The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1905-01-24
Made g
Man
of Me.
The Problem of Child Labor.

The almost insuperable difficulty of
an equitable adjustment of a law reg
ulating child labor is beyond denial;
but that such regulation is necessary
is indisputable. The proper place
for children is the home, supplement-
ed by the schoolroo mand the play
ground. Their employment in shops,
factories, mills and stores is a social
danger and an economic mistake.
In the United States there are
about 100000 children under 16
years of age engaged in gainful oc-
cupations. This is about one in
every fifteen of the entire number
of people so employed. But in
any consideration Of the evils of the
system this statement requires
modification. One-half of that num-
Der are reported as employed in ag-
riculture, probably represented large
ly by the farmers boy, and even the
farmers girl, who earns few dollars
in the course of year by aiding in
the work on the home place or by a
certain number of hours of labor for
neighboring farmers. 1t probably
includes the boy who plants corn,
the girl who picks berries and the
pickaninny who gathers few pounds
of cotton.
1t is this feature which INTRODUCES
one of the serious difficulties in the
matter. The work Of this group is
occasional rather than persistent. 1t
does not deprive the children of
schooling nor does it rob them of all
hours of play. Perhaps in majority
of cases it is beneficial rather than
injurious to the children. In any
attempt to legislate for the removal
of the evils of the general system
there arises the difficulty of diferen-
tiation this group and 8ooS. ETA
tiation between this group and those
children whose employment in me-
chanica! branches of industry is an
admitted injury. A sweeping law
which declared that no child under
IS years of age should do any work
whatever would be only a little bet
ter than an open law which permitted
the employment of such children at
any and all tasks.
Another difficulty lies in the fire.
quent necessity for the employment
of children in order that the families
of which they are members may live
without charitable assistance. A
poorly paid man or one who mas be-
come physically ineapacitated by ILL
ness or by injury may need the earn
ings of his children to keep his en-
ire family from becoming a bur-
den on the public.
Child employment as system,
however, is utterly wrong. Its evils
are both social and econon'c. The
evidences of injury resulting to the
victims Of the system are obvious.
Dwarfted physically and stunted
mentally by daily confinement in
mills and factories. such children be-
come a menace to the social organ
ism. The influences which make for
race deterioration are sufficient in
in number and in force without this
most serious Of them all. In the
economic domain child labor often
supplants that Of adults because of
its cheapness. i. thousands Of in
stances it is at best an utterly fall
,acious policy. In many others it
is little short of pernicious.
The regulation of the matter is in
the hands Of the individual states,
and it is difficult if not impossible
to include it properly within the
scope of federal legislation State
laws vary from fairly stringent rules
in some districts to no rules at all in
others. Uniformity of these rules
on a basis of the highest wisdom is
perhaps beyond hope Labor union
ism claims activity in that direction,
and there was organized a few