The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-09-02
PLAYS RRESEN7 PLAN
 OF RAIL BOARD
FOminee Pleads For Fair { Methods Of Bar ( gaining
tContinued from page one)

~Tle0 as the others the preServaQou or hs equality of opportunity and of the fduality of right.
 s' In his treatment of the last two sub 1ects Mir. Davis declared himself as fol. 26ws,
 For the strengthening of tho z. public school system but against {, the proposed federal department of : education as an entry "0n the
 fatal path of . state monopoly of
 educakiQn."
 For ratification of tho child laboe amendment % that human 7, Sreedr nay not again close tho aeoe to education that has been =
 Again any ''trifling with" tho ( nstural rights of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, froo-
 dom of labor, freedom of contract, freedom of tho press and freedom .j in mattefs of religious belief and
 practice.
 Against proposals to curb the power of tho courts to protect tho ] weak against unwise end unjust laws.
 l For the writing in plaincr terms { 0f tho law against tho use of in-
 
 i b necessary to mako tho courts / stey within the limitation already l fined by act of congress.
 Reviewing then, briefly, the strug- gies of labor against '.the fdNSes of human greed and avafice" to come to its present position Mir. Davis said i: ssf labor is to hold the ground that it fhaa gained, which is another way of t~ kAA {r A. d. America there are three great con structive duties of the American peo- pie:
 tThe first is to preserve the oppor- ftunity and to make the nation secure against any tendency to harden into syatsrn of caste. We do not want men and women in this country to remain tied to, the stations which their fath- sras occupied. We wish all fathers and all mothers to nurse tho hope that their children may lead happier and broader lives than them themselves have known.
 Equality of Right.
 "The second duty is to so arrange 1 and to 50 administer 2our government as to preserve equality of right. l Whsther we are dealing with the tariff l with taxation, with finance, with the railroads, with agriculture or what i subject whatsoever we must make sure there is no discrimination in our laws either for or against the farm or the factory, the countryside or the city, the east or the west. All our laws must be so framed and so applied as to leave all men every liberty which is consistent was founded as the land of freedom We must keep it so.
 : And in the third place, we must make the nation secure against war or fhe threat of war by adapting our political and commercial policies to the new conditions that exist in. the mod eln world.
 '.The key to the door of equal op- Yiortunity is education. Now and again I misguided voice is raised to suggest fthat we may become over-educated. The theory seems to be that if we edu- cate the brain there will be no one left to Q, the labor of the hand. It is the same 'mud-sill' theory which Abraham Lincoln denounced.
 We must not enter on the fatal path of state monopoly of education nor should we load an already over-bur- dened government at Washington the educational duties which properly be- long to the states and cities and local communities. But we must sustain, support and strengthen in every wps' our indispensable system of pub..c schools 50 that every child may be as- sured of an education, and of such an education as will fit him not only to earn his living but also to live. We must resist every tendency to limit the education of children of any class merely t0fhe manufacture of hands for industry and every tendency to produce q standardized American. It is the business of the schools to- turn out free citizens of the republic and not merely doctla human machines.
 And if we open wide by ed-
 ucafton the door of opportunity to
 tho child we owe it to him to sec |
 that human greed does not close
 10 again It is Q blot upon our
 good name that child labor should
 b0 permitted anywhere i'm the
 United States to dwarf the minds
 and bodies of the future citizens of
 the republic. To stunt the growth
 of . child in his most critical
 years; to rob him of his Oppor- ? tunity for education and make of
 him juvenile drudge for more
 purposes of profit is 8 crime : against tho future of the race.
 "Of cogrse the several states should prevent this thing. They should moi wish this power taken from them When Congress has passed in 1918 its first labor law, however,. 1t became my duty as solicitor general to argue in its support that unless a uniform standard was adopted throughout the United States the states that wished to legis late against child labor would be de. tered because of the economic disad. vantage they would suffer in competi, tion with their Jess, progressive neigh. bors. I call attention to the fact that for like reasons more than one inter. national conference had been called tc bring about equality among the nations on similar subjects.
 The reasons which put forward in support of the laws of 1916 seem to me still to obtain and lead me now to favor the ratification of the pending child labor amendment. Responsibility for decision on the subject now rests with the states themselves but were I a member of state legislature my vote would be cast to ratify the amendment
 Equality of opportunity however, is an empty phrase unless all men are left free. to grasp it. Not only must laws be just an equal but we must see that they do not eyade those natural rights ss+s