The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-01-30
EDWARD T. DEv1NE

EDWARD T. DEvINE
 General Secretary New York Charity
 Organization Society,"
 ilE1xclusfye Service Charities and The
 Commons Press Bureau.)
 GA hill to establish the Federal Chill dfen's Bureau has been introduced in Congress by Herbert Parsons of New York, known as H. R Bill 2414S. and has been referred to the committee on Expenditures in the Interior Depart Tnent. MT, Devine's discussion of the necessity for the bureau is made par ticularly timely by the interest aroused in this new bilL)
 The facts concerning the chaotic and, even yet, on the whole backward con- dition of the legislation on the subject of children in our several States, speak very eioquentIy of the need for further public senlightenment. The existing Bureau Of Labor, Census Bureau, Blu .reau of Public Health and Marine Hospital Service. and Bureau of Edu- action, all have certain limited and fragmentary responsibilities for the welfare of the nations children.
 Even these responsibilities, however. might be discharged far more cOm- pletely if they were concentrated. The labor of children enters into the rela- tiOns between employer and employe,
 
 condition of labor with which the Fed- eral Bureau of Labor deals, but this very fact Is anomalous and dep1orable. There should be no such thing as child labor, and while it exists 1t should have the serious attention of the gov ernment, not as a, normal condition to be investigated and regulated like adult labor in mines and factories. but as an abnormal and temporary condi- ton to be eliminated as speedily as possible. It should be investigated and dealt with not as an industrial or commercial problem, but as one af- fecting the very life and well being of the race, as a problem of health, edu- cation, morals and social economy. With all recognition of the usefulness of such partial and sporadic attention as the Labor Bureau has been able to give the subject, it is obvious that the interests of children are literally of vital, national concern and that they should be approached from quite an other point of view than that from which strikes, wages and the condi- tions of adult labor are appropriately treated. Nor does the Census Bureau serve the purpose which a bureau or children would serve. The collection of certain very limited, statistical in Formation at stated periods is of value Unfortunately we have not much of it,
 
 it appears. Slow and anticipated meth ods of making available the results of inyeStigationS of the Census Bureau in this field go far to destroy what value they might otherwise have, and the scope of such inquiries as have been made is so narrow as to leave us in helpless and huniliating ignorance. Quantitive investigations may be made by the Census Bureau, but we need 9 children's bureau to determine what information is desirable and to con slider what to do after it has been ob- tained.
 The rudimentary Bureau of Public Health in the Treasury Department commands constantly increasing re- spect for it's work in controlling epi- demics and it's scientific inquiries in various directions, notably, for exam pie, in it's current investigation of the hook worm If this bureau should eventually outgrow the limitations inn posed by it's origin in the Marine Hos pftal service, and should become in reality bureau of public health, it