Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1923-09-07
MORE THAN MILLION
CHILD WORKERS TOLL
IN MILL, SHOP, MINE
by Grace Abbott,
Chief, Federal Cniidreu's Bureau.


By International Labor News Service
Labor Day i'm 1923 finds more than
d million children between 10 and i
years Of age working in the United
State. Nearly 100, 900 are from 10
In Is years Of aye. The census does
not report those Who are under ten.
They are employed IN mills, factories
mines aud tenements, on the farms,
in trade, and a servants for adults.
This denial of education and Of
leisure which re the natural rights
IF children is confined 10 no one sec
ton Of the country.
According TO the 1920 census, the
proportion Of the total child popuIa-
ton 10 to ID years, inclusive, "em-
ployed in gainful occupations,
ranged from per cent in the three
Pacific Coast States TO II per cent In
the East South Central States, com
prising Kentucky, Tennessee, Ala
bama, and Mississippi. In Mississippi
more than One-fourth Of all the emil
dTen 10 to - year of age were at
work; in Alabama and in South Caro-
lima, "a per cent; in Georgia, Il per
cent; and in Arkansas, 10 per cent.
OF the New England States, Rhode
Island had the largest proportion of
children from 10 to ID years Of age,
- per cent, employed in galnful oc-
equations"
In 1916 Congress recognized this
for what it ia national problem
national in scope, national in its eff
fects and natoral in its importance.
The first Federal child labor law
whic hsought TO close the channels of
interstate commerce to the products
of child labor was declared uncon-
stitutional in 1918. Congress then
tried to use its taxing power for the
protection Of the children and this
too, the court has held, is unconstitu-
tiona. We are, therefore, presented
with two altenatiyes-either we give
up the idea of a minimum or by a
constitutional amendment we give TO
L Congress the power to regulate OF
prohibit the employment Of persons
under Is years of age and at the same
l time reserve to the States the right to
raise but not lower the standard that
H Congress may establish from time to
time.
Many people believed that with the
protection Of the federal law removed,
Il the States would act promptly to give
L the children at least the protection 1t
i had afforded them. Since the Child
Labor Tax Law was declared uncon-
Il stitutional, legislatures in 43 States
/ have been i'm session. In 81 Of these,
the standards of protection afforded
children by the state child labor law
were below in some particular the
standard which the Federal Child
Labor Law had given.
SO far as the Children's Bureau has
been able to learn by correspondence
with the States, in only seven of these
Delaware, Maine, Missouri, Rhode
Island North Dakota, South Dakota,
and Wyoming-waS there any i'm
|, provement in standards of the child
labor law, and in none of these have
the state standards been brought up
to those of the federal law in every
particular.
While in these seven states the ac-
complishments are incomplete, there
is a much longer list of II other
States which are below the federal
standards and whose legislatures were
in session last year, in which there
is no progress to report. North Caro-
lima, South Carolina, and Georgia,
which are rapidly developing into inn
portant industrial states, are among
those who have done nothing this year
for the working children. The legis-
lature of Georgia, however, is still in
session-perhaps we may still hope.
There are some who fear that the
adoption of a federal minimum may
impair the initiative and sense of
local responsibility in the states.
would remind those people that a
large part of the civilized world has
adopted not only national standard,
but an international standard with
reference to the employment of chill
dren. The most important nations
of Europe have joined in the child
labor conventions drafted at the In
ternational Labor Conference which
met in Washington in 1919. They dc
not think that by agreeing to an in
ternational standard they have lost
their independence. On the contrary
they rightly feel their independence
is safeguarded with better opportuni-
ties for their own children and foi
their neighbors' children.
Ought it not to be possible fol
Congress to say that in no section oil
this country will children be allowed
to work below standards now estab
/ lished by international agreement
among many nations, and which thu
moral sense of this country long age
/ demanded?