Children Toil in Danger and Filth of Shrimp Canneries
Children Toil in Danger and Filth of Shrimp Canneries WHERE do oysters come* from? Almost everybody likes oysters and if you are a lover of sea-food you probably also like shrimp. Let's take a...
...They began as rules, intended to establish equality—politically—between the declining feudal class and the rapidly rising trading classes, the harbingers of the approaching social order — capitalism...
...The theory ef equality of litigants arose when the capitalist class was fighting against the ruling feudal class...
...It's like sea duty to a sailor...
...In most of the cannery villages the school terms are short and the school attendance law not well enforced...
...Our judicial system is based primarily upon the English Common Law which went through a development of centuries before the establishment of our government...
...It is just as righteous and necessary to sbolish the slavery of white children...
...Shucking is the word used for the opening of the oyster shell* and taking out th* meat, and it is a job which is dons to a great extent by the boatmen's families...
...Take as an illustration the creat industrial areas of New England, where during the last election thousands and thousands of workers were threatened with a lew> laring af wages and even a Ims of I job* if a certain candidate for President ware not elected...
...Exchange...
...The administration of law has always been confronted by two conflicting forces, one requiring stability in law and the other change and modification...
...There is no one back in the camp to leave these toddlers with...
...Would it have been possible for a poor man, without the resources of a Thaw, to have gone free under similar circumstances...
...They enjoy their life on the water, with its unususi and its adventurous side, but we will probably find them talking about their pay and their families like any group of workmen in the towns...
...A strong odor arises, and we notice that children and women are wearing gloves and dipping their hands in s tub of alum water, and that even with this protection the hands of some of them are bleeding...
...It is a sound principle that the national Government should not intervene in State matters except for very serious reasons...
...The shed on the pier is the cannery and there are the workers coming from their camp...
...Legal Fictions One of these is that we have a form of government divided into three equally important and supreme departments, Legislative, Executive and Judicial...
...Every State has s right to protect its own children...
...Militarism Now drag from the city the slowrotting youth, * And harden his lungs in the air...
...A cannery owner discussing the labor situation has aaid thst when the canneries cut down on th* rate there is some dissatisfaction, but that "men with largo families...
...They bend farther and farther over to reach the oysters at the bottom of the cars...
...But we see a different situation when we turn to industrial relation...
...When we are paid we first deduct our provision bill and then divide the rest into six shares, and one share belongs to the boat, which counts as • parson, and goes Co the company...
...State roads snd bridges are built with the aid of Federal money, under the Fed*ral Highway Act In the Western States, most of the schools were built with the proceeds of the Government lands...
...Whenever a boatload of oysters comes in, the children are at the cannery, though on days when no boat arrives they may perhaps go to school...
...It is possibly true that, in an ordinary case involving no great socisl question or matter of large importance that it is possible for the litigants to be equal before the law...
...The Common Law may therefore be characterized as customary law...
...It's a game of chance...
...Bring down from the mountains the rustic uncouth, Too long we've neglected him there...
...We hold it over their heads," the boss tells us...
...The father's uncertain earnings and even the addition of the mother's earnings do not adequately support the family...
...A two-year-old has had his hand crushed, falling in the path of the oyster cars, and others show cuts received from falling among the shells...
...A man has the right to be unmolested in his own house, but ja) his house is on fire, and he is too drunk to rescue his children, his neighbors must go In snd get the children out...
...A Tough Life The average earnings that the captain speaks of vary according to what the canneries pay per barrel, of course...
...If the wind is right, luck's with you...
...are satisfied because the difference is more than made up by wkkt their children earn shucking...
...The list of atrocities I* too long to enumerate...
...but it is also true that they do not govern even indirectly, for under present conditions there are many ways of compelling one to do a thing in spite of his inclination or bent to do the opposite...
...Children in a State with high standards are taken across the border into s State with low stsndsrdi and put to work there, and then returned to their home Stato, stunted in body and mind...
...One of them tells us thst he is sending his eon to school regularly and planning to have him learn a trade...
...Federal officers representing the Department of Agriculture inspect perishable foods and supervise the inspection of grading of grain...
...He is not going to be a ihucker all his life if I can help it...
...Under these conditions, to say thst the parties sre equal under the law and should be treated so is to mske the lew unjust and oppressive...
...It all depends on the weather in our work...
...The workers, however, have had their sole mesne of livelihood suspended, starvation stare* them in the face, and their familie* are crying for food...
...This is specially true among the families brought from the North...
...THE fictions which are the subject of this lecture are not only legal in aspect and character but of vast social and political importance...
...It is only four o'clock in the morning, but oysters do not keep, and in a short time a group of women and children of all ages appear from a tow of barracks and shacks behind the cannery...
...There will be a crew of about five boatmen...
...From this condition many fictions arose...
...It ws* a* distinct an interference with States' rights ss the Child Labor Amendment can possibly be...
...It should be clear that the law which governed Old England in the medieval ages when serfdom was the prevailing economic order and life was comparatively simple cannot be adequate for modern times with its highly developed industries and complex social life...
...They have been arrested and jailed without any charges against them...
...The oyster cars sre pushed slong the pier into a steam box where the stesm partly opens the shells...
...They stsnd at their work swaying back and forth with a rhythm which apparently enables them to work long hears and still keep up speed...
...Some "Legal Fictions" That Still Survive By LOUIS P. GOLDBERG The following is from a leeturt recently delivered by Louts P. Goldberg, Socialist and Labor lawyer, before the Lorn Club of Brooklyn...
...Many others, however, can not see their way out of the endless circle of poverty, child labor, and still more poverty for their children who will grow up laeking education...
...They should be discarded and the law re-stated in the light of the facts...
...But judges very often interpret in such manner as to violate its intent or purpose and thus substitute their discretion for that of the Legislature...
...In some of the canneries a State Inspector may be seen at long Intervals, but his coming can usually be detected and the children sent to hide...
...If the local communities do not take care of these children, whose responsibility is It...
...In the spring they return to the Middle Atlantic States and work till fall, perhaps in the corn and tomato and fruit canneries, where conditions are likely to be much the same as in the oyster canneries on the Gulf...
...Sixty years ago, a nation wide constitutional amendment was adopted abolishing black slavery...
...yet no Stats csn do this effectively while neighboring States let down their bars...
...A big sister explains apologetically that her sevenyear-old brother does not work because he can not reach up to the car to shuck...
...it should be the self-imposed dutyj>f_al...
...Let's take a trip down to the Gulf : oast and visit some oyster and shrimp canneries...
...In some of our States, the powerful interests that control legislation sre drunk with greed for profits, and the health and lives of the children are made a sacrifice...
...Our Government is not a democracy and the people do not rule directly...
...Judge Car doza, in his excellent little book "The Growth of the Law," points out that it is the judge who can strike a happy medium and reconcile these conflicting forces who becomes a great jurist and serves society...
...Perhaps, however, the babies may bo left in care of children just a little older...
...We are usually out a week and load on about 450 barrels of oysters...
...But like the boatman who told us he was sending his boy regularly, there are other parents who make great sacrifices to give their children a better education than they have had...
...A demand upon Courts to apply the old law to existing conditions would be asking of them to be either unjust in the extreme or to require of them th* exercise of divine genius...
...The slogan was "Equality before Use law...
...Federal officers representing the Bareau of Animal Industry supervise the eradication of tuberculosis in herds of cattle and horses...
...In epidemics whether among human beings or domestic animala, and in checking the ravages of insect pests, Federal and State authorities have to cooperate...
...There the owners with the aid of the Courts, have victimized the miners, oppressed them and suppressed their organizations...
...When human lives are at stake, ordinary considerations must give way...
...States' vs...
...a gamble with the wind...
...A child of twelve looks at us wonderingly, since visitors in this out-of-the-way place are rare, and she asks us, "Don't you ever shuck ?" The Child Victims Child labor seems to be taken for granted...
...They break •part the clusters and open the shells with knives and begin to fill their cups with oyster meat...
...The oyster boat comes in to the pier snd a shovel on a crane begins to unload the catch into email cara...
...It is hardly necessary to further discuss this phase of the question...
...Consult your own experiences for support of the statement...
...the second to enforce, and the third to interpret the law...
...Child labor csn no mors be held in by State lines than an epidemic or forest fire...
...Some months we can make four trips, and then again when the weather is bad we only manage to mske one...
...There are not likely to be any neighbors about...
...It wss derived from established customs of Old England, interpreted and modified by a long line of decisions...
...Rules of law are modified, rejected or distinguished in such manner as to be equivalent to the establishment of new law...
...By ALICE S. BLACK WELL THE National Child Labor Amendment is said to interfere with States' rights...
...but if its too windy you can't manage your sails, snd if it isn't windy enough it's no good, for you've got to keep the boat moving...
...The first is supposed to enact the laws to supplant the Common Law...
...Childrens' Rights—Which...
...yet it was, sad is, strongly supported, by most of th* Southern States...
...A mother tells us "it takes every penny to feed and clothe them," including what the children themselves can make The illiteracy among the children over ten years old is six times as great as for the children of about the same ages in the United States as a whole...
...Who of you do not know friends who enroll in certain political parties and join organisations because of their business needs snd not because of their convictions 1 Furthermore, the control of the press, the sycophsncy of the pulpit and abject subordination of the pedagogical profession to financial and industrial interests, make it almost impossible for the great masses to be reached by facts which are important for them to arrive at a proper under stsnding of our system of government, and consequently also for a proper determination of their conduct in participating in the affairs of our country...
...Now, however, with the change ef conditions, all right-thinking persons should demand that the Courts "realize end consider the difference between the parties in order to effect justice...
...crowded camps to live in...
...but tie Prohibition Amendment is such s parallel...
...The mother of a girl of nine tells us thst this child hasn't gone to work because "her little hands are too tender...
...A case where an extremely wealthy and perverted man was able to escape the consequences of his evil deeds through his vast wealth, gathering from all sections of the country the ablest and most resourceful counsel...
...When, by reason of strike or lockout, the bos* and his workers come into courts, the former is economically provided for...
...The floor is wet and slippery and strewn with piles of shrimp h*ads or oyster shells, and over this floor the babies crawl and the children who are too young to work run about and play...
...This sea life spoils you for a land job," the captain says, "but its mighty uncertain...
...We need a national law to meet a national eviL No State has an ethics) right to let its children's health and lives be sacrificed to s greedy commercialism...
...But here on oar boat, all the boatmen do not seem to be "satisfied" with this arrangement...
...Wet, uncomfortable work, long hours...
...But that in itself 1* a great injustice when one of the contending parties is rich and powerful snd th* other poor and starving...
...Then they are ran on into the shed and the workers fasten container* to the •Idas of the cars and reach in for dusters of oysters...
...Useful when they originated, they have lost their force with the total destruction of feudalism, the victory of the democratic principle, and the development of a highly intensified industrial system...
...The fiction is that the Judiciary merely interprets the law, that It never legislates...
...How is it possible for one who has been brought up in a certain environment, taught to reverence certain institutions and ideas, and to abhor and denounce certain others, who through his education and associations has built up s certain philosophy of life, to summarily discard all his past and become free, unhampered and unprejudiced in the determination of matters which require the constant application of a philosphy of life for arriving at a decision ? Two other fictions that may be considered jointly...
...The world in its madness would heap to the stars The bones of its best for the glory of Man...
...deprived them of civil and political rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and made the administration of justice a laughing-stockMiners have been shot down from ambush, their homes have been raided, and they have been dispossessed in the most inclement weather...
...The Federal Government already takes a large hand in State affairs...
...The lecture is entitled "Legal Fietiont" and present* a rational view of law and judicial procedure at they are afeeted by changing social and economic condition...
...These cases, it may be said, are not on as exact parallel to the Child Labor Amendment...
...These customs not having originally been recorded, it remained for the judges or rulers to decide what the custom was and, therefore, the prevailing law...
...She says, "I want the children to get a good schooling because I never had any...
...If you sre fond of sailing, suppose wc mske a trip on an oyster boat...
...But the Federal Children's Bureau has been established to Investigate and report on conditions affecting children all through the country, so that everybody may know the facts...
...In the administration of the Criminal Law the vast difference between the rich and poor is decidely marked...
...The workers break off the heads with one hand and squeeze out the flesh with the other...
...he has the means of continued livelihood, and is merely temporarily inconvenienced...
...Representatives of the Interstate Commerce Commission see thst locomotives are inspected in accordance with its rules, and repair defects, if defects sre found...
...In West Virginia, we find the miners in constant struggle with the mine owners for a living wage snd proper conditions of labor...
...Our gold we will give with a cheer and a sigh, To fit them to live—to prepare them to die...
...What more natural than for a man to succumb to such coercion...
...It is about time the Courts began to realize that these fictions are hampering the proper administration of justice, that they are used in manners which csuse hardships, that they do not serve the ends of justice and equity any longer, though they might have when they were first enunciated...
...The Courts ha v. repeatedly stated thst all litigants should be treated alike...
...and this matter concerns the lives and health of the children, who are the country's most precious asset...
...Survival of Old Fictions Although the law has been changing rapidly, we retain many of the fictions enunciated centuries ago...
...There are two seasons for shrimp, one in the fall and another in the spring, but since the trawl system has been introduced it is possible to fish for shrimp all year round...
...The open season for catching oysters runs from October to April...
...The judges ultimately became the depositories and monopolists of the law...
...we hear a whistle blow from the shed on the other end of the pier...
...no one to care whether the children are sent to school, since they are net "legsl residents" of any district...
...One fiction is that lawyers who sre elevated to the Judiciary, as soon as they become judges, lose all their prejudices, acquire a "judicial temperament" and a desire to do "justice...
...the workers living in the camps have been brought here from the North for the winter and everyone in the company camp is expected to work...
...One is that the people rule, and the other that all are equal before the law...
...The Fiction of Equality . Equality before the law is another fiction...
...They originated in the early days of the development of the Common Law in the struggle of the rising commercial class against usurpation and autocracy of the feudal barons...
...As another illustration we might mention the Loeb and Leopold case...
...I want to pay my tribute to a great legal scholar, Judge Cardoza, who has been doing noble work in that direction...
...It's a tough life and I don't want him to work like I have...
...Wo avenge about $30 apiece each trip...
...But here the serious reasons exist...
...A "Louisiana French" mother has moved away from one canning village because it had no school at all...
...Many children of school age have never been to any school...
...Shrimp Picking Tf shrimp picking is going on, the shrimp are ietd instead of steamed, to make their shells less difficult to open, and spread on wire trays on top of the empty oyster cars or on tables...
...who realize the unhealthy state of the law through the retention of these fictions to aid in the carrying on of the work to clear the law of fictions and unapplicable formulae...
...The case of Thaw is still in the minds of all persons...
...It must be somebody's, don't you think ? Under our Federal Constitution, as the Supreme Court recently haa decided, the Government at Washington does not have authority to deal with this question, unless there should be an amendment giving Congress special power...
...There is an acid in the head of the shrimp and also a sharp thorn which is likely to run into the hand and break eft...
...This is clearly'a fiction...
Vol. 2 • January 1925 • No. 5
