Arizona republican., 1922-06-03
The Child Labor Conference

The advocates of Child Labor legislation
going about it in right way to seek the removal
of the only objection which opponents of such legis
laton have ever dared to urge against itCongress'
lack of power under the constitution to prohibit or
regulate child labor in the states objection which
has been twice sustained by the United States Su-
preme Court. An organization has been formed with
the object of securing a constitutional amendment
under which power to egislate this subject will
be given to Congress Perhaps initial mistake
has been made in the selection of Mr.. Gompers as
the head of the organization observe from
the dispatches of yesterday that he has already
sounded a keynote of defiance of Congress. That
there will be serious opposition to the proposal of
such an amendment may take for granted, and
Mr. Gompers' foolish attempt at brow beating Con-
gress will be ineffective has been his ignorant
criticism of the Supreme Court.
There is and is likely to be, strong opposition
in the South to the prohibition regulation of child
labor there is to it in many other parts OF the
country In the past we have always found against
it those sections the country and those industries
in which child labor could be profitaby employed.
President Wilson, whose sympathies We're always
with the South five years before his election to the
presidency declared as obviously absurd child
labor bill introduced by Senator Beveridge prohibit
ing from interstate commerce the products of child
labor. Yet nine years later, when Mr.. Wilson had
fallen under the influence OF organized ldpUr anu
was yielding to all its demands he rescued precisely
such bill from the jaws of defeat in the senate by
breaking up a filibuster of the Southern members
Ten of them in the final opposed the BILL while
only two Republicans Oliver and Penrose of Penn
sy1vania voted against it.
we suppose very large number of the members
Congress voted for the bill in the full knowledge
that it would become effective; otherwise
many of them, no doubt, would have opposed it.
The following year a federal judge in the South
granted an injunction against the enforcement of
the act holding that the power of Congress to regu-
late commerce between the states did not extend to
the regulation of conditions of labor within states.
When the next law. the Pomerene act, passed
in 1919 was precisely the in purpose the
previous law except that it provided for the levy of
a tax of 10 per cent on the products of child labor;
that is the law was to be enforced by the federal
taxation power This is the law that has recently
been declared to be invalid, giving rise to the new
organization whose object is to make federal child
labor legislation possible through change in the
constitution
The intended restrictions of both these acts
much the the specific restrictions of the
statutes of most of the states which have enacted
child labor legislation less comprehensive than
those of the Arizona law which prohibits all
poyment whereas the federal acts applied only to
employment in mines, quarries mills, canneries
workshops factories and manufacturing establish
pents. They prohibited the employment of children
under the age of IA; children between the ages
16 for eight hours day and
six days a week or after the hour of p. before
the hour of a. That is to say. they did not
because they could not prohibit such labor, but they
proposed a prohibitory tax the products of such
labor.
How an amendment to the constitution would
be received by the states is not easy foresee We
could make some estimate as to the reception which
be given the Eighteenth and Nineteenth
amendments, for many of the states had already
legislated definitely as to prohibition women
suffrage.
While more states have enacted child labor leg
there is a wide variance as to the minimum
ages hours conditions of labor some much more
rigid and others much more loose than any federal
legislation far proposed For instance in twenty
states the age limit is fourteen years. but hours
of employment range from eight to ten. There are
pIoyment and the character of it with respect to
physical and moral effect. There are varying regu-
lations to permits and certificates While the
ratification of amendment would not be COM
promise a general law, it would leave the way
open to the enactment of law which might be
unsatisfactory to many states so that we may won
der whether thirds them would give their
assent amendment