The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-03-28
Liberal Viewpoint
by DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

" Administration has been that through the
NRA the barbarism of child labor has been abol-
ished But it is a commonplace among inveSti-
gators of the subject that the ostensbe abolition
of child labor has been by no means vigorously
enforced, and least Of all in those states where
| the menace is greatest.
If the MIRA had actually outlawed child la
| Dor, our reactioraries and our predatory en-
poyers would not be so wrought up about the
destiny of the child labor amendment The lat
ter would merely be ratifying an existing fact
if the MIRA clause against child labor were &C
tualy being enforced.
In picking up newspapers all over the United
| States in the last few months it did not sur
prise me at all to find that a vicious campaign
against the child labor amendment is being con-
Quoted in the conservative and reactionary press
1t is wholly compatible with their bitter opposi-
tion to the New Deal and to the spirit of hui
manitariansm as a whole. 1t is part and parcel
| of their "the whole hog or none policy.
But was at least mildly astonished to find
! that even some liberal journals were delivering
broadside against the amendment and urging
its defeat And I must admit that 1 was espe-
cially amazed to pick up the foremost liberal
organ of the Middle West and one of the half
dozen leading liberal papers in the United States
the great st. Louis Post Dispatch and read an
editorial a column long sailing into the amend
ment with language and arguments not much
different from those in the thoroughly reaction
airy press.
| THE Post-Dispatch editorial devotes nearly
4 half of It's space to What MANY persons
would regard a trivial technicality. namely
the fact that the amendment has now been be-
fore the state for some II years.
The editorial points out that the Supreme
Court has ruled that an amendment must be
ratified within some reasonable time" after the
! proposal. 1t expresses the opinion that the Su-
preme Court would find that IL or more Years is
not a reasonable time and would therefore void
/ the amendment even if ratified.
1t is evident that the st-Dispatch does not
! take this argument too seriously. If it does not
/ FAVOR the child labor amendment then all it
would need to do would be to wait and let the
| court set it aside after ratification.
| Throwing off his Sleeps clothing the edi-
torlal next reveals its true coors by pulling out
| OF the hat the already shabby bureaucracy
DOGGY so highly priced by the reactiOnary press
We are against the amendment on its
merits. 1t would build still higher the towering
bureaucratic structure at WaShington-a struc-
ture that has grown enormously in the last few
years.
1t would diminish still further the rights and
the duties Of the states to deal with local prob
lens in ways best suited to their respective needs
It would write set of police powers into the
notwithstanding against which We should
have been sufficiently warned by our unhappy
experience with the eighteenth amendment"
THERE may be danger in bureaucracy, but
Il these are the days CT bureaucracy and
child labor amendment is certainly a strange
place for a liberal journal to call halt. If our
bureaucracy can salvage railroads it can GER
tainly protect babies. Bureaucracy which is
justihable in the interests Of big business can
asSuredly be invoked in behalf of human life
and welfare.
The editorial then throws out "the arbi-
trariness DOGGY" which would imply that if the
amendment were passed the government would
step in to prevent a farm boy under 18 from
helping his father milk the COW or a girl who
had not yet turned her 18th birthday from as
sisting her mother in setting the table
Finally the editorial ends up on the familiar
I'VE are against child labor but" line Of ar
glIment advocating patience until the backward
states see the error Of their ways and outlaw
child labor.
In other words, we can allow thousands of
boys and birls 70 go on in stunting labor, taking
Jobs away from needy adults, until plutOcrat-
ridden Legislatures shed their spots some time
in the 21st century
Our industrialsts are Just now very fond of
turning to England as a leader in recovery pol
icies. Let them recall, incidentally. that Eng
land began resolutely to repress child labor
on a national scale more than a century ago.