The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1916-06-10
SCOTT NEARING DISCUSSES CHILD
POVERTY AND CHILD DELINQUENCY

j. BY SCOTT NEARING.
t. Professor Of Economics, University
- Of Toledo.
The Keating-Kenyon resolution CAL
ling for an investigation into the ex-
tent of child-poverty In the United
States is made specially timely by the
accommodating weight of evidence that
child-poverty is the fertile ground for
vice and crime.
A Chinese proverb holds that
"Crime begins in proverty." Most re-
cent social investigations lend an ever
growing emphasis to our belief in the
correstness Of this statement.
The home surroundings under
which many boys and girls grow up
furnish a wholly satisfying explana-
ton of the lives Of crime and vice into
which the children fall. The fariest
flower Is ruined if it is dragged in the
mire. Children cannot hope to learn
decency in homes where a recent re-
port on the poor children Of a great
American city-"Many have no beds
to sleep in. They cuddle together on
hard floors" Another investigation
reports an entire family living in one
room; a man, wife, three children and
two boarders eating and sleeping in a
kitchen and one bedroom: a father.
mother and four children asleep in
one bed, and sharing the room with
another family. Similar conditions
force themselves upon our attention
from the pages of every recent study
Of standards of living, leaving no
doubt in the mind Of the thoughtful
observer that the children brought up
under such frightful surroundings
must necessarily express this fright
fulness in their lives.
Investigators who have looked up
the girls and boys committed to re-
formatories and houses Of refuge are
unanimous in their conclusion that
the child delinquent is usually the
product of poor home surroundings.
Among the children committed to
our great New York reformatory
school for girls, no one came from a
home where the father was earning
more than a. thousand dollars year.
The study made of the last one thous-
and girls committed to a Pennsy1-
vania House Of Refuge for girls
showed that no father had been earn
ing more than $500 year at the time
the girl was committed. These girls
were committed in the great majority
Of cases for immortality. Apparently,
miserable homes are the recruiting
ground for commercialiZed vice.
These and other similar fragmentary
facts are combined into a powerful in
dictment of poverty by the senate
vice committee Of the Illinois 1egisla-
ture. AS a result Of careful investi-
cations and analysis, this committee
places itself on record as believing:
First, "That poverty is the principal
cause, direct and indirect of prostitu-
ton" Second, 'That thousands Of
girls are driven into prostitution be-
cause of the sheer inability to keep
wages received by them" Third,
THAT thousand' of girls are forced
into industrial employment by the low.
wages received by their fathers; that
they are separated from from proper
home influences at an excessively
early age; that they are fnadeQuate1y
schooled and are insufticiently pro-
tected; and that many of them be-
come recruits for the system of pros
titution.''
'Your committee has found no dis
agreement as to the effect of the fam
lily life and standards on the morals
Of the growing children. That any
causes with tendency to reduce
home standards and to destroy fam
lily circles will promote vice and pros
titution is unanimously accepted as
true reasoning by all students of the
problem and by all of the witnesses
appearing before this committee and
questioned thereon. It must logically
follow that any wage inadequate to
the proper sustenance Of a normal
family of husband, wife and children
will inevitably promote immortality
and prostitution
The committee found further:
'That the highest standard Of morals
exists among the girls in high schools,
colleges and universities Of the state"
At the same time the committee was
unable to learn of a single prostitute
in any city in Illinois who had come
from a home "of even modest pros
perity." Poverty, squalor and wretch
edness are straight paths to iniquity.
Interpose ''homes of even modest
prosperity or high school or college
education, and the proportion Of vici-
BUSINESS and criminality drops to a
minimum.
The American fact now available
bear out the truth Of the Japanese
saying: Man cannot maintain his
standard Of morals when he has no
ordinary means Of living" It is time
that the American people learned the
extent to which child delinquency is
the direct outcome of poverty.
Senator Kenyon and Representa-
tive Heating have introduced into the
senate and house resolutions aimed at
child poverty. The authors Of these
bills are to be congratulated on having
turned their attention to one of the
most vital American social ills.
Child poverty is not new in the
world. England had her share Of it
for more than a century. Charles
Dickens protested against it. Thomas
Carlyle denounced it. When the Boer
war opened, and the call made for re-
cruits, the English nation suddenly