Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1924-02-08
Men Talk While Children Toll
(By Harold Cary
Golfers The National Weekly of January 26, 1924

It's time to put your foot down
on this shameful business of child
slavery. The Child Labor Amend
ment is now in committee. Why is it
being held up? Senator Mccormick,
who introduced it, says no more hear
ings are necessary. 1t should be re-
ported on the floor of Congress and
voted on without delay. Write your
Congressman today, or see him or
wire him. Tell him to get the Chill
dren's Amendment out Of committee
and on to the floor. Be emphatic.
Suppose they were your kids.
AS a plain, ordinary citizen of
these United States I've grown a
crouch a mile deep and couple of
miles wide. I was sent out to see
some of the million or so children
the census speaks about who have to
work like grown men to earn bread,
clothes and leaky roof over their
heads. They are on my mind all the
time.
Will Congress dilly- daily along and
postpone action on the Children's
Amendment until more children have
ruined their birthright?
1t isn't as if Congress wasn't will
ing and ready to pass the resolution
which will send the Children's Amend
nent on to the States for ratification.
1t isn't as though there were an ap-
preparation involved or nasty debate
or some kind of party lineup. Con-
gress can shoot it through in about
fifteen or twenty minutes if some one
can first shoot the pep into Congress.
.4oy nf tho dow / xu1Itn
that Senator Mccormick believes
there is no need for additional hear
ings as to the facts.
All the Evidence Is In.
All the information that any Con-
gress could possibly need is already
in it's hands. The Government Print
ing Office has copies of it. You and
| can get it if we want to write to
Washington for it.
Have we to wait until once more
that body of men and women who
went to last years hearing are gath
cred together again? Senator Nc
Cormick doesn't require it for him
self. He won't want more hearings
and information unless the other SEN
ators and the representatives of the
House demand it for some reason or
other. And so / can at least in this
public way ask my two senators
Wadsworth and Copeland of New
York-to make no such delaying and
unnecessary demand of the commit
tee. If they want more information,
get a copy of last years bearing.
Senators Colt, Mccormick, Walsh,
Lodge, Mr.. Gompers and the heads
of most of the social welfare organi-
cations of the United States were
there. The witnesses were strong,
purposeful individuals, and out of the
Senate you could hardly have expect
ed to gather such an array of mental
power. Yet at first in that crowded
rather splendid room it was a bit
stodgy until suddenly the whole pic
ture changed. Grace Abbott was
called upon.
Dramatically, with a bit of the
quality, but not the manner of Bern
hardt flashing upon the stage, per-
sonality filled the room. The wo-
man, standing before committee of
the mental elite of the Senate of the
United States, was making those fine
minds bow respectfully as they ac-
cepted her in equality with them
selves.
Looking back through the report
now, l find that those interlocutors
were keenly aware of the drama:
Senator Walsh-Miss Abbott has
evidently studied this matter with
great care.
Senator Shortridge-I think the
witness has made very careful study
of this question.
Senator Colt-Miss Abbott, you are
a master on this whole subject.
Wherever Miss Abbott's name ap-
pears you get Immediately the sense
of a Undetermined, sane, calm indi-
vidual who knows all the facts, who
has a right to an opinion, who is in
way a master craftsman, who knows
perhaps better than any one else the
way minds twist and turn and delay
and avoid when the subject is child
labor.
So it was that I wanted to check
my own views, which have been form
ed by the sights | saw when | went