The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-01

Exclusive service The Survey Press Bu- reau)
 A few months ago Justice Mckenna
 spea king for the supreme court Of the United states said: 'It must be kept in mind that we are one people and the pow CTS reserved to the states and those con- ferrel on the nation are adapted to be exercised. whether Independently or con- currntly, to promote the general welfare, material and moral"
 In the interest of this general welfare both material and moral, the national
 child labor committee has been leading
 forces for 10 years to abolish the inhu- man abuses of child labor. Evidence has
 been gathered and published showing lit
 tie children in coal mines. cotton mills,
 fruit and vegetable csnneries, oyster
 packing houses along the gulf coast, the
 sweat shops of our great cities and the glass factories of Pennsylvania and the
 middle west, and the public has become aroused to realize that child labor is a national extravagaSce as well as a na- tional disgrace.
 If newspaper publicity and denuncia-
 ton from the pulpit and platform could cure this evil it would already have dis appeared Unfortunately child labor is not a sectional abuse. It exists wherever in-
 dustries are of a nature to make it in- mediately profitable to the employed.
 Those who oppose child labor in the ab-
 stract are often quite as vigorous in fa- vorng or condoning it in the concrete. When it has come to the real issue the attempt to get effective state laws enacted-almost insurperable difficulties have been encountered. The industries af- fected have always opposed these meas ures on the ground that such laws would handicap them in competition with other states. This objection has always been
 unfounded because child labor is the most extravagant and wasteful kind of labor. Advanced laws enacted in New York, Massachusetts or Ohio have been due to the intelligence of the people, rather than to their virtue. The re- suits of such legislation have always proven it's economic wisdom. Neverthe- less the opposition to child labor laws is still quite as effective with many leg islative committees as though it were not founded on q fallacy.
 When fairly good laws have been se- cured in a given state the people of that state are helpless to protect themselves from purchasing goods produced by ex- ploiters of young children in neighboring states and shipped into local markets. The states are therefore powerless except by improbable, joint and simultaneous action to effectively prohibit child la bor.
 ic IldGOHGl cnllu ldDOr committee has become convinced that the only way in Which the evil can be banished from America is by striking at the privilege the eXploiters of child labor enjoy through ia cilities offered by interstate commerce. The forces opposed to child labor now call upon the federal government to for bid such facilities to these unfair task 
 There are those who contend that the federal government IS incompetent to do thls, who look upon our republic as a poltlcai expression of the Newtonian 'neory-a mechanism controlled by system or checks and balances. This theory has never been sound as applied to govern ment. It is preferable to accept the posi- non so strikingly annunciated by Presi- dent Wilson in his book. 'The New Free dom to interpret the constitution of the United States, according to the Dar- winian principle that a nation IS living thing and not a machine" With this point of view the abuse of child labor may be approached in the terms expressed by Justice Harlan of the United States supreme court in the case Champion V. Ames. He said: I've should hesitate long before adjudging that an evil Of such appalling character. car rled on through interstate commerce. cannot be met mad crushed by the only power eompe-eYs 0 that eDl''>