Home Conditions—Poverty

One of the reasons why the public is so indulgent toward the street worker is that it takes for granted that the child is making a manly effort to support a widowed mother and several starving little brothers and sisters. Mrs. Florence Kelley calls this "perverted reasoning" and scores the public which "unhesitatingly places the burden of the decrepit adult's maintenance upon the slender shoulders of the child."[58] Poverty has been made an excuse for child labor from time immemorial by those who profit by the system. Newspapers are not an exception to the rule; the newsboys extend their circulation and incidentally give them free advertising in the streets—hence they see nothing but good in the newsboys' work and fight lustily to defend what they claim to be the mainstay of the widows. That this popular impression and appealing argument are false and without justification has been shown by students of the problem everywhere. The following table gives the family condition of Cincinnati newsboys:—

Both parents dead 12
Father dead 239
Mother dead 69
Both parents living 1432
Total 1752

Through a special inquiry it was found that in only 363 cases out of this total were the earnings of the children really needed. These 1752 children, ten to thirteen years of age, were licensed from July to December, 1909; their distribution as to age was as follows:—

10 years303
11years348
12years564
13years537
Total1752

Upon investigation of the home conditions of several hundred newsboys in New York City it was declared that "in the majority of cases parents are not dependent on the boys' earnings. The poverty plea—that boys must sell papers to help widowed mothers or disabled fathers—is, for the most part, gross exaggeration."[59]

Concerning a study of Chicago newsboys, Myron E. Adams says, "A careful investigation of the records of the Charity Organization Society shows that of the 1000 newsboys investigated, the names of but sixteen families are found, and of these ... only four received direct help, such as coal, clothing or food."[60]

Mr. Scott Nearing says: "In many cases the boys want to go on the streets in order to have the pocket money which this life affords, and the ignorant or indifferent parents make no objections, but take the street life as a matter of course. Sometimes, though not nearly as often as is generally supposed, there is real need for the selling."[61]

The British interdepartmental committee appointed in 1901 to inquire into the employment of school children, denounced the tolerance of street trading on the ground of necessity: "We think that in framing regulations with regard to child labour and school attendance ... the poverty of the child or its parents ought not to be made a test of the right to labour.... We do not think it is needed; we think that all children should have liberty to work as much and in such ways as is good for them and no more."[62]

Another argument in favor of street trading advanced by those who are interested in maintaining present conditions, is that it affords a splendid training for a business career because of the competition that rages among the boys. This is doubtless true, as far as it goes, but the great difficulty is that street trading leads nowhere. It is a blind alley that sooner or later leaves its followers helpless against the solid wall of skilled labor's competition. An occupation that fits a boy for nothing and is devoid of prospects, is a curse rather than a blessing in this day of specialization. In spite of the division of labor so elaborately realized to-day, a boy or girl who enters any of the regular industries has at least a fighting chance for acquiring a trade. If the child is honest, capable and diligent he will be promoted to a better position in time if misfortune does not overtake him. The trapper boy in a coal mine is in a fair way to become a miner. The lad who works in a machine shop has the opportunity to make a machinist of himself. The girl who begins as a wrapper in a dry goods shop may become a saleswoman, and then possibly a buyer for her department. Yet in most states children may not enter upon such work until they have reached the age of fourteen years, while some states prohibit boys under sixteen years from being employed in mines or in connection with dangerous machinery either in machine shops or elsewhere. Bitter experience has taught us that these restrictions are right and just, and we now have no hesitancy in barring young children from such employment, regardless of the training it affords. Why, then, do we exempt many forms of street work from the operation of the law? Why do we allow little children to work at any age, both night and day, as newsboys, bootblacks and peddlers in the essentially dangerous environment of the street? Such employment offers but a gloomy future—the useless life of the casual worker. There is no better position to which it leads, no chance for the discovery and development of ability, no reward for good service. It seems incredible that we have been so engrossed with throwing safeguards about the children in regular industries that we have altogether neglected the street worker, for the arguments against child labor in factories, mills, mines and retail shops apply with even greater force to the work of children in our city streets.