ANNA ROCHESTER
National Child Labor Committee
A majority of the twenty-nine state Legislatures which have been
considering child labor laws this winter are still in session, so that
many of the most important bills are still pending.
The campaign that is being waged against the most outspoken opposition
is on in Pennsylvania, one of the two strongholds of glass manufacturers
who employ boys under sixteen at night. With the single exception of
West Virginia, where a bill based on the uniform child labor law was
defeated this winter, night work for youths under sixteen is no longer
allowed in the important glass-producing states. The uniform law was
introduced in the present Pennsylvania Legislature by Representative
Walnut and referred to the Committee on Labor and Industry. The
committee reported it to the House with several amendments. The House
rejected all but two of these. Now the uniform law, with the
street-trading age limit reduced from twelve years to ten, and the age
limit for breaker boys reduced from sixteen to fourteen, has reached its
third reading in the House. If its friends can still protect it from the
mutilations desired by the glass interests, the telegraph companies, the
textile manufacturers and other opponents, Pennsylvania will be in a
fair way to protect the 29,170 children employed in manufactories in
that state.
The uniform law is also pending in Massachusetts, where it met no
opposition in the hearing before the Committee on Social Welfare.
Massachusetts has now a ten-hour day and the uniform law would bring her
into line with Ohio, New York, Illinois, Mississippi and twelve other
states that have the eight-hour day for all under sixteen.
But Massachusetts would lead the country in one respect if another bill
that is likewise before the Committee on Social Welfare should pass.
This provides for a five-hour day and compulsory school attendance for
all workers under sixteen. If this is put into effect it will set a new
standard for the Uniform Child Labor Law, which has been drafted by the
National Child Labor Committee and endorsed by the American Bar
Association. It is based on the best provisions of the best statutes now
in force in the several states. Yet the National Child Labor Committee,
fearing that two five-hour shifts for certain minors might tend to
fasten on industry the ten-hour day for adults, would suggest that
Massachusetts go one step further and fix a four-hour day for all under
sixteen.
Connecticut, Ohio and Michigan will also advance beyond the standard of
the uniform law if bills now pending are enacted. Michigan, it is true,
is not trying to reduce the working day below nine hours, but merely to
extend it to include canneries and four other occupations hitherto
exempt. But Michigan and Ohio propose to raise the general age limit for
employment from fourteen to fifteen, while Connecticut is considering
sixteen years. Ohio intends also to increase the compulsory school
attendance age from fourteen to fifteen for boys and sixteen for girls,
and to require that boys of fifteen may not go to work unless they have
completed the sixth instead of the fifth grade, the requirement of the
present Ohio law and of the uniform law.[3]
Footnote 3:
The Ohio law has passed both Houses.
The Ohio bill includes, also, the street trading provisions of the
uniform law. Special street trading bills are pending in Iowa, Nebraska,
New York and also, we understand, in Michigan and Minnesota. Their
outcome is doubtful because the average legislator seems to be blind to
the bad results of street trading and cheerfully reflects the popular
view that these “sturdy, little merchants” are all supporting widowed
mothers and headed straight for the White House.
Many states are coming to recognize the needs of children over fourteen.
This is evidenced not only by the wide discussion of vocational schools
and the bills before the Legislatures of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio,
Massachusetts, New York and other states, but also by the extension of
child labor laws. Thus California, having proved the advantage of the
eight-hour day for women and boys under sixteen, is considering the
eight-hour limit for all under eighteen. Wisconsin is proposing to
enlarge the list of hazardous occupations forbidden under eighteen and
to provide for continued revision in the future by the Industrial
Commission. The prohibition of night messenger service for those under
twenty-one is included in the uniform law, as pending in Pennsylvania
and passed in Delaware, but not in Massachusetts and Utah, where it has
already been enacted. In Connecticut, a dangerous trades bill is pending
and the bill for a general sixteen year limit includes an age
restriction of twenty-one years for night messenger service. The same
night messenger prohibition was included also in the bills based on the
uniform law that went down to defeat this year in Utah, Idaho, Arkansas,
Texas and West Virginia. Iowa, the only other state in which a night
messenger law has been introduced this year, proposes an eighteen year
limit.
Regulation of hours for all under sixteen was proposed in Nevada. In
Tennessee, there is a bill now before the House Committee on Labor,
providing for an eight-hour day under sixteen instead of the present
sixty-hour week. A second measure adds mercantile establishments and the
stage to the occupations prohibited to children under fourteen. Still
another bill has passed in Tennessee, enlarging the Factory Inspection
Department by adding a clerk and two deputy inspectors. The matter of
enforcement has not received as wide consideration as it deserved.
Industrial commissions are under discussion in many states, notably
California and Ohio. In Iowa it is proposed to create within the Labor
Department a bureau of women and children. Montana’s educational bill
would provide for truant officers to enforce the child labor law. In
Wisconsin a bill is pending covering some details of the issuing of
employment certificates and in Utah it was proposed to increase the
number of inspectors. Most important in this connection is the bill in
Missouri to extend the jurisdiction of the Factory Inspection Department
over the entire state (it is now confined to cities of 10,000 or more
inhabitants) and to abolish the present fee system.
Two of the bills recommended by the New York Factory Investigating
Commission and directly affecting child labor are still pending: one to
prohibit work in cannery sheds by children under fourteen, and the other
to prohibit the manufacture in tenement houses of dolls or dolls’
clothing and articles of food or of children’s or infants’ wearing
apparel. Other bills recommended by the commission and already passed
and signed standardize the issuing of employment certificates throughout
the state; give the commissioner of labor power to inquire into the
thoroughness of this work as carried on by local health officers;
provide for physical examination in factories of children fourteen to
sixteen. This last provision promises to be better than the present
Massachusetts law because it permits the cancelling of employment
certificates of children whom the examination reveals to be physically
unfit for factory employment. Following the recommendation of the
commission the present Legislature has also reorganized the Labor
Department, established an industrial board, increased the number of
inspectors and extended the jurisdiction of the Labor Department to
cover the enforcement of the labor law concerning women and children in
mercantile establishments in second class cities.
In a few states there is a fair record of progress in the legislation
already enacted this year. New Jersey and Indiana have brought their
educational requirements and provisions for working certificates up to
the standard of the uniform law. Vermont has established a nine-hour day
and Rhode Island a ten-hour day. The Vermont law also does away with the
twelve year limit in certain occupations and substitutes the provision
that
“A child under sixteen years of age, who has not completed the course
of study prepared for the elementary schools shall not be employed in
work connected with railroading, mining, manufacturing or quarrying,
or be employed in a hotel or bowling alley, or in delivering messages,
except during vacation and before and after school.”
Along with this the law has an absolute fourteen-year limit in “mill,
factory, quarry or workshop, wherein are employed more than ten
persons.” In North Carolina a bill was introduced with a fourteen-year
age limit and a prohibition of night work, but the age limit was
immediately amended back to the old thirteen (twelve for apprentices),
the increased appropriation for inspectors was cut out, and only the
night work prohibition was passed. The Child Labor Commission in
Delaware drafted a bill based on the uniform law, which, in a much
mutilated form, was finally passed and signed.
Only a few backward states show no progress whatever. Georgia defeated a
child labor bill last summer. Alabama has no legislative session until
January, 1915. The Florida Legislature has just convened and a bill
based on the uniform law will be introduced. No child labor bill was
introduced in South Carolina but a compulsory school attendance law was
passed by the Legislature, only to be vetoed by the governor. The House
passed it again over the governor’s veto, but it failed in the Senate by
two votes. In New Hampshire, the only northern state with a general
twelve-year age limit, a bill providing for a fourteen-year limit has
been unanimously reported to the House and there seems to be a good
chance of passing it.
The National Child Labor Committee is watching the situation and helping
where it can in these campaigns. It hopes to report many more victories
when the legislative season closes. Meanwhile it appeals to the citizens
in every state to aid in the enactment and the enforcement of these
laws.