The Oskaloosa herald., 1907-01-24
BEVER|DGE TALKS
ON CHILD LABOR
SEES IN THE CUSTOM FUTURE
RACE DEGENERATION.
URGENT APPEAL TO HUMANITY
EngIand's Sad Experience Should Be
Warning to America-Work in
Sweat-Shops Dwarfs Soul
and Body.


feature of the days session today was
The speech of Senator Albert ]. Bev-
eridge, in support of the "Beveridge
Bill to prohibit the labor of children
in mines AID factories and sweat
shops. The galleries were filled with
visitors, and the address throughout
was accorded the closest attention.
Senator BeVeridge in part said
The census shows that nearly g.
100000 child breadwinners under Is
years of age are now at work. Of
these, almost 100000 are engaged in
work other than agriculture. Child
labor on the farm is good. This does
not strike at that. 1t strikes only at
child slavery in factories, mines, and
sweat shops.
Appalling as the census figures are
they are much below the truth Men
and women who have given years of
painstaking investigation to this evil.
testify that only a part of little chill
dren at work in factories, sweat shops
and mines and in other like indus
tries were returned by the census
enumerators.
Race Degeneration.
IF these children. do not die, but
grow up into manhood and woman
hood, they become enemies of society.
do not blame them. They know
that they are not the equals of their
fellows in body, mind, or soul; that
their bodies are dwarfed, crooked,
and weak; their minds dull and cloud.
ed; their souls darkened and vicious.
Physicians testify that nervous ex-
haustiOn, produced by child labor in
factories, sweat shops, and mines, not
only stunts growth but produces a
nervous irritation which calls for
liquor and tobacco, and causes still
another vice worse than either.
English Degeneration.
What this means to the future of
the Nation is before us in an example
which has startled the world-the de-
terioration of the British people re-
vealed by the Boer war. When the
forty millions who inhabit England,
Ireland, Scotland, and Wales were
called upon to furnish an army to
meet $4,000 Boer farmers in South At
rica, an average of 80 per cent of all
recruits were rejected for reasons of
physical and nervous inferiority. The
inspector-general reports that from 40
to go per cent were unfit for military
duty. Under size, narrow chest, bad
teeth, decayed nerves, bad vision, and
all the other evidences of race inferi-
ority were the causes or rejection.
Cause Of English Degeneration.
"The situation became a world
scandal, and Parliament appointed a
commission to inquire into the causes
Of this decline of the English people.
I hold the report of that commission
in my hand. 1t is voluminous, mi
mute. unsparing. 1t shows that the
conditions of factory life, universal
use of alcoholic liquors insufficient
nutrition, vicious living, poverty, and
other like causes produced the physi-
cal inferiority of people who, his
torically speaking, were only yester-
day the strongest men and women in
the world.
Warning to People of the South.
This word to our southern broth
ers, and it is a word of doom. While
the white working people Of the South
composing the enormous majority
of the entire white stock Of that Sec
tion-are increasingly sending their
children to the mills and thus wreck
ing the future of the white race, the
negroes of the South are increasing
ly sending their children to school,
and thus improving the future of the
black race. We are deliberately weak
ening the white race of the South,
while gradually strengthening the
black race of the South.
The Bill Constitutional.
"The bill is constitutional. 1t pro-
hibits the transportation in interstate
commerce of the products of child la
Dor. The power of Congress over in
terstate commerce is absolute. 1t in
wolves the power to prohibit the trans
portation of any article which, In the
opinion of Congress, ought to be pro-
hibited. This is no longerr open to
argument. 1t has been expressly set
tied by direct decisions of the Supreme
Court. Those who raise the familiar
cry of 'unconstitutionality" must at
tack the decisions of the Supreme
Court.
"How strange that the Constitution
is always invoked to prevent every re-
form helpful to humanity and hurtful
to great financial interests! How
(COntinued on Pare az