XIX
CHILD WAGE-EARNERS
Children are the most important assets of a nation.
While every one, individually, would admit this statement, it is not easy to persuade the government that the protection and development of child life cannot be left safely to private initiative, any more than can animal or plant life; that, in addition to the protection of the individual family, children need the fostering care of the organized government. For many years, the government, both State and National, has dealt generously with the agricultural interests of the country. When disease has broken out among either animals or plants, it has had its experts ready to send out at a moment’s notice to any part of the country. It has spent vast sums of money to investigate and eradicate boll-weevil in cotton, and hoof-and-mouth disease among cattle, and to develop a better strain in many animals and plants, but it is only very recently that it has been willing to investigate the needs of the children of the nation.
The appropriations of the Federal government for animal life, in 1915, were over $5,000,000; for child life, $164,000. In 1917, an additional appropriation of $150,000 was made for the enforcement of the Federal Child Labor Law.
Federal Child Labor Law: For fourteen years, the National Child Labor Committee has tried to get laws passed which would limit the hours of work for children, the kind of work they might do, and the age at which they might be put to work. Discouraged by the State by State method, the committee inaugurated a campaign for a Federal child labor law, and after three years of effort succeeded in getting it passed.
Men have an eight-hour day in many States. Women have an eight-hour day in a few States. Until the Federal bill was passed, children of tender years in a number of States could be employed almost unlimited hours and all night.
At the time the bill was passed three States permitted children under fourteen to work ten and eleven hours a day, and two States permitted them to work at night. Nineteen mining States permitted children under sixteen to work in mines.
Nine States permitted children under sixteen to do night work. In three Southern States, one-fifth of all the cotton-mill workers, in 1913, were children less than sixteen years of age.
The Federal Child Labor Bill, which went into effect September 1, 1917, was declared unconstitutional by a United States District Court in North Carolina, and is now before the Supreme Court of the United States. This law prohibits the interstate commerce of articles which children have helped to make. It does not control the labor of children in local occupations. Street trades, messenger service, agricultural work, and housework are not touched by it. This law is a great step in advance for the protection of children, but there are still 1,859,000 children, from ten to sixteen years old, at work in the United States whom the Federal law does not touch.
New York State Laws: For many years New York State has been building up a code of protection for the children of the State. Children under sixteen years of age are not permitted to work unless they have a special permit, and they must have completed the sixth grade in school. A physical examination of the child is required to see that he is able to stand the strain of the industry in which he is about to engage, and proof of age is required. To sell newspapers, boys from twelve to fourteen must have a permit and a badge. Boys of fourteen and fifteen are required to have badges if they have a prescribed route for the delivery of newspapers, but not if they are selling for themselves. Children under sixteen are not allowed to work more than eight hours a day. To enforce these laws adequately, many inspectors are needed and unceasing vigilance on the part of the public. While the provisions of the law concerning newsboys are very clear, and are generally obeyed in New York City, they are seldom enforced elsewhere in the State.