The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-04-10
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORM ALTON
Blu RE AU
FREDERIC =. HAsKIN. Director.
Waahingtoa. d. c.
THE NEW CHILD LABOR LAW.
wa.hingta, d. C

manner in which congress recently
passed another federal child labor
law. The new law is tackled to the
enc of the revenue bill. and is so tech
nically correct, according to one of its
trainers. that the supreme court is
going to have a hard time proving it
unconstitutional.
"Of course, congress believes that
the supreme court will try to prove
it unconstitutional if it gets a chance"
declared one of the savantS the other
day, fitting back his chair and placing
his feet firmly on the top of his desk.
You can't convince congress that the
supreme court ever has anything but a
personal motive of revenge when it
declares n law unconstitutional If
you want to make a congressman an
enthusiastic adherent of any measure,
just get the supreme court to oppose
it,"
While this statement may safely be
deemed an eXaggeration, 1t is true that
when the supreme court declared the
first federal child labor law unconStl-
tutionaI the immediate effect was to
strengthen the support of the measure
in congress. Those members who had
voted for it were outraged, and those
| members who had been opposed to it
showed a noticeable tendency to bolt
to the other side. For there is feud
between the United States congress
| and the United States supreme court,
which dates back to the days when
John Jay managed to make the court
much more influential than congress
thought it had any right to be-a feud
| which has lost none of its virility with
| the passing of years.
| Thus, the new child labor law is
worded very carefully. 1t provides
that, in addition to all other taxes. an
excise tax of 10 per cent of the entire
l IL, - tod 1rrf H.
commissioner of internal revenue on
| the output of mills, canneries, work
| shops. factories and manufacturing es-
| Establishments employing children under
| fourteen years of age. This same tax
will also be levied where children be-
| tween the ages of fourteen and sixteen
are employed for more than eight
hours a day. or on night work. That
! is all. Nothing is said about how the
law is to be enforced.
| In the executive, legislative and
| judicial appropriation bill, however,
the commissioner of internatl revenue
/ is provided with an appropriation of
| $1S4,160 which he is permitted to
turn over to the secretary of lsbor to
enforce the child labor law. 1t does
not say that he must do this, but that
| he may do it. Congress did not dare
mention the children's bureau, which
was given authority to enforce the
| first child labor law, for fear the SUI
preme court would seize upon the
! anomaly of the children's bureau en-
| forcing an internal revenue measure,
to declare the law unconstitutional.
; The whole matter is left to the dis
| erection OF the commissioner of internal
/ revenue. If he wants to employ the
children's bureau to do his work for
| him. it is not illegal.
Since the children's bureau has a
! ct a of Ia inS
provided for the administration of the
| first federal child labor law it is
agreed that it is the best organization
to enforce the new measure. During
| the past year it has been waging, in
cooperation with the child welfare di-
vision of the council of national de-
| Tense. a nationwide campaign to get
! children back into school. To pro-
mote this work, it has made several
surveys of various cities for the pur-
| pose of determining the. actual condi-
tions keeping children out of school.
1t found that the employment of young
children took a tremendous jump dur
| ing the war. Labor was scarce, and
children were able to obtain very high
wages, such as they had never been
! able to obtain before. The high cost
| of living was also an important factor.
| Thousands of children applying for
work certificates gave poverty or the
necessity for increasing the family in
| come" as their reason for going to
work. Thousands of others, some of
them very young. were kept out of
school to mind the baby and cook the
meals while the older members of the
! family went out to work. This wide
spread employment of children was
made possible by the elastic system of
exemptions in vogue even in the thir-
ty-eight states which have established
4 as the minimum working age.
1t was to combat this situation that
the children's bureau and the child
welfare committee of the council of
national defense organized millions OF
women into what they called their
| "Back-to- the-School Drive" This was
nothing more than very clever and
far-reaching species of propaganda.
The bureau took as it's fundamental
statement the fact that it was both I'M
necessary and injurious to take chill
dren out of school and put them to
work; and it kept repeating this vo-
ciferously in series of posters, lee
lures, exhibits and pamphlets until it
succeeded in arousing public opinion
in every state in the Union. In some
places, in fact, the public was so
aroused that it raised scholarships to
keep children in school who otherwise
could not afford to stay there. and a
number of manufa cturers. whose wives
were chairn1en of child welfare com
mittees. suddenly renowned their in
tention of employing children in any
capacity whatsoever.
The children's bureau does not in
tend to relax its efforts in this direc-
ton because of the new federal child
labor law. 1t is grateful for the law
so far as it goes, but it points out that
the number of children affected by il
will actually be only three hundred
thousand. The census of 1910 showed
that 100000 in the United States
were employed. but the great majority
of these, the bureau asserts. are en-
gagged in agriculture. domestic service
and other enterprises not affected by
the law. Most of the state child labor
laws have also neglected to mentor
them AS yet there is no effective way
of reaching the parent-employer who
keeDs his boy out of school to work
on the farm. or his daughter at home
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