But what can he do to carry out such a program in a prison where the cells are “little dingy, dark holes in the wall, damp, musty and disease breeding—an absolute disgrace to Kansas”? The prison physician echoes this complaint:
“If the institution hopes to make its inmates strive for better things in life it will have to set a better example. Compelling a man, after a day’s work to go into one of the little cells now provided, and sleep on a bag of straw only half wide enough, and almost as unyielding as the floor, will certainly never do it.”
Yet the power of personality is felt in spite of this. The officers are all under civil service and selected only for fitness. The warden says “a more courteous, prompt and efficient lot of prison officials cannot be found in any other penitentiary in the United States.” The prisoners themselves respond to the wise treatment they receive and show it “in their willingness and ability to do the work assigned them; in their almost uniformly kind and courteous treatment of the officers; in the absence of any destruction of prison property; in the few punishments and in their general cheerfulness and obedience.”
Kansas ought to give a good warden a good prison with plenty of land about it.
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.