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 annual

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, temptation 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 truth 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.

I 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 art 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, useful, 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 for 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.”

THE NECESSITY FOR FACTORY LEGISLATION IN THE SOUTH

By HAYES ROBBINS

Dean, Institute of Social Economics, New York

The 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 for 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 itself. 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 latest 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 yet 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 of 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 any 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

Southern 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.

CHILD LABOR IN NEW JERSEY

By HUGH F. FOX

President New Jersey State Board of Children’s Guardians

For 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 polite 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 their 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 limited 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 argument 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 their 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

[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 │ Foreign │ Foreign │ Colored.

│ │ Parents. │ Parents. │ Born. │

─────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────

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 trades.” 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

Woolen 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 Factory

Reports. 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

CHILD LABOR IN BELGIUM[18]

By E. DUBOIS

Professor in the University of Ghent

The 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 of

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 statistics 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.

The 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:

(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 rest. 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.

(6) In order to facilitate the enforcement of these legal provisions,

children and youths over sixteen must carry a memorandum book, which is

to be given them gratis by the parish administration; and which must

contain their Christian and surnames, date and place of their birth,

their residence, and the full names with residence either of their

parents or guardians. Likewise the heads of the industries, chiefs or

managers, must keep a registry of the same information that appears in

the memorandum books (Art. 10).

The Belgian laws, in their principal provisions which we have just

examined, resemble for the most part the laws regulating child labor in

other countries. But there is a gap which must have struck the reader,

viz.: the absence of provisions for the education of children. Foreign

laws, and notably the German, English and French laws, require that the

children, whose industrial labor is effectively regulated, should devote

to attendance at school the time which they do not spend in the factory

or workshop. This is done in the interests of their welfare and for

their intellectual and moral development. The legislator only

imperfectly fulfills his mission when he confines himself to preventing

and repressing the abuses of industrial labor.

This defect in the Belgian law is due to the opposition that compulsory

education has met with and still meets among a notable part of the

population and among the majority in Parliament.

In order that the statement of legislation may be complete, the author

has collected in a table the provisions of the royal decrees which have

resulted from Articles 4, 6 and 7 of the law, and which concern the

determination of the duration of daily labor and the conditions of

recess in a number of industries (Art. 4); the exceptions to the

prohibitions of night labor (Art. 6), and the authorizations of work on

the seventh day (Art. 7). (See page 210.)

Art. 3 of the law gives the King the power to prohibit or to regulate

the labor of children or youths under sixteen, in certain industries

particularly unhealthful or dangerous.

The royal decrees of February 19, 1895, August 5, 1895, and April 5,

1898, have applied this legal provision in the following manner:

(1) Prohibition of labor of children and youths under sixteen in

sixty-five industries, enumerated in Articles 1 and 2 of the decree of

February 19, 1895. These industries are, for the most part, the chemical

ones, or those which manufacture injurious products.

(2) In the lucifer-match factories:

(a) The labor of children and youths under sixteen is prohibited where

paste containing white phosphorus is made, or in the factories where

matches dipped in such paste are dried. Such labor is also prohibited

where matches are dipped in white phosphorus.

(b) Children under fourteen may not be employed in filling boxes with

white phosphorus matches (Article 3 of the royal decree of February 19,

1895).

(3) In factories where india-rubber is treated with carbon sulphuret,

the presence and the labor of children and youths under sixteen are

prohibited (Art. 4 of the same decree).

(4) Art. 6 enumerated a series of industries in which certain places are

closed to children and youths under sixteen, because of the injurious

and unhygienic character of the labor performed there. Art. 7 prohibits

the admission into certain places and labor therein of children under

fourteen.

(5) The royal decree of August 5, 1895, regulates the employment of

children in rag-shops.

(6) Finally, by force of a royal decree of April 5, 1898 (intercalated

into the decree of February 19, 1895, Art. 5) it is forbidden to employ

children and youths under sixteen in all places where the treatment of

hare and rabbit skins is performed; in all places where the hare and

rabbit skins are prepared before the treatment; also in all processes

which the skins undergo after the treatment, carrying, brushing,

cutting.

INDUSTRIES. LENGTH OF LABOR NIGHT LABOR. LABOR ON THE

AND CONDITIONS OF SEVENTH DAY.

RECESS.

(Art. 4 of the (Authorization (Authorization

law.) provided by Art. provided by Art.

6 of the law.) 7 of the law.)

I. Spinning and For children and

weaving of youths of 13 to

flax, cotton, 16 years: 11½

hemp and jute hours a day, 3

(royal decree recesses of a

of December 26, total of 1½

1892). hours at least.

The recess at

mid-day to be

at least 1

hour. For

children of 12

to 13 years, 6

hours a day;

recess, ¼ hour.

II. Woolen For children and

industry (royal youths under

decree of 16: 11¼ hours a

December 26, day. Recess as

1892). in No. 1.

III. Newspaper For children and

printing (royal youths under

decree of 16: 10 hours a

December 26, day. Several

1892). recesses with a

total of 1½

hours at least.

IV. Art As for No. III;

industries but for type

(royal decree foundries, the

of December 26, labor of

1892). children under

16 is limited

to 8 hours a

day.

V. Manufacture of For youths of 14 Authorization for

paper, (royal to 16: 10 hours young men of 14

decree of a day. Length to 16. The

December 26, of recess: 3 length of night

1892). recesses with a labor and

total of 1½ recesses is the

hours at least. same as for day

For children of labor.

12 to 14: 6

hours a day.

Recesses: one

or more with a

total of ½ hour

at least.

VI. Tobacco and For youths of 14

cigars (royal to 16: 10 hours

decree of a day.

December 26, Recesses: 3

1892). with a total of

1½ hours at

least. For

children of 12

to 14: 6 hours

a day.

Recesses: one

or more with a

total of ½ hour

at least.

VII. Manufacture For children and Authorization for

of sugar (royal youths of less youths of 14 to

decree of than 16: 10½ 16. The same

December 26, hours a day. conditions of

1892). Recesses: 3 labor and

with a total of recess as for

1½ hours at day labor.

least.

VIII. Furniture For children and

and industries youths under

pertaining to 16: 9 hours a

ship-building day during the

(royal decree months of

of December 26, October to

1892). March, and 10

hours a day

during the rest

of the year.

Recesses: 3

with total of

1½ hours at

least. The

recess at

mid-day shall

be 1 hour at

least.

IX. Pottery and For children and

crockeryware youths under

(royal decree 16: 10 hours a

of December 26, day. Recess as

1892). No. VIII.

X. Refractory As for No. IX.

products (royal

decree of

December 26,

1892).

XI. Glass As for Nos. IX Authorization of One week in every

industry (royal and X. night labor, two, the boys

decree of _for the of 14 to 16 can

December 26, glass-tapping_, be employed a

1892). to boys of 14 seventh day _at

to 16. The same the

conditions of glass-tapping_.

labor and On that day the

recess as by actual labor

day. must not exceed

6 hours, with a

recess of ½

hour for rest,

and the time

necessary for

their spiritual

devotions.

XII. Lucifer For children and „ „

matches (royal youths under

decree of 16: 10½ hours a

December 26, day. Recesses:

1892). 3 with a total

of 1½ hours at

least. One hour

at mid-day.

During these

recesses the

workmen leave

the premises.

XIII. For children and

Ship-building youths under

industry (royal 16: 8 hours a

decree of day during the

December 26, months of

1892). November to

February, and

10 hours the

rest of the

year. Recess: 1

hour during the

first months,

and 1½ hours

during the

others.

XIV. Zinc rolling Children from 12 Authorization for

mills (royal to 14: 5 hours youths of 14 to

decree of a day. Recess 16. The same

December 26, of ½ hour at conditions of

1892). least. Youths labor and

of 14 to 16: 10 recess as by

hours. Recesses day.

with a total of

1½ hours; noon

recess at least

1 hour.

XV. Crystal and For children and Authorization for One week in every

goblet youths under youths of 14 to two, the youths

factories 16, who work at 16. The same of 14 to 16 may

(royal decree glass-making: conditions of be employed a

of December 26, 10 hours and 20 labor and seventh day at

1892) minutes. recess as by the manufacture

Recesses: 3, day. of glass tiles

one of 20 and other

minutes at analogous

least, in the labor, which

morning; one of settled glass

½ hour at demands. On

least, at noon; that day the

a third of 20 actual labor

minutes at shall not

least, in the exceed 6 hours,

afternoon. with a recess

of ½ hour at

least, and the

time necessary

for their

spiritual

devotions shall

be provided

for.

XVI. Industries For children and „

pertaining to youths under

clothing (1st 16: 11 hours.

category: Recesses: 3

hosiery, lace, with total of

embroidery, not less than

tulles and 1½ hours. The

blond lace, mid-day rest

wool-braid, shall be at

etc.), (royal least 1 hour.

decree of

December 26,

1892).

XVII. Industries For children and

pertaining to youths under

clothing (2d 16, it must not

category: exceed 10 hours

tanning, a day. Recesses

currying, with a total of

tawing, at least 1

cord-waining, hour. During

hat-making, these recesses

fine linen, the workmen

toilet and shall be at

millinery, liberty to

etc., in so far leave the

as the law of premises.

December 13,

1889, applies

to the

establishments

where these

industries are

performed),

(royal decree

of December 26,

1892).

XVIII. Bulky Children of 12 to

mechanical 14: 10 hours.

construction Youths of 14 to

(royal decree 16: 11 hours.

of December 26, Recesses with a

1892). total of 1 hour

at least.

XIX. Small In a first group

mechanical of industries

construction in this branch

(royal decree (Table A), the

of December 26, length of labor

1892). of children 12

to 14 shall not

exceed 10

hours. For

youths of 14 to

16: 11 hours.

In the trades

enumerated in

Tables B, C, D,

children and

youths of less

than 16: 10

hours. Recesses

with total of

1½ hours at

least. One hour

at noon. Free

exit from the

premises.

XX. Bricks and Children and

tiles youths under

“hand-made,” 16: 12 hours a

and other day. Recesses:

similar if the actual

employments day’s labor

(royal decree exceeds 8

of September hours: 3

22, 1896). recesses with

total of 1½

hours at least,

at noon. If

actual labor

exceeds 6, but

not 8 hours: 1

or more

recesses with

total of 1 hour

at least. A

recess of ¼

hour at least

is obligatory

after each 4

hours of labor.

XXI. Window-glass For children and Authorization for One week in every

industry; basin youths under youths of 14 to two, youths of

kilns; drying 16: 10½ hours. 16. The same 14 to 16 can be

ground; pot Recesses with conditions of employed the

kilns (royal total of 1½ recess and seventh day.

decree of hours. Each labor as by

December 31, period of labor day.

1892). shall be

followed by a

complete rest

of a duration

double that of

the labor

itself.

XXII. Mining and In underground Authorization of

quarrying labor, the night labor for

(royal decree length of stay, male youths of

of March 15, descent and 14 to 16

1893). N. ascent occupied in

B.—For the coal comprises, cutting out and

mines of among children maintaining the

Mariemont, and male youths roads and

where the under 16, 10½ filling up the

organization of hours. Recess: dumps. Length

labor is at least ⅛ of of labor 10

different from the stay hours, and

that of other underground. recess as by

coal mines, the Male children day.

royal decree of 12 years old

March 15, 1893, may be employed

provides a underground

special after 4 a. m.,

regulation. under the same

conditions of

labor and

recess. For

surface labor,

the length of

labor for

children and

youths under 16

is 10½ hours.

Recess, 1½

hours at least.

XXIII.

Manufacture of

coke (royal

decree of March

15, 1893).

A. Ovens for Children and A. One week in

common coke. youths under every two,

16: 10½ hours. authorization

Recess not less to work a

than 1½ hours. seventh day,

The principal for male youths

recess 1 hour. of 14 to 16.

Day’s work 8

hours, less the

recess of 1

hour and time

for religious

devotions.

B. Coke ovens Children and For male youths B. Same

for the youths under over 14, authorization

recovery of 16: 10½ hours a authorization as for No.

by-products. day. Recesses for night work. XXIII A.

with total of Same length and

1½ hours. recess as by

Principal day.

recess 1 hour.

XXIV. Factories Children and

for the youths under

agglomeration 16: 10½ hours.

of coal Recesses: a

(briquette total of at

factories), least 1½ hours.

(royal decree Principal

of March 15, recess 1 hour.

1893).

XXV. Quarries and For underground

works connected labor, the same

with them conditions as

(royal decree for No. XXII.

of March 15,

1893).

„ For surface

labor: 10

hours. In the

tool repair

shops: 10½

hours. Total

recess 1½

hours.

„ In the works for

cutting and

carving the

rough products

of the quarry:

for children

and youths from

12 to 16: 8

hours a day, in

order to give

time for

professional

instruction.

XXVI. Metallurgic Length of labor: Male youths of 14 One week in every

works governed 10½ hours a to 16 years may two, male

under the law day. Total work at night, youths of 14 to

of April 21, recess: 1½ under the same 16 may work a

1810. (Blast hours. conditions of seventh day, in

furnaces, iron Principal labor and order to feed

and steel recess: ½ hour recess as the the blast

mills, rolling between 11 and day labor. furnaces and

mills, 2 o’clock for attend to the

foundries, the furnace zinc foundries.

etc.), (royal men; 1 hour for Time allowed

decree of March the other for religious

15, 1893). workmen. devotions.

XXVII. Preserving Children and Authorization for

and pickling of youths under youths of 14 to

fish (royal 16: 11 hours. 16 to work from

decree of Recesses: 3 9 p. m. until

November 3, with total of midnight,

1898). 1½ hours when during a number

actual labor of days which

exceeds 8 shall not

hours. When it exceed thirty a

exceeds 6, but year. Actual

not 8 hours, labor may never

one or several exceed 12

recesses with a hours. Recesses

total of 1 as by day.

hour. A recess

of ¼ hour is

compulsory

after each

period of 4

hours’ labor.