The Connecticut labor news., 1922-12-29
SECRETARY DAVIS URGES AMENDMENT
 TO CONSTITUTION

An amendment to the federal con- sfitution to enable Congress to fix standards that would take a million and half boys and girls of school age out of the drudgery of mine and mill, field and factory was recom- mended by Secretary of Labor James '. Davis in his annual report just made public Secretary Davis de- c1ared that every instinct of humanity prompted the abolition of child labor. He said:
 "The subject of child labor has been given very careful attention i'll the last year and number of important surveys have been made to ascertain the extent of this unhealthy economic factor.
 "The reports of the Bureau of the Census would indicate that more than a million children between the ages of 10 and I6 are engaged in gainful work in industry. The deatils reveal that children between 10 and IS years to the number of approximately 66o,- 900 are engaged in the sugar-beet fields, the cotton fields, and the onion fields of the land Apparently the usual method is to employ whole families by c6ntractors to work in these fields. The children work with the adults usually from sunrise to sunset, walking in stopped position or crawling through the fields, pulling up the weeds, pulling up beets and onions, cutting the tops from these, and also in picking cotton There are number of definite movements of these families composed largely of children from state to state where these agricultural industries thrive. |,
 More than 5oooo children are em- ployed as spinning girls and doffer boys in textile factories. Children in the cotton mills, it is reported, work to hours a week, and those over I4H years old work nights. Thousands do industrial home work stringing beads, pulling threads from lacework, etc.
 This condition of children in in dustry under supervision of parents or near relatives seems to have gone on without interruption while the ma tional child labor laws were in force. It is doubtful whether any legis lation of the type heretofore enacted or thus far contemplated would reach this evil, or children working in agricul- tural pursuits or in the homes under the supervision of their parents or close relatives.
 Under the previous administration the custom grew up of suspending the operation of the immigration laws on the Mexican border to permit the i'm portation of Mexican families for the purpose of working in cotton fields and sugar-beet fields. After carefully reviewing the whole situation I reach ed the conclusion that this was not 1 only unauthorized by law but was really encouraging the most fragrant form of child labor. It is true that these industries are really suffering 1 for help, but 1t seemed to me i'm proper to permit the importation of so-called cheap labor in the form of the labor of women and children in order to supply the market. feel that 1t is practical aid toward elim1 mating child labor when We create l conditions which will require that adults or people above the age of r6 shall do this work.
 "A complete survey would indicate that I 5000 American children are now the victims of premature toll in the mines and mills and factories and fields and homes of this country. This is all wrong. The great problem of our childhood is of Sthe utmost i'm portance to the perpetuity of the na- tion Our children are entitled to a l life that will conserve their strength ! while young and that will educate ! their minds and hearts so that they ! may he efficient when they grow to maturity. 4St
 @For,s two states out of the AS have adopted so-called child-labor