The moral ills resulting from child labor are numerous and far-reaching.
When children become wage-earners and are thrown into constant
association with adult workers, they develop prematurely an adult
consciousness and view of life. About the first consequence of their
employment is that they cease almost at once to be children. They lose
their respect for parental authority, in many cases, and become
arrogant, wayward, and defiant. There is always a tendency in their
homes to regard them as men and women as soon as they become
wage-earners. Discipline is at once relaxed, at the very time when it is
most necessary. When children who have just entered upon that most
critical period of life, adolescence, are associated with adults in
factories, are driven to their tasks with curses, and hear continually
the unrestrained conversation, often coarse and foul, of the adults, the
psychological effect cannot be other than bad. The mothers and fathers
who read this book need only to know that children, little boys and
girls, in mills and factories where men and women are employed, must
frequently see women at work in whom the signs of a developing life
within are evident, and hear them made the butt of the coarsest taunts
and jests, to realize how great the moral peril to the adolescent boy or
girl must be.
No writer dare write, and no publisher dare publish, a truthful
description of the moral atmosphere of hundreds of places where children
are employed,—a description truthful in the sense of telling the whole
truth. No publisher would dare print the language current in an average
factory. Our most “realistic” writers must exercise stern artistic
reticence, and tone down or evade the truth. No normal boy or girl would
think of repeating to father or mother the language heard in the
mill—language which the children begin before long to use occasionally,
to _think_ oftener still. I have known a girl of thirteen or fourteen,
just an average American girl, whose parents, intelligent and honest
folk, had given her a moral training above rather than below the
average, mock a pregnant woman worker and unblushingly attempt to
caricature her condition by stuffing rags beneath her apron. I do not
make any charge against the tens of thousands of women who have worked
and are working in factories. Heaven forbid that I should seek to brand
as impure these women of my own class! But I do say that for the plastic
and impressionable mind of a child the moral atmosphere of the average
factory is exceedingly bad, and I know that none will more readily agree
with me than the men and women who work, or who have worked, in mills
and factories.
I know a woman, and she is one of many, who has worked in textile
factories for more than thirty years. She began to work as a child
before she was ten years old, and is now past forty. She has never
married, though many men have sought her in marriage. She is not an
abnormal woman, indifferent to marriage, but just a normal, healthy,
intelligent woman who has yearned hundreds of times for a man’s
affection and companionship. To her more intimate friends she confesses
that she chose to remain lonely and unwed, chose to stifle her longings
for affection, rather than to marry and bring children into the world
and live to see them enter the mills for employment before they became
men and women. When I say that the moral atmosphere of factory life is
contaminated and bad, and that the employment of children in mills and
factories subjects them to grave moral perils, I am confident that I
shall be supported, not, perhaps, by the owners of the mills and
factories, but by the vast majority of intelligent men and women
employed in them.
In a report upon the physical conditions of child workers in
Pennsylvania, the Rev. Peter Roberts has discussed at some length the
moral dangers of factory employment for children. He quotes an Allentown
physician as saying, “No vice was unknown to many of the girls of
fifteen working in the factories of the city;” and another physician in
the same city said, “There are more unhappy homes, ruined lives, blasted
hopes, and diseased bodies in Allentown than any other city of its size,
because of the factories there.” Another physician, in Lancaster, is
quoted as saying that he had “treated boys of ten years old and upwards
for venereal affections which they had contracted.”[134] In upwards of a
score of factory towns I have had very similar testimony given to me by
physicians and others. The proprietor of a large drug store in a New
England factory town told me that he had never known a place where the
demand for cheap remedies for venereal diseases was so great, and _that
many of those who bought them were boys under fifteen_.
Nor is it only in factories that these grosser forms of immorality
flourish. They are even more prevalent among the children of the street
trades, newsboys, bootblacks, messengers, and the like. The proportion
of newsboys who suffer from venereal diseases is alarmingly great. The
Superintendent of the John Worthy School of Chicago, Mr. Sloan, asserts
that “One-third of all the newsboys who come to the John Worthy School
have venereal disease, and that 10 per cent of the remaining newsboys at
present in the Bridewell are, according to the physicians’ diagnosis,
suffering from similar diseases.”[135] The newsboys who come to the
school are, according to Mr. Sloan, on an average one-third below the
ordinary standard of physical development, a condition which will be
readily understood by those who know the ways of the newsboys of our
great cities—their irregular habits, scant feeding, sexual excesses,
secret vices, sleeping in hallways, basements, stables, and quiet
corners. With such a low physical standard the ravages of venereal
diseases are tremendously increased.
[Illustration:
SILK MILL GIRLS AFTER TWO YEARS OF FACTORY LIFE
]
The messenger boys and the American District Telegraph boys are
frequently found in the worst resorts of the “red-light” districts of
our cities. In New York there are hundreds of such boys, ranging in age
from twelve to fifteen, who know many of the prostitutes of the
Tenderloin by name. Sad to relate, boys like to be employed in the
“red-light” districts. They like it, not because they are bad or
depraved, but for the very natural reason that they make more money
there, receiving larger and more numerous tips. They are called upon for
many services by the habitués of these haunts of the vicious and the
profligate. They are sent out to place bets; to take notes to and from
houses of ill-fame; or to buy liquor, cigarettes, candy, and even
gloves, shoes, corsets, and other articles of wearing apparel for the
“ladies.” Not only are tips abundant, but there are many opportunities
for graft of which the boys avail themselves. A lad is sent, for
instance, for a bottle of whiskey. He is told to get a certain brand at
a neighboring hotel, but he knows where he can get the same brand for 50
per cent of the hotel price, and, naturally, he goes there for it and
pockets the difference in price. That is one form of messengers’ graft.
Another is overcharging for his services and pocketing the surplus, or
keeping the change from a “ten-spot” or a “fiver,” when, as often
happens, the “sports” are either too reckless to bother about such
trifles or too drunk to remember. From sources such as these the
messenger boy in a district like the Tenderloin will often make several
dollars a day.[136]
A whole series of temptations confronts the messenger boy. He smokes,
drinks, gambles, and, very often, patronizes the lowest class of cheap
brothels. In answering calls from houses of ill-repute messengers cannot
avoid being witnesses of scenes of licentiousness more or less
frequently. By presents of money, fruit, candy, cigarettes, and even
liquor, the women make friends of the boys, who quickly learn all the
foul slang of the brothels.[137] The conversation of a group of
messengers in such a district will often reveal the most astounding
intimacy with the grossest things of the underworld. That in their
adolescence, the transition from boyhood to manhood, fraught as it is
with its own inherent perils, they should be thrown into such an
environment and exposed to such temptations is an evil which cannot
possibly be overemphasized. The penal code of New York declares the
sending of minors to carry messages to or from a house of ill-fame to be
a misdemeanor, but the law is a dead letter. It cannot possibly be
enforced, and its repeal would probably be a good thing. While it may be
urged that the mere existence of such a law has a certain moral value as
a condemnation of such a dangerous employment for boys, it is
exceedingly doubtful if that good is sufficient to counterbalance the
harm which comes from the non-enforcement of the law.
I have dwelt mainly upon the grosser vices associated with street
employment, as with employment in factories and mines, because it is a
phase of the subject about which too little is known. I need scarcely
say, however, that these vices are not the only ones to which serious
attention should be given. Crime naturally results from such conditions.
Of 600 boys committed to the New York Juvenile Asylum by the courts, 125
were newsboys who had been committed for various offences ranging from
ungovernableness and disorderly conduct to grand larceny.[138] Mr.
Nibecker, Superintendent of the House of Refuge at Glen Mills, near
Philadelphia, was asked, “Have you, in disproportionate numbers, boys
who formerly were engaged in some one particular occupation?” He replied
promptly, “Yes, district messengers.”[139] It seems to be the almost
unanimous opinion of probation officers and other competent authorities
in our large cities that messenger boys and newsboys furnish an
exceedingly large proportion of cases of juvenile delinquency. I wrote
to six probation officers in as many large cities asking them to give me
their opinions as to the classes of occupation which seem to have the
largest number of juvenile delinquents. Their replies are summarized in
the following schedule:—
OCCUPATIONS OF JUVENILE DELINQUENTS IN SIX LARGE CITIES, SHOWING THE
RELATIVE NUMBER OF EACH OCCUPATION
═══════╤═══════════════╤═══════════════╤═══════════════╤═══════════════
REPORT │ A │ B │ C │ D
───────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────
1 │Messenger boys │Newsboys │Factory boys │Miscellaneous
2 │Newsboys │Messenger boys │Factory boys │Truants
3 │Newsboys │Messenger boys │Truants │Factory boys
4 │Messenger boys │Factory boys │Newsboys │Miscellaneous
5 │Messenger boys │Newsboys │Truants │Miscellaneous
6 │Factory boys │Truants │Messenger boys │Newsboys
═══════╧═══════════════╧═══════════════╧═══════════════╧═══════════════
In six smaller cities, where the number of factory workers is much
larger in proportion than in the great cities, and the number of
newsboys and messengers is much smaller, the results were somewhat
different. The following schedule is interesting as a summary of the
replies received from these towns:—
OCCUPATIONS OF JUVENILE DELINQUENTS IN SIX TOWNS OF LESS THAN 100,000
INHABITANTS, SHOWING THE RELATIVE NUMBER OF EACH OCCUPATION[E]
═══════╤═══════════════╤═══════════════╤═══════════════╤═══════════════
REPORT │ A │ B │ C │ D
───────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────
1 │Mine boys │Truants │Messenger boys │Miscellaneous
2 │Glass-house │Other factory │Miscellaneous │Truants
│ boys │ boys │ │
3 │Mill boys │Messenger boys │Truants │Miscellaneous
4 │Mill boys │Mine boys │Truants │Miscellaneous
5 │Mill boys │Truants │Newsboys │Miscellaneous
6 │Mine boys │Messenger boys │Miscellaneous │Truants
═══════╧═══════════════╧═══════════════╧═══════════════╧═══════════════
These facts, and other facts of a like nature, are only indicative of
the ill effects of child labor upon the morals of the children. In some
cases the moral peril lies in the nature of the work itself, while in
others it lies, not in the work, but in the conditions by which it is
surrounded. In the Chicago Stock Yards, for example, judging by what I
saw there, I should say that in most, if not all, of the departments the
work itself is degrading and brutalizing, and that no person under
eighteen years of age ought to be permitted to work in them. In large
laundries little girls are very commonly employed as “sorters.” Their
work is to sort out the soiled clothes as they come in and to classify
them. While such work must be disagreeable and unwholesome for a young
girl, there is nothing necessarily demoralizing about it. But when such
little girls are compelled to work with men and women of the coarsest
and most illiterate type, as they frequently are, and to listen to
constant conversation charged with foul suggestions, it becomes a
soul-destroying occupation. At its best, even when all possible efforts
are made to keep the place of employment pure and above reproach—and I
know that there are many such places—still the whole tendency of child
labor is in the direction of a lower moral standard. The feeling of
independence caused by the ability to earn wages, the relaxation of
parental authority, with the result that the children roam the streets
at night or frequent places of amusement of questionable character; the
ruthless destruction of the bloom of youthful innocence and the forced
consciousness of life properly belonging to adult years—these are
inevitably associated with child labor.
X
These are some of the ills which child labor inflicts upon the children
themselves, ills which do not end with their childhood days but curse
and blight all their after years. The child who is forced to be a man
too soon, forced too early to enter the industrial strife of the world,
ceases to _be_ a man too soon, ceases to be _fit_ for the industrial
strife. When the strength is sapped in childhood there is an absence of
strength in manhood and womanhood; Ruskin’s words are profoundly true,
that “to be a man too soon is to be a small man.” We are to-day using up
the vitality of children; soon they will be men and women, without the
vitality and strength necessary to maintain themselves and their
dependants. When we exploit the immature strength of little children, we
prepare recruits for the miserable army of the unfit and unemployable,
whose lot is a shameful and debasing poverty.
This wrong to helpless childhood carries with it, therefore, a certain
and dreadful retribution. It is not possible to injure a child without
injuring society. Whatever burden society lays, or permits to be laid,
upon the shoulders of its children, it must ultimately bear upon its
own. Society’s interest in the child may be well expressed in a slight
paraphrase of the words of Jesus, “Whatsoever is done to one of the
least of these little ones is done unto me.” It is in that spirit that
the advocates of child-labor legislation would have the nation forbid
the exploitation, literally the exhaustion, of children by
self-interested employers. For the abuse of childhood by individual
antisocial interests, society as a whole must pay the penalty. If we
neglect the children of to-day, and sap their strength so that they
become weaklings, we must bear the burden of their failures when they
fail and fall:—
“There is a sacred Something on all ways—
Something that watches through the Universe;
One that remembers, reckons and repays,
Giving us love for love, and curse for curse.”
It is a well-known fact that the competition of children with their
elders entails serious consequences of a twofold nature,—first, in the
displacement of adults, and, second, in the lowering of their wage
standards. There are few things more tragic in the modern industrial
system than the sight of children working while their fathers can find
no other employment than to carry dinners to them. I know that many
persons are always ready to suggest that the fathers like this unnatural
arrangement, that they prefer to live upon the earnings of their little
ones, and there are, no doubt, cases in which this is true. But in the
majority of cases it is not true. Every one who is at all familiar with
the lives of the workers must realize that when applied indiscriminately
to the mass of those who find themselves in that condition of dependence
upon their children’s labor, this view is a gross libel. Some months
ago, I stood outside of a large clothing factory in Rochester, N.Y. Upon
the front of the building, as upon several others in the street, there
hung a painted sign, such as I have seen there many times, bearing the
inscription, “Small Girls Wanted.” While I stood there two men passed by
and I heard one of them say to the other: “That’s fourteen places we’ve
seen they want kids to-day, Bill, but we’ve tramped round all week an’
never got sight of a job.” I have known many earnest, industrious men to
be weeks at a time seeking employment while their children could get
places without difficulty. The displacement of adult workers by their
children is a stern and sad feature of the competition of the labor
market, which no amount of cynicism can dispose of.
A brief study of the returns published in the bulletins and reports of
the various bureaus of labor and the labor unions will show that child
labor tends to lower the wages of adult workers. Where the competition
of children is a factor wages are invariably lowest. Two or three years
ago I was associated in a small way with an agitation carried on by the
members of the Cigarmakers’ Union in Pennsylvania against the “Cigar
Trust.” One of the principal issues in that agitation was the employment
of young children. The labor unions have always opposed child labor, for
the reason that they know from experience how its employment tends to
displace adult labor and to reduce wages. In the case of the
cigarmakers’ agitation the chief grievance was the fact that children
were making for $2 and $2.50 per thousand the same class of cigars as
the men were paid from $7.50 to $8 per thousand for making.[140] The men
worked under fairly decent, human conditions, but the conditions under
which the children worked were positively inhuman. That such competition
as that, if extensive, must result in the gradual displacement of men
and the employment of children, accompanied by the reduction of the
wages of the men fortunate enough to be allowed to remain at work, is, I
think, self-evident. In their turn the unemployment of adults and the
lowering of wages are fruitful sources of poverty, and force the
employment of many children.
These are some of the most obvious immediate economic consequences of
child labor, simple facts which we can readily grasp. But there are
other, subtler and less obvious, economic consequences of even greater
importance, so vast that their magnitude cannot be measured nor even
guessed. It is impossible to conceive how much we lose through the
lessened productive capacity of those who have been prematurely
exploited, and even if that were possible, we should still have to face
the stupendous problem of determining how much of our expenditure for
the relief of poverty, caring for the diseased and crippled, and the
expensive maintenance of a large criminal class in prisons and
reformatories, has been rendered necessary by that same fundamental
cause. It is an awful, bewildering problem, this ultimate economic cost
of child labor to society. If it were proposed to saddle the bulk of
these expenditures for the relief of the necessitous and the maintenance
of the diseased, maimed, and criminal classes upon the industries in
which their energies were used up, their bodies maimed, or their moral
natures perverted and destroyed, there would be a great outcry. Yet, it
would be much more reasonable and just than the present system, which
permits the physical, mental, and moral ruin to be carried on in the
selfish and sordid interests of a class, and the imposition of the
resulting burden of misery and failure upon the shoulders of society as
a whole.