Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1924-04-30
STATES START FIGHT
ON CHILD LABOR CURB
New England and South Oppose
Proposed Amendment-Age
Limit Attacked.
EDUCATOR CALLS 1s TOO HIGH
Youth Can Work Safely After Six
teen, Declares DR.. Butler.
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.
Although the child labor amend
ment has passed the House by
ly TO be seriously opposed in the
Senate. New England and the south
are expected to join hands in fight
ing the measure. They hope between
them to mobilize enough votes to
prevent the two-thirds necessary to
enactment.
States rights" is the battle cry
to be raised by the opponents of
the Shortridge amendment, which is
Identical with the Foster amendment
approved by the House. While GER
tain southern and New England
states with textile industries are
against the bill because of its wide
and wooden mills, objections generally
will be based on the ancient principle
of states rights.
Ample Safeguards Claimed.
North Carolina, for example, which
has a fourishing textile industry
employing thousands of youths under
eighteen years of age, claims that
state laws already in existence amply
safeguard the welfare of such chill
dren from both a sanitary and edu-
cational standpoint New England
states. in which there is opposition
to the amendment, take the same
position. They contend that child
labor is considerably looked after un-
der existing laws and regulations
and that there is no necessity for
interference by federal statute or
constitutional decree.
Over and above these concrete OBJ
jections, the Senate fight on the child
labor amendment will be based
broadly on opposition to further con-
stitutional encroachment upon the
prerogatives of the states. Spokes-
men of conservative communities like
New York State, such as Senator
James W. Wadsworth, jr., republi-
can, are ready to oppose the Short
ridge amendment on the ground that
regulation of child labor is one of
the distinctive provinces of SOW
ereign state.
Age Limit Attacked.
Pressure is also being brought to
bear upon the Senate to reduce the
years. as provided by both the House
| and Senate amendments, to sixteen
years. One of the most impressive
proponents of the lower age limit is
DR.. Nicholas Murray Butler, president
of Columbia University, who has ad-
| dressed strong representations on
! that score to Senator Shortridge and
Senator Wadsworth
| countries where education is best de-
veloped and best organized there is
| widespread cooperation between
school instruction and gainful occu-
patton after the age of sixteen. What
| want to point out" says DR.. Butler
lis that any legislation which wholly
| prevents gainful occupation between
| the ages of sixteen and eighteen will
certainly be damaging to our people
and not beneficial to them.
For example, tens of thousands OF
American youth do what myself did
namely, earn by their own efforts
while at college the money necessary
to meet the cost of their higher edu-
cation. At Columbia University we
have hundreds of such, and it would
| be a grievous injury to make this
method of meeting the cost of higher
education impossible or illegal for
| those who were below the age of
eighteen and above that of sixteen.
Think of Small Children.
! "I find that when some of our
| friends talk of child labor they have
in mind the heavy work of young
children in factory, in mine or in
some other arduous form of occupa-
ton. This is, of course, inadvisable
but those lighter forms of gainful oc-
cupation which may be carried on
while the formal educational process
is being continued may be, and fire.
quentIy are, an educational aid and
| not an educational handicap
DR.. Butler fears that if the child
labor limit is raised from sixteen, as
originally proposed, to eighteen, there
| will be "bootlegging' of child labor.
'1n other words" he says, I'VE Shall
have one more amendment and one
more set of statutes based upon that
amendment that are an incentive and
an invitation to lawlessness. Youths
over sixteen years of age cannot be
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