The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-01-23

Little Jack, age 12, was working in a 1 bean cannery He got up one morning at 8 a. m. and shipped beans from 4:30 a. m to 70 D. m. with only few min utes for supper. My finger is broke, " he told the investigator He said he was awful tired, but his mother made ! him work. His sister, 10, could hardly keep her eyes open, and her mother scolded her constantly. The next morn ing the investigator found Jack sitting wrapped up in a big shawl with his black eyes sagging out of his head and his fingers done up in a dirty rag. They had pulled him out of bed at 4 o'clock, he said, and his sister cried, but they had to go or get a beating
 In the shrimp canneries, which are. if possible, worse than any others, the children in rush season work from 4 in the morning until 10 and Il at night No time is allowed for meals the work CTS must get them before they come and after they go.
 WHAT YOU USE
 In the glass factories the children work at night During the federal in- vestigation there were found to be two cases of recent death directly at tributed to exhaustion, due to double shift work in the furnace room Thou sands of children under 16 are engaged in the most dangerous of all occupa- tions-mining. You cannot be sure that the coal you burn was not mined where children are exposed to the ever pres ent danger of the occupation.
 Here is one example of the kind of work the children of the mines do; one 14-year- old boy sat day after day where the air is damp, and the boy had a bad cough at trap door 500 feet down the shaft and a quarter of a mile underground
 The purchases you make are deliv- cred to you in paper boxes made in factories where children work and the largest percentage of accidents are found right here. In spite of the ef- fort of the Cigar Makers union to pro- tect the child In the cigar factory where the work is unhealthy and car- ried on often in unsanitary conditions, many children are still employed
 And so the work goes on and the problem is only begun to be solved. It is obvious that the progressive state must protect the child and the only solution from the consumers point of view is the passage of the federal child labor law to prohibit the ship ment of interstate commerce of goods in the production of which children have been employed
 An eight-hour day and no night work in factories, were the law for children under 16 years old enforced, would eff feet 100000 children in the United States. If IA years was the limit in factories and F years in mines throughout the country more than 50,- 900 children now at work would be doing so, contrary to the primary standard of the child labor legislation.
 "In spite of the war and hard times,'' said owen R. Lovejoy, general secre- tary of the child labor committee the campaign against child labor made progress in this country last year, ac- cording to the annual report of the committee just published. Twenty states legislated against child labor last year, while only five states de- feated attempts to improve their laws and one passed a distinctly reactionary act
 The census of 1910 found 1,990.225 children between 10 and 16 at work in this country It is because these things are so that we are asking our friends to observe child labor day and remind the country that child labor in issue.
 In an article entitled, "Ten Years of Child Labor Reform in the, sSouth,' by A. J. McKelway. he says: External viz ilance in AS states is necessary to pre- vent the repeal of laws that have been passed at tremendous sacrifice of time energy and means"
 What is the answer? Uncle Sam.
 That's the answer-Uncle Sam. And when Uncle Sam says "thou shalt not" the shadow of the federal prison at Leavenworth or Atlanta falls athwart the would-be violator of the law. Child labor will become as fashionable as the tight skirt or any other relic of by gone days, once Uncle Sam decreesI it n he crime"