Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1915-11-16
CHILDREN 5 LAWS.
Forty-fve state and territorial leg.

! 1SIatureS ana the congress q the UNI
ed States in 1915 passed laws affecting
children, according to the Children s
Bureau of the United States Depart
ment of Labor, which has just complies
| ed its survey of such legislation dur
ing the current year. Special refer
ence is made to the impressive bulk
OF children's laws and to the number
Of commissions appointed to study and
prepare for future legislation.
Arkansas, Florida and Utah have
commissions to report on the needs
of the feeble-minded; New Jersey, a
commission to prepare a state pro-
gram for the reorganization of public
care of detectives, dependents and de-
linquents; Missouri and New Hamp-
shire, commissions on the needs of
the blind; Delaware, a commission on
vocational education; Idaho commits
sion on the need for a minimum wage
| law; Florida and Indiana, commissions
On the need for mothers pensions, ami
California, a commission to study So
cial insurance.
| The bureau says that the appoint
ment of these commissions indicates a
growing realization that benevolent in =
| tent can not safely be accepted as a
substitute for the careful formulation
of statutes for social betterment. The
subjects to which study is directed are
all of immediate concern to children,
and the states are thus fairly COM
mitted to policy of selecting and
harmonizing provisions which leads
plainly toward the collection and cod
| tying of all laws relating TO children.
AS showing the great amount of chill
dren's legislation the bureau says that
twenty-seevn states have amended
their provisions for dependent child
rem; eighteen have improved their
treatment of juvenile delinquents; six
! teen have strengthened their child la
Dor laws; fourteen have concerned
themselves with the needs of the men
tally defective and feeble-m minded;
bia were added to those specifically
permitting the use of public school
school buildings as social centers and
nine amended, or for the first time
| passed, playground law, and four
| states passed a model vital statistics
! law, in which the chuldren's bureau is
! Interested, because it considers COM
p.ete birth registration of fundamental
Importance to child welfare work
A few of the forty-fve states made
Lotable advances Alabama, for ex-
! ample, whose legislature meets only
once in four years, enacted new child
labor law, compulsory school attend
ance law, an excellent desertion AMI
ron-support law and a statewide juy-
emile court law. Florida remodelled
its treatment of Juvenile Gelinquent5,
recognized the principle of compulsory
school attendance, passed the model
vital statistics law, and appointed two
state commissions already referred %.
Kansas established an industrial COM
mission to regulate hours, wages and
ccnditions of work for women and min
ors, and a division of child hygiene in
the state board of health; it also enacl-
ed playground law and mothers
pension law. New Jersey and Wyom-
! ing passed comprehensive acts relat-
) ing to the care of dependent children
and Pennsylvania, carefully drafte
laws relating to child labor and voca-
tional education.
The children's bureau has included
lii its review the outlying territories
Ct the United States and reports that
Alaska has forbidden the employment
Ct boys under 16 in undergroun1
mines; Hawaii has passed a curfeW
law for girls under IS in Honolulu;
the Philippines have provided for den
tai clinics in the schools and created
a public welfare board to establish an
maintain social centers, and Ports
Eico Dacsad modpIp inVaDi G