Ecen to 10.12,8 B INTRODUCTION. This fifth annual issue of the Handbook reveals more clearly than its predecessors the utter lack of adequate protection for working children in the United States. Not merely does the recurring black list of states and territories in the schedules show what remains to be done in those states, it indicates that the United States of America, as a nation, fails to rank with the enlightened countries of Europe with England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Scandinavia-when classed according to its care of its working children. Indeed, it is with Russia rather than with these nations that the United States compares, for Russia also permits little children to work all night. The enlightened nations of Europe enact one law for the whole The Federal nation, leaving to the local authorities only the duty of enforce- Government. ment. The Congress of the United States enacts protective measures, for instance, for the benefit of the cotton and glass industries, but leaves the protection of the children in those industries to the legislatures, with the result that many thousand little boys, in many states, are left free to labor all night in glass works, while both little girls and little boys work all night in cotton mills in the southern states. The federal government does not even afford up-to-date information concerning the children. The census table given on p. 64 is now seven years old. The publication of this Handbook, year after year, by a volunteer organization, is a standing reproach. Far more appropriately might the Handbook have appeared for twenty years past, as a January bulletin of the Department of Labor or of the Deparin.ent of Education, or of both in co-opera tion. An important step forward will be taken, when Congress adopts the proposed bill for a Children's Bureau, for research and publicity, dealing with all conditions which affect the life, health, welfare and efficiency of the children of the nation. The bill is given on page 53. A second bill still pending before Congress provides for the working children in the District of Columbia. It is given in full in order that every reader of the Handbook may urge upon his or her senator and representative the necessity of voting for it, that the nation's capital may be removed from the black list and may become an example to the rest of the country. See page 53. The third bill now pending before Congress is the Beveridge crald labor bill (see p. 56), which proposes to exclude from interstate commerce all products of mines and factories which employ children under the age of fourteen years. This bill marks an epoch in the history of federal legislation. For the first time, the principle is embodied in a proposed law that children in Georgia, Florida or Alabama have the same right to childhood as children in Oregon or Illinois; that the nation accepts the task of safeguarding its future citizens against overwork in childhood, as it already protects How Laws are ୮ consumers against the transportation of poisons and adulterations in their foodstuffs. The present confusion of state laws inflicts cruel neglect upon children in states having least legislation. It is moreover unjust to employers in the enlightened states to subject them to the competition of industry in states which have no laws or sham laws protecting boys and girls. Attention is called to certain principles which should be avoided in framing new laws and amending old ones. The absence of a closing hour at night is a most serious weakness in a child labor law. No law affords real protection against nightwork-the greatest menace to the children-unless it fixes a definite end of the working day. This is also the only way to enforce laws restricting hours of labor by the day and by the week. Without a closing hour, all such restrictions are shams. Attendance at an evening school by working children under the age of sixteen years should never be prescribed or tolerated. This cruel and futile requirement was, during 1905, abolished in Massachusetts and replaced by the requirement that all children under sixteen years of age must be able to read and write in the English language before beginning to work. Unfortunately, the night school requirement, abolished in one state, was enacted in two others, and is now in force in nine states. The early escape from school leaves large numbers of children free to work too young. Thus eleven states have no compulsory school attendance law. In Maryland compulsory attendance. ends at the twelfth birthday in Baltimore and Alleghany County, and there is none elsewhere in the state; in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island it ends at the thirteenth birthday, and in seventeen states at the fourteenth. The end of compulsory school life is the beginning of toil. In eleven states where there are no officials there is no enforcement. Where officials exist they are often appointed for political reasons and removed with every change of administration. A black chapter of American history would be a full and truthful account of the removal of factory inspectors and labor commissioners by reason of faithful performance of their duty. No state has ever maintained a sufficient staff of officials for the perfect protection of its children. Inspectors insufficient in number cannot enforce the law, however faithful and competent they may be. Money for salaries, traveling and legal expenses is needed. Small appropriations (in some cases none whatever) indicate hostility to enforcement. The method of issuing working papers may contribute largely to weaken laws. Certain states have recently placed the issuance of "working-papers" in the hands of the factory inspectors. It is, however, the duty of inspectors to inspect, and to prosecute violations of the law. Everything which calls them away from the continuous performance of these two duties is an injury to the service. The appropriate officials for issuing "working-papers" are the local boards of health, in co-operation with the local boards of education. In this respect, the law of New York excels the laws of all the other states in proved efficiency, and may well be adopted as the standard. Notaries public and factory inspectors should be, in all cases, debarred from issuing "working-papers," and factory inspectors should be kept strictly to the tasks of inspection and prosecution. How far the present usage differs from this standard. may be seen by reference to the records of prosecutions in schedule Hb, and to the list of authorities issuing "working-papers" in schedule E. Faithfulness and skill on the part of officials who issue working-papers are as important as the same qualities in inspectors and truant officers. Affidavits of parent or guardian, still more their verbal or written statements, are utterly worthless. On this account the decision of Judge Staake, of the Philadelphia County Quarter Sessions, February, 1906, is the more to be condemned since it declared unconstitutional those sections of the Pennsylvania law which require proof of age and completion of an educational minimum. Instead of the documentary proof of age and the educational requirement which the legislature prescribed, such as other enlightened courts have held constitutional and desirable, the useless affidavit of parent or guardian is now accepted as proof of age in Pennsylvania. Certain industries have hitherto obtained exemptions for which there is no tenable basis. Thus, in Pennsylvania the glass industry has retained the privilege of employing boys of fourteen years all night, while other employers are restricted to nine o'clock. In Delaware, Iowa, Kentucky and Maryland canneries are exempted from the provisions of the law. This is particularly injurious for the children, because the busy season in this industry falls in the months of excessive heat, rendering work peculiarly exhausting. California exempts all agricultural, horticultural, viticultural or domestic labor during the time the public schools are not in session, or during other than school hours. This makes it possible to require children to do an unlimited day's work in addition to going to school, irrespective of their age. In every state in which domestic labor is exempted, a premium is placed upon work at home, and the sweating-system is fostered. Many child labor laws are seriously weakened by exemptions of classes of children who most need protection. Such are orphans, children of widowed mothers or disabled fathers, and those exempted by reason of poverty. This last term is so elastic as to amount, in many cases, to complete nullification of the intent of the statute. Colorado strengthens its child labor and compulsory education Adult laws by means of its adult delinquency law. This affords such Delinquency valuable protection to telegraph and messenger boys and many Law. other classes of young workers that it is given in full on p. 50, in the hope that all the states may adopt it as Illinois, Nebraska, Wisconsin and other states have already done. A great gain is the lengthening list of states which have an Recent Gains early closing hour for children to the age of sixteen years. This comprises Michigan, Oregon, Illinois, Kentucky, New York and Ohio. Michigan and Oregon fix six p. m., the other states seven p.m. During the past year, the District of Columbia adopted a compulsory education law and the following states changed their child labor laws: Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York. |