President New Jersey State Board of Children’s Guardians
For the discussion of child labor in New Jersey there are no official data in which reliance can be placed. The reports of the State Bureau of Factory Inspection are conclusive evidence of the incompetence of the inspector and his deputies. The State Charities Aid Association has recently analyzed the report of the Bureau for the year ending October 27, 1900, and has published the results in the New Jersey Review of Charities and Corrections,[[16]] and it is shown that out of a total of 6,014 factories and bakeshops which were discovered by the Bureau, no less than 1,543 were not visited at all, and yet the department reports favorably on 5,862, indicating that 1,391 were reported favorably, but not visited. According to the 1900 census, however, there were in New Jersey 8,308 factories proper (excluding hand trades), and 1,485 clothing establishments, excluding families working in the tenements. The factory inspectors also report on 1,185 bakeries, so that there appears to have been a total of 10,978 establishments which it was the duty of the inspectors to visit.
The factory inspectors found 5,968 children under sixteen in the 6,014 establishments which they reported; an average of about one child to each establishment. Of these they ordered only fifty-nine children discharged during the year. The census reports an average of 8,042 children under sixteen, employed in manufacturing establishments alone, during the year. Attention should be directed, in this connection, to the difference between the duties of a census taker and a factory inspector. The former furnishes a blank schedule to the manufacturer, which he fills out at his own discretion, without any verification on the part of the census taker. In short, the census agent takes what is given him by the employer, and his interest in the matter is entirely perfunctory. The factory inspector is, however, supposed to make his own investigation and get his own evidence, though it is generally believed that in many cases he contents himself with a visit to the office only and a polite exchange of social amenities with the employer. While the factory inspector is expected to take a personal interest in his figures, it involves a lot of extra work for him and serious trouble for the employer, if the latter is so thoughtless as to inconvenience him by entering into embarrassing particulars in regard to children. In some instances it is reported that the inspector apprises the factory owner of his intended visit beforehand, the children being given a holiday in honor of the occasion.
The New Jersey laws prohibit the employment of boys under twelve and girls under fourteen, “in any factory, workshop, mine or establishment where the manufacture of any goods whatever is carried on.” Children between the ages of twelve and fifteen must have attended school for twelve consecutive weeks (or two terms of six consecutive weeks each) within the twelve months immediately preceding their employment. Children under fifteen must procure a certificate from their teachers giving full particulars as to attendance, etc. The report of the Department of Factory Inspection does not indicate how many of the 5,968 children, under sixteen, are over the age of fifteen, but of the total number of children, only 1,343 were required to produce school certificates. It seems hardly possible that 4,625 of the children employed were over fifteen years of age.
The inspectors have the power to prohibit overcrowding in factories and workshops, and to demand a certificate of physical fitness from some regular practicing physician in the case of minors who may seem physically unable to work. Apparently this gives the inspectors power to prohibit the employment of any girl under eighteen, or boy under twenty-one, who cannot obtain such a certificate, but it is evident from the report of 1900 that this power has not been exercised.
The law prohibits the employment of any child under sixteen “at any work dangerous to health, without a certificate of fitness from a reputable physician.” The meaning of this is somewhat ambiguous. Is the physician to certify to the condition of the child or the healthiness of the occupation? Who is to decide as to whether the work is dangerous to health? The questions are, however, entirely speculative, since the factory inspectors have done nothing to indicate any anxiety to put the matter to the test. It does not seem to have occurred to the inspectors that their power to set a standard of physical fitness for children really removes their chief difficulty. At a recent hearing before Governor Murphy, Inspector Ward pleaded that there were many difficulties in the way of enforcing the laws, his department being confronted with sworn affidavits of parents that their children were over the minimum age of twelve years, while the children themselves are taught with threats never to admit that they are under twelve years old. The test of physical fitness is really much more important than that of age, and the power to apply it gives the factory inspector the whip-hand over both the child’s parent and the employer. It seems strange, however, that nothing has been done in this country to define fully the dangerous trades or occupations. The British Parliament appointed a committee some years ago on “Dangerous Trades and Diseases of Occupations.”[[17]] The report of this committee established the fact that lead poisoning is rampant in the potteries, that phosphorus necrosis is common in the match factories, and that naphtha fumes in rubber-manufacturing results frequently in premature aging and paralysis. Among other specially unhealthy occupations may be mentioned glass-making, printing, cutlery, silk-mills, hats, pearl buttons and tobacco. What Mrs. Kelley said in 1896, at the National Conference of Charities and Correction, is equally true to-day:
“The physical condition of working children has never received attention, so far as I know, in any systematic way. There are some desultory provisions in the New York and Illinois factory laws which show there is a dim consciousness in the law-making mind that children may be put at work beyond their strength, unless there is supervision of them by some state officer. But these provisions are so loosely drawn that they are nugatory. The Illinois inspectors are urging upon the Legislature the necessity of adding to the staff a physician who shall give her whole time to the care of the children. There is, at present, no such material available as such a physician could furnish, upon the condition of the children, except the records of measurements made by two volunteer physicians for the inspectors, in 1893 and 1894, covering about 200 children, taken from the factories and workshops of Chicago. These records, published in the Factory Inspectors’ Report for 1894, are startling in the proportion which they show of undersized, rachitic, consumptive children at work. They are, however, so limited in number that their principal value lies in indicating the wide field open for investigating the working child as compared with the school child. What they show, comparatively, is that the stature of the working child is far less, upon the average, than that of the city school child. The child study of the past ten years bears out the assertion that stature in children is indicative of general development, physical and mental.”
The New Jersey Factory Inspectors have the power to call upon the public authorities to furnish truant officers, who are required to act under their direction. But this law is also a dead letter. So too is another law which was passed to regulate the sweat-shop evil, and provides that “No person, firm or corporation shall hire or employ any person to work in any room or rooms, apartment or apartments, in any tenement or dwelling-house, or building in the area of a tenement or dwelling-house, at making, in whole or in part, any coats, vests, trousers, knee pants, overalls, cloaks, furs, fur trimmings, fur garments, shirts, purses, feathers, artificial flowers or cigars, unless such person, firm or corporation first shall have obtained a written permit from the factory and workshop inspectors, ... which permit may be revoked at any time that the health of the community or of those employed as aforesaid may require it, and that such permit shall not be granted until due and satisfactory inspection of the premises affected shall have been made by the said inspector.” By a recent act, overcrowding in tenements or rented rooms is punishable at a fine of $25.00. Each adult must have 300 cubic feet of air; each child under twelve, 150 feet.
Public authority is thoroughly aroused on the whole question of child labor in New Jersey, and some interesting facts are coming to light. The trades unions are taking the matter up, in several directions, and the searchlight of the press is trained on several of the leading industries—notably the glass factories of South Jersey, the silk and textile mills of Passaic county, and the various tobacco and cigar factories which are scattered over the state. It is stated that each man employed as a glassblower is required to furnish a boy as a “helper,” and that a combination of the padrone system and veritable child slavery exists. Incidentally it has been developed that many boys have been placed in the families of glassblowers by private child-placing societies and orphan asylums of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It furnishes a striking argument for the public oversight of child-caring agencies. Here are a few letters from local cigarmakers’ unions:
No. 101, Elizabeth.—“We have Mr. Hilson’s machine cigar manufactory here, employing about 300 or 400 hands, all girls; about one-half of them are under age; our union has from time to time been obliged to see the factory inspector to remedy this evil; we informed him about a week ago that in case he further neglects his duty the Union County Trades Council and Cigar Makers’ Union would be compelled to see the Governor. The leading brand they make is the “Hoffman House,” which is done up in neat boxes, and as you can readily see they are able to undersell all union goods, as the lowest price for union cigars made is $8.00 per M., while they can furnish them with the girls working for them for $2.50 to $3.00.”