EDITORIAL GRIST

ANNA ROCHESTERNational Child Labor Committee

ANNA ROCHESTER

National Child Labor Committee

A majority of the twenty-nine state Legislatures which have been considering child labor laws this winter are still in session, so that many of the most important bills are still pending.

The campaign that is being waged against the most outspoken opposition is on in Pennsylvania, one of the two strongholds of glass manufacturers who employ boys under sixteen at night. With the single exception of West Virginia, where a bill based on the uniform child labor law was defeated this winter, night work for youths under sixteen is no longer allowed in the important glass-producing states. The uniform law was introduced in the present Pennsylvania Legislature by Representative Walnut and referred to the Committee on Labor and Industry. The committee reported it to the House with several amendments. The House rejected all but two of these. Now the uniform law, with the street-trading age limit reduced from twelve years to ten, and the age limit for breaker boys reduced from sixteen to fourteen, has reached its third reading in the House. If its friends can still protect it from the mutilations desired by the glass interests, the telegraph companies, the textile manufacturers and other opponents, Pennsylvania will be in a fair way to protect the 29,170 children employed in manufactories in that state.

The uniform law is also pending in Massachusetts, where it met no opposition in the hearing before the Committee on Social Welfare. Massachusetts has now a ten-hour day and the uniform law would bring her into line with Ohio, New York, Illinois, Mississippi and twelve other states that have the eight-hour day for all under sixteen.

But Massachusetts would lead the country in one respect if another bill that is likewise before the Committee on Social Welfare should pass. This provides for a five-hour day and compulsory school attendance for all workers under sixteen. If this is put into effect it will set a new standard for the Uniform Child Labor Law, which has been drafted by the National Child Labor Committee and endorsed by the American Bar Association. It is based on the best provisions of the best statutes now in force in the several states. Yet the National Child Labor Committee, fearing that two five-hour shifts for certain minors might tend to fasten on industry the ten-hour day for adults, would suggest that Massachusetts go one step further and fix a four-hour day for all under sixteen.

Connecticut, Ohio and Michigan will also advance beyond the standard of the uniform law if bills now pending are enacted. Michigan, it is true, is not trying to reduce the working day below nine hours, but merely to extend it to include canneries and four other occupations hitherto exempt. But Michigan and Ohio propose to raise the general age limit for employment from fourteen to fifteen, while Connecticut is considering sixteen years. Ohio intends also to increase the compulsory school attendance age from fourteen to fifteen for boys and sixteen for girls, and to require that boys of fifteen may not go to work unless they have completed the sixth instead of the fifth grade, the requirement of the present Ohio law and of the uniform law.[3]

3. The Ohio law has passed both Houses.

The Ohio bill includes, also, the street trading provisions of the uniform law. Special street trading bills are pending in Iowa, Nebraska, New York and also, we understand, in Michigan and Minnesota. Their outcome is doubtful because the average legislator seems to be blind to the bad results of street tradingand cheerfully reflects the popular view that these “sturdy, little merchants” are all supporting widowed mothers and headed straight for the White House.

Many states are coming to recognize the needs of children over fourteen. This is evidenced not only by the wide discussion of vocational schools and the bills before the Legislatures of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Massachusetts, New York and other states, but also by the extension of child labor laws. Thus California, having proved the advantage of the eight-hour day for women and boys under sixteen, is considering the eight-hour limit for all under eighteen. Wisconsin is proposing to enlarge the list of hazardous occupations forbidden under eighteen and to provide for continued revision in the future by the Industrial Commission. The prohibition of night messenger service for those under twenty-one is included in the uniform law, as pending in Pennsylvania and passed in Delaware, but not in Massachusetts and Utah, where it has already been enacted. In Connecticut, a dangerous trades bill is pending and the bill for a general sixteen year limit includes an age restriction of twenty-one years for night messenger service. The same night messenger prohibition was included also in the bills based on the uniform law that went down to defeat this year in Utah, Idaho, Arkansas, Texas and West Virginia. Iowa, the only other state in which a night messenger law has been introduced this year, proposes an eighteen year limit.

Regulation of hours for all under sixteen was proposed in Nevada. In Tennessee, there is a bill now before the House Committee on Labor, providing for an eight-hour day under sixteen instead of the present sixty-hour week. A second measure adds mercantile establishments and the stage to the occupations prohibited to children under fourteen. Still another bill has passed in Tennessee, enlarging the Factory Inspection Department by adding a clerk and two deputy inspectors. The matter of enforcement has not received as wide consideration as it deserved. Industrial commissions are under discussion in many states, notably California and Ohio. In Iowa it is proposed to create within the Labor Department a bureau of women and children. Montana’s educational bill would provide for truant officers to enforce the child labor law. In Wisconsin a bill is pending covering some details of the issuing of employment certificates and in Utah it was proposed to increase the number of inspectors. Most important in this connection is the bill in Missouri to extend the jurisdiction of the Factory Inspection Department over the entire state (it is now confined to cities of 10,000 or more inhabitants) and to abolish the present fee system.

Two of the bills recommended by the New York Factory Investigating Commission and directly affecting child labor are still pending: one to prohibit work in cannery sheds by children under fourteen, and the other to prohibit the manufacture in tenement houses of dolls or dolls’ clothing and articles of food or of children’s or infants’ wearing apparel. Other bills recommended by the commission and already passed and signed standardize the issuing of employment certificates throughout the state; give the commissioner of labor power to inquire into the thoroughness of this work as carried on by local health officers; provide for physical examination in factories of children fourteen to sixteen. This last provision promises to be better than the present Massachusetts law because it permits the cancelling of employment certificates of children whom the examination reveals to be physically unfit for factory employment. Following the recommendation of the commission the present Legislature has also reorganized the Labor Department, established an industrial board, increased the number of inspectors and extended the jurisdiction of the Labor Department to cover the enforcement of the labor law concerning women and children in mercantile establishments in second class cities.

In a few states there is a fair record of progress in the legislation already enacted this year. New Jersey and Indiana have brought their educational requirements and provisions for working certificates up to the standard of the uniform law. Vermont has established a nine-hour day and Rhode Island a ten-hour day. The Vermont law also does away with the twelve year limit in certain occupations and substitutes the provision that

“A child under sixteen years of age, who has not completed the course of study prepared for the elementary schools shall not be employed in work connected with railroading, mining, manufacturing or quarrying, or be employed in a hotel or bowling alley, or in delivering messages, except during vacation and before and after school.”

Along with this the law has an absolute fourteen-year limit in “mill, factory, quarry or workshop, wherein are employed more than ten persons.” In North Carolina a bill was introduced with a fourteen-year age limit and a prohibition of night work, but the age limit was immediately amended back to the old thirteen (twelve for apprentices), the increased appropriation for inspectors was cut out, and only the night work prohibition was passed. The Child Labor Commission in Delaware drafted a bill based on the uniform law, which, in a much mutilated form, was finally passed and signed.

Only a few backward states show no progress whatever. Georgia defeated a child labor bill last summer. Alabama has no legislative sessionuntil January, 1915. The Florida Legislature has just convened and a bill based on the uniform law will be introduced. No child labor bill was introduced in South Carolina but a compulsory school attendance law was passed by the Legislature, only to be vetoed by the governor. The House passed it again over the governor’s veto, but it failed in the Senate by two votes. In New Hampshire, the only northern state with a general twelve-year age limit, a bill providing for a fourteen-year limit has been unanimously reported to the House and there seems to be a good chance of passing it.

The National Child Labor Committee is watching the situation and helping where it can in these campaigns. It hopes to report many more victories when the legislative season closes. Meanwhile it appeals to the citizens in every state to aid in the enactment and the enforcement of these laws.

RICHARD C. CABOT, M. D.

4. See Courses on Sex Hygiene. By Jane R. McCrady on page124of this Issue.

There are some things (chocolate, for instance, or tracts, or paper drinking-cups) that can be shot out of a slot at you and hit their mark. You can apply them to their uses at once. It is the same with the facts fired at you through the window of his booth by the railroad information man. Such facts set you on your track or your train at once.

But when people ask for clear directions about the train to proficiency in violin playing, belief in immortality, or understanding of sex, they always miss their train. Sometimes they complain of the officials.

After a course of lectures on sex last year some workers of my acquaintance handed in written questions beginning “What should I say to a young girl who,” etc., and were disappointed when no definite answer was forthcoming. To illustrate the difficulties of an answer let us ask a few parallel questions:

What paint shall I use for a Madonna?

What are the best words to use in a love sonnet?

What is the best book on being a millionaire?

What kind of bread makes you popular and handsome?

What liniment makes one’s sympathies most supple?

People rush to lectures on “sex hygiene,” sometimes for good reasons, sometimes to satisfy morbid curiosity, but often with a pathetic hunger for the bread of life. In the hope of forestalling such disappointments the lecturer should hang up before them a sign reading:

“This lecture will not solve fundamental problems. Seek ye the Lord.”

THE DAWN OF A BETTER DAYA MANUFACTURER SPEAKSDudley D. Sicher[This poem was read at a banquet of the Cotton Garment Manufacturers of New York during the last week of March. The author, a representative manufacturer, dedicated these verses, reflecting a new attitude toward employes, to his business associates.—Ed.]Do we purchase Toil at the lowest rateAs we buy our cloth and thread?Do our workers labor long and lateFor the price of their daily breadIn gloomy lofts where shadows frown,In foul, unwholesome air,Till Want and Weariness drag them downWhere—we neither know nor care?If such things be, they must pass awayEre we hail the Dawn of a Better Day.Have they wrought us harm in the darker days,Have they kept the whole truth hid?Have they told false tales of our works and waysAnd of wrongs that we never did?Be not too wroth at the hiss of shame,But pass old slanders by.And cleanse your shirts of the taint of blameWhere e’er the blame may lie.Old feuds, old sores be forgot for ayeIn the hopeful Dawn of a Better Day.Let us wipe the slate of the bitter score,Let us turn the blotted page,And grant that we owe our workers moreThan the dole of a “living wage.”They give us more than their time and skillIn the health and strength they spend;And earn the right to the kindly willAnd helpful hand of a friend.We must give them more than the coin we payEre we hail the Dawn of a Better Day.So, here’s a task that we may not shirk,For the toiling thousands plead;We must give them comfort while they workAnd help in every need;We must lend them strength if their souls are weakAnd teach them how to live;Nor let us, all to meanly seekReturn for all we give,As we lift our eyes for the gladdening rayOf the golden Dawn of a Better Day.If this light that leads us shall not dimThey will see, ere the course is run,That the worker’s weal and the weal of himWho owns the shops are one.Then each shall have his rightful gainUngrudged—and great and smallShall give their best of hand and brainFor the good of each and all,—And we’ll stand together, come what mayIn the brighter Dawn of a Better Day!

Dudley D. Sicher

[This poem was read at a banquet of the Cotton Garment Manufacturers of New York during the last week of March. The author, a representative manufacturer, dedicated these verses, reflecting a new attitude toward employes, to his business associates.—Ed.]

Do we purchase Toil at the lowest rateAs we buy our cloth and thread?Do our workers labor long and lateFor the price of their daily breadIn gloomy lofts where shadows frown,In foul, unwholesome air,Till Want and Weariness drag them downWhere—we neither know nor care?If such things be, they must pass awayEre we hail the Dawn of a Better Day.Have they wrought us harm in the darker days,Have they kept the whole truth hid?Have they told false tales of our works and waysAnd of wrongs that we never did?Be not too wroth at the hiss of shame,But pass old slanders by.And cleanse your shirts of the taint of blameWhere e’er the blame may lie.Old feuds, old sores be forgot for ayeIn the hopeful Dawn of a Better Day.Let us wipe the slate of the bitter score,Let us turn the blotted page,And grant that we owe our workers moreThan the dole of a “living wage.”They give us more than their time and skillIn the health and strength they spend;And earn the right to the kindly willAnd helpful hand of a friend.We must give them more than the coin we payEre we hail the Dawn of a Better Day.So, here’s a task that we may not shirk,For the toiling thousands plead;We must give them comfort while they workAnd help in every need;We must lend them strength if their souls are weakAnd teach them how to live;Nor let us, all to meanly seekReturn for all we give,As we lift our eyes for the gladdening rayOf the golden Dawn of a Better Day.If this light that leads us shall not dimThey will see, ere the course is run,That the worker’s weal and the weal of himWho owns the shops are one.Then each shall have his rightful gainUngrudged—and great and smallShall give their best of hand and brainFor the good of each and all,—And we’ll stand together, come what mayIn the brighter Dawn of a Better Day!

Do we purchase Toil at the lowest rate

As we buy our cloth and thread?

Do our workers labor long and late

For the price of their daily bread

In gloomy lofts where shadows frown,

In foul, unwholesome air,

Till Want and Weariness drag them down

Where—we neither know nor care?

If such things be, they must pass away

Ere we hail the Dawn of a Better Day.

Have they wrought us harm in the darker days,Have they kept the whole truth hid?Have they told false tales of our works and waysAnd of wrongs that we never did?Be not too wroth at the hiss of shame,But pass old slanders by.And cleanse your shirts of the taint of blameWhere e’er the blame may lie.Old feuds, old sores be forgot for ayeIn the hopeful Dawn of a Better Day.

Have they wrought us harm in the darker days,

Have they kept the whole truth hid?

Have they told false tales of our works and ways

And of wrongs that we never did?

Be not too wroth at the hiss of shame,

But pass old slanders by.

And cleanse your shirts of the taint of blame

Where e’er the blame may lie.

Old feuds, old sores be forgot for aye

In the hopeful Dawn of a Better Day.

Let us wipe the slate of the bitter score,Let us turn the blotted page,And grant that we owe our workers moreThan the dole of a “living wage.”They give us more than their time and skillIn the health and strength they spend;And earn the right to the kindly willAnd helpful hand of a friend.We must give them more than the coin we payEre we hail the Dawn of a Better Day.

Let us wipe the slate of the bitter score,

Let us turn the blotted page,

And grant that we owe our workers more

Than the dole of a “living wage.”

They give us more than their time and skill

In the health and strength they spend;

And earn the right to the kindly will

And helpful hand of a friend.

We must give them more than the coin we pay

Ere we hail the Dawn of a Better Day.

So, here’s a task that we may not shirk,For the toiling thousands plead;We must give them comfort while they workAnd help in every need;We must lend them strength if their souls are weakAnd teach them how to live;Nor let us, all to meanly seekReturn for all we give,As we lift our eyes for the gladdening rayOf the golden Dawn of a Better Day.

So, here’s a task that we may not shirk,

For the toiling thousands plead;

We must give them comfort while they work

And help in every need;

We must lend them strength if their souls are weak

And teach them how to live;

Nor let us, all to meanly seek

Return for all we give,

As we lift our eyes for the gladdening ray

Of the golden Dawn of a Better Day.

If this light that leads us shall not dimThey will see, ere the course is run,That the worker’s weal and the weal of himWho owns the shops are one.Then each shall have his rightful gainUngrudged—and great and smallShall give their best of hand and brainFor the good of each and all,—And we’ll stand together, come what mayIn the brighter Dawn of a Better Day!

If this light that leads us shall not dim

They will see, ere the course is run,

That the worker’s weal and the weal of him

Who owns the shops are one.

Then each shall have his rightful gain

Ungrudged—and great and small

Shall give their best of hand and brain

For the good of each and all,—

And we’ll stand together, come what may

In the brighter Dawn of a Better Day!

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