IV. The Child Labor Problem

153

CHILD LABOR LEGISLATION

By Mrs. Florence Kelley

Secretary National Consumers’ League

155It is most desirable that the present widespread agitation for child labor legislation may achieve permanent results of a uniform character. Such laws as now exist are alike in no two states; they are enforced differently when they are enforced at all; they are uniform only in their failure to afford adequate protection to the rising generation of the working class.

It is the aim of this paper to set forth some essential points of an effective child labor law efficiently enforced; for whatever the local differences of industrial conditions may be, certain fundamental needs of childhood are constant and child labor legislation must ultimately be framed with regard to these.

This fact is somewhat recognized in the statutes already enacted; for all these begin with a restriction upon the age at which the child may begin to work. This minimal age has varied from ten years to fifteen, differing in some states for boys and for girls, while the statutes prescribing it have been weakened in some states by exemptions and strengthened in others by educational requirements. The fundamental provision of all child labor legislation has always been the prohibition of work before a specified birthday.

Akin to the restriction of the age of employment is the restriction of the hours of work. The former secures to the child a fixed modicum of childhood; the latter assures to the adolescent certain leisure, all too little, for growth and development.

No one law can be selected as containing all the provisions needed or even as containing all the provisions now in force. It is not possible to say to students of the subject, “The law of Massachusetts should be copied everywhere,” for the laws of Ohio and Illinois contain single provisions in advance of that of Massachusetts.

Among the best child labor laws in the United States are those of Illinois and Indiana, which are almost identical. In Illinois no child under the age of fourteen years can be legally 156employed in any mine, manufacturing establishment, factory or workshop, mercantile institution, store, office, or laundry. The Indiana law adds, to the foregoing list, renovating works, bakeries and printing offices. This prohibition is absolute throughout the year, admitting no exemptions or exceptions. Herein lies the superiority of these laws. Under the New York law, children at work in stores are exempt from restrictions during half of December—from December 15 to December 31—and also during the vacations of the public schools, when they may be employed from the age of thirteen years everywhere outside of the factories, which happily they may not enter before the fourteenth birthday. This exemption in New York has been given such elastic construction that children have been employed on Saturdays and even on school-days out of school-hours.

The laws of Illinois and Indiana are humane; they set the highest age limit without exemptions yet attained; they are equitable since they place mine owners, manufacturers and merchants in the same position in relation to this particular source of cheap labor. The employment of children under fourteen years of age is prohibited to all three sets of employers alike.

Treating these laws as standard or normal, for purposes of comparison, the law of Pennsylvania, for instance, is seen to fall below, because under it children may work in certain mines at twelve years and in factories at thirteen years of age; while lowest in the scale among all the Northern and Middle states stands New Jersey, whose child labor law permits boys to work at twelve and exempts all children, on grounds of poverty, at discretion of the factory inspectors.

Exemptions.

From the foregoing brief statement it is clear that the subject of exemptions is a varied and complicated one. The most insidious form of exemption, and therefore perhaps the most dangerous, is that prescribed in the law of Wisconsin. Under it, no child may be employed under the age of fourteen years in manufacture or commerce, unless it is exempted on grounds of poverty by a judge of a local court. In practice, a judge has no time to investigate the economic condition of hundreds of families; hence he follows the recommendation of the deputy factory inspector. This overworked 157officer is drawn away from his proper duties to perform an economic investigation for which he possesses no especial fitness. His own work suffers. Children are exempted from school attendance and permitted to work, who more than any other children in the community need education because of the poverty or shiftlessness of their parents. Too often, drunken fathers are encouraged to further drunkenness because their young children, under exemption, are earning money which the parents spend. Finally, this exemption rests upon the pernicious principle that a young child under fourteen years of age may be burdened with the support of itself or its family.

It is not a legitimate function of the judiciary to investigate the poverty of individual families. It is not a legitimate function of the factory inspectors to investigate family life. Both officers are interrupted in the performance of their legitimate duties by every attempt to perform this alien task. Moreover, children under fourteen years of age are undesirable additions to the body of wage-earners, pressing by their competition upon the wages of their seniors and therefore tending to produce in other families the same poverty which serves as a pretext for their own exemption. The number of exempted children, under such a provision, tends to increase continuously, because greedy and pauperized parents are tempted to follow the example of the really needy, in urging applications for exemptions.

Reinforcements.

Besides being free from all the undermining effects of exemption clauses, the child labor laws of Illinois and Indiana profit by several reinforcing clauses. Chief among these is the requirement that children under sixteen years and over fourteen years must keep on file in the office of the place of employment an affidavit of the parent or guardian, stating the date and place of birth of the child. In Indiana, this must state also that the child can read and write the English language. While some parents are undoubtedly guilty of perjury, and others carelessly take the oath perfunctorily administered by a notary public, thousands of honest people are deterred by the requirement of the affidavit from sending their children to work before reaching the fourteenth birthday.

158Employers must produce, on demand of factory inspectors, affidavits for all children under sixteen years of age in their employ. The penalty prescribed for failure to do this is the same as for employing a child under the age of fourteen years. The value of this provision for the protection of the children depends wholly upon the policy of the inspectors. If every failure to produce the affidavit is followed by immediate prosecution, manufacturers become extremely cautious about employing young children; children under fourteen years of age virtually cease to be employed; and the number of those employed under sixteen years of age diminishes because many employers refuse to be troubled with affidavits, inspections and prosecutions. On the other hand, employers of large numbers of children find it profitable to make one clerk responsible for the presence in the office of an affidavit for every child between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years. In these cases, the children who have affidavits acquire a slight added value, are somewhat less likely to be dismissed for trifling reasons, and become somewhat more stable in their employment.

Where, however, inspectors fear to prosecute systematically, lest they be removed from office, the provision requiring an affidavit to be produced by the employer, on demand of an inspector, is not rigorously enforced; children soon come to be employed upon their verbal assurance that they are fourteen years of age, and the protection which might be derived from this very useful reinforcing clause is lost for the children under fourteen years of age, as well as for the older ones.

A farther reinforcement of the prohibition of employment of children under fourteen years of age is the authority conferred by the Illinois law upon inspectors to demand a certificate of physical fitness for children who may seem unfit for their work. This provision enforced with energy and discretion can be made, in the case of children conspicuously undersized, largely to counteract the tendency to perjury on the part of parents, besides relieving healthy children from overstrain of many kinds. The difficulties encountered are chiefly two:—physicians grant certificates without visiting the place of employment. This occurs quite uniformly to the disgrace of the profession. Physicians also grant certificates, in many cases, without careful examination of eyes, heart, lungs and spinal column of the child, simply upon the parent’s statement of poverty. 159To make this reinforcement thoroughly effective, every factory inspection staff should include a physician, preferably two, a man and a woman, appointed expressly to follow up the children and the conditions under which they work.

Educational Tests.

Several states require that children under sixteen years of age must be able to read and write simple sentences in the English language, before being employed. This is of the highest value in those states which receive large streams of immigration from Europe. In New York, every year, numbers of children are dismissed from factories by order of factory inspectors, because the children cannot read; while in Massachusetts, French Canadian children find school attendance at a high premium because of the difficulty of securing employment without it. The influence of the foreign voting constituency has defeated in several states, for several years past, the effort to secure a statutory requirement of ability to read and write English, or a specified attendance at school, as a prerequisite for work on the part of children under sixteen years of age. This is conspicuously true of Illinois, where such a provision was defeated in the legislatures of 1893, 1895 and 1897.

The most powerful reinforcement of the child labor law is a compulsory school attendance law effectively enforced. For want of this, the child labor law of Illinois suffers severely. The school attendance law requires children between the ages of eight and fourteen years to attend school sixteen weeks, of which twelve must be consecutive. Children under ten years of age must enter school in September, children under twelve years must enter school not later than New Year’s. Meagre as these provisions are, they are not uniformly and effectively enforced by the local school boards; and the state factory inspectors are therefore burdened with frequent prosecutions of employers because children under fourteen years of age are sent to work by parents who should be rigorously prosecuted by the school attendance officers.

In Indiana, the reinforcement afforded by the state truancy law is of great value, for children must attend school to the age of fourteen years, throughout the term of the school district in which 160they live, generous provision being made for truant officers. This difference accounts, perhaps, for the fact that Indiana has but three and one-half thousand children under the age of sixteen years at work, compared with nineteen thousand such children in Illinois; and this despite the rapid development of the “Gas Belt” in Indiana, where the temptation is very great for parents to put excessively young children to work with the help of perjured affidavits. Truant officers, watching young children, from the eighth to the fourteenth birthday, every day of the school term, are the best preventive alike of perjury by parents and of child labor. They constitute the best possible reinforcement of the child labor law.

The contrasted practice of the neighboring states of Indiana and Illinois, in this respect, is so marked that, unless the policy of Illinois be radically changed in the near future, it is reasonable to expect that, despite the excellent child labor law, the number of children at work under the age of sixteen years must continue to double at intervals of five years, as it has done in the past—the recruits being largely drawn from the ranks of the children under the legal age for work.

In Boston, the very enlightened firm of merchants known as Filene’s have long made it a rule to employ no person who is not a graduate of the grammar grades of the public schools. In two cases known to the writer, girls aged respectively eighteen and sixteen years applied for work, but were not engaged because they had not completed the school requirement. They found employment elsewhere while attending the graded evening schools of Boston in preparation for service at Filene’s. It is reasonable to expect that this method of securing efficient help will be increasingly followed by public-spirited employers interested in placing a premium upon school attendance, until at last legislators may feel justified in specifying some one grade of the schools below which the pupil may not leave to begin working.

The Hours of Labor.

Among the most advanced restrictions upon the hours of labor of children is that of New Jersey, which prohibits all persons, men, women and children, alike, from working in manufacturing establishments longer than fifty-five (55) hours in any week, or after one 161o’clock on Saturday. This provision applies throughout the year. Massachusetts and Rhode Island prohibit the employment of women of any age and of youths under eighteen years, longer than fifty-eight hours in any week, or ten hours in one day, or after nine at night or before six in the morning.

These laws have the advantage of precision. They require that the hours of work of the persons concerned must be posted conspicuously, and that the posted hours shall constitute the working day—work beyond the posted hours constituting a violation of the law—thus rendering the enforcement of the law simple and easy.

The statute of Utah prohibits all persons from working in mines, smelters and factories longer than eight hours in one day and forty-eight hours in one week. This statute has been sustained by the Supreme Court at Washington, in the decision in the case of Holden vs. Hardy, 1896. It does not, at present, affect any considerable number of children, because child labor hardly exists in Utah. But with the development of manufacture, now proceeding with startling rapidity, the value of this enlightened law for the children who must inevitably find employment is quite beyond computation. And as a precedent for similar legislation elsewhere, this statute and the extremely strong decision of the Supreme Court at Washington sustaining the validity of the statute are of epoch-making importance.

Night Work of Children.

The extent to which children are employed at night is not generally recognized. In any state in which such employment is not explicitly prohibited, it is very general in all branches of industry in which children are employed by day. Glassworks, nut and bolt works, tin can factories, furniture factories, cutleries, and scores of miscellaneous industries employ boys regularly at night. Girls are regularly employed in garment and candy factories during the busy season; and in some factories this work continues all through the year, as in the cotton mills of Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas. Wherever the prohibition is not explicit and sweeping, the night work of children is the rule, not the exception. In Illinois and Indiana boys are not prohibited from working at night, and are 162regularly employed in the glassworks in both states under circumstances of great hardship. In Indiana, girls are forbidden to work after ten o’clock; but Illinois, cruelly belated in this respect, merely restricts the work of children under sixteen years of age to sixty hours in any week, and ten hours in one day, failing to proscribe night work even for girls. It is, accordingly, very common. Even in Boston, where the hours of labor of boys under eighteen years engaged in manufacture and other forms of commerce are strictly limited, a recent attempt to pass an ordinance requiring that newsboys under fourteen years of age shall not sell papers on the streets after eight o’clock at night failed utterly, and small boys are to be seen upon the streets at all hours. The place of honor in the matter of legislation prohibiting night work for children properly belongs to Ohio, which provides that minors under eighteen years of age, may not be employed after seven o’clock at night.

Children Not Yet Protected.

Large numbers of working children remain wholly unprotected by legislation. Not only have the four great cotton manufacturing states, Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas, defeated all bills presented to their legislatures for the purpose of protecting young children, but in the North, also, newsboys, bootblacks, peddlers, vendors and the thousands of children employed in the tenement houses of New York and Chicago, and in the sweat-shops of Philadelphia, remain wholly outside of the law’s protection, so far as statutory regulation of the conditions of their work is concerned. The problem of abolishing the overwork of school children in tenement houses, under the sweating system, appears at present insoluble except by a prohibition of all tenement house work.

Enforcement.

To secure the enforcement of child labor legislation, there are needed factory inspectors, both men and women, equipped with ample powers and supplied with adequate funds for traveling and other expenses. These inspectors need good general education, long experience, and vigorous public opinion reinforcing their efforts. Massachusetts enjoys the unique distinction, among the 163American states, of possessing a large staff of factory inspectors meeting all these requirements; and Massachusetts is, accordingly, the only state of which it may be confidently asserted that its child labor law is uniformly and effectively enforced at all times and in all its provisions. A faithful officer serving a full quarter-century at the head of the department, with subordinates equally assured of permanent tenure of office during good behavior, has been able fearlessly and intelligently to enforce the laws securing to the children of Massachusetts fourteen full years of childhood, with opportunity for school life, followed by safety of life, limb and health after entering upon the years of work.

In all the other states it is extremely difficult for an inspector who faithfully enforces the law to retain his position. The interests which oppose such legislation and object to its enforcement, are enormously powerful and are thoroughly organized. The people who procure the enactment of child labor laws are usually working people unacquainted with the technical details of the work of inspection; busy in the effort to earn their own living; not able to keep vigilant watch upon the work of the inspectors, the creation of whose office they achieve. Thus the officials are subjected to pressure in one direction only. If they are idly passive, they may be allowed to vegetate in office several years. If they are aggressively faithful to the oath of office, enforcing the law by prosecuting offenders against its provisions, the children who profit by this are unable to reward their benefactors; the working people who obtained the creation of the office have no arts of bringing pressure to bear effectively to reward faithfulness in public service by appointed officers; while the offending employers are amply able to punish what they decry as officious overactivity, if they do not go farther and charge persecution and blackmail. For these reasons it may almost be stated as a general proposition that the more lax the officer, the longer his term of office; and the history of the departments of factory inspection, the country over, sadly substantiates the statement.

The recent startling revelations of non-enforcement of the laws intended to protect young children from exhausting overwork in the glass factories in New Jersey merely intimate what will be found true in every state in which there is not a powerfully organized, compact body of public opinion alert to insist upon the retention 164of competent officers, the removal of incompetent ones, and the uniform, consistent enforcement of all the provisions of the child labor laws.

To form in every state, among the purchasers of the products of manufacture, a body of alert, enlightened public opinion, keen to watch the officers to whom is entrusted the duty of enforcing child labor laws, rewarding with support and appreciation faithful officials and calling attention to derelictions from duty on the part of the mere politicians among them, this is an important part of the duty of the National Consumers’ League.

165

CHILD LABOR IN THE DEPARTMENT STORE

By Franklin N. Brewer

General Manager Wanamaker Store, Philadelphia

167The topic assigned me, “Child Labor in (so called) Department Stores,” interests us, I take it, from but one point of view: that of the education and development of the child into the man or woman who shall contribute and receive a normal share of the world’s good growth in life, liberty and happiness.

I cannot claim comprehensive thought or research, under this topic, and my paper must be the brief and superficial one of a man whose too short days are full of the work of the builder rather than the study of the architect.

If my coming before you is justified at all, it must be by the simple statement I am able to make of how one establishment,^[15] a typical one of the class under consideration, is trying to meet its responsibility for its children.

First entrance into the employ of this house is, to the extent possible, with a clear understanding between parent, or guardian, and the employer, that the child’s business career shall continue with the same house, at least until maturity in years and efficiency in some distinct branch of the business shall have been reached.

Following our State law, thirteen years is the minimum age. The smaller boys begin as “cash boys.” Girls are not given this work, positions of less freedom being considered safer for them. The girls up to, usually, seventeen years of age, and the boys, other than cash boys, usually, from sixteen to eighteen, are engaged directly in the general corps of the junior employees—we call it “The Cadet Corps”—and into this corps the cash boys come by promotion. Except at Christmas, the cash boys will average two hundred in number; the cadets four hundred, of whom about one hundred are girls. These six hundred young people are assigned to duty in the various departments and divisions of the business, according to natural aptitude and fitness, and are under the direction of their respective department or section heads; but always, also, and until graduation from the Cadet Corps, they are under 168the care and discipline of the chief of the corps and a lady assistant. The young people are not lost sight of individually, but are known and studied by the managers with view to advancement according to capacity and natural abilities.

Cultivation of good manners, neatness, elevated personal habits, the general requirements of the store service, lessons from their individual experiences, etc., are considered with them individually and at general meetings, and are emphasized by a system of monthly averages bearing upon questions of promotion and increase of salary. To illustrate: Each of the smaller boys (the cash boys) has his record card which he must carry for a month. It is no small departure from small-boy nature, simply to have and hold this card during a month without a forbidden accumulation of dirt and damage upon it. One of the early signs of progress, after the adoption of this feature of our plan, was an increased average whiteness and remaining area in the cards surrendered at the month’s end. This card epitomizes the boy’s early business life and he reverences it and guards it. On one side are rules to be committed to memory, but this is merely incidental. The other is the serious side, where an array of spaces gradually fill up, like the rising of the tide. Weekly ratings by his section manager for neatness, promptness, truthfulness, etc.; a weekly rating at morning “inspection,” by his general chief; daily strokes of the pencil (if occasion require) for misconduct or neglect of duty—“bluies” the boys call these latter marks and there is no levity or disrespect in the term. Protest against what is felt to be an undeserved “bluie” is made to his chief, or even to the general manager, with all the earnestness of an appeal to the Supreme Court, and, needless to say, such appeals are patiently entertained and decided with honest effort after justice. Upon these cards, also, are entered the monthly figures given for the boys’ school-work. The average of all the ratings is the “store average” and the misconduct marks (“bluies”) reckon so much off. The card goes home for inspection and signing by parent or guardian. Upon the “store average” depend increase of salary and promotion. If advance in salary is not won reasonably soon (six weeks or two months usually bring the first upward step) the conclusion is apt to be reached that the boy is unfitted for our service and he is dropped from the ranks. The simple expedient of these cards, and that which they represent, secures 169in discipline what the harsh word and impulsive discharge never could secure, and a month or two bring about in the little “raw recruit” a surprising improvement.

I mention these details as illustrative of the spirit, character and thoroughness with which, to the best of our ability, the problems of the discipline and development of our young people are met, along their whole course from first entrance into the business up to graduation into the ranks of men and women. And this line of procedure is simple recognition of the fact that these are children still, whose characters are forming, and that faults and defects, which in man or woman might require discharge, in the child simply demand correction.

The boys above the cash boy grade, and the girls, are placed, as early as wisely possible (depending upon their own developing tendencies and the business conditions), where some distinct branch of the business, or class of merchandise, will be learned thoroughly. Stock boy, salesman, stock-head, buyer’s assistant, is the usual line of advancement in merchandising. Development in clerical lines makes the bookkeeper, the auditor, the office assistant, the stenographer. In trades lines grow up among us, the milliner, the dressmaker, the paper shade and flower worker, the plate engraver and printer, the designer, draughtsman, decorator, show-card painter, the mechanic in repair of bicycles, dolls, and so on. Exceedingly numerous and varied are the paths open, and in so far as possible an early and definite selection and patient reasonable progress along some one of these paths are insisted upon. Meanwhile salaries are advanced systematically according to a minimum scale which is increased as progress above the average and promotion to higher duties may mark the course of the individual.

Does the program, thus far, sound too serious and strict for normal happiness and hopefulness in the children? See our young people and you will find the reverse to be true. Granted a child, normal in body and mind, happily busy and interested in duties of genuine importance to and among other busy people, and the question of training in the business proper answers itself: the child learns, absorbs, grows by the easy process of nature. His capital knowledge, as a business man, becomes to him like the mud on the carpet at Willie’s home: “I didn’t bring it into the house, mamma; it just stuck to my shoes and came in itself.” But the 170youthful business students of to-day require for normal development more than the round of duty of a succession of business days in a fixed place can supply, and more than the average home and home circle of friends and interests of the working boy or girl do supply.

And so we have found it practicable to bring into the business lives of our young people most of the activities usual in the schools. The smaller boys are organized into school and military companies. Each company assembles in the school-rooms, on the fifth floor of the store building, two mornings in the week, where regular instruction is given in arithmetic, grammar, spelling, writing, composition and singing. On two other mornings they have the setting-up exercises and drill of the school of the soldier, with some other physical culture features. The boys elect their own military officers, save, of course, their chief, and these officers become successful disciplinarians, retaining well the respect and obedience of their companies. A very successful fife, bugle and drum corps, composed of the boys themselves, is a feature of this branch of their organization. As fairly indicating the standard of these special activities, let me mention here that this fife, bugle and drum corps has twice marched at the head of the combined Boys’ Brigades of Philadelphia, and has been pronounced the best junior organization of the sort in the city.

Our girls have their school organization, also, each division having two mornings in the week. The branches taught are those above mentioned and also business correspondence, stenography and typewriting, and bookkeeping. Attention is given to singing and physical culture, while an elocution class and a mandolin club are successful outgrowths of this branch of the store school.

The older boys, in number about three hundred, have supper in the store and remain for their school, two evenings in a week. The branches taught are arithmetic, spelling, writing, commercial correspondence, English, stenography, bookkeeping, metric system, mechanical and free-hand drawing, rapid calculation. Military and gymnastic training are given, and as outgrowths of the school are a club for debate and literary exercises, an orchestra, a field music band, a mandolin club, a glee club, an elocution and dramatic class, and a minstrel troupe. Monthly report of the standing and progress of each pupil is made to the parents.

Each of these three branches of the store school has its separate 171annual commencement exercises conducted similarly to those of other schools and not falling below the latter in general merit. Association Hall has been used in later years for this purpose, but is now much too small for the gathering of the parents and friends interested. Certificates (they call them diplomas) are given to the graduates, but these papers have double significance. They testify to the attainment of a certain standard in the school-work proper and also to the actual number of years of satisfactory service in the business, with promotion from the Cadet Corps to a position in the regular ranks of some one of the store departments—equivalent to a stepping out of the ranks of the business boy or girl into those of the business man or woman.

These graduates have organized themselves into Alumni and Alumnæ Associations and maintain their fellowship, principally in social, but partly in educative work. The school button or pin and the alumni pin prove that these young folks are quite as human as those of other schools and colleges. The standard of class-work done, while perhaps less in quantity for the same length of time, does not, in quality, seem to fall below the standard of other schools. The business training, the business authority and the fact that excellence in school-work is also an important element in business promotion, all give the teacher an advantage, and the scholar an incentive greater than in ordinary schools, and these substantially offset the disadvantage of shorter class-hours. With justifiable pride we call the schools, collectively, the “J. W. C. I.,” “John Wanamaker Commercial Institute.” The “Junior Savings Fund” is another feature of the young people’s organizations of the store, largely taken advantage of and helpfully stimulating to habits of care with money. A summer camp, the outfit for which is owned by the boys, provides for the vacation of many.

The results are very manifest. Jacob Riis says, “the small boy is a boiler with steam up all the time, and if authority sits on the safety-valve there is bound to be an explosion.” We have but few explosions. There is so much of varied and interesting demand upon his activities that our future business man has but little time to scheme out mischief and practically no surplus steam to explode. The incentive to faithful doing of his best is strong. Participation in the actual work of the business daily is the broadest end of school-work. Beginning early and with awakening interest and ambition, the children are in less danger of developing wrong habits, 172temptation to dishonesty, a sullen or resistful spirit toward those in control, and many another cause by which a naturally well-equipped child fails to fulfill the promise of his childhood.

While children here are children still, yet I know not of an equal number of young people gathered together with an equal standard in present character and ability and promise of future success and usefulness. As would be supposed, such care in the early training of the young people necessarily and naturally carries with it the advancing of these people as the years go on, so that what is practically a system of civil service promotion has resulted, and the higher positions are continually filling with those who have grown up in the business from childhood.

To be sure, it often happens that a young man, having made himself fit for a larger position than is open to him at the time in this his business home, goes out with our approval to some other establishment which needs a chief and bids for him, but, on the other hand, it is true that no young man or woman, having won a foothold in the regular store service and continuing faithfully to do his or her best, need look elsewhere for advancement or a business future.

Sometimes these changes to other service are invited before we think the young man or woman fully qualified, and in any case much is risked in the search elsewhere for sudden and uncertain advancement.

From these conditions develop three important features of modern business life: First: A fair equivalent for the apprentice system still so strong in the Old World, and for want of which our young business men and mechanics have suffered in comparison with Old World competitors, in point of thoroughness and detail knowledge; second: civil service promotion; and third: service and disability pension.

May I presume further upon your patience with an additional question or two? Are we prepared to say that better results than these I have tried to indicate are observable in those trained solely in academic courses? It is too large a question for me to attempt to answer. An answer is, however, suggested by R. T. Crane in a pamphlet issued in 1901 in Chicago, entitled “An Investigation as to the Utility of Academic Education for Young Men Who Have to Earn Their Own Living and Who Expect to Pursue a Commercial Life.” Mr. Crane comes, among other conclusions, to this: “The 173truth of the matter is that, when it comes to considering an applicant for a position, few of these gentlemen (employers in various lines) will be found to pay any attention to the amount of knowledge he may have of Greek, Latin, literature, etc., or care a straw about the mental drill and discipline or the well-rounded character that he may have acquired through a course at college. What they are particularly interested in knowing is whether he understands their business and can promote it. This is all that has any weight with them in the selection of help.”

And further, “The great majority of our strongest and most successful men in the country to-day came from farms and villages and obtained very little education.... In my opinion, few of them would have been anywhere near so successful in business had they gone to college, for their success was largely due to the fact, which was impressed upon them in the early part of their career, that they would have to struggle if they expected to succeed.

“I feel quite sure that if the men who have been successful in business were asked whether they regretted starting in business at the time they did, in place of going to college and taking the chances of afterward being able to gain the success which they have achieved, all would answer in the negative.... I think it can be safely said that the great men at the head of our railroads are the strongest business men the world has ever produced, and so far as I have been able to ascertain, not one of them is a consistent believer in college education.

“Certainly none of them have expressed in their letters any regret on account of not having received such education themselves.

“On the contrary, Mr. Roswell Miller remarks that he spent one year in college, and considers it fortunate that he did not spend more.”

Without depreciating the value of a college course, our business experience tends to the conclusion that men and women trained up from youth in the business are the most successful; that length of service, with its unconscious absorption of and self-adjustment to the principles and needs of the business, will carry a given degree of natural capacity to a higher point of efficiency and success than an originally greater degree of capacity will be likely to reach by the shorter road of business training begun in maturer years.

174I am aware that business success is but a partial test of true education, and my mark is missed if I seem to have set up that as my test alone. Perhaps from the unfavorable conditions of child labor in the past, has arisen the assumption that to work for wages in early years is necessarily a misfortune to the child, and, until now at least, the instinctive choice of parents is for long years in the schools. But as time brings to working men and women improved conditions, shortened hours, higher standards of intelligence, increased rate of earnings, may not a proportionate bettering for the child bring conditions so normal, to the best education and development, as that labor in the real world of business or trade will accomplish more, and more desirably, for the child that which is striven for in business and trades courses of the schools?

Modern educational methods have carried much of the shop and counting-house into the school-room, while but little in the reverse order has been accomplished, at least in this country. Pennsylvania State law has done little more for the child than to forbid his being employed in manufacturing or mercantile establishments before the age of thirteen, and thereafter to surround his employment with some safeguards against danger to life or limb. But considerably greater progress has been made in Germany. Some present here will recall a paper read in this room by our Consul at Chemnitz, the Hon. J. C. Monaghan, on “Industrial Education, a German Example.” Mr. Monaghan tells of industrial schools established in manufacturing districts for the benefit of the workers of the factories, where the law requires so many hours in the week to be spent in these schools by the younger employees, who thus combine the practical of their business with the theoretical of their school. I quote from Mr. Monaghan: “I have had exceptional opportunities during three periods, since the war of 1870, of investigating the industrial progress of Germany, and to make what might easily be a long story short, I may say it is due mainly to education. When you are building a house, you begin with the foundations. When you are building up a man, you begin with the child. Germany a century ago, after its exhaustion and humiliation caused by the great wars, fixed the foundation of its new life and development on the rock of education. The country was poor, its people could only exist by hard work, and their education was organized so as to help them with their work.... Germany has a system of further-developing schools, and industrial 175art schools, so close to the people that they aid the trades and industries in such a way as to commend themselves to all parties concerned therewith. Education in Germany is compulsory. After graduating from the public schools (or leaving the public school, for reference here is to the lower grade schools which boys leave at fourteen or fifteen for work, as they do with us at thirteen) and entering upon an employment, they are not only expected but compelled to attend these further-developing schools for a period of three years. They go two or three times each week, sometimes on Sunday. They are developing the scientific side, if one may put it thus, of the trade or business with which they are connected.” Here, then, is the child at work and yet the school brought to him. But a step further brings to him also those branches of study usually associated with the school alone and suggested more by the liberal than the strictly business and trade view of education. Instead, then, of commercial and mechanical work in the school of the schools, we have school-work in the school of actual commerce and industry, in the store and factory.

And shall we say that this reversal of the older plan may not have a wise and lasting place in educational life?

Is the labor of the store, shop or office more truly educative when imitated in the class-rooms of commercial and trade schools, than when done in course of actual business? Do not the labor and experiences of business life, with their real responsibilities, their unartificial rewards and retributions, their contact with men in real life, do all the former can do and much more? Certainly the real thing done in business or shop, and shaped and regulated to serve the ends of the world’s actual economic life, must have an educative advantage above the like thing theorized over in the school-room; while of unquestionably great value is that further reward which the school of actual business gives to its pupils, namely—a knowledge of men and affairs, confidence, judgment, association with practical workers at the centre of the world’s daily life.

Keep the children young, we are tempted to say as we see them in our own home circles. A dangerous plan! Rather, let the children learn what they must, of the best masters, and as their years are able! So wise and devoted a parent as Lord Chesterfield wrote his young son: “Do not imagine that the knowledge, which I so much commend to you, is confined to books, pleasing, 176useful, and necessary as that knowledge is; but I comprehend in it the great knowledge of the world, still more necessary than that of books. The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.” “Happy the man who, with a certain fund of parts and knowledge, gets acquainted with the world early enough to make it his bubble, at an age when most people are the bubbles of the world, for that is the common case of youth.”

If, then, the commercial and trades training, the business or manual, or whatever the course be called, can be found in actual commerce and trade; if a sufficient degree of scholastic education can there be added, and if with this the maturing man or woman shall gain a higher degree of technical skill and a safer knowledge of men and affairs, does not the plan of the school in business best meet the educational problem for at least a majority of childkind? Answer as you may for present or future, this is true now—that child labor in the Wanamaker store means education, physical, scholastic, commercial; development in character, fitness for intelligent work, and fitting into a place in the bread-and-butter belt of the world; an open path and a helping hand to the career of the man or woman who shall add a due part to the sum of life and win the crown fashioned by the Great Father for each of us, His children, who finds his duty and does it.

Discussion.

“Q. Has the store any difficulty in keeping out boys under thirteen?

“A. Practically no difficulty. I have no doubt the truth is stretched occasionally and those not yet thirteen brought in, but there must be an affidavit as to age, and few of the class of people from whom our employees are drawn are willing to swear to a lie in order to secure earlier employing of the child.

“Q. Is there a physical examination, a physician in charge?

“A. There is no physical examination other than that which the eye of the employer can give. The first weeks or months of the boy’s service, or girl’s, develop the fact whether physically, mentally and otherwise, the child is suited for the business.

“Q. How long has this system been in operation?

“A. I think it was six years ago that we began with the school 177for cash boys. It was some two or three years before that the initial step, out of which all the rest has grown, was taken. The plan arose originally from a recognition of the fact that the young people who came into the store were not sufficiently looked after. They were apt to be lost sight of, as distributed in the various departments, and when the busy season passed and some reduction in the force became necessary, the department head was often not far-sighted enough to consider that the small boy now would be his best man in the years to come. It was the recognition of this fact that led to the beginning of the plan of which the first step was merely the placing of the smaller boys of the establishment under one head. All the other steps came one by one, as our experience led to them.

“Q. You referred to the fact that your experience had shown that college training was not useful in business career. Are there many college men in your departments, or are you able to find that out?

“A. I did not give this as our own experience and conclusion, but was quoting that of others as given in the pamphlet of Mr. Crane’s, to which I referred, and which contains my answer to a letter from him. Mr. Crane sent letters to representatives of various establishments, asking that question. So far as I can recall the answer, it was that we were unable to say exactly, but taking such departments as required salesmen, bookkeepers and so on (that is, dropping out the delivery and packing rooms, where the more highly educated would naturally not be found), aggregating some five hundred and fifty men, we found twenty-six who had had either a full or partial college education. It is not our custom to inquire as to the college education. The difference in the success of the college-educated man and the one not so educated has not, in our experience, been sufficiently marked to make that a point of distinction in engaging the rank and file of our men, although in the man of college education we naturally look for quicker progress or brighter mental work.”

179

THE NECESSITY FOR FACTORY LEGISLATION IN THE SOUTH

By Hayes Robbins

Dean, Institute of Social Economics, New York

181The keynote that needs to be struck in the child labor matter, South or anywhere, is not “hands off,” but hands on. It is fortunate for social progress that the point of view of modern economic thought has drifted so far away from the old-school doctrine of non-interference that we can take hold of a problem like this to some robust, practical purpose, without becoming intellectually disreputable; and the reason why this is fortunate is that right here factory legislation has met its bitterest opposition, ever since the first child labor act in England, in 1802.

The doctrine that cheapness is the all-sufficient goal of economic progress, the only economic fact of any possible interest or concern to the laborers, has been a corner-stone in political economy. Only within recent years has the idea begun to dawn that an adequate theory of economic welfare must include the interests of the citizen as a producer as well as a consumer; that the conditions under which the man works, and his opportunities of enjoying the fruits of his labor, are quite as vital to his happiness as the price of potatoes or beef or clothing. It is clear, now, however, that cheapness, important as it is, must come, and in the long run can only come, through more effective utilizing of natural forces, by invention and machinery, not through the overworking and social degradation of labor; and the great enlightening circumstance on this point has been the fact that the whole price-cheapening trend of our modern industrial era has come hand in hand with increasing wages, diminishing hours, and restrictions on the labor of women and children.

In respect to child labor alone, the progress of protective legislation has been extraordinary. England has had a half-time factory and school law for children of nine and over since 1844, the half-time age having since been raised to eleven; and a fourteen-year age limit for full-day work since 1874. In Germany the limit 182for full-day work is fourteen years, and for any factory work at all thirteen; in Holland, Belgium, France, Austria, Norway and Sweden it is twelve; in Russia fifteen, half-time being allowed from twelve up. In Switzerland it is fourteen; in Denmark fourteen, with half-time allowed from ten up; and even in Italy child labor under nine years is absolutely prohibited.

Here in the United States, at the beginning of 1899, when the last complete compilation on the subject was made, there were limitations on child labor in thirty-four states and all the territories. To select for comparison our greatest manufacturing states, as showing most clearly the possibility of prosperity without child labor, the limit under which such labor is prohibited in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Illinois and Indiana is fourteen years; in Georgia no limit. In Rhode Island fifteen and Ohio fourteen, except during school vacations, and no work at all under twelve; in North Carolina no limit. In New Jersey twelve for boys and fourteen for girls; in Alabama no limit, except in mines, twelve years. In Pennsylvania thirteen; in South Carolina no limit. Happily, the tendency is moving Southward; Missouri, Maryland, Tennessee and even Louisiana now have restrictive laws; so that the section specially known as the new industrial South, the home of the Southern cotton and iron manufacturing industries, is the only place in the United States where the idea of protecting the physical, moral and educational opportunities of little children has made practically no impression in statute law.

At the outset, now, of her industrial development, the South has a unique opportunity. She can transfer to her own conditions the results of nearly all Christendom’s experience in humane factory regulation, without having to suffer over again the hardships and struggles this progress has cost. I do not mean to imply that all such legislation has worked to perfection, without evasion or hardship; but the vast improvement over no legislation at all indicates the soundness of the effort and points the line of further reform. Those who have not yet even made a start ought not to be frightened out of a beginning because the others still have something more to do.

The Japanese are a case in point. They are now reported to be sending students abroad to study modern labor legislation, with the object of applying it to their own oncoming factory system at the beginning, recognizing that it is as inevitable as progress 183itself. Russia, even Russia, has already done this. Surely the new South does not need to go to school in Russia and Japan.

It seems hardly necessary to prove the importance of doing something. Bare statement of the admitted fact that children of eight to twelve, and even younger, are working in the mills through the industrial South tells the story, and ought to be sufficient. Personally, I have seen the child labor system in operation in North and South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, and gathered some vivid impressions; have seen scores of little people working in the dust and din of the spinning-rooms, seen scores of others on their way to the mills before daylight, who would not come out until after dark, the hours of labor ranging from eleven to twelve; have been in the homes of these people and learned something of how they live and the wages they receive. For example, we brought back from the South some 154 weekly pay envelopes for both adults and children, collected from operatives’ families in one of the best sections, and nearly 100 of them are for less than $1.50 each, per week, the average in most cases ranging from ten to thirty or forty cents a day; only older children earning the latter sums, however.

In other words, low as the wage rates are, the actual earnings, especially of children, are much lower. This is due partly to absences, partly to constant deductions of all sorts, for faulty work, rent, money advanced, car-fare advanced to get them down from the mountains or in from the country to the mills, and what not. In forty-four out of the 154 envelopes, these deductions exactly cancel the entire amount of wages due. Let me cite three or four specimen cases, omitting names. One envelope, repeated two or three times, shows wages for the week $1.00, rent seventy-five cents, balance twenty-five cents; another, wages $1.20, tin cup five cents, transportation $1.15, balance nothing; another, wages $3.00, rent $1.40, loan $1.00, balance paid sixty cents; another, wages $1.50, transportation $1.00, balance fifty cents; and so on.

It is impossible to state with exactness the number of children under a given age, say fourteen years, employed in Southern factories. The Federal census does not cover this point, and only one Southern state of the group under consideration—North Carolina—makes any provision for collecting and publishing industrial and labor statistics. Close approximation to the facts of the general conditions, however, is not very difficult. It appears from the 184latest report of Commissioner Lacy, of the North Carolina Bureau of Labor, that about 7,600 children under fourteen years of age were employed in 261 mills in that state. The Federal census bulletins on manufactures, now being issued, show the total number of employees in the cotton manufacturing industry in the five Southern states where any important amount of cotton manufacturing exists; and for North Carolina the total in 1900 was 30,273 operatives. In other words, more than one-third of the total number of operatives in the cotton mills of that state are children under fourteen years of age. In South Carolina the total number of operatives in 1900 was 30,201, in Georgia 18,348, in Alabama 8,332, in Mississippi 1,675, the total for the five states being 88,829. Estimating the same proportion of child labor throughout the entire group (and this is entirely legitimate, since North Carolina conditions are even better than in some other manufacturing sections in the South), it would appear that there are more than 22,000 children under fourteen years of age in the cotton mills of these states. On this basis, it is a conservative estimate to say that at least eight or ten thousand of these children are under twelve, while the lower extreme of the age limit is down even to the almost unbelievable point of six years; the fact being well established that children as young as six to eight and nine years are to-day working in some of the Southern mills.

Remember, along with this, the fact just observed in the case of our Northern states and European countries, where legislation on child labor exists, that fourteen years is very nearly the average age under which factory labor is prohibited altogether. In other words, the absence of any restrictions in the South means that fully one-third of all the operatives are younger than the age standard established by the forces of humanitarian opinion and wise statesmanship throughout the larger part of Christendom.

The amounts earned by the children in Southern mills would not be necessary to the support of the families under any proper system of factory regulation. The economics of the situation would inevitably take care of that. If the labor of the children is not available, the mills must employ older help, and in order to get such help must pay wages sufficient to maintain the families, including the children. This is how the matter has adjusted itself wherever child labor has been restricted, and of economic necessity it must be so. The difference in labor expense involved has never 185yet been sufficient to hamper industrial activity or drive capital away from any industrial section, and, so long as competing groups are not permitted to gain a permanent advantage by the wholesale use of child labor, it never will.

The lack of restrictions on child labor makes possible also that semi-barbarous institution of night work. Where all the family work by turns in the mill, the results are shockingly demoralizing. Just as a side-light on one phase of this system, let me quote a paragraph from a discussion of factory evils in the South, just published this month, by Rev. J. A. Baldwin, of Charlotte, N. C., a special student of these problems. Where part of the family work by day and part by night, he says:

“The mother has to get up at 4:30 in the morning to get breakfast for the day hands, so they can be at the mill at six; then the night hands come and eat about seven. She has to have dinner for the day hands strictly at twelve. The night hands get up and eat from four to five, so as to be ready to go to work for the night at six; she also gives them a lunch to be eaten at midnight. Then the day hands get out at six and have supper about seven. Besides this, there is house-cleaning, washing and ironing, sewing, and often the care of little children.... The mills usually run sixty-six hours per week at night; that is, the operatives work twelve hours from Monday night to Friday night inclusive, and on Saturday get up about two o’clock (before they have had enough sleep) to go to work at three. They then work till nine, at night. As a matter of fact it is usually ten or eleven when they get out.

“Night work is much worse in summer than in the winter. In the winter they go to bed, cover up and sleep soundly. In summer it is difficult to sleep on account of light, heat, flies and noise. In summer, while they usually go to bed, it is a very familiar sight to see them lying across the bed with their work-clothes on, or on a pallet in the passage or on the porch. Their sleep is fitful and unsatisfying, and they never feel bright and fresh from the beginning to the end of the week. They furnish the most favorable conditions for the development of physical, intellectual and spiritual disease germs.”

The children of factory families in the South to-day have no protection against this. Night work for women and children ought to be absolutely prohibited. It is, almost everywhere else, even in Russia. This would practically force either the employment 186of men only in night work, or else its abolition altogether. I would not deny that there may sometimes be good economic reasons for night work, at least in rush times, but it should be done by men if at all, never by women and children.

Nobody is urging any step that threatens to destroy Southern mill profits, but it must be insisted that there is another way to secure profits than the way of using child labor. Scientific improvement of industrial methods is the only sure and safe road to permanent prosperity, and it would not seem that the South has much to fear when the great bulk of the most prosperous industry in Christendom is being conducted under more or less advanced forms of factory regulation. Furthermore, nobody need or ought to urge legislation as the remedy on the ground that Southern manufacturers are all indifferent and inhumane. Legislation is urged simply because it is the most uniform and least costly method the South could of its own accord adopt. Southern manufacturers are no more types of hardhearted callousness than are manufacturers anywhere; they have all been opposed to factory legislation at one time or another, under the influence of mistaken economic doctrines. I do not know, but would risk it, that scores of Southern manufacturers would be glad to see these evils abolished in their own mills if they could do it without immediate competitive disadvantage with all the rest. Here comes in the advantage of legislation, that by establishing the same conditions and opportunities for all, it imposes no special relative handicap on any.

Moreover, and here is one of the saddest features of all, the fathers, sometimes even the mothers, are among the worst offenders in this whole matter. I have seen cases, and there are others in abundance, where the wife and children practically earn the family living in the mill, while the father thoughtfully carries in the dinner-pail at noon, perhaps working a little on odd days when he gets tired of loafing. We cannot altogether blame the manufacturers when these people are fairly urging them to take on the children in the mills; and we need to remember also that to most of these unfortunate people factory life is a distinct improvement over the log-cabin, salt pork and peach brandy, white-trash and Georgia-cracker type of life from which many of them were sifted out when the mills came. The manufacturer knows this, and it is not surprising that he should even think himself something of a philanthropist, just in furnishing mill jobs on almost 187any terms. He does not see as yet that when these people drift down into the factory centres they become industrial, social and political factors in an altogether new and more serious sense than they ever could be while burrowing in the mountain sides.

To have practically all of the next generation of factory operatives growing up stunted in body and mind, and nearly all of them illiterates, in a section of the country where the general average of illiteracy is already appalling, is a matter of the gravest concern. Southern manufacturers sooner or later will have to recognize this fact, and its impending consequences. According to the 1900 census statistics just appearing, the proportion of illiteracy among males of voting age, white and black together, was, in Alabama 33.7 per cent, in Georgia 31.6 per cent, in Mississippi 33.8 per cent, in North Carolina 29.4 per cent, in South Carolina 35.1 per cent; as compared, for instance, with 6.4 per cent in Massachusetts, 6.8 per cent in Connecticut, 9.2 per cent in Rhode Island, 5.9 per cent in New York, 6.9 per cent in New Jersey, 7.7 per cent in Pennsylvania. The South simply cannot afford to permit the processes to go on that are adding fresh groups every year to its grand total of illiterate and unfit citizens. In the face of the present situation, if a new race of degenerates, brought up in exhausting toil, dense ignorance, and exposed to all the temptations of an unprotected environment, is to be developed now in the fast-growing centres of the new South, they are certain to form a social and civic and economic menace to the community.

This will be true not only of the South; the matter is coming to have a national significance. Within the limits of any one interdependent industrial group, like the United States, there must be at least some general approach to uniformity in the working conditions of the laborers, by given lines of industries. Differences in competitive success must come from differences in managing ability, quality of plant, or natural environment, not from different standards of decency in the use of labor. If long hours and child labor become the fixed conditions of success, the whole field of competing industry must eventually come down to that basis. A competitive influence which works for the undermining of higher standards of living, wherever established, is a matter of universal concern. In a democracy, no condition is safe which offers a competitive advantage to anything that leads toward ignorant, inferior citizenship. It is not safe anywhere, whether in 188Southern mill villages or Northern city slums, because to make degradation profitable in any quarter sets the current of tendency that way, with demoralizing effect.

That is why it is not meddlesome interference for American citizens not of the South to have a concern about this matter, from the broad standpoint of national welfare. The real test-point of permanent progress and prosperity, affecting the nation as well as the South, is not the size of profits in Southern mills in the next five years, large as we hope they may be through all proper means; but it is the quality of Southern citizenship in the next five generations. That citizenship is now in the making, and now is the time of times to safeguard its development. Such action will be good economics, good morals, good humanity. For the South, it is an inspiring opportunity.

189

CHILD LABOR IN NEW JERSEY

By Hugh F. Fox

President New Jersey State Board of Children’s Guardians

191For the discussion of child labor in New Jersey there are no official data in which reliance can be placed. The reports of the State Bureau of Factory Inspection are conclusive evidence of the incompetence of the inspector and his deputies. The State Charities Aid Association has recently analyzed the report of the Bureau for the year ending October 27, 1900, and has published the results in the New Jersey Review of Charities and Corrections,^[16] and it is shown that out of a total of 6,014 factories and bakeshops which were discovered by the Bureau, no less than 1,543 were not visited at all, and yet the department reports favorably on 5,862, indicating that 1,391 were reported favorably, but not visited. According to the 1900 census, however, there were in New Jersey 8,308 factories proper (excluding hand trades), and 1,485 clothing establishments, excluding families working in the tenements. The factory inspectors also report on 1,185 bakeries, so that there appears to have been a total of 10,978 establishments which it was the duty of the inspectors to visit.

The factory inspectors found 5,968 children under sixteen in the 6,014 establishments which they reported; an average of about one child to each establishment. Of these they ordered only fifty-nine children discharged during the year. The census reports an average of 8,042 children under sixteen, employed in manufacturing establishments alone, during the year. Attention should be directed, in this connection, to the difference between the duties of a census taker and a factory inspector. The former furnishes a blank schedule to the manufacturer, which he fills out at his own discretion, without any verification on the part of the census taker. In short, the census agent takes what is given him by the employer, and his interest in the matter is entirely perfunctory. The factory inspector is, however, supposed to make his own investigation and get his own evidence, though it is generally believed that in many cases he contents himself with a visit to the office only and a 192polite exchange of social amenities with the employer. While the factory inspector is expected to take a personal interest in his figures, it involves a lot of extra work for him and serious trouble for the employer, if the latter is so thoughtless as to inconvenience him by entering into embarrassing particulars in regard to children. In some instances it is reported that the inspector apprises the factory owner of his intended visit beforehand, the children being given a holiday in honor of the occasion.

The New Jersey laws prohibit the employment of boys under twelve and girls under fourteen, “in any factory, workshop, mine or establishment where the manufacture of any goods whatever is carried on.” Children between the ages of twelve and fifteen must have attended school for twelve consecutive weeks (or two terms of six consecutive weeks each) within the twelve months immediately preceding their employment. Children under fifteen must procure a certificate from their teachers giving full particulars as to attendance, etc. The report of the Department of Factory Inspection does not indicate how many of the 5,968 children, under sixteen, are over the age of fifteen, but of the total number of children, only 1,343 were required to produce school certificates. It seems hardly possible that 4,625 of the children employed were over fifteen years of age.

The inspectors have the power to prohibit overcrowding in factories and workshops, and to demand a certificate of physical fitness from some regular practicing physician in the case of minors who may seem physically unable to work. Apparently this gives the inspectors power to prohibit the employment of any girl under eighteen, or boy under twenty-one, who cannot obtain such a certificate, but it is evident from the report of 1900 that this power has not been exercised.

The law prohibits the employment of any child under sixteen “at any work dangerous to health, without a certificate of fitness from a reputable physician.” The meaning of this is somewhat ambiguous. Is the physician to certify to the condition of the child or the healthiness of the occupation? Who is to decide as to whether the work is dangerous to health? The questions are, however, entirely speculative, since the factory inspectors have done nothing to indicate any anxiety to put the matter to the test. It does not seem to have occurred to the inspectors that their power to set a standard of physical fitness for children really removes 193their chief difficulty. At a recent hearing before Governor Murphy, Inspector Ward pleaded that there were many difficulties in the way of enforcing the laws, his department being confronted with sworn affidavits of parents that their children were over the minimum age of twelve years, while the children themselves are taught with threats never to admit that they are under twelve years old. The test of physical fitness is really much more important than that of age, and the power to apply it gives the factory inspector the whip-hand over both the child’s parent and the employer. It seems strange, however, that nothing has been done in this country to define fully the dangerous trades or occupations. The British Parliament appointed a committee some years ago on “Dangerous Trades and Diseases of Occupations.”^[17] The report of this committee established the fact that lead poisoning is rampant in the potteries, that phosphorus necrosis is common in the match factories, and that naphtha fumes in rubber-manufacturing results frequently in premature aging and paralysis. Among other specially unhealthy occupations may be mentioned glass-making, printing, cutlery, silk-mills, hats, pearl buttons and tobacco. What Mrs. Kelley said in 1896, at the National Conference of Charities and Correction, is equally true to-day:

“The physical condition of working children has never received attention, so far as I know, in any systematic way. There are some desultory provisions in the New York and Illinois factory laws which show there is a dim consciousness in the law-making mind that children may be put at work beyond their strength, unless there is supervision of them by some state officer. But these provisions are so loosely drawn that they are nugatory. The Illinois inspectors are urging upon the Legislature the necessity of adding to the staff a physician who shall give her whole time to the care of the children. There is, at present, no such material available as such a physician could furnish, upon the condition of the children, except the records of measurements made by two volunteer physicians for the inspectors, in 1893 and 1894, covering about 200 children, taken from the factories and workshops of Chicago. These records, published in the Factory Inspectors’ Report for 1894, are startling in the proportion which they show of undersized, rachitic, consumptive children at work. They are, however, so 194limited in number that their principal value lies in indicating the wide field open for investigating the working child as compared with the school child. What they show, comparatively, is that the stature of the working child is far less, upon the average, than that of the city school child. The child study of the past ten years bears out the assertion that stature in children is indicative of general development, physical and mental.”

The New Jersey Factory Inspectors have the power to call upon the public authorities to furnish truant officers, who are required to act under their direction. But this law is also a dead letter. So too is another law which was passed to regulate the sweat-shop evil, and provides that “No person, firm or corporation shall hire or employ any person to work in any room or rooms, apartment or apartments, in any tenement or dwelling-house, or building in the area of a tenement or dwelling-house, at making, in whole or in part, any coats, vests, trousers, knee pants, overalls, cloaks, furs, fur trimmings, fur garments, shirts, purses, feathers, artificial flowers or cigars, unless such person, firm or corporation first shall have obtained a written permit from the factory and workshop inspectors, ... which permit may be revoked at any time that the health of the community or of those employed as aforesaid may require it, and that such permit shall not be granted until due and satisfactory inspection of the premises affected shall have been made by the said inspector.” By a recent act, overcrowding in tenements or rented rooms is punishable at a fine of $25.00. Each adult must have 300 cubic feet of air; each child under twelve, 150 feet.

Public authority is thoroughly aroused on the whole question of child labor in New Jersey, and some interesting facts are coming to light. The trades unions are taking the matter up, in several directions, and the searchlight of the press is trained on several of the leading industries—notably the glass factories of South Jersey, the silk and textile mills of Passaic county, and the various tobacco and cigar factories which are scattered over the state. It is stated that each man employed as a glassblower is required to furnish a boy as a “helper,” and that a combination of the padrone system and veritable child slavery exists. Incidentally it has been developed that many boys have been placed in the families of glassblowers by private child-placing societies and orphan asylums of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It furnishes a striking 195argument for the public oversight of child-caring agencies. Here are a few letters from local cigarmakers’ unions:

No. 101, Elizabeth.—“We have Mr. Hilson’s machine cigar manufactory here, employing about 300 or 400 hands, all girls; about one-half of them are under age; our union has from time to time been obliged to see the factory inspector to remedy this evil; we informed him about a week ago that in case he further neglects his duty the Union County Trades Council and Cigar Makers’ Union would be compelled to see the Governor. The leading brand they make is the “Hoffman House,” which is done up in neat boxes, and as you can readily see they are able to undersell all union goods, as the lowest price for union cigars made is $8.00 per M., while they can furnish them with the girls working for them for $2.50 to $3.00.”

No. 230, Millville.—“There is no child labor in connection with our trade in this locality. This being a strong union city we have no use for the production of child labor in our trade. This union covers Millville, Vineland, Bridgeton and Salem. No child labor in either city in connection with this trade; you will find most of the children employed are employed by the American Tobacco Company or Trust. They have a factory in Camden, N. J., this being the nearest one to this city.”

No. 428, Trenton.—“There is one place that employs 280, mostly children from ten years old. We had a committee last week working on the subject of child labor employed in this place known as the American Cigar Trust; they say it is safe to say that the ages won’t average over fourteen. We know for a fact that their children are not allowed to say a word to one another while at work, if they do they will be discharged. They claimed at one time to have over 300 at work and have room and machinery for over a thousand, but don’t seem to get them as fast as they thought. Our committee reported that some of these little tots when they came out at night actually fell down from weakness, but there seems to be no way to stop such work.

“The work that these children do costs the Trust $2.10 per thousand for making cigars, and the low price for men is $7.50 per thousand; the average cigarmakers will make 1500 a week of this kind of work, and three of these children with machinery make six thousand a week. You can imagine, when the Trust surely get their feet in it, what will become of cigar-making.”

Many of the children in the glass works and in worsted mills are said to have been employed on “night shifts.” If the children in state reformatories were worked half as hard as the children in the factories, there would be a perfect storm of indignation. There is, however, a general awakening, and the leading papers in Newark, Paterson, Passaic, Hoboken, Jersey City, Trenton, Camden and other cities have taken the matter up vigorously. The Governor has announced his determination to make the inspectors devote 196their entire time to their duties, in accordance with the law just passed, instead of spending their odd moments only in inspecting factories, as has been the case hitherto. Good results are already apparent, and the new inspectors in Essex and Passaic counties are making a strong effort to enforce the laws. The latter has brought suits against several employers for the recovery of the penalty imposed by the state for employing children illegally. There is ample legislation in New Jersey for the regulation of child labor, though the minimum age for boys should be raised to fourteen, and girls to fifteen. Now that the community is informed of the evil, the Legislature may be counted on to make an adequate appropriation for expenses. There ought to be a lawyer on the staff of the Department of Factory Inspection, and an effort should be made to bring the various State Boards into co-operation in the work. It seems curious that no reference has hitherto been made to child labor in any of the reports of the state and local Boards of Health and of Education; nor does the Bureau of Statistics of Labor and Industries seem to know anything of the subject. The various departments of the government seem to be so afraid of overlapping, that in this, as in other matters, they studiously ignore each other.

The “Lord bill,” which was passed last session, authorizes the Governor to appoint a woman inspector, and strong pressure is being brought upon Governor Murphy to induce him to do so. The State Federation of Labor has been working for the appointment of a woman inspector since 1897. It is felt that the duties of the office involve personal qualities possessed in an eminent degree by many women, and that a good woman inspector would work a revolution in the department.

The following tables are given for purposes of comparison with other states. The school census of 1900, taken by the state, gave 457,479 children of school age, the enrollment being 322,575. The number of schoolable children is increasing from 7,000 to 10,000 per year. The “persons of school age” in the Federal census cover all from five to twenty years of age, inclusive. The total of them was 572,917 (282,180 males and 290,737 females). The particulars as to parentage are:

Born of American parents 271,827

Born of foreign parents in United States 226,566

Born in foreign lands 54,837

Born of colored parents 19,693

197

[U.S. Census, 1900.]

Persons of School Age, 5 to 20 years inclusive, in New Jersey Cities of 25,000 or more.

(Showing 62.4 per cent of foreign parentage.)

Total. Native Parents. Foreign Parents. Foreign Born. Colored.

Atlantic City 6,782 4,089 1,265 286 1,146

Bayonne 10,626 2,812 6,289 1,426 100

Camden 22,943 13,793 6,510 1,086 1,557

Elizabeth 16,229 5,551 8,729 1,619 331

Hoboken 18,699 4,463 11,956 2,258 23

Jersey City 63,495 21,535 35,271 5,744 953

Newark 74,897 25,210 38,797 9,114 1,789

Passaic 9,274 1,653 3,934 3,553 134

Paterson 33,170 8,270 18,655 5,965 286

Trenton 22,337 10,591 8,999 2,241 508

278,452 97,967 140,405 33,292 6,827

Notes from the Census Bulletins Nos. 88, 89, 135 and 157 for New Jersey (1900):

Total population of New Jersey 1,883,669

This was made up as follows:

Born of American parents 825,973

Born of foreign parents in United States 556,294

Born in foreign lands 430,050

Born of colored parents 71,352

The percentage of the New Jersey population living in cities is 70.6. The states of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York are the only ones which have a larger percentage of their population in cities. In this connection it is interesting to note that New Jersey ranks sixth in the United States in the value of its manufactured products.

The average number of wage-earners employed by manufacturing establishments in New Jersey during 1900 was 241,582 (12.8 per cent of the total population), of whom 8,042 were children under sixteen years of age.

The greatest number employed at any one time during the year was 307,933, or 16.3 per cent of the total population.

The total number of manufacturing and mechanical establishments in New Jersey was 15,481. Of these, 11,115, or 71.8 per cent, were located in forty-four cities and towns. The urban establishments employed 196,901 wage-earners, or 81.5 per cent of the total number employed. The list of industries includes “hand 198trades.” Omitting them, the total number of manufactures proper was 8,308.

The manufacture of textiles is the most important industry in the state. Of these the silk factories employed 24,157 wage-earners out of a total of 46,932 engaged in textile work.

Foundry and machine-shop products are second, with 17,918 wage-earners.

Refining and petroleum third, with 8,288.

Tobacco has 3,595, pottery 8,117, tanning 4,178, chemicals 3,048, rubber 2,609, jewelry 2,779, sewing machines 4,701, glass 5,383.

The fifteen leading industries of the State embraced 1,780 establishments, and employed an average of 117,008 wage-earners during the year 1900.

Average number of children under sixteen years, employed in New Jersey manufactories during the year 1900 (U. S. Census Bulletin No. 157):

Boots and shoes 192

Brass wire 65

Bakeries 64

Buttons 71

Carpets 86

Clothing 191

Cotton goods 641

Dyeing and finishing textiles 70

Fireworks 85

Foundry and machine shops 212

Canning 86

Gas and lamp fixtures 181

Glass 850

Hardware 80

Hosiery and knit goods 152

Iron and steel 65

Linen goods 316

Pocket-books 60

Pottery 193

Printing 174

Roofing 74

Shirts 50

Silk 1,199

Stamped ware 119

Surgical appliances 75

Tobacco 183

199Woolen goods 187

Worsted goods 456

6,177

Miscellaneous industries 1,865

8,042

Comparison of the reports of the United States Census, and of the New Jersey Factory Inspectors, for the year 1900, in regard to children employed in certain industries in eleven cities in New Jersey:

Census Reports. Factory Inspectors’ Reports.

Bayonne—Petroleum 21 0

Camden—Worsted goods 160 113

Elizabeth—Tobacco 0 30

Elizabeth—Clothing and shirts 9 10

Elizabeth—Sewing machines 0 22

Hoboken and Jersey City—Silk 60 60

Hoboken—Clothing 9 0

Jersey City—Clothing 3 0

Jersey City—Electrical apparatus 45 25

Jersey City—Printing 48 16

Jersey City—Soap 42 21

Jersey City—Tobacco 92 87

Jersey City—Boxes 0 44

Newark—Boots and shoes 108 0

Newark—Carpentering 65 0

Newark—Clothing 82 11

Newark—Corsets 34 17

Newark—Foundry and mechanical shops 52 0

Newark—Hardware 75 16

Newark—Jewelry 36 13

Newark—Leather 22 11

Newark—Stamped ware 116 0

Newark—Tobacco 19 35

Newark—Thread 0 100

New Brunswick—Tobacco 29 45

Orange—Hats 27 5

Passaic—Woolen goods 98 15

Paterson—Silk 832 504

Paterson—Foundries 91 0

Trenton—Iron and steel 54 0

Trenton—Potteries 118 204

Trenton—Rubber 28 47

Trenton—Bakeries 19 47

201

CHILD LABOR IN BELGIUM^[18]

By E. Dubois

Professor in the University of Ghent

203The industrial census of October 31, 1896, of which the complete results have just been published^[19], furnishes the most recent and the most complete information regarding the extent of the industrial labor of children and the general conditions under which it exists.

Upon that date, out of a total of 671,596 laborers of all ages and both sexes, employed in the manufactures properly so called, and excluding the domestic workshops, there were 76,147 children less than sixteen years of age working in factories and workshops—that is to say, out of every 100 employees eleven were less than sixteen years of age.

The child labor was found principally:

(1) In the textile industries 11,863.

(2) In the mining industries 10,167, of whom 5,516 are employed in underground labor, and 4,651 in surface labor.

(3) In the manufacture of clothing for men and women 9,674.

(4) In the glass industries 4,429.

Among 4,681 establishments and contractors employing both adults and children, and having at least ten employees: 1,737 (37.1 per cent) employed less than 10 per cent of children along with adults; 1,675 (35.9 Per cent) employed from 11 to 25 per cent of children along with adults; 821 (17.3 per cent) employed from 26 to 50 per cent of children along with adults; 361 (7.9 per cent) employed from 51 to 100 per cent of children along with adults; 87 (1.8 per cent) employed more than 100 per cent of children along with adults.

There are, hence, in eighty-seven establishments more children than adults. These concerns belong chiefly to the textile industries (26), to the tobacco industries (10), books (8), clothing (7), manufacture 204of chocolate (6). One woolen mill and two dressmakers employ only children.

The statistics of the children according to age is as follows:

Number of children aged less than sixteen, 76,147—50,493 boys, 25,654 girls; number of children from fourteen to sixteen, 54,946—36,431 boys, 18,515 girls; number of children from twelve to fourteen, 20,762—13,814 boys, 6,948 girls; number of children less than twelve, 439–248 boys, 191 girls. About one-half of these children less than twelve years old belong to the manufacture of clothing (dressmakers and cutters).

The census has succeeded in determining the length of actual labor (recess deducted), for 61,652 children employed in the industrial establishments, not including the coal mines. Rather more than one-tenth of them (about 7,000) work nine hours and less. One-third (about 21,000) work about ten hours. One-third (about 19,000) work about ten and a half to eleven hours. One-fourth (about 15,000) work more than twelve hours. The days of more than eleven hours are most frequent in the textile and clothing manufactures.

Under the head of time of labor: 61,314 children (38,414 boys and 22,900 girls) work during the day only (92.99 per cent); thirty-six children (boys) work only at night (0.02 per cent), 4,611 children (4,238 boys and 373 girls) work alternately by day and night (6.99 per cent). The majority of these night laborers are employed in the glass industries, viz.: 3,262. Then comes the iron industry with 657 children, and the confectionery factories with 447.

Regarding the coal mines, the duration of labor has been determined for 9,153 children out of 10,167. Among these 9,153 children, 7,772 work during the day only (5,550 boys and 2,222 girls); 4,482 (3,281 boys and 1,201 girls) work ten hours and less; 2,855 (1,900 boys and 955 girls) work ten to ten and a half hours; 308 (246 boys and 62 girls) work ten and a half to eleven hours; 127 (123 boys and 4 girls) work more than eleven hours; 4,827 boys and 9 girls work underground. Working only at night are 1,357 boys (no girls); and in gangs 24 boys. Almost the whole number of the “underground” boys work about ten hours or less, between the descent and the ascent.

One of the great merits of the Belgian industrial census of 1896 is the particular care which was taken in gathering exact 205statistics regarding the individual wages of the whole of the working population. The statistics of the wages of the Belgian workmen, by their completeness and exactness, are certainly of the best existing to-day. They have succeeded in ascertaining the wages of 70,688 young workpeople (45,577 boys and 25,111 girls).

Number of children working by the day: with wages less than 0.50 fr., 17,229 = 24.37 per cent; 7,511 boys (of which 2,844 receive no pay); 9,718 girls (of which 6,141 receive no pay); from 0.50 to 1.00 fr., 21,192 = 29.98 percent; 12,748 boys and 8,444 girls; from 1 to 1.50 fr., 19,723 = 27.91 percent; 15,090 boys and 4,633 girls; 1.50 fr. and over, 12,544 = 17.74 per cent; 10,228 boys and 2,316 girls.

In round figures one may say that one-fourth of these young employees earn nothing or less than 0.50 fr.; a little more than half earn from 0.50 to 1.50 fr.; and less than one-fifth earn more than 1.50 fr. In fact about two-thirds of the latter earn from 1.50 to 2 fr., and one-third from 2 to 2.50 fr. These percentages relate to the entire number of children, and would be modified somewhat if the boys and girls were considered separately. The figures also show that smaller wages are paid for female than for male labor.

The Law of December 13, 1889

The statutes affecting child labor in industrial establishments have been under consideration in Belgium since 1843. At that time an investigation conducted by the government unveiled the unfortunate and often abusive conditions under which child labor was conducted, and a scheme of very remarkable legislation was drawn up by M. Ducpetiaux, chairman of the Investigation Commission.

But this project was premature. Manchesterian ideas were still the prevalent ones in the country and with the government. Reform was still to be waited for, for almost a half century longer, in spite of the repeated efforts of divers groups of enlightened manufacturers, of physicians, of philanthropists. All these united efforts succeeded simply in causing to be introduced into the royal decree of April 28, 1884, containing regulations concerning the working of mines, an article, No. 69, which forbade boys aged less than twelve, and girls less than fourteen, to be allowed to labor in the mines.

206The industrial troubles of 1886, and the efforts of the Labor Commission instituted the same year, prepared at last the solution to the question, and led to the law of December 13, 1889, upon the labor of women, of youths and of children in industrial establishments.^[20]

This law placed under restrictive measures the labor of children:

(1) In mines (coal and metal), quarries, stoneyards.

(2) In works, mills and factories.

(3) In establishments classified as dangerous, unhealthy or unsuitable; as well as in those where steam boilers or machine motors were used.

(4) In harbors, terminals and stations.

(5) In transportation by land or water.

It applied both to public and private establishments, even when they were of an educational or benevolent character. By virtue of this provision the law regulated, for example, the labor performed by children in the reform schools, in the lace-making schools, etc.

The law did not affect the family workshops, where only the members of a family are employed, under the authority of either the father, the mother, or the guardian; providing, however, that these workshops were not classed as dangerous, unhealthy or unsuitable,^[21] or that work therein was not performed with the aid of steam boilers or machine motors.

It also did not affect, according to the admitted official interpretation, other workshops which could not be regarded as mills or factories, or which are not classed among the dangerous, unhealthy or unsuitable establishments. Hence, the greatest portion of the clothing factories, which employ a great deal of child labor, escaped the application of the law.

The principal legal provisions applying to children and youths of less than sixteen years are the following:

207(1) Prohibition to employ at labor children under twelve years of age (Art. 2).

(2) The King can prohibit, or only authorize under certain conditions, the employment of children and youths under sixteen, at labor that is beyond their strength, dangerous or unhealthful (Art. 3).

(3) The length of the working day is twelve hours at the most, divided by recesses, the total of which shall not be less than one and a half hours.

The King has the authority to regulate the length of the working day, as well as the length and the conditions of recess, in accordance with the nature of the occupations in which the children are employed, and the needs of the industries, professions or trades. (Art. 4).

(4) Night labor, that is to say, labor after nine o’clock in the evening and before five in the morning, is prohibited to children and youths under sixteen (Art. 6).

Exceptions. (a) The King can authorize the employment of children at night, at occupations which, by reason of their nature, cannot be interrupted or retarded, or which cannot be accomplished except within a definite period.

(b) As relating to labor in mines, the King can authorize night labor by a certain class of workmen more than fourteen years of age, also by male children fully twelve years old, to begin their labor at four a. m. (c) The governors of provinces, acting upon the report of the inspectors of suitable labor, can authorize night labor for children and youths, in all industries or trades, in cases of delay resulting from unavoidable necessity, or in exceptional circumstances. This authorization cannot be granted for more than two months at most; but it can be renewed. It must be approved by the Minister.

(5) Children and youths under sixteen cannot be employed at labor more than six days in the week (Art. 7). This regulation provides for the Sunday holiday, but the legislation of 1889 did not intend expressly to forbid Sunday labor. Indeed in 1889 the point was discussed whether the Belgian Constitution (Art. 15) did not oppose the legal prohibition of Sunday labor. Even to-day the question is still in controversy. Hence the law of 1889 solved the difficulty by merely forbidding children to labor more than six days in the week. In fact Sunday, the seventh day, is the day of 208rest. There are, however, certain Exceptions: (a) As regards the industries in which labor, by reason of its nature, cannot stand either interruption or delay, the King can authorize the employment of children over fourteen, during seven days in the week, whether permanently or temporarily, or conditionally. They must, however, be granted, in every case, the necessary time to devote to their religious duties once a week, as well as one complete day of rest in fourteen.

(b) In case of unavoidable necessity, the inspectors, burgomasters and governors can, with respect to the industries, authorize the employment on the seventh day of children and youths under sixteen.