The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1923-05-21
IJ.S.CEN5(JS
CITED At
FARLEY
HERE
Miss Viola |. Paradise Calls Oh
Social Work Conference
to Find Remedy.

Another voice was raised today
at the semi-centennial gathering
of the National Conference OF
Social Work against the continued
lack of operative legislation to
protect an army of children in
the United States from exploita.
ton.
Over Million Working.
It was Miss Viola /. Paradises
formerly of the Childrens Bureau
Department of Labor, who added
her protest to those of several otheE
speakers who have inveighed against
a condition they declare is MEDIEVAL
ism in the midst of modernity.
After fifty years of social works
all our labors and statistics have
not as yet secured for US even 50
obvious and elementary a protection
ais a Federal child labor law" said
Miss Paradise.
1.-THE census shows that there are
/ ,060,858 child laborers in the United
States, but, unfortunately, quoting
figure seems to satisfy the nation.
for we do nothing about it, con-
in detail what lies behind a mil.
lionth part of that figure would re-
quire nearly whole novel.
Remedy Still Lacking.
ut takes something hair-raising
and shudderful to stir our sluggish
ness. What is more terrible than
the slow grinding torture of poverty,
the crushing of the spirit Of child
hood by child labor of which the
figure 1850, S5S is the coefficient?
But that is just statistic. No
one says, Why look here. what
about this national superstition
that the home and the family are
sacred in American
students wrestle with statistics,
social workers with their, patches of
povert, supreme courts with techni-
calities. Our great American wealth
flows swiftly along, by the millions
of dollars. But the nation is blind
hearted. Who is trying to tap our
great wealth of energy, whose full
ness has given us feats of engineer
ing, and created so much of what
America is proud-commerce. and
luxuries and high standards Of liv.
ing for the few; who is trying to
tap enough of this energy to do
something about the low standards
of living and hunger and dearth and
squalor and emptiness which stalk,
a dark, ever-present shadow to what
we imagine is our wealth? Must
the task be left to the colossal
patience of the social worker, will.
ing to keep on laboring, moving
mllimeter~ by millimeter toward an
uncertain millennium, out somewhere
beyond the horizon?"
Social Case Work.
Social case workers, interested in
the passage and enforcement Of
laws relating to their activities,
find their most difficult task in Sc
curing 1.-The right personnel in the
matter of judges and prosecuting
officials" Frank j. Bruno, general
secretary of the Family Welfare
Association of Minneapolis. asserted
at a group meeting of the confer
enoe. He had some plain words to
say relative to the aims of such
bodies as he represents and certain
types of judges and prosecutors.
THE hurdle of election, or APP
pointment," declared Bruno, ere.
quires a combination of qualities
not at all related to the qualifica-
lions in which social workers are
The tradition of the
legal profession. which does not
give the sanction of its highest ap.
proval to law enforcing positions.
Continued on Page 22)