The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1914-08-07

| Ten Years War Shows the Pressing
Need For National as We'll as State
Law-"State Rights Cannot Justify
children's Wrongs"
OWEN r. LovEJoY in Survey.
A few months ago Justice McKenna,
speaking for the supreme court of the
United States, said, 1T must be kept
in mind that we are one people and the
powers reserved to the states and those
conferred on the nation are adapted to
be exercised. whether independently or
concurrently, to promote the general
welfare, material and moral"
In the interest of this general well
fare, both material and moral, the ma
tional child labor committee has been
leading forces for ten years to abol
ish the inhuman abuses of child labor.
If the newspaper publicity and de-
nunciation from the pulpit and plat
form could cure this evil 1t would al
ready have disappeared. Unfortunate
ly child labor Is not sectional abuse.
1t exists wherever industries are of
nature to make it Immediately profit
able to the employer. Those who OPP
pose child labor In the abstract are Of
ten quite as vigorous in favorlng or
condoning it in the concrete.
When it has come to the real issue
the attempt to get effective state laws
enacted-almost insuperable difficult
ties have been encountered. The in
dustries affected have always opposed
these measures on the ground that such
laws would handicap them in compet-
ton 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, Massachu
sets and Ohio have been due to the in
telligence of the people rather than to
their virtue. The results Of such leg
isation have always proved its eco
nomic wisdom.
When fairly good laws have been
secured in a given state the people of
that state are helpless to protect them
selves from purchasing goods produced
by exploiters of young children in
neighboring states and shipped into To-
cal markets. The states are therefore
powerless except by improbable joint
and simultaneous action effectively to
prohibit child labor.
The national child labor 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 the facilities offered by
interstate commerce. The forces op-
posed to child labor now call upon the
federal government to forbid such IA
cilities to these unfair taskmasters.
There are those who contend that
the federal government is incompetent
to do this, who look upon our republic
as a political expression of the New
tonian theory-a mechanism controlled
by system of checks and balances.
This theory has never been sound as
applied to government. 1t is prefera-
Bile to accept the position so strikingly
annunciated by President Wilson in
his book, 1.-The New Freedom"-'"To in
terpret the constitution of the United
States according to the Darwinian
principle, that a nation is a
| living thing and not 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 of Champion versus Ames. He
said. I'VE should hesitate long before
! adjudging that an evil Of such appall-
ing character. carried on through in
terstate commerce. cannot be met and
crushed by the only power competent
/ to that end
A bill carefully drawn. forbidding
the privileges of interstate commerce
1 to manufacturing Adjustments In
which children under fourteen years of
age are employed or in which children
under sixteen are compelled to work
more than eight hours a day or during
the night or to mines and Quarries in
ployed at any time. was presented to
number OF prominent lawyers ana 70
state and federal officials conversant
with the custom and practice in these
matters and finally placed in the hands
of Hon. A. Mitchell Palmer Of Penn
sylvania. who introduced the bill in
the house of representatives, and OF
Senator Robert L. owen of Oklahoma
who introduced the bill in the senate.
Already a number of state and ma
tional organizations have given the
measure their Endorsement, testifying
to their belief in the principle so en-
phatically stated by Abraham Lincoln
that 1.-The Union is older than the
states" 1t is gratifying to record that
the state child labor committee first to
indorse this bill met under the shad-