Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 266, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1918 — State Laws Needed to Correct Criminal Abuse of Child Labor [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

State Laws Needed to Correct Criminal Abuse of Child Labor

By BARTOW A.

ULJUCH, of Chicago

“The passage of the Keeting-Owen federal child labor law waa not an easy fight .1 introduced the bill on the opening day of the Sixty-third congress. A score of cooks had a finger in the pie—Miss Jane Addams, Felix Adler, former Congressman A. Mitchell Palmer and many other prominent persons. The president urged its passage, as did Miss Julia C. Isithrop, head of the child department, bureau of labor, Washington,” •aid Representative Edward Keeting. A lobby was formed to oppose it.-Hoke Smith said: “Why do I oppose the bill ? I oppose it because it

infringes upon the rights of the states in regulating their matters according to their own views, and is a matter in which the federal government “ , --7~ has no concern. The Supreme court has declared this act in regard to child labor as unconstitutional, as I stated at the time would be the fate of this congressional act It is not for me here to criticize the Supreme court for its decision, but the people, in whom the sovereign power rests, overruled the Dred Scott decision, and three amendments were made to the Constitution, settling forever in the United States the question of slavery. Instead of passing an act of congress subject to being set aside by the Supreme court, congress should havtf passed a joint resolution, proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, giving full authority to congress to regulate child labor in all the states of the Union, and to protect, in the most efficient manner the health and development of children and prevent their detrimental employment. A constituent law is above an act of congress, and also supersedes a Supreme court decision. It is really the verdict of the people on a disputed question, and can be .decided by a vote of the individual states on an amendment to the Constitution. Class or bourgeois legislation hereafter will be unpopular in the United States. The young men of our country are risking their lives for the cause of democracy, equal rights and liberty. They will not stand for the enslavement of the children of the republic in the future. They will gay with a loud voice: “It is not equal rights to destroy the lives of thougands of helpless children so that the child of a millionaire can roll in wealth and idleness.” This is no less a crime in the republic of the United States than it is a crime in Bussia or Germany. The state should not only provide means to protect children and educate them, but it should also see to it, through proper commissions, that unprotected ahildren are fed, clothed and guarded until qualified to perform some remunerative occupation. It is stated “two million children who should be at school and at plav are compelled to work in canneries, mines and factories; two hundred and fifty thousand are being starved or their vitality is being lowered by the adulteration Of foods. There are more inmates of our iqsane asylums than all our colleges and universities—that is, we are destroying minds faster than we are giving higher education. “In New York we have twenty thousand defective children, largely

the direct result of the overwork and overstrain to which their mothers we subjected in factories. Conditions are worse here than in any other country in the world” It is clearly the duty of the state to guard and nourish such human life in its immaturity and helplessness, when found unprotected and liable to injury. The state should provide the means not only to educate but, if it is necessary, to feed, clothe and house these children until they are fully qualified to perform some remunerative occupation, if no other means can be provided. Substantial aid undoubtedly would be furnished also by charitable and church institutions.