shall go to the e-school, and you shall be Amer-i-can — and you, too, they will save! " Nattanal OHytlb Slabnr Olummttt?? INCORPORATED Organized April 15, 1904 103 East 22d Street New York City 204 Bond BuUding Washington, D. G. OFFICERS FELIX ADLER, SAMUEL McCUNE LINDSAY, Chairman HOMER FOLKS, V. EVERIT MACY, VIce-Chairmen Treasurer OWEN R. LOVEJOY General Secretary A. J. McKELWAY Secretary for the Southern States EDWARD N. CLOPPER, Secretary for the Northern States JOSEPHINE J. ESCHENBRENNER, Membership Secretary BOARD OF TRUSTEES FELIX ADLER, Chairman ADOLPH LEWISOHN JANE ADDAMS SAMUEL McCUNE LINDSAY CAROLINE B. ALEXANDER V. EVERIT MACY FRANCIS G. CAFFEY CHARLES P. NEILL EDWARD T. DEVINE ISAAC N. SELIGMAN HOMER FOLKS LILLIAN D. WALD WILLIAM E. HARMON STEPHEN S. WISE FLORENCE KELLEY PAUL M. WARBURG JOHN W. WOOD OBJECTS To promote the welfare of society, with respect to the employment of children in gainful occupations. To investigate and report the facts concerning child labor. To raise the standard of public opinion and parental responsibility with respect to the employment of children. To assist in protecting children by suitable legislation against premature or otherwise injurious employment, and thus to aid in securing for them an opportunity for elementary education and physical development sufficient for the demands of citizenship and the requirements of industrial efficiency. To aid in promoting the enforcement of laws relating Jo child labor. To coordinate, unify and supplement the work of state or lo(W child labor commit- tees, and encourage the formation of such committees where they do not exist. Persons who contribute $2 or more annually toward the support of the child labor campaign are enrolled as associate members, $s or more as contributing members, $2S or more as sustaining members, and Jioo or more as guarantors of the Committee. Of each membership contribution $i is received as a subscription for the Quarterly CHILD LABOR BULLETIN; members receive free other publications of the Committee and are thus kept in touch with the child labor movement throughout the country. Remittances may be sent to V. Everit Macy, Treasurer, los E. 22d Street, New York City. This volume is a reprint of Section II of The Child Labor Bulletin, November, 1914 (Ulliih Slato Ittlbtin Volume Three Issued Quarterly Number Two AUGUST. 1914 Price $2 per Year In Twq. Parts . ' Part II. CHILDREN AT WORK ON MEN'S CLOTHING CHttD LABOR IN THE GLASS INDUSTRY PUBLISHED BY National (Ll^Mh Ulabor CHommtttee INCORPORATED 105 EAST 22d STREET, NEW YORK CITY Entered sb second-dsBS matter, October 29, 1913 at the Poat Office at New York, N. Y„ under the Act of Augnat 24, 1912. TWENTY-FIVE CENTS a Iff (Eljtli Slabnr lulbitn Volume Three Issued Quarterly Number Two AUGUST. 1914 Price $2 per Year In Two Parts ' Part II. CHILDREN AT WORK ON MEN'S CLOTHING CHILD LABOR IN THE GLASS INDUSTRY A Summary of Volumes II and III of the Federal Report on the Condition of Woman and Child Wage-Earners in the United States, 61st Congress, 2d Session, Senate Document 645. COMPILED BY Anna Rochester Special Agent, National Child Labor Committee National OIl|tlb Eabnr Olommtttp^ INCORPORATED 105 East 22d Street, New York City 1914 Copyright 1914 by the National Child Labor Committee CONTENTS PAGE Children at Work on Men's Clothing ... 93 Child Labor in the Glass Industry . . . .108 CHILDREN AT WORK ON MEN'S CLOTHING.* Anna Rociiesteb Special Agent, National Child Labor Committee. The making of men's clothing involves two different kinds of child labor and therefore two distinct problems: the young "child helpers" in the tenements and the older children employed in the shops and factories. The material presented in the federal report leads inevitably to the questions, "Should these two forms of child labor he permitted, and, if not, hoiv can they he abolished?" HOME FINISHING. "The term 'finishing' is loosely used to denote the hand sewing requisite to complete the garment after the operating and basting have been done, . . . When this work is done in homes it is re- ferred to as 'home finishing' and the women who do the work are called 'home finishers.' " Page 216. Home finishing is a relic of the early days of the clothing indus- try. "The typical wholesale clothier of this period (before 1860) bought the cloth and trimming, and sponged and cut it on his own premises. He then gave out the material for manufacture in the homes of his employees, paying them so much per garment." Page 484. The small shop system grew up in the eighties but home work was still employed, chiefly for making pants and vests and the cheaper grades of coats. Today various causes have led to the making of practically all garments in the factory or shop. Finish- ing alone remains in the homes of the workers. The report confirms the long-standing impression concerning the evils of home work — low wages, long hours, child labor, and insanitary conditions that endanger the worker and the consumer. It gives the material for a fair comparison of the conditions of home workers and shop workers. To take first the question of hours, for which the report offers the least definite statements. In the shops the average full-time hours for adults, running from 54 to 58 per week in the five cities, must be checked against the fact that during the week for which * Compiled from Volume II of the Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage- Earners in the United States. 93 Children at Work on Men's Clothing hours were studied in detail, about 25 per cent of the workers reported overtime while 58.5 per cent had worked less than full time. In 1908 the hours of women in factories were regulated by law in New York and Pennsylvania. "Illegal overtime is worked but the amount shown represents evidential cases rather than a true indication of the proportion of women thus employed." Page 116. Since 1908 the laws governing the hours of women in factories have been greatly strengthened in New York and Pennsylvania, and 10-hour laws have been passed in Illinois and Maryland. Factory inspection has been reorganized and improved in New York and Pennsylvania, a state department has been established in Maryland, and the Illinois bureau has been increased and made more efficient. Further, since 1908 the organization of the workers in the clothing shops has progressed and the observance of state factory laws is enforced by the workers themselves. Therefore it is fair to believe that hours in garment factories are today more favorable to the workers than they were found to be at the time of the investigation. The home finishers, on the other hand, are isolated and un- organized; the only law regulating their hours is still the demand of the contractors. Therefore the statements of the report about home workers may be accepted for today without qualification. "Because of the long periods of idleness when they can earn noth- ing these women make the most of the busy season when it comes, and when plenty of work is to be had the combined labor of the whole family, all day and often at night, is utilized. They take as many garments as they can possibly secure, and then work unlim- ited hours and strain to the utmost to complete their tasks. Agents found Sunday work among the Italians by no means uncommon. Generally in the shops visited 10 hours was found to be the length of the workday, but the length of the home worker's day was found to vary considerably. There were instances where women said they worked from 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning to 9, 10, or 1 1 o'clock at night. . . . Besides working on garments, these women have to spend additional time going to and from the shop for work and waiting around the shop for it ; do their house work ; care for their children ; often wash the lodgers' clothes with those of the family, and, where there are boarders, cook for a large number of people. Thus to say that over 60 per cent of the women worked 8 hours per day or one- Children at Work on Men's Clothing quarter of them worked 10 hours per day, means that some time between the time of rising and going to bed they put in this many hours sewing on garments. This compHcated routine of duties pro- longs the day of the home worker into the night even if she only puts in '6 or 8 hours a day' on the work." Pages 241-242. In the matter of wages the contrast between finishers in the shop and in the home is more marked. The table shows that 6.S or Number and per cent of single and married shop finishers and home finishers in New York, by classified earnings per full week. Page 225. (This table includes only women who have been finishers a year or more, and among the married only those wno have been married a year or more.) Shop Finishers Home ] Finishers Classified Weekly Single Married Single Married 1 Earnings No. Per cent. No. Per cent. No. Per cent. No. Per cent. H $1 to $1.49 1 9.1 13 3.0 14 $1.50 to $1.99 51 11.9 51 $2 to $2.49 i 0.9 2 3.6 3 i 9.i 92 21.4 93 $2.50 to $2.99 2 3.0 2 1 9.1 60 13.9 61 $3 to $3.49 3 2.6 4 6.2 7 4 36.4 93 21.6 97 $3.50 to $3.99 4 3.6 6 9.3 10 29 6.7 29 $4 to $4.49 9 7.9 9 13.8 18 3 27.3 47 10.9 bO $4.50 to $4.99 4 3.6 6 9.3 10 14 3.3 14 $5 to $5.49 22 19.5 9 13.8 3L i 9.0 15 3.6 i^ $5.50 to $5.99 5 4.4 1 1.5 6 5 1.2 , b $6 to $6.99 23 24.0 15 23.2 38 5 1,2 . b $7 to $7.99 18 15.9 6 9.3 24 3 0.7 3 $8 to $8.99 15 13.3 3 4.6 18 3 0.7 3 $9 and over 9 113 7.9 2 3.0 11 Total 100.0 65 100.0 178 11 100.0 430 100.0 441 practically 15 per cent of the home finishers earned less than $2 a week, and 251 or 57 per cent earned $2 to $3.49, while none of the shop finishers earned less than $2 and only 12, or less than 7 per cent, fell below $3.50 a week; 51 per cent of the shop finishers earned $6 or more as against 11 or 2.5 per cent of the home finish- ers. None of the home finishers earned as much as $9, although 6 per cent of the shop finishers came up to that amount. "A study of earnings by years at work shows that no matter for how long a 95 Children at Work on Men's Clothing period a woman remained a home finisher, neither her efficiency nor earning power seemed to improve. There is a steady increase in the average earning capacity of shop workers in proportion to age." Page 226. Over 91 per cent of the children in the shops were 14 and 15 years of age; none was less than 12 years old, but of the children "helping" in tenement homes two-fifths were below that age. At the time of the investigation 14 years was the legal age limit for factory work in each of the five cities investigated except Baltimore, and among the 597 children employed in the shops of the other four cities, only 10 were less than 14 years old. Since 1912 a 14-year limit has been in force in Maryland also, so that it is safe to assume that the shop percentage of children less than 14 years old has been still further reduced. The report shows further a general disregard of the 8-h6ur law for children by the New York factories and a general observance of the 8-hour law in Chicago. For present conditions this indicates little beyond the fact that it is perfectly possible to restrict by state law the hours of children's work in factories within a limit lower than the daily schedule of the adult workers. Number of child helpers to home workers in each city by age of helpers. Page 2S0. CITY a) is o g 2 dJ3 Child Helpers of Ages B yrs. 6 yrs. 7 yrs. 8 yrs. 9 yrs. 10 yrs. 11 yrs. 12 yrs. 13 yrs. 14 yrs. 16 yrs. Chicago Rochester 40 34 488 48 64 4 4 81 10 11 ol a2 '"2 14 1 1 "3 1 1 a\ 5 1 2 New York Phila. Baltimore 3 1 1 6 a\ 7 8 2 a\ 21 2 aA 8 1 1 6 1 2 Total 674 110 3 2 B a6 7 o9 bl2 a27 al2 17 10 a Including 1 child who takes work to and from shop. 6 Including 2 children who take work to and from shop. The hours worked by the young "child helpers" in the tene- ment homes could not be scheduled or even estimated. "Women with children at work and the children themselves know that child 96 Children at Work on Men's Clothing labor is against public sentiment, and unless a child was caught working it was seldom admitted that such child did work. Some- times upon a first visit they denied working, but were found at work when visited again. Often as an agent entered a house where children were at work, a sudden dropping and concealing of the work was noticed. It is the opinion of the agents on this investiga- tion that all children of a household where home work is done are drafted into this work with more or less regularity, after school, at night, and on Sunday." Page 230. That home work not only occupies time when the children should be at play or in bed, but seriously interferes with school attendance, is shown by the fact that out of 512 children between 6 and 13 years of age in home workers' families 100 were not attending school. This phase of the subject could conceivably be regulated by a stricter enforcement of the school attendance law, but the employment out of school hours ofifers a much more difficult problem. New York is the first state to attempt such regulation, and since last October the 14-year age limit and the 8-hour day under 16 have been supposed to apply to workers in tenement homes. But George A. Hall, secretary of the New York Child Labor Committee, and other social workers testified before the New York State Factory Investigating Commission in May, that such regulations in the homes had proved entirely unenforceable. The phase of home work which most obviously and imme- diately interests every buyer of men's clothing is the sanitary con- ditions under which the garments are made. And in this connection it should be noted that all grades of clothing — ready-made clothing of various prices and custom-made garments — are sent into the homes to be finished. "The results of this investigation show that men's ready-made clothing is often finished in the homes of a class of people whose under-nourished condition, due to poverty and lack of thrift and hygienic sense, general low standard of living, and dirty habits, make them most susceptible to contagious diseases; hence it is asserted that the practice of giving out to workers garments to be finished or made up in their homes is to place the wearer in the way of contracting tuberculosis and other contagious or infectious diseases, or of catching vermin." In the two congested blocks of 97 Children at Work on Men's Clothing New York City, where a large proportion of the men's ready-made clothing sold all over the United States is sent to be finished, the death rates due to contagious diseases are abnormal. Doctors who will agree to conceal diseases from the Health Department, are the most popular with garment workers. Agents of the bureau found women working on garments while children in the house were suffering with contagious diseases. They would put the garments down from time to time to minister to or fondle such children. "One home finisher visited had a little boy suffering from whooping cough. When he had a coughing spell, the mother thrust her finger down into his throat in an effort to relieve him. This caused slight nausea, and the mother wiped her fingers, covered with mucous, on the pants on which she was at work. "In another case, where a child's head and face were covered with a loathsome rash, the mother constantly stopped her work of finishing pants and caressingly ran her hands over this eruption, and then without washing them took up the pants and continued her work. Asked what was the matter with the child, she could only say that her doctor had told her it was some 'ketcha disease.' " "In one house where a woman was working on garments there was a youth suffering, the family frankly stated, with a sexual disease. He had had treatment for months, but was still desperately ill. His bedroom was dark and hot, and only 8 feet square ; its only window opened into the kitchen ; therefore the boy had spread a quilt and sheet on the floor at his mother's feet in the kitchen and lay there while she finished pants, she placing the garments, as completed, on the floor beside him. "Diseased and sore looking eyes were common among home finishers' children, and a physician who accompanied an agent diagnosed one such case of suspicious looking eyes as trachoma. There were several children sufifering with measles in home finishers' families, while the finisher was working on garments, and there was no sign on the house. "In practically all the homes of these workers spitting on the floor was a conspicuous custom. . . . Physicians say that tuber- culosis is reported only in a small percentage of cases among these people, as the course of the disease is such that the realization of 98 Children at Work on Men's Clothing the necessity for medical service is not always felt until the patient is in the last stages. "Many manufacturers contend that no matter what the condi- tion of houses may be where garments are handled — no matter how filthy, diseased or vermin laden, that the pressing with a hot iron destroys all germs and vermin, and that the presser always has a bottle of cleaning fluid to remove stains and dirt. But no one would knowingly buy clothing that had been vermin infected, or made in a home where one of the family had smallpox, even if assured and convinced that the garments were to be pressed with a hot iron before delivery and cleansed with a cleaning fluid. The presence of the garment in the shop before the pressing is dangerous, not only to the presser, but to all other workers, and to the wearers of such other garments as may be in process of manufacture in the shop." "The 'tenement work shop,' so called, has been practically abolished. Manufacturers who never patronize a contractor and have every garment they turn out made up in their own inside shop, but send all garments into a tenement house to be finished, will nevertheless advertise 'No sweat-shop goods,' 'None of our goods made in tenements,' 'All goods manufactured in our own sanitary inside shops.' Technically their advertisements are correct, but they do not state the whole truth. It is true their goods are not manufactured in insanitary places, but they are in numerous cases finished there, which is just as bad for the consumer." "It may be said that a greater amount of grease, dirt, vermin, and disease are imbedded in garments that go into homes to be made or finished than could possibly be acquired in sweat shops." "It is not claimed that all home finishing is done under insani- tary or revolting conditions, yet the fact that it can be done under such conditions, and that much of it is so done, forces the conclusion that such a method of manufacture should be abolished in the interest of the public health." Pages 306-316. Is it not possible to regulate these evils without abolishing the whole system of home work? "Officials in several states have testified to the physical impos- sibility of enforcing laws regulating home finishing. No single state can aflFord to employ a corps of inspectors sufficiently numerous to 99 Children at Work on Men's Clothing make more than a cursory inspection of licensed houses. Proper inspection would require almost daily visits to innumerable homes. ... All laws 'regulating' tenement-house manufacture are more or less ineffective in the accomplishment of the principal purpose for which they have been enacted, namely, the preservation of the public health. The New York state laws on this subject are looked upon as models for this class of legislation, and every effort is made for their enforcement; yet it has been found in this investigation that work was being done in homes in the city of New York that, while structurally sanitary, were insanitary from other standpoints, owing to the presence of filth or vermin, or of diseased persons, or that they had become insanitary because of the low standards of the dwellers in them." Page 317. And again: "The conditions under which work, by say 1,000 people, is done in a factory can be in- spected frequently; but to attempt to visit that number of home finishers with any effect is so useless that laws providing a few inspectors for such purpose fall very short of their aim." Page 316. To regulate the sanitary conditions of the homes in which finishing may be done, would be simplicity itself beside any attempt to limit by law the hours that women might work or to dictate what their children of various ages may or may not do when they are at home. The enforcement of such laws in a shop or factory depends on pay-roll lists, schedules of hours and the fact that the presence of a child under age, or of a child or a woman outside of the scheduled hours provides prima facie evidence of violation. The only place where home work can be regulated is the factory from which the home work comes. To prohibit the sending out of work would be entirely possible — particularly if the cooperation of the shop workers was secured, and they have for years advocated the aboli- tion of home work. But once the work has left the factory or shop and gone into the home, the conditions under which it shall be done have passed out from under the control of the community. The inertia of the public hitherto is well summed up by one manufacturer, who said : "If public opinion is against tenement-made goods, it cuts no figure whatever." Are we indifferent? Or are zve honestly convinced that certain specious arguments offered in defense of home work are sufficient reason for delaying action? Let us review them briefly. 100 Children at Work on Men's Clothing "The manufacturer sometimes contends that home finishing is a 'godsend' to the 'poor widow who must support her children' ; but this contention does not hold, as the poor widow with her children to support was not found among the home finishers. If she were a factor, her poor children would starve, as the remuneration for this class of labor falls far short of supporting its most diligent and tireless workers." Page 301. Or we assume that home work is a good thing because it en- ables the wife to supplement her husband's meager earnings and to care for her child at the same time. "A home finisher's business in life is finishing, and the conditions of labor are such that, even though she remains in her own home while at work, her necessarily constant attention to her work renders her children practically motherless." Page 301. In the light of this statement one wonders whether the children of married women in the shop — of whom 74 per cent were reported as taken care of by some one other than the mother — were not faring better than the children of the home finishers of whom more than half were taken care of by the mother and therefore "practically motherless." "Undoubtedly poverty in varying degrees is a strong reason for home work." But home work can never lift the family above the poverty line. So long as fathers are underpaid and irregularly employed it is a frank con- fession of social failure by the community to allow the mother to sacrifice the home and her children's welfare in a sweated occupation instead of providing the father with regular work at a living wage. And so long as home work is tolerated by the community as a counsel of despair, it encourages the indolence of those fathers for whose idleness the community is not to blame. Every argument against child labor in the factory applies with equal force to the work of the child helpers of home finishers. The states in which tenement home work is an acute problem have all forbidden children under 14 to work in the factory. They believe it is legitimate to interfere with the freedom of the parent who would send his child into the factory, whatever the need of the family for additional earnings. The child has the paramount claim and other means than the exploitation of his labor must be found to relieve poverty. Are these other children to be deprived of protection because their field of work is not in the factory, but in the home ? 101 Children at Work on Men's Clothing Again the child has the paramount claim, and since experience is proving that home work involves unpreventable child labor, it is aot only legitimate but necessary to abolish home work. The inertia that hinders this step has been fostered by the manufacturers who cherish this form of cheap and unresisting labor. "Employers say that finishers take up too much room ; consequently rather than pay rent for such additional room, the factory is spread over innumerable bedrooms and kitchens. It means for the em- ployers an actual saving in rental, in heating, lighting, furnishing and otherwise so equipping a shop as to meet legal requirements, as well as a saving in shop supervision." Page 302. Of fifteen manufacturers who expressed themselves on this point, four stated that the abolition of home work would not injure the industry, and one maker of high-grade goods said it was no cheaper as a mode of production. "The abolition of home finishing would not be a serious loss to the trade ; it would temporarily embarrass it to a great extent, but the business could and would adapt itself to such a change." "A national law prohibiting home finishing would cause trouble in the beginning but would do much good in the end." "Home finishing can not be counted upon as sanitary. If home finishing were done away with by law the clothing industry would not be seriously affected. It would mean an advance toward better and more sanitary clothing." "The abolition of home finishing would be a good thing, making for more sanitary production." Pages 303-306. CHILDREN IN THE SHOPS. The question of child labor in clothing factories can be con- sidered from the point of view of the child's own welfare without the complication of a tradition that children are essential to the industry. "Children do not seem to have any well-established posi- tion in the industry, and practically all employers stated that they could get along just as well without them." Page 79. "Altogether in the 244 establishments there were 848 children, or 3.6 per cent, of a total of 23,683 persons employed. ... In 105, or 43 per cent of all (establishments investigated) no children were em- ployed." Page 75. It is worth while noting that although the percentage of children among the workers is much greater in cer- 102 Children at Work on Men's Clothing tain small shops and contract shops than in any of the larger shops, still four-fifths of those that employed no children whatever were small establishment having less than 50 and in many cases less than 25 workers in each shop. There are four times as many girls as boys at work in the clothing industry, and relatively more of the girls than of the boys were doing work that might ultimately lead to a fair wage. For the most highly paid work, done entirely by men who are skilled, all-round tailors, the shops depend on the influx of immi- grants trained in Europe. They rarely attempt to teach the boy who enters the shop without training. The few boys who were classed as apprentices — 6 were found among the total of 170 boys — "do not follow any particular regime in learning the trade, but rather are allowed to learn what they can from the trimmers and cutters." Page 78. The foreman of one large Chicago shop, which had apparently systematized the training and promotion of its workers, reported that he never had more than one boy in the shop who was learning all-round tailoring. The less highly skilled occupations in which both men and women are employed are classified as operating, high-grade hand sewing, and low-grade hand sewing. "Comparatively few boys did any hand sewing, either high or low grade, while a somewhat larger number (one-fifth of all the boys) were employed at some form of operating . . . occupations of which the chief advantage to the boy is that they teach him how to run a machine . . . Everywhere the work of boys was chiefly confined to miscellaneous non-sewing occupations, such as errand boys, floor boys, sorters, helpers to trimmers, soapers and office boys." Page 78. "A large proportion of girls (283 or 41.8 per cent of all) are employed at miscellaneous occupations. More of the girls do sewing . . . The hand sewing done by girls consists of simple work such as most of them are familiar with before going into the shop." Page 79. The great majority (82.3 per cent) of all the child operators were girls. "A small proportion of children were found at occupations at which they could remain as they became older." Page 79. And later the report refers again to the lack of systematic method of training beginners, not only for the most highly skilled work but for the-other occupations and says : "One reason of this is the large 103 Children at Work on Men's Clothing extent to which the force is made up of immigrants who do not enter the shop as children, but are able to learn quickly some detail of the work for which an employee is needed." Page 476. The evident inference is that workers receive no advantage from enter- ing the industry as children. In the semi-skilled occupations, they learn nothing which they could not learn at least as well and prob- ably better when they are older; and the special training for highly skilled tailoring, which might be considered as distinctly educational, is not offered by the factories and shops. It is true that the boys and girls who are employed as operators and hand sewers are likely to pass from the simplest processes to the slightly more skilled and better paid work as they become more proficient, but their chance of promotion is no better than that of the worker who enters the industry at 16 or later. What future earnings does the clothing industry offer its un- skilled and semi-skilled workers? Number and Per Cent of Male and Female Employees 21 Years and Over in Each City Earning Classified Amounts Per Week. (Condensed from Table on Pages 142-145.) Number of employees with weekly earnings. Per cent of employees with weekly earnings. Under 1 $6 to | $8 and $6 1 $7.99 I over Under $6 $6 to $7.99 $8 and ovei Chicago — Males Females 56 461 41 316 264 742 15.5 30.4 11.4 20.8 73.1 48.8 Rochester — Males . , Females 12 204 20 255 295 368 New York — Males . Females 288 636 319 335 1,783 389 12.1 46.8 6.1 30.8 13.3 24.6 90.2 44.5 74.6 28.6 Philadelphia — Males 56 258 73 99 294 124 1 13.2 53.6 17.3 20.6 69 5 Females 25.8 Baltimore — Males 215 520 141 120 469 81 26.1 72.1 17.1 16.7 568 Females 11.2 "The significance of these data is in their bearing on the ques- tion of a woman's capacity to earn enough for self-support. The statistics here summarized (in the tables from which the above sta- 104 Children at Work on Men's Clothing tistics are condensed) show that in Chicago about two-thirds of the women 18 to 44 and a larger per cent of these 21 to 44 earn $6 or more. About one-half of those 21 to 44 eai-n $8 or more. The situation in Rochester is somewhat more favorable. Less favorable by far are the conditions in the eastern cities. In New York and Philadelphia little over one-half of the women 21 to 44 earn above $6; less than one-third exceed $8. In Baltimore less than one-third earn more than $6, and far less than one-sixth earn $8 or more. Those who remain in the shop after 20 earn consider- ably more than the mass of girls under that age who constitute the working force. . . . The earnings of males 16 years of age and over are always in excess of female earnings at corresponding ages. . . . The substance of these observations is that for both sexes earnings increase with age. The increase is greater for men and continues during a longer period. Women reach what is nearly their maximum earnings early and earn but little more thereafter. Most of the women have left the shop before the age when experience and skill permit the highest earnings." Page 147. It must be noted that these figures represent weekly earnings only. In order to estimate the actual income of workers in the clothing industry they must be checked against the average yearly earnings of employees that appeared on 50 or more weekly pay rolls, which the report says represent "the earnings of the steadiest work- ers and stand for the maximum possible earnings rather than for normal earnings. They are to be regarded rather as indicating the top limit to the earnings of the employees than as showing the average actual earnings." Page 166. The yearly averages for males 21 years and over were highest in Chicago, $699.53, and lowest in Baltimore, $552.13; for female workers they varied from $450.92 in Chicago to $315.25 in Baltimore. Perhaps more illu- minating than these average earnings are the percentages of em- ployees 21 years and over whose yearly earnings fell below $400 : Chicago Men 20% Women 41.4% Rochester Men 4.2% Women 54.7% Philadelphia Men 14.2% Women 83.6% Baltimore Men ^^'^^ Women 88.2% Pages 169-171. 105 Children at Work on Men's Clothing There are several causes that send the child of 14 or 15 to work. They are discussed at length in volume VII of the report. The present volume does not take them up in detail but it does report the total family income of all families having children under 16 at work and finds the average to have been $912, of which the children contributed an average of $129, or 14.2 per cent, showing that there was a considerable proportion whose income was higher than this, and for whom immediate need could not have been compelling.* What have the children under 16 forfeited by going into cloth- ing factories before they were 16 years old? "The occupations in which children are engaged cannot be regarded as in themselves greatly injurious to health ; the worst features involved are those of constant sitting and bending over the work and the confinement in close workrooms." Page 80. If we read this in the light of what we demand for the children of our own families, we must be led to question whether the children have not forfeited part of their right to health and sound physical development. Whatever the conditions, they have forfeited their right to learn to do well something that is well worth doing. They have left school at a time when they most need guidance and vision. And however inadequate the schools, they are better than any factory, for their aim is to benefit the children and not to benefit from them. "Child labor must be abolished because in the most critical, plastic age of the future citizen, it hinders his education. It makes it impossible for the foundations to be laid upon which a genuine education can be reared. In discussions of this kind we often find that the enlightenment of a people is estimated by the degree to which literacy has been achieved, and illiteracy expelled. People are divided, as it were, into sheep and goats, the literate and the illiterate. But it must be obvious, even on slight reflection, that mere literacy, the mere ability to read and write, is not of itself a guarantee of the kind of mental preparation that is required for * The families on which this average was based included not only all the children under 16 at work in clothing: shops hut also those families of women employed in the shops in which children were at work whether in the clothing industry or elsewhere. 106 Children at Work on Men's Clothing the exercise of the franchise, in a republic. The essential require- ment is judgment. The reading faculty may be compared to a water-main that admits into a city the flood of a river, in which there is both health and foulness, the seeds of disease as well as drink that slakes thirst. The mind that is open to such matter as is contained in newspapers and magazines is exposed to an indis- criminate flood of ideas and suggestions, some right and some wrong, some pure and some corrupt and corrupting, a muddle of truth and error, of fact and falsehood. If the reading faculty is a water-main, the judgment is a filter. The problem of education is to furnish the filter, to develop judgment in the masses. And how is this to be achieved? On what does judgment depend? It depends on a knowledge of principles, and on a sensitiveness to the considerations that make principles flexible to conditions. These are the elements of judgment, and it is possible to train the judg- ment even of the humbler class of workers." * What shall we say then? Do we agree with our federal gov- ernment that labor by children under 16 was a problem deserving a costly study? Does that study tell us that their work in the clothing industry has educational value? And are we ready to approve of any occupation for children in which that element is lacking, and the only benefit to the child is the wage he is earning ? Ohio has answered these questions with a 15-year limit for boys and a 16-year limit for girls in factories and a score of other common occupations at all times. When will other states follow . her example and go one step further by fixing a 16-year limit for both boys and girls, setting them free for study and play and genu- ine training for life? * From an address delivered by Dr. Fdix Adler at the Tetith National Conference of the National Child Labor Committee. 107 CHILD LABOR IN THE GLASS INDUSTRY* By Anna Rochester Special Agent, National Child Labor Committee. One in ten of all the wage-earners in the one hundred and seventy-nine glass factories studied by the United States Bureau of Labor was a child under 16 years of age. Since the investigation covered three-fourths of all the establishments, more than three- fourths of all furnaces, and all but four of the twenty-one states manufacturing glass in 1907-1908, its findings may be accepted as typical of the industry at that time. The present summary will review these findings in relation to the following questions : 1. What were children doing in the glass factories? 2. What opportunities for training and advancement awaited them in the industry? 3. What was the attitude of the glass industry toward their employment? 4. How young were the children and what should be the legal restrictions upon the employment of minors in glass factories? 1. What the Children Do in Glass Houses. The five thousand boys at work in the furnace room were em- ployed at one or another of half a dozen unskilled occupations. "The mold boy sits or stands at the blower's feet and tends the molds, opening and shutting them as required by the blower. . . . As the occupation is one which does not permit of much moving around, the posture of the body is of importance. ... In the newer furnaces (in about half the establishments visited) the 'work- ing holes' are so placed that . . . the mold . . . (is) . . . at a convenient height for the mold boy to handle. In many of the older furnaces, particularly pot furnaces, however, the arrangement is different. . . . The molds rest upon or very close to the floor. As a result the mold boy must either squat upon the ground in an awkward, cramped position, or, standing, must stoop constantly to his work. ... In all establishments the heat is a particularly conspicuous factor in the mold boy's work. ... He faces the * Compiled from Volume III. of the Report on the Condition of Woman and Child Wage-Earners in the United States. 108 Child Labor in the Glass Industry furnace and his face and shoulders, at least, are in direct line with the radiated heat from the working hole. . . . The mold itself, after a short using, becomes very hot ... the blower in lowering the hot lump of glass into the mold necessarily swings it close to the boy's face. . . . The degree of attention required of the mold boy can best be understood by the citation of output figures. When working on small ware, such as prescription bottles of one-half or one-fourth ounce capacity, the production of an average shop (or team of seven workers including one mold boy) will be approxi- mately 5,520 bottles in a day of nine hours, or 613 in an hour, a trifle over ten a minute." Pages 39, 47-50. The cleaning-off boy stands beside the blower and cleans the blow-pipe after each using. This, although a simple operation, requires some little physical strength and skill, and the occupation is usually reserved for the older and more experienced boys. "The duty of the snapping-up boy is to pick up the article as placed by the mold boy on the stand, place it in a long-handled holder, neck upward, carry it to the finisher's bench, rub the neck against an iron rasp in order to remove the greater portion. of the excess 'blow-over' and finally to insert the article in the 'glory- hole' or reheating furnace. . . . Not only is constant walking necessary, but also constant arm movement, some bending, and, in general, an incessant activity of the whole body. . . . Into the work of the snapping-up boy there enters the hardship of looking into the bright, glaring light of the glory-hole." Temperature readings taken at three different establishments showed 140° at the glory-hole. The carrying-in boy carries the ware from the finisher to the leer or annealing oven. "The heat conditions under which he works are a difficult matter to determine. At either end of his line he is working in high temperatures at all times of the year. Between these he may be in very comfortable temperature if the wind is blowing across his path, or it may be hot if the wind is blowing either from the furnace or from the leer. In winter, his path may be through a very cold zone between two points of extreme heat. The carry-in has some strain upon his eyes, for he must look into the open mouth of the leer or annealing furnace long enough to place his ware in proper position." Pages 53-55. 109 Child Labor in the Glass Industry These four occupations employ the great majority of all boys in the furnace room and in most establishments a more or less reg- ular interchange of occupation is either required or permitted. While this affords certain relief from the special strain of any one kind of work, it does not aiifect the general conditions surrounding the boys which the report describes at considerable length. " 'Blow- over' is the name given to those gossamer-like flakes of filmy glass usually found floating in the air of a bottle house where articles are blown with iron molds by human breath. . . . Sometimes the blow-over dust gets in the eyes and causes annoyance and pain, though no serious trouble from this source was reported. The presence of the dust in the factory is certainly highly annoying to the workers, especially the boys, and is the cause of much tem- porary skin and eye irritation." Pages 65-67. "The fact of the extreme discomfort of the heat of the furnace room is indicated by the tendency of the shop boys to desert the work as soon as the warmer days of May or June arrive. ... In nearly all factories this exodus of unskilled help in warm weather is a serious problem. The usual solution is to make use of the numerous schoolboys now on vacation and anxious to earn extra spending money. The intensity of the heat in the blow room in warmer weather is also evidenced by the fact that heat prostrations and heat affections short of prostrations are very common in warmer weather. About half of the mothers who have sons in the glass factory stated that their boys suffered in warm weather from extreme exhaustion, headaches and sleeplessness. ... In the winter the immediate danger to health arises from sudden changes in temperature. . . . The zones of heat immediately around the furnace, the glory-hole, and the leer are of almost the same degree in winter as in summer, but the temperature of the areas outside these zones is reduced almost to the level of the temperature out- side the factory. . . . The danger to health following sudden changes in heat conditions is likewise present when the boys leave the factory for their homes. The boys, as a rule, have little or no extra clothing to protect them from the outside weather and rarely take the trouble to wait in the factory until their bodies are sufifi- cienly cooled to bear the change. This danger is particularly acute when night work is being done. The night shift quits between 2 110 Child Labor in the Glass Industry and 4 o'clock in the morning, the time when the weather is nor- mally most severe, and the time when the boys, through sleepiness and anxiety to get home, are least likely to consider the matter of health." Pages 76-77. Referring to accidents, the report finds : "The chief source of danger arises from the presence of hot glass and broken glass. From the time a ball of molten glass is gathered from the furnace until the molded article is deposited in the leer the glass is suffi- ciently hot to cause burning if brought into contact with the flesh. . . . An important check to undue carelessness lies in the au- tomatism of the work. . . . Certain factories, on the other hand, increase the danger of burning by overcrowding the working space. ... In such cases the space allowed the mold boy and the snapping-up boy may become so small that the slightest mischance results in a burn. . . . Many cuts and burns come from the presence of broken glass upon the blow-room floor." Pages 89-91. Of the 161 furnace rooms employing boys under 16, 119, or 73.8 per cent., operated by night as well as by day. : "As some fac- tories operated less than their full equipment at night and some, in any case, did not erhploy children at night, it appeared that of the 3,975 boys under 16, scheduled as employed in day and night work- ing factories, 1,183 were working only in the day time. The other 2,792 were reported as regularly alternating between day and night work." Pages 95-96. The regular hours worked by the boys corresponded in general to the hours of the skilled workers, which were approximately 50 hours per week on the night shift and 50 hours or Igss on the day shift. A few boys were found (eighty-one on the day force and two hundred and seventy-eight on the ahernating force) whose working hours were regularly longer than 50 hours a, week, but in no case did the regular schedule exceed 56 hours for the alternating, force and 58 hours for the day force. "The present inquiry into, the glass- making industry developed no data of a character to modify in any way the universally acepted medical view that night work, in itself, is almost invariably detrimental to the health and physical well- being of a growing boy." Page 108. "On the other hand, the practice of alternation renders even more difficult ohe of the most serious problems of night work — the 111 Child Labor in the Glass Industry problem of sleep. It means that one week the boy must obtain his sleep in the day-time and the following week in the night-time. Proper adjustment to varying sleeping periods is not an easy ac- complishment for either adults or children. It was the almost unanimous opinion of night foremen and adult glass workers inter- viewed that this periodic change in the time of sleeping was, at the least, physically undesirable." Page 109. "The night shift quits work usually at 3 A. M. By hurrying to sleep and reducing the sleeping time, the boy will have a large part of the daylight for play. . . . During the present investiga- tion it was not at all uncommon to find on the street, as early as 9 A. M., boys who had worked on the previous night shift and had quit as late as 3 A. M." Page 109. "There is a strong probability of there being unsuitable sur- roundings for daytime sleeping. The majority of shop boys come from homes in which the standard of living is rather low, the houses small, the rooms crowded. If in the larger cities, these houses are usually in the more congested sections, where the street noises are greatest and the street life early astir." Page 110. "This happens (the ending of the night shift) usually about 3 o'clock, the time when the weather is most severe and the time when the boy, through sleepiness and anxiety to get home, is least likely to consider the guarding of his health. Always he is over- heated from his work, frequently in a state of perspiration. Only very rarely does he have extra or suiificient clothing to protect him in the change to the outside temperature. Often, too, he has a long journey home. . . . The car line, however, rarely has an all-night service, and the boys on the night shift, quitting about 3 A. M., must wait for the first morning car, arriving possibly not until 5 or 6 o'clock. This interval of two or three hours the tired boy is naturally tempted to bridge by sleeping in the factory. . . . Even, however, when the boy's home is not beyond walking distance, the temptation to sleep in the factory may still be very strong. . . . As a result of such causes — the distance to the house, the fear of something along the route, fatigue from the work, unfavorable weather — ^the boy is often unwilling to return to his home, pre- ferring to sleep in the factory, at least until daylight comes." Pages 110 and 111. 112 Child Labor in the Glass Industry "In addition to its own harmful effects upon the shopboys, the system of working two shifts of workers, one by day and one by night, makes possible an even more serious evil — that of 'double shift' work. A boy may work regularly on one shift and also on the whole or part of the succeeding shift, all within a period of 24 hours. . . . It appears that about one boy in every eleven (9.3%) worked double shift during the year covered on an average of nearly 14 occasions. For Group 1, covering those States which absolutely prohibit night work for children, the percentage of boys (3.1%) working double shift and the average number of occasions per person (4.6) are both reasonably small." Pages 111 and 116. Concerning the effects of double-shift work upon the physical well-being of children, little need be said. To work a full double shift means a presence in the factory of at least 20 hours out of the possible 24 and an actual working period of 17 to 18 hours. To work a shift and a half means 15 hours presence in the factory and 13 to 14 hours of actual work. That such long hours entail a tre- mendous strain on the physical and nervous vitality of a child is self-evident, even if such double-shift work is done only occasion- ally. During the course of the investigation there were found two cases of recent death, both children, which could be directly attrib- uted to exhaustion due to double-shift work in the furnace room. As an indication of the general healthfulness of work in the fur- nace room the report presents statistics concerning deaths among glass bottle blowers, based on the records of death benefits of the Glass Bottle Blowers Association for the seventeen years from 1892 to 1908. Of the 898 deaths, nearly one-half (47.4%) occurred between the ages of 25 and 39 years and three-fifths (60.72%) be- tween 25 and 44. The average age at death was found to be between 41 and 42 years. One-third (32%) of all deaths were due to tuberculosis and more than one in ten (10.8%) to pneumonia and other diseases of the respiratory system. Of the 48 deaths among workers less than 25 years old, tuberculosis claimed 24 and the other respiratory diseases 7. Among the 266 deaths of men 25 to 34 years old 53.8 per cent, were caused by these same diseases, 119 by tuberculosis and 24 by pneumonia, etc. "The dirtiness of the work of taking ware off the leer, com- bined with the necessity of a constant stooping posture and the 113 Child Labor in the Glass Industry general character of the place where the work is done, tends to have a coarsening influence upon the women so employed. They work very often in intimate association with a few men. ... It may be stated unqualifiedly that taking ware off the leer is work unfit for women. . . . During the year of this investigation there were IS factories employing women and girls at this work ... 9 under 16 (years)." Page 300. "The work of capping jars is one of absolute simplicity, re- quiring no skill or training whatsoever. . . . The work is done entirely by hand, but in the larger factories conveyors are now generally used in order to quicken the speed. ... In all but one of the factories the cappers are required to stand at their work constantly." Page 304. "Certain classes of glassware, such as tumblers, shades, and all screw-neck bottles and jars, come from the leer with necks rough and jagged. ... In the case of the cheaper articles which require no special finishing except smoothing of the neck, the re- moving of the excess shoulder or roughness is done by simply chipping or filing with an iron tool. . . . Alwavs there is some scattermg of the glass and occasionally the pieces fly in the face of the worker. Flesh cuts, particularly on the hands, are frequent, especially with the younger or more careless girls." Page 305. "In the finishing department (where finer varieties of glass- ware receive their final decoration by grinding, fluting, bevelling etchmg, color applications, etc.) during the course of the investiga- tion no less than 150 occupations of women were listed." Page 308. _ "From the standpoint of the employees the worst economic feature of the ordinary finishing room is probablv the presence of broken glass upon the floor. The establishment^ where this con- dition does not prevail are very few. Apart from the danger of more or less serious cuts and injuries arising from this loose glass the destruction of shoes is a very serious matter with emplovees " Page 340. ' ' "The evil features of the badly equipped factories tend rather toward physical discomfort than toward actual unhealthfulness The work of finishing glass has some processes, such as sand- blasting- and etching, which are positively harmful to health. But 114 t hild Labor in the Glass Industry such effects are visually limited to the persons engaged in the specific occupations, the number of whom, in total, is not large." Twenty-one accidents, causing a loss in each case of at least two days time, had occurred among the women and girls during the year just previous to the investigation. The one fatal accident occurred to a woman fluter 18 years of age who became entangled in the belting while trying to adjust it to her fluting wheel. "The great majority of all the accidents were due to broken glass. ... In such occupations as grinding and fluting the danger is more acute because the rapidly revolving wheel tends to make the breaking more violent. Flesh cuts of this character are rather common. Usually they cause the loss of no more time than that necessary for bandaging." Page 356. "It is to be specifically noted that this account of accidents among women in the glass industry does not include those women who are working in a few so-called glass factories where metal caps for jars and bottles, pressed brass decorations for lamps, and similar articles are made, but where little or no actual glass work is done. All such work requires the use of stamping presses of considerable power, and these presses are exceedingly dangerous to the fingers of their operators." Page 357. The working day of girls in the finishing department was in general longer than that of the boys in the furnace room. Only 40 or 6.9 per cent, worked as little as 50 hours or less per week; 131 or 22.5 per cent, worked 55 hours, 242 worked a 58-hour week, and 50 or 8.6 per cent, worked 6 full days of 10 hours each. There was practically no night work by women and none at all by girls under 16, in the sense of working on a night shift, but overtime beyond the scheduled hours was common. In a class by themselves, are the establishments manufacturing incandescent lamps. The report covers three such factori es, e m- ploying 4,123 workers of whom 12 were boys and 72 girls (pages 460 and 493) under 16 years of age. "The. two chief character- istics of the electric-lamp industry, the minuteness of the work and the extreme speed with which the operations are performed, while not peculiar to it, are found to exist in a degree almost without parallel in any other industry. . . . From the time the various filaments are baked until the 'mount' is completed the operators are dealing 115 Child Labor in the Glass Industry with materials so delicate and minute that they can be clearly seen only in the best of light and by persons possessing at least normally good sight. To handle one such filament at leisure would be neither difficult nor trying; every day the housewife performs an equally delicate operation in threading a very fine cambric needle. If, how- ver, this needle-threading operation were repeated two or three thousand times a day, and particularly if it were done at a piece rate, which urges one to the highest speed in order to increase one's earnings and to secure the higher rate paid for very rapid produc- tion, it would soon assume tremendous proportion to the person doing the work." Pages 477-478. The report describes four methods by which manufacturers have systematically speeded-up the workers. "Besides these specific methods of increasing the output ... the same results are se- cured by the regulation of piece rates. . . . The attitude is strik- ingly illustrated in the statement of a superintendent, who, when asked how he was able to maintain rapid production without the use of premiums, replied, 'We keep the piece rate so low that they have to keep right at it in order to make a living.' " Page 480. In order to attain this accuracy and speed, the workers find it necessary to remain without interruption in the one posture best adapted for each process. "In all the occupations in which gas flames are required to melt the glass of the bulb or stem, or to prepare the other materials for use, the operators are exposed to an unpleasant degree of heat and to the disagreeable and more or less injurious fumes of escap- ing gas. These conditions are accentuated in the electric-lamp industry, as ventilation from open windows is prohibited by the fact that a direct draft, which would carry away the heat and fumes, would cause the gas jets to flare," spoiling material and otherwise interfering seriously with the work. Page 484. In testing the lamps (20,000 per day, 33 per minute, is the average output per employee in one establishment) an almost con- stant electrical current is passing through her body, a current pow- erful enough to give the person unused to it a distinct shock. One process exposes the workers engaged in it to the danger of phos- phorous poisoning. 116 Child Labor in the Glass Industry Sixty-three of the 72 girls under 16 in these establishments worked regularly a 10-hour day. The other five worked 9 or 9>^ hours. The report makes no definite statement concerning over- time. "These hours are not very often exceeded. The exceptions occur usually during the fall." Page 493. 2. What Are the Opportunities Awaiting Child Workers in the Glass Industry? In this discusion again, the boys and girls must be considered separately, since the occupations of men and of women in the glass industry are distinct, the great majority of men being employed in the furnace room and all of the women (with the exception of a few negro women) being employed in the leer room and finishing departments. The making of incandescent lamps is practically a woman's occupation also. "The boy or youth entering the factory (furnace room) starts in at one of the so-called 'boys' occupations' with practically no instruction and at a low wage of about 90 cents. He remains at this same general class of work, and with but a slight increase in wage, usually about four years, acquiring in the meanwhile by ob- servation and by occasional practice in gathering and blowing glass a considerable knowledge of the trade. At the end of this time he may (note that word may) get a chance to begin to practice his trade and to receive for his production one-half the blower's piece rate. With the constant practice of daily production his skill in- creases rapidly, so that within a relatively short time his earnings have grown by leaps and bounds until they become from $2.50 to $3.50 per day. At the end of five years, at apprentice's wages, he is paid at the journeyman's rate, and it is not until this time that he becomes a full-fledged blower, though all along he has been doing journeyman's work. "As a matter of fact, however, it is possible for only a very small percentage of the boys to attain to an apprenticeship and be- come skilled workmen. ... It would appear that if all shop boys began work at the age of 14, 1 out of each 3, 4, 5, or 6, depending on the specific regulation or agreement (between the employers and the glass workers' organization), would become apprentices. ... In the agreement for 1909-1910 it is specifically stated that no apprentices shall be taken on during the year." Pages 1 53 and 235. 117 Child Labor in the Glass Industry It should be noted that the use of the automatic machine has con- tinued to increase since the pubHcation of the report. "When a youth reaches 18 or 19 and has not secured an apprenticeship, there are only two alternatives open ; either he must remain indefinitely in the factory as an unskilled helper v/ith an ever-decreasing opportunity for apprenticeship and with only an extremely small increase in wages as he becomes older, or he must leave the industry altogether. . . . He has lost the chances for an education and Ims sacrificed the years during which knowledge is most easily acquired. He can re-enter the industrial world only as an unskilled laborer or start in some new trade at the bottom." Page 154. The report gives a table of earnings of 12,467 employees in boys' occupations. Of the 3,177 workers who were over 18 years of age, only 156 or less than 5 per cent, earned as much as $10 a week and 423 or more than one in eight earned less than $6. More than three-fifths of the "boys" over 18 years old were in the wage group $6 to $7.99 per week. Furthermore, it is suggestive to read (pages 515-516) that, out- side of a few New Jersey towns where glass is the dominant in- dustry and glass blowing has been an hereditary trade, as it still is in fast lessening degree, "it is very unusual for a blower to per- mit his sons or daughters to work in the glass factory, much less deliberately to encourage them to do so." In the work of the leer room and finishing department, where all the women and girls are employed, there appears to be little opportunity for training and promotion. The highly skilled work is practically all done by a few men, and while a few of the women's occupations are better paid than the others, the report finds little or no promotion from one occupation to another. "Such promo- tion as takes place is almost always within the occupation. . . . If a girl begins as a mold cleaner she Avill probably remain a mold cleaner, with little increase in salary. If she begins as a wrapper she will have more chance of obtaining an increased wage with in- creased efficiency, but very little chance of becoming, say, a chuck grinder. If, as a final instance, she begins as a painter or enameler, her early earnings are probably very low but she has an oppor- 118 Child Labor in the Glass Industry tunity of increasing them in an important degree." Page 414. "There are only four occupations^needle etching, hand flute cut- ting, glazing and chuck grinding — in which the median wage is more than $6 a week, and all of these are occupations having very small memberships." Page 413. A comparison of wages and ages shows a far larger proportion earning $8 and $10 a week among the women 25 to 29 years old than among the women either younger or older. "The general level of wages in the electric-lamp industry is, for the women at least, relatively high. The average earnings per hour of all women over 16 years is 13.71 cents, which, assuming a 10-hour day and a 5S-hour week as a rule for the industry, means approximately $7.50 per week as the average wage." Page 494. There is no occupation in which the average earnings per hour were found to be less than 10 cents and only one in which the average weekly earnings were less than $6. But in spite of these high aver- ages 582 or 21.1 per cent, of the women were earning less than $6 a week and only 630 or 22.8 per cent, earned $9 or more. The maximum earning period falls not between 25 and 29 years but between 21 and 24. The following table of earnings is suggestive in connection with statements elsewhere in the report concerning the extraordinary speed and minuteness of the work. Number and Per cent, of Female Employees of Specified Ages in Incandes- cent Electric l^amp Establishments Receiving Each Classified Amount of Full Weekly Earnings* .'vste k;— 20 21—24 25—29 30 — over, Under $6 | $6 to $8.99 I $9 and over | Total No. Percent.! No. Per cent. | No. Percent.] No. Percent. 436 26.6 i 916 SS.8 I 249 IS.S | 1601 100 IQ 8.4 I 139 61.7 I 67 29.7 | 225 100 56 103 ! 294 S4A | 191 35.3 I 541 100 23 17.6 1 69 53.0 | 38 29.2 | 130 100 This table shows that the largest percentage of workers earn- ing more than $9 a week is found in the age group 21-24 years and that more than one in six of the workers 30 years of age and older is earning less than $6 a week. * Condensed from table on page 497. 119 Child Labor in the Glass Industry It would appear therefore that the boy's chance of promotion to well-paid work in the glass factory is increasingly small. The young girl's chance of fair wages depends more than the boy's on her own dexterity and carefulness, but except in the electric-lamp factories, the earnings of the average girl will remain below $6 a week. 3. What Is the Attitude of the Glass Industry Toward Child Labor? "In connection with the glass industry, to a greater extent than with any other, the claim has been made that there is certain work about the factory which is an indispensable part of production and which can be satisfactorily performed by young boys only." Page 145. And yet between 1880 and 1905 the percentage of boys under 16 had decreased from 29 per cent, to 12.6 per cent, and the number of boys had remained practically stationary while the number of males over 16 had increased almost 200 per cent. "The most im- pelling cause (for the decrease in proportion of boys under 16) has been the growing sentiment in most communities against the employment of young children at factory work. . . . There has been an increasing scarcity of 'small help' and an increasing de- mand for such as was available. The usual glass manufacturer continued, and still continues, to want a considerable number of small boys in the furnace room. He wants them partly because he thinks them more efficient at the particular work and partly because they are cheaper." Page 155. Comparative Efficiency of Boys as Reported by 132 Establishments. Establishments Reporting. Number. Per cent. Boys under 16 years more efficient 57 43.2 Boys of 16 years and over more efficient 13 9.8 Boys of all ages equally efficient 40 30.3 Boys under 16 years more efficient on small wa-e, but boys of 16 years and over, as or more, effi- cient on large ware 22 16.7 132 100 "It would seem that the majority opinion favored the older boy to an even greater extent than the table would indicate ; for 120 Child Labor in the Glass Industry the traditions of the trade are so much in favor of the child that the opinions of many of those who favored the child were no doubt influenced, although unconsciously, by an inherited trade idea which they themselves had never given an actual test." Page 200. "Children are employed as mold boys, snapping-up boys, carry- ing-in boys, etc., primarily because they will work for a lower wage than will boys of 16 or over." Page 201. "The item of boy-labor cost in a given article can be isolated and a study made of the variations in costs which would follow changes in the wages of the boys." Page 202. ' The report con- cludes that "Whether the manufacturer, jobber, druggist, or public took the increase in cost resulting from adult labor in the glass industry would not be serious." Page 208. "Substitutes for child labor, in the form oif adult labor, ma- chinery, new methods of work, etc., gradually suggested them- selves. But for the most part, such substitutes have been tried only under the compulsion of circumstances and not until every effort has been made to maintain a full equipment of youthful labor." Page 156. "There are three factors within the industry which have greatly contributed to lessening the value of the boy; first, with the in- creasing demand for his services the boy has learned to demand higher wages so that the difiference between his wages and those of an adult or at least those of a youth of 17 or 18 years has de- creased very rapidly ; secondly, the increased use of machinery demands larger and stronger youths or men ; and, finally, the in- creasing size of the establishments and the more complete organi- zation of the industry have made it desirable to have a class of em- ployees who are more regular in their work and more likely to abide by their contracts than the boy, who is seldom entirely de- pendent on his own earnings and consequently, so far as economic reasons are concerned, is free to come and go as he chooses. As a result of all these causes, and particularly within the last five or six years, adults have been introduced into the industry in increas- ingly large numbers." Page 165. . . . The adults which are of peculiar interest are the old men, cripples, and convicts em- ployed. In a number of factories old men of 55 years and upwards 121 Child Labor in the Glass Industry were found, chiefl}' carrying in or holding molds, but also in many instances cleaning off or snapping up." Page 171. The report describes at length the mechanical devices which had recently been installed in certain factories to do the work of carrying in and which in every case were tended by adults or by older boys. The Owens automatic bottle blowing machine was com- paratively new at the time of the investigation, and apparently only one factory had installed it. The report states: "In the hand-bottle shops about one-third the boys employed are under 16 years of age; in the Owens machine shop only 1 boy out of 143 scheduled was under 16 years of age. ... It is not at all impossible that a boy under 16 should have the necessary qualifications, but it is rather uncommon. Furthermore, if such a boy be as efficient as a man, he is not more so, and the dictum of some hand-shop employers that the younger the boy the better has no point here." Page 196. "In contrast to the furnace-room work of the glass factory there, is no sentiment that child labor in the finishing department is particularly necessary or desirable except in the matter of lower wages." Page 291. 4. How Young Were the Children and What Restrictions Should Be Placed Upon the Employment of Minors in the Glass Industry? Of 3,615 boys under 16 whose ages were given, 262 were less than 14 years old; of the 481 girls under 16, only 15 were under 14 years. Seven of the girls under 14 were illegally employed in Pennsylvania and Indiana, and eight were found in West Virginia where the legal age limit at that time was 12 years. Of the 262 boys under 14, 145 were illegally employed in states with a M-^-ear limit, and 22 were illegally employed in states with a 12-year limit. The youngest girls were 12 years old, but among the boys there were 2 of 9 years, 14 of 10 years, and 20 of 11 years. It is likely that the number and the percentage of children under 14 has been greatly reduced since this investigation was made, not only because the legal age limit has been raised from 12 to 14 years in Maryland, West Virginia, and with exemptions, in Virginia, but also, because in all of these 16 states except Georgia, the provisions concerning employment certificates or factory inspec- 122 Child Labor in the Glass Industry tion or both have been greatly strengthened and the enforcement of the law correspondingly improved. The employment of boys at night has been lessened by the pro- hibition of night work under 16 years in 12 instead of 5 of these 16 glass-making states. And for nearly 2,000 boys the regular wforking day has been reduced by the passing of an 8-hour day in 7 states (besides New York and Illinois where it was already in force in 1908). But in the three states in which the largest per- centages of the workers were children and in whose glass factories 3,290 boys and girls were employed in 1908, night work is still permitted. West Virginia has set no limit of hours at any time ; Maryland and Pennsylvania have fixed a legal working-day of 10 hours, but allow the 10 hours to fall in any part of the 24. Sureh', the report's bare record of conditions is a sufficient argument for the need of such minimum protection for the children as a 14-year age limit, and an 8-hour day and no night work under 16 years. Surely, also, no one can read that record of conditions — heat and exposure, speed and nervous tension, overstrain and monotony, absence of training and opportunity — without wondering whether these minimum standards are not grotesquely insufficient, and whether Ohio, with her 16-year limit for girls at all times, has not set a standard which all states should apply for both sexes without further delay. In fact, 11 of these 16 states have already fixed a 16-year age limit for certain kinds of dangerous employments. But there are dangers which can never be recorded in accidents but which threaten no less seriously the well-being of the child. Of such dangers, the glass industry in all its phases offers conspicuous examples. All of the arguments against night work by children under 16 apply with equal force to older children under 18 and in fact to all minors and all women. Therefore we would add to our plea for a 16-year limit in the glass factory, an 8-hour day and prohibi- tion of night work for minors. The 8-hour day is recognized as good for grown men; it need not be specially defended for young people — it is too obviously just. And night work by women has been condemned by all civilized countries but our own. For older boys, the night shift in the glass house means not only a physical strain but a moral hazard that cannot be afforded. 123 Chief Provisions OF Existing Child Labor Laws ( 1914) IN 16 Glass Manufacturing States Investigated in 1908 AND Employing Children Under 16 at that Time in Glass Factories State. Age Limit. Specified Dangerous Employment Factories. Occupations. Certificates. Working Day Night Work in Factories. in Factories. Georgia 12 (exemp- tions) None "Any child" Poor Minors, sunrise to sunset Prohibited under 14 years, 7 p.m.-6 a.m. Illinois 14 16 14-16 Fair 14-16 years. Prohibited 8 hours. 14-16 years. All women, 7 p.m.-7 a.m. 10 hours. Indiana 14 16, 18 14-16 Good 14-16 years, 8 hours (nine with consent of parents). Girls 17-18, 10 hours. Prohibited 14-16 years, 6 p.m.-7 a.m. All women 10 p.m.-6 a.m. Kansas 14 None 14-16 Poor 14-16 years. Prohibited 8 hours. 14-16 years, 6 p.m.-7 a.m. Maryland 14 16, 18 14-16 Good 14-16 years 1 No restriction and all women, | 10 hours. 1 Massachu- setts 14 1 16, 18 1 14-16 Good; 16-21 Fair 14-16 years, 8 hours. Boys, 16-18, Girls, 16-21, 10 hours, 54-hour week. Prohibited 14-16 years, 6 p.m.-6.30 a.m Boys 16-18, Girls 16-21 in textile mills, 6 p.m. -5 a.m. Other occupa- tions, 10 p.m.-S a.m. Missouri 14 16, 18 14-16 Fair 14-16 years, 8 hours. All women, 9 hours. Prohibited 14-16 years, 7 p.m.-7 a.m. New Jersey 14 16 14-16 Good 14-16 years, 8 hours. All women, 10 hours. Prohibited 14-16 years, 7 p.m. -7 a.m. 124 Age Limit. Specified Dangerous Employment Working Day Niglit Work State. Factories. Occupations . Certificates. in Factories. in Factories. New York 14 16, 18 14-16 14-16 years, Prohibited Good 8 hours. Boys, 16-18, and all women, 9 hours. 14-16 years, 5 p.m.-8 a.m. Girls 16-21, 9 p.m.-6 a.m. Boys 16-18, 12 m.-4 a.m. Ohio Boys, IS 16, 18 Boys, IS Boys IS, Prohibited Girls, 16 16, 18 Girls, 16-18 Girls 16-18, Boys IS, Good 8 hours. Boys 16-18, Girls 18-21, 10 hours, S4-hour week. Girls 16-18, 6 p.m.-7 a.m. Boys 16-18, Girls 18-21, 10 p.m.-6 a.m. Pennsyl- 14 16, 18 14-16 Boys 14-16, Prohibited vania Fair 10 hours, S8-hour week. Boys 14-16, employed at night, 9 hours. All women, 10 hours, S4-hour week. Boys 14-16, 9 p.m.-6 a.m. except in glass factories. Girls 16-21, 9 p.m.-6 a.m. So. Carolina 12 None 12-14 No limit except Prohibited Poor in textile mills, 10 hours, 60-hour week. 12-16 years, 8 p.m.-6 a.m. Tennessee 14 16 14-16 14-16 years Prohibited ■ Poor and all women, Wy2 hours, S8-hour week. 14-16 years, 6 p.m.-6 a.m. Virginia 14 None 14-16 14-16 years Prohibited Fair and all women, 10 hours. 14-16 years, 9 p.m.-7 a.m. W. Virginia 14 IS 14-16 Good No limit No restriction Wisconsin 14 16, 18 14-16 14-16 years, Prohibited Good 8 hours. All women, 10 hours, SS-hour week; 8 hours if part of work comes between 8 p.m. 14-16 years, 6 p.m.-7 a.m. and 6 a.m. 125 SOME RESULTS OF THE National Child Labor Committee's Work FORTY-SEVEN states have enacted new or improved child labor or compulsory education laws since the Commit- tee's organization in 1904. The UNIFORM CHILD LABOR LAW, drafted by the Committee, has been unanimously endorsed by the American Bar Association. The Children's Bureau in the Federal Government was secured in 1912, through a bill drafted and a six year campaign waged by the Committee. The PALMER CHILD LABOR BILL was introduced in Congress, January 26, 1914. Its promotion is one of the Committee's chief interests this vear. The Committee employs expert investigators to study and photo- graph child labor conditions throughout the country. Employs legislative experts to draft and help secure improved laws. Publishes the quarterly Chim L.iiiOR Bulletin, a Study Course, and other literature on all phases of child labor. Provides public lecturers. Rents typewritten lecture with stereopticon slides showing chil- dren at work. Furnishes exhibits of photographs, charts, diagrams and samples of children's work. Co-operates with physicians, officials, educators, etc., to provide to children excluded from work, the physical, mental and moral opportunities needed to develop efficient citizenship. Co-operates with relief societies to provide "scholarships" for poor families whose children are forbidden work. 7,500 members suliscrilied $56,602 in 1912-13. The work is supported entirely iy these voluntary subscriptions. $100,000 a year are needed to do the worlc effectively. To V. EVERIT MACY. Treasurer National Child Labor Cotnmittee, 105 East 22nd Street, New York I enclose $ for the help of little children at work in tenement sweatshops, coal breakers and coal mine.i, cotton mills, glass factories, etc. Enroll me in your membershiv and as a subscriber for the coming year for the quarterly CHILD LABOR BULLETIN for which $1 of the above amount is intended. Signed . Address ( Associate — Persons contributing annually $S to ti MEMBERSHIP ) Contributing " " " tS to «z2 ENROLLMENT ) Sntstaining " " " Jgs to $99 K Donors " " " $100 or more 126 We Have Reproduced tlTfje immigrant Jlabonna By MARY ELLEN SIGSBEE Which appeared on the Cover Page of our Holiday Publication "Stories about tijc 0t^tv Ct)ilb" In Original Colors, Mounted on Art Stock, 9 in. x 9 in. No. Printing 25c. a Copy SEND ORDERS TO National Child Labor Committee 1 05 East 22nd Street, New York, N. Y. 127 THE National Child Labor Committee's cam- paign is dependent entirely on voluntary contributions. The effort to develop an intelligent interest in the enforcement of child labor laws is as im- portant as the work of investigation to reveal existing conditions and of campaigns to secure good laws. The Committee needs a substantial endow- ment. We solicit the co-operation of our members in interesting persons who are disposed to make large bequests or legacies to philantrophic enter- prises. FORM OF BEQUEST / hereby give, deoise, and bequeath to the "National Child Labor Committee," a corporation organized b}) Act of Congress approved February 21, 1907 (Chapter 103) Contribution may be sent to V. Everit Macy, Treasurer, 105 East 22d Street, New York 128 Natinnal QH|tlii Slabnr (EnmmittFP INCORPORATED ORGANIZED APRIL 15, 1904 105 East 22nd Street New York City 204 Bond Building Washington, D. C. OFFICERS FELIX ADLBR, SAMUEL MoCUNE LINDSAY, Treasurer HOMER POLKS, V. EVBRIT MACY, Vice-Chairmen Chairman OWEN R. LOVEJOY .... General Secretary A. J. McKBLWAY, . Secretary for the Southern States EDWARD N. CLOPPBR, Secretary for the Northern States JOSEPHINE J. BSCHBNBRENNER, Membership Secretary BOARD OF TRUSTEES PBLIX ADLBR, Chairman ADOLPH LBWISOHN JANE ADDAMS SAMUEL McCUNE LINDSAY CAROLINE B. ALEXANDER V. EVBRIT MACY FRANCIS G. CAPFBY CHARLES P. NEILL EDWARD T. DBVINE ISAAC N. SELIGMAN HOMER FOLKS LILLIAN D. WALD WILLIAM E. HARMON STEPHEN S. WISE FLORENCE KELLEY PAUL M. WARBURG JOHN W. WOOD OBJECTS To PROMOTE THE WELFARE OF SOCIETY, "WITH RESPECT TO THE EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDEEN 7N GAINFUL OCCtTPATIONS. To INVESTIGATE j!,ND REPORT THE FACTS CONCERNING CHILD LABOR. To RAISE THE STANDABD OF PUBLIC OPINION AND PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY WITH RESPECT TO THE EMPLOYMENT OP CHILDREN. To ASSIST IN PROTECTING CHILDREN BY SUITABLE LEGISLATION AGAINST PREMATURE OR OTHERWISE INJURIOUS EMPLOYMENT, AND THUS TO AID IN SECURING FOE THEM AN OPPORTUNITY FOR ELEMENTARY EDUCATION, AND PHYSICAL DEVEL- OPMENT SUFFICIENT FOR THE DEMANDS OF CITIZENSHIP AND THE REQUIRE- MENTS OF INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY. To AID IN PROMOTING THE ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS RELATING TO CHILD LABOR. To CO-ORDINATE, UNIFY, AND SUPPLEMENT THE WORK OF STATE OR LOCAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEES, AND ENCOURAGE THE FORMATION OF SUCH COMMITTEES WHERE THEY DO NOT EXIST. Persons who contribute $2 or more annually toward the support of the child labor campaign are enrolled as associate members, $5 or more as contrihutina 'members, $2S or more as sustainino members and $100 or inore as guarantors of the Committee. Of each membership contribution $1 is applied as a subscription for the Quarterly Child Labor Bulletin; members receive free other publications of the Committee and are thus kept in touch with the child labor movement throughout the country. Remittances may be sent to V. Everit Macy, Treasurer. lOS East 22nd Street, New York City. 129