Evening star., 1915-01-24

shown by the 1910 census TO have been
found; and
the federal. state and local authorities
since 1910 to provide schools and
teachers in the regions of greatest
child illiteracy; and
3. To follow this preliminary publica-
ton by continuing publication of
current facts as to the building of
schools. increase in teachers and the
expenditure for such purposes in the
regions of conspicuous child ilHteracy;
and
To facilitate this work the committee
pledged it's cooperation.
~
The National Child Labor Committee
was organized ten years ago with a
membership of fifty. Today it has
between eight and nine thousand of
the most prominent men and women
of the country active in its campaign.
1t was started by a group Of persons
in various sections of the country, in
Guiding Felix Adler. Miss Jane Adams
and others of. similar zeal for the bet
terment of their fellows
They were called together at the re-
quest of Edgar Gardner Murphy of
Alabama. That state had one of the
first child labor laws in the country.
and it was repealed at the instigation
of northern owners of mills in Ala
bama. In 1900 he had organized an
Alabama child labor committee, be-
cause of the large number of very
small children in labama mills, and he
found his efforts to get better law
blocked by these manufacturing in
terests.
Mr.. Murphy spoke at the national
conference Of charities at Atlanta in
1903, and this for the first time brought
the question as problem demanding
solution to the minds Of social reform
ers throughout the country. He went
north to get the people interested in
the national movement, and as result
the national committee was organized
in 1904.
states which had prohibited employ
ment of children under fourteen years,
and these laws were mostly of the
dead-letter class for lack of machinery
to properly enforce them. Since then
every state in the Union has amended
it's laws on child labor. compulsory
school attendance, or both. until now
there are only six states which have no
fourteen-year limit for children in fac
tories
IL
states which have a fourteen-year limit
that is greatly weakened by exempttnp
canneries or allowing poor children
who need most the protection of good
child labor law, under fourteen years
of age to go to work. But the ma ajority
O all the states are enforcing four
teen-year limit in factories and mills
and canneries, and that is why the COM
mittee bel the time is ripe for fed
eral legislation to prohibit shipment in
interstate commerce of goods produced
by children under fourteen years in
these minority states.
A federal child labor bill, drafted by
the National Child Labor Committee. was
introduced in the House January 26,
1914, by Representative A Mitchell
Palmer of Pennsylvania, and in the
senate February 21, 1914, by Senator
Robert L. Owen of oklahoma This bill
proposes to deny interstate commerce
to the employers of children under
fourteen years of age in factories. un-
der sixteen in mines and omar
ries, and under sixteen in factories at
night, or more than eight hours a dav
All states but two have one or more of
these provisions, and nine have them
all. But individual states move SLOWLY
States where there is advance leeisla-
ton are handicapped in competing with
states that are backward. so there is a
deadlock which it is hoped to remove
by federal law.
Lewis w. Hine, who prepared the ex-
hibit for the worlds fair. after ten
years of preparatory work in the field,