Committee on District of Columbia: Messrs. Smith of Maryland (chairman), Pomerene of Ohio, Smith of Arizona, Kern of Indiana, Hollis of New Hampshire, James of Kentucky, Saulsbury of Delaware, Martin of Virginia, Dillingham of Vermont, Jones of Washington, Works of California, Kenyon of Iowa, Fall of New Mexico and Lippitt of Rhode Island.
Committee on Education and Labor: Messrs. Smith of Georgia (chairman), Shively of Indiana, Swanson of Virginia, Martine of New Jersey, Johnson of Maine, Shields of Tennessee, Borah of Idaho, Penrose of Pennsylvania, Page of Vermont, McLean of Connecticut and Kenyon of Iowa.
Among the bills relating to the regulation of labor that have been introduced into Congress at the present session is that by Senator John Sharp Williams of Mississippi, aiming to safeguard the children of the District of Columbia from employments that are dangerous or that are conducted under unsanitary conditions. The measure provides that children under sixteen years of age shall not work in factories, on railroads or on boats. The bill divides occupations into classes, and puts children into groups from the age of twelve to twenty-one, enumerating the prohibited occupations, but permitting exceptions under certain conditions. Discretion is vested in the District health officer to pass upon other employment for children not already forbidden by the proposed law.
The convict-made goods bill, substantially in its original form, has been introduced into the Senate by Senator Thomas of Colorado. This measure, it will be remembered, passed the House at the last session, but was not reported out of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. As Senator Thomas pointed out in a statement, “I propose that prison products shall be divested of their interstate character, leaving them subject everywhere to the laws of the states. Many states have prohibited the sale of such goods. The principle of my measure is the same as that employed in the Webb-Kenyon liquor law.”
While the principle involved in the Thomas bill is now on the federal statute books, thus affording a valuable precedent for additional legislation, it is not generally believed that the Senate will take up this measure at least till later on in the session. The new Senate Committee on the Judiciary is as follows:
Culberson of Illinois (chairman); Overman of North Carolina, Chilton of West Virginia, O’Gorman of New York, Fletcher of Florida, Reed of Missouri, Ashurst of Arizona, Shields of Tennessee, Walsh of Montana, Bacon of Virginia, Clark of Wyoming, Nelson of Minnesota, Dillingham of Vermont, Sutherland of Utah, Brandegee of Connecticut, Borah of Idaho, Cummins of Iowa and Root of New York.
Senator Kenyon of Iowa has introduced a bill making it obligatory that all railway employes shall have twenty-four hours consecutively off duty in every period of 168 hours. It is stated that the belief that the existing law, intended to protect railway employes and limit their hours of labor, is being violated because of the impracticability of its strict enforcement prompted Senator Kenyon to draw up this bill.
NEW YORK-BOSTON EXCHANGE OF SETTLEMENT EXPERIENCES
The inter-city settlement conference held the past month in Boston, though not the first of such conferences, was unique in that it brought together settlement residents so widely separated as the New York Association of Neighborhood Workers and the Boston Social Union.
The first meeting dealt with the problem of securing and training workers. Eva W. White, headworker of the Elizabeth Peabody House and lecturer in the Boston School for Social Workers, spoke of the need of such training as schools of philanthropy and settlements themselves can give. Richard H. Edwards of the Inter-Collegiate Young Men’s Christian Association explained the movement for community service by college men. Settlement Scholarships and School and College Chapters for Settlement Work was the subject of a paper by Geraldine Gordon of Denison House.