The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1914-01-24
Schools Are Called Upon for
Observance Next Monday.
Problem to BE Put Up to the
Children Themselves.
MUCH WORK HAS BEEN DONE
But There Remains Much to Do
on Reformatory Lines.
Farm Work Still Unregulated
Except in Two States.

New York, Jan. X.-The child labor
problem will be put before the children
themselves throughout the country
this year for the first time. Tomorrow
has been designated as Child Labod
day to be observed as has been the
custom for the past ten years in regu-
La and special church. services gen.
orally. but new step has been taken
by the national child labor commit
tee in calling upon teachers through
out the country to observe next Mon
day as Child Labor day IN the schools.
The main idea is to get children to
think in their own behalf on the prob
lem of child labor. To this end the
national committee has been busily
engaged for a month past in supplying
teachers. as well as clergymen, with
the latest phases of the movement
against child labor. and proposes that
at chapel exercises or at some specially
designated period in Mondays school
work teachers shall in some manner
take up the subject of child labor with
their charges.
Interest taken in the matter is re-
Elected in requests which have lately
come in at the rate OF over 100 a day
for information. in reply to which the
national committee has distributed
quantities OF pamphlets on the relation
OF child labor to education. Indications
are that thousands Of teachers will
unite with clergymen in some sort of
Observance Of the day.
Since the first Child Labor day was
observed in 1906, such striking progress
has been made that the rank and file
OF states today have advanced beyond
the standard Of the most progressive
ten years ago. according to Owen r.
Lovejoy, general secretary of the ma
tional child labor committee.
Laws Have Been Revised.
The child labor laws of practically all
states have been revised and improv-
ed; knowledge as to the condition Of
working children has been widely
spread; the causes, effects and methods
of prevention of child labor have be-
come matters Of thorough scientific
study and treatment; a uniform child
labor law for the several states has
been widely approved. and the federal
government has put into successful OPP
Grafton q children's bureau.
But" Secretary Lovejoy adds, 1.-THE
white list of states with q really effec-
tive child labor law covering ten or
more or the common occupations of
children Is still very short-only IA
states in all, and even these leave GER
tain kinds of work outside of the
fourteen-year limit.
There are nine states which have
not yet reached q 14-year age limit
even for factory work; there is no
state in the union that has attempted
to got an age limit higher than IL
years Tor newsboys; and only seven
states have reached q standard of Fl
years age limit for night messengers.
Boys Of fourteen or less are still
employed at the peril Of their moral
and physical integrity in this night
messenger work in a score Of states
Lax Enforcement OF Laws.
Agricultural work is still entirely
unregulated outside of New York and
Tennessee, and children of tender
years are doing an adults work in the
berry fields and cranberry boys.
Many states that have made child
labor laws are not seeing that they
are enforced, and the national COM
mittee is now engaged in q careful
survey Of the methods Of administer
ing the law in the different states.
THE standard of inspection service
is steadily rising, but we fall far be-
low the English. There are half
tempt at inspection of labor conditions
and therefore no attempt to enforce
the child labor law. And there are
perhaps q score in which the staff of
inspectors is so ridiculously small that
thorough statewide inspection is
physically impossible"
The whole subject of the admins
tration OF child labor laws is to be
taken up at the national conference
on child labor which will be held in
New Orleans next March. Plans are
also under way for celebration of the
tenth anniversary of the organization
of the national child labor committee
which will be reached on April II.