The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1913-01-31
CHILD LABOR EVIL
Trade UnioniStS Opposed to En-
pIoyment of Children.
LOWER STANDARD OF WAGES.

HWSTISdH TSuSTdtIoH WouIu haiSe age
Limit to Eighteen Years-Trend OF
Public Sentiment FaVors Movement
The Tenement Problem.
Frank Morrison, secretary of the
American Federation of Labor, in the
course of an interview in New York
said:
1.-THE American labor movement has
always been active in attempts to pre-
vent by legislation and otherwise the
enslavement of little children in the
treadmills of labor
"The men and women who compose
our trade unions have double interest
in this matter" he said ut is gener-
ally their children who fill the army of
little workers, and it is their wages
that suffer from the competition of the
underpaid children. The American
Federation of Labor has for years been
constant in its efforts to secure laws
that would raise the age limit for
working children, and we will never
cease our efforts in that direction until
written upon the statute books of ev
cry state in this union are laws forbid
ding the employment of boys or girls in
any kind of manual wage labor under
the age of eighteen.
"Of course, we do not expect to Sc
cure this high age limit in all states at
once, but we shall keep at the work,
getting the most favorable law we can
and not being satisfied until we reach
our ideal
Il am glad to say that the trend
throughout the country is for laws that
will give the children better protection
and will also give them improved OPP
portunities for education. Where we
find it difficult to secure a child labor
law we exert our efforts to secure the
passage of compulsory educational
laws, thus to some extent reaching the
same end by another route. Along with
our agitation for better educational
laws we are making at present a strong
campaign for the vocational education
of our children in the public schools.
1.-THE American Federation of Labor
has had a special committee and eX-
perts working upon this proposition for
long time and the report made by
that committee was 50 thorough and
made such an appeal to the reasoning
mind that the United States senate in
its session last winter ordered that it
be registered among the governments
public documents
1.-The claim that one often hears to
the effect that preventing children
from working is a hardship upon the
parents of those children is not well
founded. Those making such claim
have either direct personal interest or
have given but superficial study to the
subject While there may be a tenn
porary gain to a family whose chill
dren are working for wages, in the
long run the parents suffer by the
lower standard of wages resultant
from the competition of the cheap
labor of the children.
in every instance where, through
legislation the children have been
barred from an industry, substantial
benefits have been reflected upon those
engaged in the industry who are gen
orally the parents of the children de
barred. The coal mining industry pre-
sents a convincing example of the
truth of this statement.
when the coal mining states adopt
ed laws fixing the age limit at sixteen
years, as most of them have, the mine
owners found it necessary to employ
men on their breakers and for other
forms of mine work formerly perform
ed by boys under sixteen and even as
young as eight years.
IL agree with others that the most
difficult phase of this child labor prob
lem is to he found in the work of the
children Of the tenements, and that the
only way that such work can be stop
ped is to adopt law prohibiting all
kinds of commercial work by adults
or children in homes.
"Twenty-iye years ago the cigarmak-
ing industry of the city of New York
was spread throughout its tenement
houses and not only were men and wo-
men engaged at it, but children who
were Old enough to sit propped up on
the floor stripped tobacco leaves. The
international Cigarmakers' union be
gan and carried forward to a success
full issue a campaign not only against
the work of these little children. but
against the manufacture of cigars in
tenements The men ut the head Of that
organization realized that as long as
cigarmaking was permitted in the
homes of the tenement dweIlers so
long would the little children be com
PEELED to contribute their mite to their
manufacture"