The Jersey City news., 1904-02-16
NO SESSION
LAST NIGHT
Legislature Adjourned Out Of
Respect to the Memory
of the Governors
Wife.
CHILD LABOR BILL COMES UP TODAY
Employers of Certain Glass
May Try to Amend It So
AS to Render It In.
effective.
CHILD LABOR BILL COMES UP TODAY
Ispecial to .'rhe Jersey City News."l

TRENTON, Feb 16 1904.-Owing to
the fact that the Legislature adjourned
it's sessions last night out of respect to
the memory of the wife of Governor Muir
ply, the business of the week will not be
undertaken until today. 1t is probable
that the sessions will extend over to to-
morrow, and that the consideration of
Senate bill No 6s will be one of the i'm
pertant features of the proceedings in the
House, if the measure is reported from
the Csmnsietee on Labor and Industries,
as II expected.
Senate No. 6S is the bill drawn by
John L. Swayze and sponsored by Sen
ator Bacheller to provide for the reor-
sganizstion, on the lines advocated by
'srhe WUrld,n of the present Department
of Factory Inspection. AS explained
yesterday, the bill will probably eneoun-
ter some opposition. Certain classes of
1uauuEAStugSfS nave pScH cN~NtAS tAO
Factory and Child-Laber laws in the past
with impuRity. The proposal to so con-
stitute the department that enforcement
of the laws will become an assurance,
wiA, as 8 matter of course, interfere with
the free rein given to the law violators,
and it is q natural consequence that they
will use whatever influence they possess
to block the progress of the bill. If they
cannot defeat the measure Altogether they
will attempt 10 loadrit down with amend
ments so that its real purposes will be
frustrated.
The friends of the reform movement
have been amply warned, however, and
if the schemes of the employers of m
fants and the enemies of the law in gen.
eral are successful it will be because the
legislators are mere amena Bile to selfish
influences than to the protest of united
public sentiment, backed by all the forces
of the press, the charities organizations
and the labor leaders.
The next stages of the bilps progress
will be closely watched and it's friends
and enemies in the Legislature will be
readily distinguished by their course in
connection with it.
Outside of the action being taken in
the Legislature, the State press has been
active and the result is an awakened
popular sentiment. The public school
authorities of several Of the larger cities
have had their attention directed to the
phase of the child-labor question that
may be met by the enforcement of the
Compulsory Education law.
Until now the city of Newark and the
town of Msntclair have been the only
municipalities in which the governing
bodies of the public school departments
seemed to realize the Importance of es-
tabhshing an attendance department.
The Newark attendance officers, though
clothed with limited powers, have taken
hundreds of children frem factories and
mhis and replaced them in the schools.
All these cases have been of children un-
der fourteen years, and in ecah instance
there had been a violation of the Child
Labor law involved. BY the activity of
its attendance officers the Newark School
Department has profted to the extent of
many thousands of dollars each year by
the increased proportion which the city
Aas shown itself to be entitled to in the
apportionmeRt of the State school funds.
The new~Child- Labor bill will enable
the school authorities and the State De-
partment of Labor to work in unison in
the enforcement both of the law prohib-
iting the employment of children under
fourteen and that compelling attendance
at school of all children under the same
age.
Jersey City, which has never had an
attendance bureau, has about decided to
establish one. The officials have recent
ly been taking lessons from Chief Atten-
dance officer Charles A. MacCall. of