The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1913-12-26
CHILD LABOR AND THE
MINIMUM WAGE LAW
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Continued from Page One.)
gainful occupation other than domestic
service or farm labor for more than
AS hours in any one week, including
at least four hours at attendance at
continuation schools.
Every employer shall allow all min
or employees a reduction in
hours of work of not less than the
numbers of hours the minor is by this
section required to attend school,"
The subjects taught in the continual
ton schools include instruction in
English, citizenship, business practice,
physiology, hygiene and the use of
safety devices.
Two of the greatest authority on
labor conditions say, of this system
of shorter day for working children:
at is in the extension of the half-time
system that we are likely to find the
most effective check on child-labor.
We have already seen reason to be-
lieve that the only way in which prop
er technical training can now be Sc
cured for the great mass of the people
is by their deliberate instruction in
educational institutions. Child-labor
would then be less profitable to en-
ployers, and would tend to be used by
them only for its legitimate purpose
of training up new generation of
adult workmen. To prevent parasit-
ism, in short, we must regard the boy
or girl, not as an independent wealth.
producer to be satisfied by daily
subsistence, but as the future citizen
and parent, for whom, up to 81, proper
conditions of growth and education are
of paramount Importance"
We now come to the enforcement
of the law. Any law on our statute
books which is applicable only to the
conscientious employer who is unwill-
ing to resort to devices for the evasion
of law, is a poor law. The conscienti-
interested in the human element of
his economic output. and not the ma
terial element alone. He is the one
there is the least need of legislating
for. 1t is the man whose social ethics
have been dwarfted by his desire for
economic gain who must be met by
social legislation
The child who has been taught to
be truthful irrespective of the cost,
will find that the child working along
side of her is escaping the penalty of
no longer being minor-the penalty
of losing her job-because of her de-
claration, or the declaration of her
parents that she has not yet reached
her eighteenth birthday although that
birthday may have passed several
months ago. Some proof must be fur
nished in the form of a school certi-
tainable, to make such a law appli-
cable in all cases.
Another question arising respecting
the enforcement of laws is this: How
can you expect the laws of this state
to be enforced-laws relative to wom-
en- and children-when we allow by an
act of legislation but one woman, who
is the assistant labor commissioner
of this state, to enforce them? Were
she to visit every city in this state
where women and children are en-
ployed in industries, but once, her time
would be filled, and the funds at her
command exhausted. The city of Sc
attic alone furnishes a sufficient field
of work for one officer How made
quate the provision of the law must be
when you consider she has the whole
state to cover.
l would like to suggest that the
women who are interested in these
social questions, especially the child
labor question, familiarize themselves