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 establishments of keeping children under sixteen years of age late on Saturday nights and for the four days preceding Christmas shall be withdrawn. 3d. An educational test, viz., the ability to read and write simple sentences in English, 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 required to furnish satisfactory proof of the claim.

MRS. CARL BARUS,
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 providing 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 therefore 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 two of the school medical inspectors to the work of examining each child who applied for a certificate. While the physical examination was necessarily 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 permitting 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 reported 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 usefulness 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 requirement 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 before 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 nine hour day.

There is increasing dissatisfaction felt with the exemption of newsboys 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 reduction in the number of permits issued results from the dangerous employment 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 replaced 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 inspectors and they seem to be thoroughly needed.

In closing it should be said that the cause of child labor in Wisconsin 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.

EDWARD 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, 1909, and will reach the standard of fourteen in January, 1910. 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 introduced by Representative J. W. Hinsdale, of Raleigh, going farther than these proposals in the line of child labor reform, but the result is problematical. 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 predecessor did.

South Carolina.

The South Carolina Legislature is also in session. One or more amendments have been offered to the child labor bill, and a compulsory school attendance bill has also been introduced. As already noted, the cotton manufacturers 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 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, advocated 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 advocated 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.

1See pp. 63-72.