The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-03-16

call the whole S'W'"ssscS v thing Q day and let 1t ride. If there now was an addition to the Constitution regulating" limit ing.' and prohibiting" labor for persons under eighteen years Of age the family broom and the family snow-shovel would have a D. m. off so far as the family offspring was concerned. Any sturdy gal or any husky boy who had been ordered to perform the labor" alluded to in the opening sentence by Mama Exploiter or Papa Exploiter, could have dis- obeyed the order. And if Ma and Pa had endeavored to enforce the command with a strap or g stick the household slaves could have yelped for 8 federal enforcement oficer, the state militia, the ma rine corps, the regular army, and the navy to see that either par- ental Simon Legree was hauled of to the nearest hoosegow. So, per- haps, considering the leg-breaking, skull-squashing possibilities in skiddy sidewalks and slippery front steps 1t is just as well the amendment remains in status quo.
 '
 How Many?
 On a recent news-reel sound track heard President Roosevelt make mention of the thousands of children engaged in labor. The inference I drew was there are actually thousands of children actually engaged in labor which is detrimental to their lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness. Ordin- arily I am willing to submit my own ignorance in specific matters to the Presidents detailed knowl- edge of the subject whereupon he speaks. In this matter of child labor, however, despite MT. Roose- velt's declaration I still retain some doubts. So far as have been able to discover there Is no accurate census of the number of children gainfully employed and I do not know that there ever has been. I am unwilling to accept the figures submitted either by those favoring the ratification of the Child CD Labor Amendment or by those opposed to 1t. Both parties seem to me to have found what they were looking for to support their respective stands and to have missed whatever weakened them. An exact enumeration by the Fed- eral Department of Labor of the children working, what is the character of their work, by whom are they employed, and the wages their. receive would go long way to settling intelligently the contro- versy as to whether a child labor problem really exists.
 
 Not Here
 There is no use blinking the fact that in the not too-remote past there was 8 condition of child slavery in this country. Tn the textile centres of New England and in the South for example, there were shocking proofs of its presence. One does not have to be . doddering ancient to remember the time when in the cotton and woOlen mills of the Bay State the reduction of working hours to twelve a day for adults was cause for rejoicing. I have seen boys and girls far younger than eigh- teen years of age spewed out of the mills in Lawrence, Mass, at G o'clock at night which had swal- lowed them at 6 i'm the morning. They looked and acted like noth- Ing human. And that is not twenty-five years ago. That day is past due largely to legislative ac- ton and in some degree to the abandonment of the merciless capitalistic attitude of the cld- time textile barons by their more conscionable descendants. Here In Connecticut we have been, speaking by and large been hap pity free of such heinous crimes against God and mankind.
 Greed!
 We have had of course, isolated cases of children working at jobs which they never should be per- mitted to do and which an out- ragged society is justified in taking almost any remedy to cure. We still have them In spite of every effort to blot them out. It Is only honest to acknowledge that, again speaking by and large, C0nnecti- cut industry, business. and agri- culture are not immediately to blame. Whatever exploitation of children is going on in this state