Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1924-06-20
CHILD LABOR EVIL AFFECTS
NATION; IS STATE QUESTION

Why should the regulation of child labor be eonsid
cred state question:
Why should the surveyors imaginary line stay the
protection Of potential men and women?
TO promote the general welfare is of the first
declarations in the federal constitution.
What is important than the conservation of
childhood? Surely provision for healthy and happy chill
dren should come under the general welfare clause
Liberty free speech and free ocomouon not state
questions. They are inherent IN every adult
Have not children inherent rights? And do not these
Transcend state boundaries?
When the government desorys live stock to prevent
the spread of disease and pys the owner Tor the loss OF
his cattle objection is raised by state rights advocates
But when it is proposed that government check the
stunting of future citizens the state rights cry is raised
Child protection is not local question. Ii leaps over
state lines Citizens of our nation not escape the evils
of child exploitation in one state Like contagion
its baneful influence extends throughout the land
To say for instance that California citizens have no
interest in Alabama child labor or vice versa Is to ignore
modern social concepts.
This may not interest the man who used state rights
to defend Negro slavery but society today holds different
views.
There is nothing more important to nation than
clear-minded. strong -mbed healthy children.
That heritage of childhood is national in its scope. 1t
cannot be encompassed within political subdivisions.
Men accept centralized government to regulate com
merce prohibit lotteries destroy the oleomargarne IN
dustry through taxation natonaze banks check disease
in live stock control the sale Of drugs and to perform
countless other functions.
But they profess fear of centralized government II
childhood would be taken from factory and shop
Then the legal wits thunder their tones and phras-
ings and word baancings.
Then political geography is injected into an issue that
strikes at the root of civilization and the perpetuaton OF
our Institutions.
Organized labor yields to none in its opposition to
government interference with the Individual.
But children are not individuals in the popular sense
or the legal sense They potential individuals Their
faculties are ndeveoped Their rights are sunshine play
and health Society should insist that their lives be not
wasted in wage exploitation
Even the primitive instinct of self-preseyation
should mpel society to this course.
With the passage by congress of the child labor
amendment the proposal must be approved by three
fourths of the state legislatures In this fight crocodile
tears will be shed lest children be prohibited from wearing
their lives away in some factory or mill.
There will be no distinction made between work on
the farm or in the kitchen and work for wages.
There will be no distinction between adults, IN full
possession Of their faculties, and helpless child
Opponents will say that the government may even
tualy interfere with their liberty They insist putting
children in the same class with themselves.
These are but samples of the quibbng hair-spittinP
and vicious reasoning tat friends of childhood will be
called upon to refute.