The Connecticut labor news., 1922-06-16
Constitutional Amend ment to Be Demanded to Protect Futur e Generation and Make Country Greater and Better Than Ever.
International Labor News Service.

International Labor News Service. people of the United States are go- ing over the heads of the Supreme Court to obtain regulation of child labor.
 Either a court-proof law or the amendment of the constitution is the next step. The child labor conference called by Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of La bor, concurred in this decision and in the plan of amending inadequate state law to bring them Up to the federal standard.
 The action of the United States supreme court on May 5, 1922, declar ing unconstitutional the second fed era1 child labor law passed February "A, 1919, amazed and aroused the country.
 The first federal child labor law, passed in September, IOI6, and de -clared unconstitutional in June, 1918, forbade the employment in manufac- turin establishments of children un- der IA years of age and provided the conditions under which children be- tween fl and I6 years of age might legally be employed. When regula ton by prohibition was declared un constitutional, regulation by taxation was attempted.
 After the first failure the federal standards were to some extent main tained through the war power of, the War Labor Policies Board, which incorporated the standard in the war contracts. The United States is now faced with the destruction of all of the work previously done in the es~ tablishment of federal child labor standards
 A few states have laws which meas ure up to the standard established by the federal child labor law. These are:
 Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Con- necticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, homa, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
 The effect of the destruction of the child labor standards is illustrated by the conditions existing during the period between the first and second child labor laws, when no federal regulation of child labor existed. The effect was apparent in every industry that child labor could be employed.
 The Children's Bureau of the U. s. Department of Labor has just issued a statement of the conditions of child labor ir the oyster and shrimp can ming industries on the Gulf coast dur ing this period, which tells what hap pens when there is no regulation of child labor Children as young as six years of age were employed.
 Wages of all workers in the can neries were reduced to pittance by the practice of the employers in i'm porting families from the north. As many as $500 workers migrated an nually from Baltimore alone to the Gulf coast Canneries. Everything IS piece work and children can shuck oysters as well as grownups. There is work for the entire family. Regu- lation of migratory families is prac- tically impossible, however, and the children suffer in health, education and morals to an extent that should be impossible in the United States. Only federal regulation can improve these conditions.
 In none of the states included in the study was the enforcing machin- cry adequate to secure the application of such standards as their laws pro- vided "Premature child labor" the report states, "and no compulsory education laws, or poorly enforced compulsory education laws, go mana in hand"
 Sanitary conditions are not estab- 1ished because the employers claim it would take away their profits. Chill dren suffer with injuries from sharp oyster shells and wicked knives, and from sore hands caused by an acid in the shrimp heads. The women and children stand all day in the water