CHILD LABOR AND POVERTY
A. J. McKELWAY
Child labor is even more a cause than an effect of poverty. This was the point emphasized at the ninth annual conference of the National Child Labor Committee, which was recently held at Jacksonville, Fla. The meeting Was characterized by fearless and frank descriptions of conditions in the different states and especially in the South. Apology and defence, based on a comparison of child labor conditions from the sectional point of view, found no place at the conference. Delegates from the North and from the South vied in acknowledging the shame of a common sin.
The other distinctive note was that co-operation among all classes of social workers is needed to gain this reform. This note was sounded in a strong resolution which called upon many national organizations to supply not only the active sympathy of their membership but special investigations of child labor conditions from the different points of view which these organizations have taken in their respective spheres of work. Mention was particularly made of the National Education Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Medicine, the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, the American Red Cross, the American Bar Association, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Social Service Commission of the Federation of Churches, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Conference of Catholic Charities, the National Conference of Charities and Correction, the American Association for Labor Legislation, and the American Federation of Labor. Finally, since the child-employing industries, while forming only a small percentage of industrial establishments, have brought the reproach of child labor upon American industry itself, the National Manufacturers’ Association was also mentioned.
At the opening meeting four questions were discussed: Is the immature child a proper object of charitable relief? Shall the state pension widows? Shall the school support the child? Shall charitable societies relieve family distress by finding work for children? The last question, so far as it was referred to at all, was emphatically answered in the negative, as the first was in the affirmative. The discussion turned chiefly upon the question of mothers’ pensions and the respective value of public relief and private philanthropy. The sentiment of the conference was plainly for a carefully guarded form of mothers’ pension by the state. This, it was felt, should be considered in relation to other remedies such as the minimum wage, workmen’s compensation, and the prevention of those industrial accidents which so often deprive the family of the chief breadwinner. It was also felt that such pensions should be regarded from the standpoint of justice rather than of charity, the mother to be looked upon as rendering service to the state as the bearer and rearer of children.
A thorough acquaintance with the recent discussions of the problem in The Survey was displayed and there was some apprehension expressed of the many failures through ill-considered legislation probable before success would be finally reached. The majority apparently believed that pensioning mothers was not simply a problem of relief but one comprising other elements, as the word “pension” rightly indicates. While it was recognized that hungry children make poor pupils, it was felt that any further weakening of parental responsibility for the child by the school would be unfortunate. The discussion along these lines included talks by Sherman C. Kingsley of Chicago; Jean Gordon of New Orleans; Mrs. Florence Kelley of New York; Grace Strachan of New York; Mrs. W. L. Murdoch of Birmingham; A. T. Jamieson of Greenwood, S. C., president of the South Carolina Conference of Charities; R. T. Solensten of the Associated Charities, Jacksonville, Fla.; Leon Schwartz of the B’nai B’rith, Mobile, Ala.; Mary H. Newell of the Associated Charities, Columbus, Ga., and others.
Rabbi David Marx of Atlanta added a touch of scholarly research to one session in his paper on Ancient Standards of Child Protection. Economic factors were discussed by Miss Gordon, who spoke on the eight-hour day and by Richard K. Conant, secretary of the Massachusetts Child Labor Committee, who dealt convincingly with the fact that the textile industry in Massachusetts no longer depends upon child labor in spite of the numerous plaints concerning the ruin of the industry of the sort which Dickens satirized in Hard Times.
W. H. Swift, secretary of the North Carolina Child Labor Committee, who had just come from a struggle with the Legislature, vigorously attacked the contention that mill work is better for children than the squalor of some of the mountain towns. He described his own childhood in an “average mountain home” in the South as the oldest of ten children, all of whom, he said incidentally are now doing pretty well in life. He told of the sacrifices by his father for their education and said that any time within the past twenty years, his father might have moved to a cotton mill town and lived on the labor of his children if he had been willing to do so. In all probability in that case the children would have been doomed to the common fate of cotton factory workers, with the low wages and hopeless outlook of an unskilled trade. Then he said that he was the father of three children and had lived for years next door to the best cotton mill in North Carolina. But if he should lose his means of livelihood and be forced to labor with his hands, rather than put his three young children in a cotton mill, he would “take them back to the mountains, build a shack by the side of a spring and plow with a brindled steer on the barren, ivy-covered plains of the Pick-Breeches.” His reference was to a well-known area in North Carolina where no one has ever been known to make a living. Mr. Swift’s partial defeat in the legislative fight—the abolition of night work for children under sixteen only was secured—has made him all the more determined to continue the war until his state shall adequately protect its working children from exploitation.
One especially significant address was by Rev. C. E. Weltner of Columbia, S. C. After many years’ experience in charge of the “betterment work” of one of the noted mills of Columbia, Mr. Weltner said he had come to the conclusion that a better way to spend any surplus earnings is in adding to the pay envelope so that the people may do a few things for themselves. The message of the conference was carried to many sections of the city through a series of parlor conferences, eleven in all, held on one of the afternoons.
The principal speakers at one of the evening meetings were John A. Kingsbury, of New York, who spoke on the poverty caused by child labor, and Julia C. Lathrop of the Federal Children’s Bureau, who gave an admirable outline of the functions of the new bureau and of its first effort to secure birth registration laws and to learn the causes of infant mortality. Lewis W. Hine, social photographer, threw upon the screen pictures of child labor conditions among the canneries of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, showing children of tender ages engaged in shucking oysters and shelling shrimp. Child Labor and Health occupied a morning session. Dr. W. H. Oates, state factory inspector for Alabama, made a forcible protest as a physician against conditions which tend to cause diseases of the throat and lungs in the children of the cotton mills. Mr. Brown spoke of the evils of the night-messenger service and Dr. Lindsay discussed improvement in child labor legislation.
A successful new feature of the conference was a meeting for children held at the Imperial Theater. It developed into two meetings, for the thousand children expected were doubled in number. Children themselves gave the stories of different child-employing industries, with the help of the stereopticon.
At the final meeting Senator Hudson, of Florida, presided. The writer made his annual protest against cotton mill conditions in the South, the subject this time being Our Modern Feudalism. Jerome Jones of Atlanta, prominent in southern labor circles, spoke of the connection between child labor and low wages. Mrs. Kelley gave one of her vigorous talks on the child breadwinner and the dependent parent. Owen R. Lovejoy appealed for more effective support of the cause of child labor reform by showing how widespread the evil is, how fearful the abuses are in many instances, and explained that the resources at the command of the committee, in the face of the enemies and obstacles to be overcome, are very meager.
Florida conditions and legislative problems were discussed at an informal gathering and this culminated in the organization of the Florida Child Labor Committee, with Dr. John W. Stagg of Orlando, as chairman and Marcus C. Fagg of the Children’s Home Society, Jacksonville, as secretary. The Florida Legislature is now in session.