and your wits in spite of long hours; suppose you wanted to study and increase your skill and when your outlook, your opportunities would be far greater after an 8-hour day than a 10-hour day. But if you did keep your ambition and your ability you would be the rare exception. The average youth inevitably slumps under the strain, and for his physical, mental, and industrial welfare a workday limited to eight hours is absolutely essential. Apart from these comparatively distant results it has also been found by experience that the shorter day tends to improve the quantity of the work and does not reduce the quantity of goods produced. The frail, overworked child, with little or no opportunity for rest, play, or study, accomplishes no more in 10 hours than the vigorous, alert child accomplishes in 8. Hence the “ trend toward the shorter workday proceeds because economic efficiency rises and falls with the worker's physical efficiency, and whatever contributes to the latter tends to raise the former."

Manufacturers are gradually coming to realize the truth of this statement. For a long time many employers disguised their opposition to an eight-hour law under a cloak of pity for the "poor widows," who would be ruined by any interference with their children's present work. As a matter of fact, "poor widows" have not been ruined, for the eight-hour day has not resulted in throwing children out of work nor in reducing their wages. John Williams, former commissioner of labor in New York State, says: "I have never heard that the enactment of the eight-hour restriction worked a hardship upon the families of working people." Similar testimony comes from the Massachusetts child-labor committee, which has been investigating the rumors of hardship inflicted by the eight-hour law that took effect last Sepember. The real source of employers' opposition seems to have been a fear that their output would be decreased by an eight-hour day for children or that an increased cost of production would result from the necessity of substituting older workers who could work unlimited hours and keep the amount of output up to standard. In actual experience it has proved that the children can do as much in 8 hours as they formerly did in 10.

Eight hours for children only.-The most popular objection to the eight-hour day for children has been that it would not be practicable to employ children eight hours in a plant where adults work a longer day. Overwhelming evidence from manufacturers proves that this assertion is without foundation.

In order to ascertain the grounds for this objection to the eight-hour day, a special investigation was made by an agent of the National Child Labor Committee in three States, Ohio, Illinois, and New York, where an eight-hour day for children has been in operation for several years. Information was sought in factories representing the industries in which the largest numbers of children were employed. It was found that children were employed eight hours at the same kinds of work at which they had been employed before the law went into effect, while the adults continued to work for longer hours. With practical unanimity employers reported that they had found no difficulty in readjusting schedules to obey the law. The eight-hour day for children has not been even temporarily a handicap upon business, and no cases of failure or removal from the State have resulted. On the contrary, the industries involved have steadily grown.

Every textile and garment factory in northern Ohio has enlarged its plant and increased its business since the law went into effect in 1908. The Cleveland Worsted Mills, which had complained most about the handicap the law would put upon the textile industries, have enlarged their plant until now, as the superintendent expressed it, "Some of our bulidings are about a mile away." The N. J. Rich Co. and the Northern Blanket Co. have increased their plants, and not a single textile mill or shoe factory claimed that it was being driven out of business. In New York State, where the law went into effect in 1907, the census of 1910 shows a 30 per cent increase in the value of the products in the textile industries since 1904.

The general opinion of the manufacturers was that wherever the eight-hour law had limited their capacity for production at all, they have since made it up by increasing the efficiency of the plant. In Ohio 15 out of 21 manufacturers in the textile industry said that it had been no handicap; likewise 8 out of 9 shoe maufacturers, 7 out of 10 paper-box manufacturers, and 15 out of 16 employers in other industries; 18 out of 20 textile manufacturers in Illinois declared that the law which was enacted in 1993 had been no handicap; and out of 11 representatives of other industries only 1 thought the law had been troublesome. New York shows similar results, for only 1 manufacturer out

of 25 had any complaint to offer, and that was because he objected to the way labor bills were introduced and not because he advocated child labor.

Many employers have found shifts entirely practicable. The Julian & Kokenge Co., in Cincinnati, Ohio, have three shifts, beginning at 7, 7.30, and 8 a. m., respectively, and leaving at corresponding times. The Cleveland Worsted Mills at Ravenna use two shifts, 7-4 and 9-6. Mr. Beaupre, of the Aurora Cotton Mills, where two shifts are in use, says: "We have not been put to great inconvenience. It is easy enough to have shifts after you have once tried it. I should prefer not to have child labor at all if the laws were only uniform. All child labor could be eliminated in textile mills."

In regard to the second method of adaptation, there has apparenty been little displacement of children as a result of the law. In 71 per cent of the textile mills in Ohio there has been no change in the numbers of children employed. The school records in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus show that more working certificates were issued each year following the enactment of the law than for the year immediately preceding the enactment of the law. In Cincinnati there were 2,856 issued in the first year and 3,348 in the second year, as against 2,053 during the year preceding enactment of the law. The factory inspector of Ohio reports almost twice as many children in the textile mills in 1911 as were reported in 1908, when the law went into effect. In Massachusetts after the aw of 1913 had been in operation three months 5,000 working certificates had been issued in Lowell, New Bedford, and Fall River alone, while there are only 5,400 children under 16 in these cities.

MEDICAL OPINION UPON THE EIGHT-HOUR DAY.

With the very dangerous results of millwork in mind, the American Medical Association at its meeting in Atlantic City in June, 1914, which was attended by 6,000 physicians from all over the United States, adopted the following resolution without dissent:

Whereas many thousands of children under 16 years of age are employed in the United States in gainful occupations, under improper conditions, resulting in the impairment of their health and future well-being; and

Whereas 19 States and the Congress of the United States, for the District of Columbia, have already enacted laws limiting the hours of labor for children under 16 to eight hours a day, and prohibiting such children from working at night or at dangerous occupations: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the American Medical Association, That we commend those States which have adopted legislation to protect children under 16 years of age from the disastrous consequences of unsuitable work and bad industrial conditions and urge all other States to establish for the benefit of such children a workday not to exceed eight hours and the prohibition of labor at night or in any hazardous employments; and to this end we recommend that all State medical societies affiiliated with this association, and the medical profession generally, advocate the passage of such laws by the legislatures of their respective States.

PHILADELPHIA COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY.

The Philadelphia County Medical Society at its meeting, April, 1914, adopted the following resolution:

Whereas the Pennsylvania Child Labor Association is striving to limit the labors of all children under 16 years of age to not more than eight hours per day, for six days each week, for the purpose of securing to each child in the Commonwealth his or her right to normal development along physical, mental, and moral lines: Be it

Resolved, That the Philadelphia County Medical Society, comprising a membership of nearly 1,700 of the leading active physicians of the county, hereby indorses and commends the efforts of the Pennsylvania Child Labor Association to limit the hours of labor of all children under 16 to not more than eight hours per day for six days each week, and urges that sister societies and the medical profession generally throughout the State do everything in their power to accomplish the desired end.

Not only does this resolution carry with it the indorsement of the 1,700 members of the society, comprising every man of influence and standing in the community in Philadelphia, but many of them have written personal letters strongly expressing their feelings on the subject of child labor. Among the better known from whom letters have been received are the following:

Samuel G. Dixon, M. D., Commissioner of Health of Pennsylvania: "I am very much in favor of anything that will permit the full normal development of our children. I indorse your suggestion of their not working more than eight hours a day under 16 years of age."

John H. Girvin, M. D.: “I believe that 10 hours a day for children under 16 years is undoubtedly injurious from both medical and physical standpoint in the vast majority of cases. Eight hours seems to me the outside limit, and I believe even less than that would be of advantage to the race."

Edward Martin, M. D.: “ From a medical and physical standpoint I consider that a 10-hour day is likely to prove injurious to the health of the average factory child between 14 and 16 years of age. I approve of an 8-hour limit for the employment of such children.”

Samuel McClintock Hamill, M. D.: “I would say that I believe a 10-hour day is likely to prove injurious to the health of the average factory child of from 14 to 16 years of age. I do unquestionably approve of an 8-hour limit in the employment of such children. I have just noted in a recent number of the Survey a very interesting and favorable report of the effect of the Massachusetts law. I am sure that this same result will follow in all of the States in which this 8-hour law is established."

William M. Welch, M. D.: "I do not see how anyone qualified to express an opinion could oppose the movement to secure the passage of an act that would limit the working hours of children under 16 years of age employed in factories to eight hours per day."

Charles J. Hatfield, M. D.: "I believe that the physical and nervous strain of a long-continued standing or sitting posture, together with the monotony of work, necessity for haste, incessant noise, etc., is most injurious to a growing child. There is absolutely no question from the medical standpoint that eight hours of labor for six days of the week should represent the extreme limit of time of employment.”

Samuel Wolfe, M. D.: "I think eight hours a day is as high a maximum of employment in a factory as can be accepted with the best and most useful future of the developing child of 14 to 16 in mind. That this future is one of the most important economic and social problems with which we are confronted needs no argument."

J. P. Crozer Griffith, M. D.: "I have always thought that the strain and long hours of school life were bad enough, but the confinement for 10 hours at continued labor for children of the age which it is now allowed is many times worse. There is no question in my mind that it undermines the constitutional strength of the child and prepares it for an adult life of diminished health. I thoroughly approve of the 8-hour limit for children and think that it should be enforced."

Henry D. Jump, M. D.: "I believe from the medical and physical standpoint that a 10-hour day is likely to bring injuries to the health of the average child between 14 and 16 years of age, and I am heartily in favor of any legislation which will limit the employment of such children to an 8-hour limit."

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Solomon Solis Cohen, M. D.: There can be no doubt that 10 hours' confinement in a factory is injurious to the health of children between 14 and 16. I approve of the 8-hour limit.”

Charles B. Penrose, M. D.: "I approve of an 8-hour limit for the employment of factory children between 14 and 16 years of age. I consider that a 10-hour day is very likely to prove injurious to the health of such children.“ Robert N. Wilson, jr., M. D.: “I thoroughly disapprove of the 10-hour day and believe that a shorter working period would be a benefit from every standpoint, including the physical. Diseases of women are no more likely to spring from overwork in children than are diseases of men. In either sex the bad results have been those of nervous and physical exhaustion--not, probably, those of localized disease."

Frederick Fraley, M. D.: “Having for more than 10 years been working in dispensaries devoted to children and to diseases and disorders of the nervous system, I am very strongly convinced that a 10-hour working day for children of factory age is distinctly injurious in its effects. Not only do we see the bad physical results in such overstrain, but with increasing frequency we meet with the nervous and physiological changes following impairment of the body system. I emphatically condemn the 10-hour day, and think an 8-hour day may be too long in certain occupations and individual cases.”

Francis W. Sinkler, M. D.: "I can not mention any specific case of illness resulting from overwork among children, but I have frequently observed with

regret the poor physique and the diminished strength and resistance to disease that these children working in factories exhibit. I have seen many such examples in my hospital service at the Episcopal Hospital, where the greater number of patients admitted are working in factories."

M. H. Bochroch, M. D.: " In my experience, which has been very large in the neurological branch of our science, a large number of the cures have been effected through rest. I want to impress upon you the fact that rest is the most potent factor, and if the hours were shortened, whilst the working time would be cut down two hours a day, it is the hour early in the morning when the child is not thoroughly satisfied with rest and the hour at night when the nervous system is at its lowest ebb that more damage is done than in the intervening hours. Now, while the percentage of the working hours may be but one-fifth less, the benefits accruing to the child are very large, and I emphatically approve of any measure or movement that will reduce the working hours of the child."

J. Morton Boice, M. D.: "Observations, as gynecologist of the out-patient department of St. Joseph's Hospital, force me to see the mischief that comes to children under 16, who are overworked, not only at this critical period of their lives, when their sexual existence is starting, but also at many times in their adult lives, when the serious displacement and other conditions which render life miserable are directly traceable to overexertion and long hours in the factory at a tender age. If children between 14 and 16 years of age must be employed in factories, I most heartily indorse the 8-hour limit."

Edward P. Davis, M. D.: "A 10-hour working day for the average child between 14 and 16 years of age is entirely too long. This is exactly the period of life where continued stress and strain should be avoided. Nothing could be worse for a child than the continued strain of factory work, with a brief interval for midday and the constant noise and disturbance of machinery."

R. Tait McKenzie, M. D.: "I am strongly of the opinion that every hour that can be taken from the length of the working day in growing children is a distinct gain for their health and efficiency in later life."

H. Howard Fussel, M. D.: "I have seen much of factory children in the Manayunk district. I know from this experience, and having worked among them for years as physician, that the long hours of labor at such a tender age are distinctly detrimental to their health. They are easy prey to infection; they become prematurely old; and the average child's health who has thus to work is distinctly interfered with. I do approve of an eight-hour limit for the employment of such children; even this is all too long."

Lawrence F. Flick, M. D.: "Many adults who go under with tuberculosis might have been saved if in their younger years they had been spared some of the hardships which they had been compelled to undergo."

Henry M. Fisher, M. D.: "Some years ago, while I was attending physician to the Episcopal Hospital, I was very much struck by the great frequency of heart disease among young girls who were employed in factories in Kensington, and was led to believe that overwork had much to do with the prevalence of this disease among growing children. I have also been struck with the frequency of tuberculosis among young girls employed in tobacco and cigar factories." Swithin Chandler, M. D.: "The man who employs them is the loser because of the inferior and indifferent work performed. The State and Nation is retarded in its economics, growth, development, and general enlightened progress.'

L. T. Ashcraft, M. D.: "As humanitarians, our attitude toward the subject of child labor should be unmistakably plain. It should be the sense of the community that they indorse the principles of the Paimer-Owen child-labor bill now pending before Congress, which, in brief, asks the Federal powers to prohibit children under 16 years of age from working more than eight hours a day, at night, or at hazardous and dangerous occupations, and, moreover, to demand sanitary conditions under which they may follow their several occupations."

EXTRACTS FROM SOUTHERN NEWSPAPERS, RELATING TO THE KEATING CHILD LABOR BILL.

In the Charlotte Observer, February 5, 1916, the following resolutions are published, adopted by the southern branch of the National Association of Hosiery and Underwear Manufacturers on February 4, 1916. The resolutions are printed here for the purpose of pointing out that the aid of the Congress is sought for the protection of these manufacturers in the matter of foreign

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commerce, while they protest against any interference by the Congress with Interstate commerce, in child-made goods:

"Whereas the almost complete cessation of certain commodities on account of the European war has forced the American manufacturers to invest millions of dollars in an effort to supply these deficiencies: Therefore be it

"1. Resolved by the Southern Knit Goods Manufacturers that the administration at Washington be earnestly requested to take immediate steps to formulate new laws or amend old statutes to prohibit the selling of foreign products in the American market at less than their market price prevailing in the country of their origin;

"2. Whereas the knit goods manufacturers of the Southern States are very seriously hurt by the operation of the blockade instigated by belligerents against the transportation from European countries to the United States and for consumption therein of noncontraband chemicals and dyestuffs: Now, therefore, he it

"Resolved, That it is the sense of this meeting that the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, and all Senators and Congressmen be informed that this branch of the textile manufacturing trade look to them for relief by demand on the belligerent powers to permit free intercourse with this United States of the said noncontraband articles, and that pending a settlement of this demand the United States take such measures as will speedily bring this about.

TARIFF COMMISSION.

"3. Whereas the American textile industry has suffered serious disadvantages. owing to the condition of the domestic dyestuff industry under the circumstances brought about by the present European war; and

"Whereas we feel this is in part due to the failure of our Government to have in the past a just tariff on dyestuffs: Be it

"Resolved, That this meeting of southern knit-goods manufacturers now assembled heartily indorse President Wilson in his proposal to establish a tariff commission, and that said commission fix a tariff that it finds to be equitable both to the textile manufacturer and to the life of the dyestuff industry.

"4. Following up our indorsement of the tariff commission, and in view of the fact that there will probably be unforeseen foreign competition in the knitgoods industry at the close of the European war: Be it

“Resolved, That this report referred to the commission recommend that the tariff commission, immediately after its establishment, consider the present knitgoods tariff with a view to making such amendments as the condition then warrant.

"5. Whereas our National Congress is now considering a measure known as the Keating-Owens bill, which is of special importance to the knit-goods industry : Be it

"Resolved, That it be the sense of this convention that

6. Whereas we, the southern knitters are opposed to anything detrimental to the health of the childhood of the South, still, in view of the fact that the bill in question has been supported by the presentation of distorted facts concerning the true conditions of the child labor in the South; and

"Whereas it is being handled in a way to excite factional unfriendliness: Be it

"Resolved, That this particular bill is not a proper solution of the child-labor question or offered in a proper time or in a proper way.

The following extract from the Tuscaloosa (Ala.) Times-Gazette, indicates what it is believed is the real attitude of the South toward child-labor reform: ASHEVILLE, N. C., February 5.-A. J. McKelway, secretary for the Southern States of the National Child Labor Committee, spoke here this evening on child labor on The South for Child Labor Reform. He said, in part:

"The South understands at last how it has been misrepresented and deceived and betrayed in the matter of child-labor reform. She declines any longer to allow the most reactionary employers of a single industry to arrogate to themselves the right to speak for her and claim that the South is attacked' when the effort is made to protect the helpless children of the Nation. She recalls that the first feeble efforts at child-labor reform were denounced as proceeding from New England emissaries of labor; that when a national committee was formed, representing all sections of the country, to solve by common counsel