The Connecticut labor news., 1923-11-24
BOY WHOSE CASE KILLED CHILD LABOR
 LAW WISHES HE'D LOST HIS LAW SUIT

Reuben Dagenhart, the boy in whose name the suit to annul the child labor law was brought, is now 20 years of age, married, has one child, weighs Io5 pounds, and wishes the courts hadn't killed the law that would have taken him and his brother out of the cotton mill
 Lowell Mellett, correspondent of the Scripps-Howard newspapers, went and his brother John He found Reuben and asked him what he thought now about the law of 1916 that was finally declared unconstitu- tional by the United States Supreme Court Here IS part of the story MT. Mellett wrote:
 Working in one of the mills were the Dagenharts. In addition to the father and son there was daughter, but she was I6, earning her dollar a day ,and Congress had said nothing about girls of I6. So the suit, when the manufacturers had 1t arranged, read like this: Roland H. Dagenhart, and Reuben Dagenhart and John Dagenhart, Minors, by Roland H. Dagenhart, their Next Friend ,vs. w C. Hammer, U. s. District Attorney" It was to enjoin the district attorney
  Congress.
 The federal court down there issued the injunction.
 And should not the Dagenhart boys be grateful for that?
 Well, Reuben isn't. I found him at his home in Char lotte.
 What benefit" I asked him, did you get out of the suit which you won in the U. s. Supreme Court?"
 You mean the suit the Fidelity Manufacturing Co. won? It was the Fidelity company for which the Dag enharts were working.) I don't see that I got any benefit. I guess I'd been a lot better off if they had not won 1t.
 Look at me! A hundred and five pounds, a grown man and no educa< ton. 1 may be mistaken, but I think the years I've put in the cotton mills have stunted my growth. They kept me from getting any schooling. 1 grade and now 1 need the education I didn't get"
 How was your growth stunted?
 "I don't know-the dust and the lint, maybe But from I2 years ola on, 1 was working I2 hours a day from six in the morning till seven at night, with time out for meals. And sometimes 1 worked nights be- sides. Lifting a hundred pounds I only weighed 65 pounds myself"
 He explained that he and his sister worked together. "on section," spin ming. They each made about a dol. lar day, though later he worked up to where he could make $2. His father made SIS week and infant J John, at the time the suit was day.
 Just what did you and John get out of that suit, then?" he was asked
 Why, we got some automobile rides when them big lawyers from the North was down here. Oh. yes. and they bought both of us Coca Colal That's all we got out Gst It. What did you tell the judge when you were in court?"
 "Oh, John and me never was in court! Just Paw was there. John and me was just little kids in short pants. 1 guess we wouldn't have looked like much in court. We were working in the mill while the case was going on. But Paw went up to Washington"
 Reuben hasn't been to school, but his mind has not been idle.
 "It would have been a good thing for all the kids in this state If that law they passed had been kept. Of course, they do better now than they used to. You don't see so many babies working in the factories, but you see lot of them that ought to be going to school"
 What about John? Is he satisfied with the way things turned out"
 "I don't know. Prob'ly not. He's not much bigger than me and he's gor flat feet"
 How about your father?"
 "Oh, he's satisfied, I guess. But I know one thing. I ain't going to let him put my kid sister in the mill, like he's thinking of doingl She's only Is and she's crippled and I bet 1 stop thatr"