The daily sentinel., 1914-01-24
CHILDREN Of nation WILL PASS
UPON The CHILD LABOR PROBLEM
Associated Press

Associated Press.
New York. Jan. 24.-Thp 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 Labor day to be observed as
has been the custom for the past ten
years in regular and special church
services generally. but a new step has
been taken by the National Child
Labor committee in calling upon
teachers throughout the country to
obserce next Monday as Child Labor
uay in the schools.
The main idea is to get children
to think in their own behalf on the
problem of child labor To this end
the national committee has been bus
| lily engaged for a month past in sup
plying teachers, as well as clergymen.
with the latest phases of the move
ment against child labor, and pro-
poses 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 rela-
ton of child labor to education In
dicatlons are that thousands of teach
ers will unite with clergymen in some
sort of observance of the day.
Since the first Child Labor day was
observed in 1906, such striking pro-
gress has been made that the rank
and file of states today have ad
vanced beyond the standard of the
most progressive ten years ago, ac-
cording to Owen X. Lovejoy. general
secretary of the National Child La
Dor committee.
The child labor laws of practically
all states have been revised and inn
proved; knowledge as to the condi
tions of working children has been
widely spread; the causes, effects
and methods of prevention of child
labor have become matters of thor
ough scientific study and treatment;
a Uniform Child Labor law for the
several states has been widely ap-
proved, and the federal government
mas put into successful operation a
children's bureau
But" Secretary Lovejoy adds,
the white list of states with a re-
ally effective child labor law cover
ing ten or more of the common occu-
pations of children is still very short
only IA states in all. and even
these leave certain kdinds of work
outside of the l4-year limit.
There are nine states which have
not yet reached a 14-year age limit
even for factory work; there is no
state in the Union that has attempted
to get an age limit higher than II
years for newsboys; and only seven
state has reached a standard of 21
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 scors of states.
| Agricultural work is still entirely
unregulated outside of New York
and Tennessee. and children of ten
| der years are doing an adults work
in the berry fields and cranberry
bogs.
| MANY states that have made child
labor laws are not seeing that they
are enforced and the national COM
mittee is now engaged in a careful
survey of the methods of administer
ing the law in the different states.
THE standard of inspection serv-
ice is steadily rising, but we fall far
below the English. There are half
a dozen states in which there is no
attempt at inspection of labor condi-
tions and therefore no attempt to en-
force the child labor law. And there
are perhaps score in which the
staff of inspectors is so ridiculously
small that thorough statewide in
spection 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 heli
In New Orleans next March. Plans
are also under way for celebration
of the tenth anniversary of the or
ganization of the National Child La
Dor Committee which will be reached
| on April IA.