Arizona sentinel and Yuma weekly examiner., 1914-04-30
WHAT DO AMERICAN PEOPLE
 WANT FOR THEIR CHILDREN?

"If the sawmill men of your state had always used mules and it was pro- posed that they should give up using mules and use oxen instead; and Ii they agreed that it would be better to Sse oxen and a law should be intro duced to compel them to substitute the oxen for mules; and then, if they did everything in their power to defeat the law, wouldn't you think that they WANTED to use mules?" This para ble of the opposition to child labor law which he has met in his experience is quoted from Wiley H. Swift in THE SURVEY for April 11th in the course of a note on the Tenth National Con ference on Child Labor recently held in New Orleans. The note is publish ed under the caption, What Do Amer ican People Want for Their Children" and the writer says:
 "The fight against child labor will enter on it's second decade with in creased vigor, a wider outlook and new method, if the spirit and the sub stance of the Tenth National Confer ence on Child Labor are a fair indica- tion of the future.
 "One member of the National Child Labor Committee staff who has attend ed all these conferences with one eX- ception put it tersely: These people have set their teeth against child labor. They are in for a fight to the finish And, as Jane Addams said in her ad- dress to the mass meeting in Lafayette Square, attended by some 1000 people besides the 1000 whom the mayor had arranged to seat: When people, are willing to stand through child labor speeches, child labor is doomed.'
 'Is the New Orleans public typical? Does the spirit of the leaders gathered in conference reflect the temper of the American people? Or is their fighting blood aroused by increasingly insistent opposition to good child labor laws?
 1.-TWO little incidents at the confer ence do not answer these questions, but they do war nus against an indo- lent optimism. Photographic news was received from four legislatures, and from two of these states came word Of defeats on the firing line. Owen R. Lovejoy's review of the needs and ac- tivities of the committee showed how the activities-investigatiOn, publicity, | legislative campaigns and study of en- forcement-had been restricted in scope and hindered in efficiency by the failure of the rank and file of the | thoughtful, well-to-do people to supply | the wherewithal for a sufficient staff. |
 Less time than usual was devoted to a description of child labor, but cer- tain unforgettable impressions on the subject were made rather incidentally i by Ella Haas and Pauline Neuman, | who had been child workers them 0SA'O0, ohu py hOMIS w. I1lu6 WILL his stereopticon lecture on the high | cost of child labor.
 ''The indigent widow, the uninter- esting teacher, the misfit curriculum, | the parent who does not control his | children, the employer of cheap labor, | the inspector who does not know how | to inspect, the judge who is out of ] touch with the new industrial con- sciousness, the editor who adds to | the general inertia by drifting with the majority, and ourselves, the great i American people who pass laws and let them die-all these came in for a | share of the discussion. The old three cornered fight between the employer, the reformer and the legislator is still on, and it no longer occupies the cen ter of the stage.
 There was a pretty general feeling that the motive for the effort to core late these scattered erring elements should be found not so much in pity for the physical harm wrought by child labor as in a keener sense of the sunting of the spirit. The loss in ar tistic and creative power was touched | on by Jane Addams, the degradation of citizenship by Felix Adler. AleXan- der Johnson made the statement that unless girls are to be mothers of a