The daily worker., 1924-02-15
YouthVews
Playing with the Child Labor
Problem
By HARRY CANNES

Coolidge talked about child labor.
Several dozen amendments to the
constitution have been handed in to
Congress and the Senate. About a
dozen petty bourgeois organizations
are prancing hither and thither raw
ing about the poor children" Yet
nothing is done. Experience tells US
that nothing will be done.
The whole matter is joke in the
hands of the capitalist government.
Two laws have been passed. The
United States Supreme Court de-
clared both unconstitutional for spe-
cific reasons. The first was thrown
out because it was direct, interstate
regulation. That, said the venerable,
if somewhat foolish judges, inter
feres with the rights and sovereignty
of the states. Well, congress is
obliging (if not exactly careful Of
the interest of the American working
children) and they passed another
law providing for taxation on all
products manufactured with the aid
Of child labor. OF course, any SEN
sible worker knows how ridiculous
such action is. It would require a
veritable army to put such law into
effect, even if the United States Su-
preme Court didn't settle that matter
for them. That law too was thrown
onto the scrap heap which is SYM
bolic of the monument of mildly
pro-labor legislation.
In order to get around this move
of the Supreme Court, the conglom-
Grafton of apoiogists for the medieval
action Of the American government
has offered various amendment to
the constitution. Some of them
really are funny. One provides that
child labor shall be abolished, but
that the carrying out Of the matter
should be left to the state govern
ments. Not one of the amendments
is a clear negation of the exploita-
tion of children. Gompers supports
the mildest of them all, that offered
by Senator Mccormick, of Illinois.
After wading thru the gnarled
mess of anti-labor and pro-corpora-
tion senators and congressman, if the
weak excuse for the exploitation Of
2,500,000 children passes, it must go
to the states for ratification. There
are enough of them without any child
labor laws at the present time to de-
feat the constitutional amendment,
however mild and however ineffect-
ual of the purpose for which is is in
tended. Just to think of the many
years all this is going to take. The
children still continue to slave-yes,
their numbers grow and their wages
decrease.
There are real remedies. But these
are solely in the hands Of the Amer
lean working class. First, the mass
farmer-labor party could carry on a
far-reaching campaign against the
murder Of little children. The fight
could be carried into the unions and
put into every agree 8ts2t. .ss;ees7RRad ihE
the unions-no children to be per-
mitted to work in any industry in
which union labor is employed.
Equal pay for young and adult. A
higher standard of living for tho
parents of the child laborers. A per-
sistent campaign by every trade union
paper against child labor, not on the
basis of the sentimental slop handed
out by Gompers, who is cooperating
with those responsible for child labor.
but on the basis of a clear expose
of this horror of American child life.
The slogan of every workers or
ganization should be: No work for
children under 18 years of age; voca-
tional training for workers children,
under the direction of the unions.
Then would begin a solution of the
child labor problem.