CHILDREN'S BUREAU AND CHILD LABOR
Lathrop, Julia C.
Children's Bureau And Child Labor By JULIA C. LATHROP IT IS NOT too much to say that the most significant year in the history of Child Labor Legislation in«the United States has just ended. On...
...Another hearing was held to discuss the proposed rules and regulations to which state factory inspectors and other state and city officials responsible for issuing working certificates were invited...
...SINCE the government is now directly and indirectly the greatest employer in the world, a war emergency protection is afforded by this action...
...No aristocracy can be recognized in formulating a measure to protect children from premature and excessive lavbor...
...In effect it forbade the employment of children under sixteen in mines and quarries, of children under fourteen in manufacturing establishments, and of children between fourteen and sixteen more than eight hours in any day, six days in any week, after seven in the evening or before six in the morning...
...This one was adopted on the theory that sustained efficiency in production is not promoted by the employment of children...
...On June 3, after the law had been in operation 273 days the Supreme Court handed down a decision declaring it unconstitutional...
...Thus great effort was made to launch the law with a clear understanding of its provisions...
...They are working out new and more generous policies for education and work...
...About a month after the law was declared unconstitutional a resolution of the War Labor Policies Board, which includes representatives of all the production and purchasing departments of the government, directed that the standards of the federal Child Labor Law should be written into all government contracts as follows: "Laws and restrictions relative to Labor: All work required in carrying out this contract shall be performed in full compliance with the laws of the state, territory or District of Columbia where such labor is performed, provided that the contractor shall not directly or indirectly employ in the performance of this contract any minor under the age of fourteen years, Or permit any minor between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years to wo* more than eight hours in any one day, more than six days in any one week, or before 6 A. M. or after 7 P. M. This provision shall be of the essence of the contract...
...This matter was brought to the attention of the Secretary of War and Navy and both departments issued orders that on all reservations within their respective control the standards of the federal law should be observed...
...These were published in a tentative form and a public hearing was held for their consideration...
...Government Big Employer...
...On September 1, a year ago, the federal Child Labor Law went into effect one year after its passage, the delay being provided so that employ-ers of child labor in the included industries might have abundant time tor readjustment...
...Thus by a strange anomaly, this year of confusion and apparent defeat give extraordinary impetus to the efforts to do justice to children...
...For example, the new English Education Bill, now apparently certain of passage this year, is a measure of such value, although scamped of its noble first proportions, that no citizen of the-United States can read its provisions without realizing that we, too, must make good to our children our theory of equal opportunity...
...This accords with the long established custom of the government ~of letting its contracts on certain conditions...
...On the whole the enforcement of the law caused negligible disturbance within the establishments affected, as a recent study by agents of the Children's Bureau clearly indicates...
...The court unanimously agrees that child labor is an evil...
...At first %hock, that might seem conclusive but analysis of the majority and minority opinions of the court justifies the conviction that federal legislation to protect children from labor had received not a defeat but only a stimulating setback...
...The father of two boys, one under fourteen and one between fourteen and sixteen appealed for the right of the younger one to work and for the right of the elder to work without restriction as to hours...
...It invoked the authority of Congress to regulate commerce among the states to prevent the transportation of goods from an establishment where children have worked in violation of the above standards within thirty days prior to the removal of the goods...
...A few days before the law went Into effect an injunction against its enforcement was secured in the Western District of North Carolina...
...The only just measure is one which affords this immunity to every child...
...Decision of Court...
...And the minority opinion contains these words: "But if there is any matter upon which civilized countries have agreed...
...A federal law is the only remedy...
...it is the evil of premature and excessive child labor...
...Children must do their war work in the school room, if they are to be equipped for their part in the exacting era which will follow the war...
...Certain signs encouraging to the deep sense of justice which can only be satisfied by government action, may be mentioned: Soon after the law went into effect a state labor inspector complained to the Children's Bureau that children were employed contrary to state law in laundries, restaurants and simiiiar establishments on military and naval reservations, and therefore not within his control...
...The separate varying statutes of forty-eight states create aristocracies and favored classes of children, and in the present war emergency this tendency is more baleful than ever before...
...The President, the Secretary of Labor, and a majority of Congress ! are believed to be strongly in favor of early action, and it may be prophesied that as soon as an agreement has been reached upon the best form for the measure, its early passage is assure...
...Although frankly an emergency measure it has for every thinking person great and heartening significance...
...The provisions of the statute are well known...
...The injunction restraining the employer from discharging the boys was granted and the government appealed the case...
...It means that this country has been able to learn by European experience rather than waiting to learn by our own that the safeguarding of children is essential to real war winning...
...The majority opinion states: "That th'.-re should be limitations upon the right to employ children in mines and factories in the interest of their own and the public welfare all will admit...
...The Secretary of Labor was charged with the administration of the Law...
...Upon this task friends of such limitation at once set to work both within and without the halls of Congress and at the present time various bills have been introduced while others are in process of drafting...
...THEREFORE, in view of the decision of the Supreme Court, it remains only to find a method of na tional limitations not repugnant to the constitution...
...The whole world knows as never before the injury which war unavoidably inflicts upon childhood and no efforts of heroism are more truly patriotic than the unheralded sacrifices by which the civilian populations of all Europe are struggling to keep their children alive, to protect them from toil, and to keep their schools open...
...A board consisting of the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Commerce and the Attorney General was directed to prepare rules and regulations for administering the law...
Vol. 10 • October 1918 • No. 10
