XXVIII. Factories Boys of 14 to 16

for enamel may be employed

products (royal at night, one

decree of week out of

November 29, every two, in

1898). the work of the

enamel cooking

ovens. Length

of labor and

recess as for

No. XIX.

In order to give a full account of the extent of the regulation of child

labor in Belgium, it was necessary to consider in detail the law of 1889

and the provisions of the various decrees of which we have just spoken.

Let us see now how the law and the regulations are applied:

_The Application of the Law._

In order to insure the application of the law and to watch its

execution, Article 12 prescribes the appointment of officials by the

government, whose powers shall be determined by royal decree.

At first the inspection of labor was vested in officers already charged

with other powers. This system, condemned by experience in other lands,

did not give good results, and a special body of labor inspectors was

organized by a royal decree of October 22, 1895.

According to this decree, the inspection of labor and the observance of

the execution of the law of 1889 in the mines, quarries and metallurgic

works is committed to the engineers of the mines. For all other

industries, the service of labor inspection is attached to the Labor

Bureau.

This service comprises:

(1) Inspectors of labor in the central administration, residing at

Brussels. These officers are six in number: two inspectors-general,

three labor inspectors and one female inspector.

(2) Inspectors and deputies residing in the country. There are actually

eight labor inspectors in the provincial service and six deputies. The

country is divided into nine districts, and the departments of

inspection have, on the last occasion, been defined by a ministerial

decree of December 16, 1899.

(3) Finally, a certain number of medical inspectors are charged

specially with watching over the application of the rules with reference

to the healthfulness and safety of the workshops.

The labor inspectors not only have charge of the execution of the law of

1889, but also of the laws on the payment of wages, the regulations of

factories, etc. They make an annual report, and their reports have been

published regularly since 1895, and from them information must be

secured concerning the law’s execution, even though the reports are

often incomplete and unmethodical.

I will refer here particularly to the last report published, that of

1900:

The law of 1889 was not applied seriously until 1895, following the

reorganization of inspection. Since then progress has been made, but it

is incontestable that in several of its provisions the law is not

applied as it should be in all parts of the country. The press and

Parliament[22] have several times pointed out this unsatisfactory

situation.

The inspectors certainly perform their complicated and delicate work

with fidelity. But they are too few in number to fitly discharge their

numerous duties. The opposition or the ill-will of the manufacturers is

still too frequent; and when the inspectors wish to apply the law and

enforce its respect, they do not always find the support which they

should have among their superior officers.

In certain industries, _e. g._, glass and hand-made brick, which employ

a considerable number of children, the application of the law is

particularly to be desired. It is true these industries have peculiar

economic characteristics. There has already been introduced a regulation

less severe for the brick-works, and certain mitigations are being asked

for the glass industry.

Too many children are still permitted to labor before having reached the

legal age of twelve years. The inspector for the district of East

Flanders (Ghent) announces that the number of children under twelve

found in the industrial establishments was particularly numerous in

1900. He found seventy-five such in his district in ten hosiery

factories, two tobacco factories, one lace-making school, one mechanical

weaving mill, one jute mill, one sugar refinery. (Report 1900, pp. 88,

89.) In some other districts the situation is better, according to this

report, but almost everywhere violations are still observed, as well as

the complicity of parents. “Families in need often make all efforts and

use all sorts of devices to cause their children under age to be

admitted to labor.” (Report, p. 143.) It happens that the regulation

note-books requiring the entry of the child’s age contain false

declarations, or they are delivered to the children under age by the

civic authority. (Report, p. 127.) Moreover, these note-books are often

missing, and the registries which the masters should keep do not always

come up to the demands of the law.

A royal decree of December 26, 1892, as we have said, organizes the

system of half-time—six hours of work—for children of twelve to

thirteen, employed in the textile industries other than the woolen

industry. This system has not given good results. The manufacturers

prefer to do without children under thirteen, rather than adopt this

special organization. In the works which have adopted this system, the

child does not benefit from it at all. “After having worked six hours in

the morning at the spinning or weaving of linen, the parents send that

child to complete the day’s labor at a chairmaker’s, at picking rags, or

in a preserved fruit and vegetable factory, where the law does not

protect him any longer within the same limits. Moreover, if he does not

work in the afternoon, he roams around the streets and becomes vicious,

the school refusing to admit as pupil a child who can only attend half

the time.” (Report, p. 65.)

This confirms what was said above, concerning the defect in the Belgian

law, which contains no regulations for the instruction of children whose

labor it limits.

On several occasions the labor inspectors have called attention to the

necessity of extending the application of the law to the workshops which

are not included, and especially to the clothing and millinery shops,

which freely employ numerous children. They ask, in every case, that the

legislator should state more clearly and precisely than the actual

interpretation of the law does, the distinction between the workshops

subject to the law and those that are not. (Report, pp. 3, 66.)

Finally, the inspectors think that it is necessary to revise and to

simplify the royal decrees, the complications of which give rise to many

difficulties. This revision is, by the way, at present under

consideration. (Report, pp. 3, 44.)

From what precedes, we may conclude that, except certain desirable

ameliorations and simplifications, Belgium possesses a law comprising

what is needed for the protection of children employed in the

industries, and a law regardful of the many interests of industry. The

most important present problem is to secure general, strict and complete

execution of the legal provisions. Nothing is more demoralizing, from

the social point of view, than to possess laws to which officials either

cannot or will not compel obedience.

MACHINERY AND LABOR

By HENRY WHITE

General Secretary, United Garment Workers of America

This subject is one which involves the whole industrial problem. It is

the complexity of conditions due to the introduction of machinery which

has caused the wide differences of opinion upon the question of wealth

distribution. Under the simpler methods of industry the manner in which

the proceeds of labor were divided was readily understood; to-day,

however, the system is so highly organized that there is much confusion

as to its operations. The perplexity is so great that many who see in

labor-saving inventions some malign purpose, and others again who

discern that any means which enhances the productiveness of labor must

benefit mankind, are unable to comprehend the manner by which that

result is effected. The habit of judging the operations of so complex a

system by the effect upon special interests instead of viewing it as a

whole, accounts for the common misconception regarding the function of

machinery.

If people were to consider how meagre would be the rewards of toil

without the aid of machinery, how costly the necessities of life, and

how small the purchasing power of the laborer, its uses would soon

become apparent. The confusion is heightened by the dual relation which

a person occupies as a producer and as a consumer. As a consumer he

benefits almost at once by every saving in effort, while as a producer

his means of a livelihood may in consequence be threatened. The laborers

thrown out of work by a machine or even the merchant forced out of

business through some combination cannot be expected to appreciate the

beneficence of such economy. In both cases their horizon is limited to

their own means of a livelihood. When a person finds his occupation

suddenly gone, it outweighs all other considerations; and unmindful of

the benefits he may have received from similar economies in other

trades, inventions to him seem a curse. The rewards of the particular

invention which distresses him go to the body of consumers and he only

shares indirectly as one of them. In the case of the wage-workers the

gain is not evident as it is with the manufacturer who first utilizes an

invention, and consequently their views on the subject will differ

correspondingly. It is regrettable that even the temporary disadvantages

of industrial progress should fall heavily upon some to the advantage of

others, but it is as unavoidable as friction is to motion. The suffering

can be mitigated only in proportion as our knowledge of the methods of

industry increases, by recognizing the inevitableness of the changes and

preparing to meet them.

Economic laws, like the laws of nature, admit of no exceptions. Were

discriminations possible the consequences would make the present

hardships seem nothing in comparison. In fact, society would quickly

disintegrate and revert to its primitive state. If society had to wait

for the sanction of every person before a forward step could be taken it

would never start. In the process of adjustment and readjustment which

progress implies, it is unavoidable that some have to be forced out of

old grooves and made to fit into new ones. It is this adaptability to

change which characterizes modern enterprise; this willingness to suffer

immediate discomforts for the achievement of larger ends.

The general confusion as to the service rendered by machinery is not

strange considering the absurd notions which are rife regarding the

rudiments of social economy. No distinction is usually made between

useful and useless labor. There is supposed to be only a given amount of

work to be done, and hence the less each one does the more jobs there

will be to go around. If wealth be wasted or destroyed, it will in some

mysterious manner be replaced. The destruction of property by fire or

flood is regarded with complacency by those not directly affected, upon

the supposition that more work is thereby provided, without taking into

account that the wealth required to replace it must be diverted from

some productive use. The spending or circulating of money is equivalent

to creating wealth. Luxury is looked upon with more favor than

frugality, and it is even thought that gambling benefits a community as

much as industry because the fortunate ones spend freely, and the misery

which it begets is lost sight of in contemplation of the profits of a

few. With such erroneous ideas entertained even by educated people, it

is apparent why the complex operations of our industrial system are so

slightly understood. The expansion of industry which follows

labor-saving devices, the creation of new industries and the consequent

replacing of those displaced is unintelligible to all save those that

comprehend economic principles. In addition to the popular

misconceptions of the subject, there are historic causes which have

created this antipathy to machinery. During the transition from the

domestic to the factory system in England, machinery became a club to

subjugate the laborer. Untutored, unorganized, without any resisting

power, the former independent artisan, now a factory hand, was placed in

brutal competition with his fellows, and every invention only served to

add to his helplessness. The plight of the English laborers at that time

abundantly shows that there are circumstances in which the wealth of a

nation may increase tremendously, the productive power of labor multiply

many-fold, while the workers on the other hand become impoverished and

brutalized. Mill was of the opinion that machinery had not benefited the

working class, but happily, since the time in which he wrote, education

and organization, two indispensable factors in their advancement, have

come to their aid. An upward trend has in consequence taken place, and

the stimulus which it has given will make a relapse, owing to the

advances in sanitary science, as improbable as another visitation of a

plague. Where the workers have succeeded in acquiring some independence,

in raising their standard of living, machinery, despite the drawbacks

described, has undoubtedly become a potent factor in the elevation of

their class.

Under a collective system the immediate benefits which would be derived

by each individual through labor-saving inventions are its chief merit,

but to compare the good features of an imaginary social system with the

disadvantages of the existing one is not an easy task. It can, however,

be shown that this desired co-operative principle actually does work out

at the present time in a rough way by the distribution of the benefits

of inventions throughout society and that there are possibilities for a

more perfect application of it.

As to the workers’ share in production, Karl Marx in his incisive

analysis comes to the conclusion that the value of commodities is based

upon the labor cost plus the profits of the capitalist and in that he is

in accord with the authorities upon social science since Adam Smith. He

deduces from that, that labor alone represents the actual wealth which

is exploited for profit by the capitalist and that the very capital

invested was previously appropriated from the laborer. Granting this

conclusion, Marx should have made allowance for the competition between

capitalists by which the price of commodities is kept within certain

limits and the benefits of cheaper production are given to the

consumers. In the cases Marx deals with, cheaper production

unfortunately did not only mean more economical methods, but lower wages

and long hours and the sacrifice of the worker, while the consumer

represented some one else than the operative, who barely subsisted on

his pittance. Without the ability to purchase the goods he produced,

England had to dispose of in foreign markets that which should have been

consumed at home, always the best market. Her chief dependence being

upon outside markets, everything had to be subordinated to cheaper

production, no matter how obtained.

Concerning the attitude of trades unions upon the question of machinery,

the membership being composed of men with the usual abilities, their

views do not materially differ from others. Having, however, the

benefits of an education derived from a close study of economic problems

and an experience which has helped them form broader opinions, they are

gradually reconciling themselves to machinery. As for example the action

taken at the late convention of the American Federation of Labor held at

Scranton. In a resolution introduced by the delegates of the Cigar

Makers’ International Union requesting that a certain firm be declared

unfair, there was reference to a cigar-making machine used in the shop

of this employer. Although the machine was mentioned as an evidence only

of the inferiority of the product of the concern, a vigorous objection

was at once raised by the delegates against any mention of the use of

machinery by the firm. In the debate which followed, it was argued that

the convention could not afford to go on record as against labor-saving

devices and that any attempt to oppose them would prove futile. The

objectionable words were stricken out by a decisive vote. As to what

action the convention would have taken if the delegates had thought it

possible to suppress the machine is a question. The decision of the

convention, however, has brought the movement to a point in which the

members will be enabled to take a more liberal and complete view of the

subject, and realize that the limitation of work is not only impolitic,

but that by increasing their capacities the opportunity is afforded for

them to insist upon a fair share in the larger product. The British

unions have not advanced in that respect as far as the American unions

because the habits of the working people there are more set, but

circumstances have also changed very much their attitude toward

machinery.

The Typographical Union is a notable example of a union which accepted a

revolutionizing invention as being inevitable and thus succeeded in

securing a rate of wages for the operators considerably in excess of

that received by the hand compositors An officer of the New York Union

estimates that each linotype machine introduced into the newspaper

offices displaced three men, and that within three years, owing to the

increase in the size of the newspapers and the larger demand for printed

matter which it encouraged, the men laid off have been re-employed, and

that to-day the pay-rolls even exceed the former figure. This machine

has also had the effect of elevating the standards of the craft, owing

to the higher skill and education required. The competition among the

employers is such that profits are reduced to a minimum the public

therefore receiving the full benefit of the improvement.

In the building trades, similar results are also noted. Improved methods

have led to a prodigious expansion in building operations. The laborer’s

work is now largely done by mechanical means, and parts of a structure,

such as the trimmings, are made in factories and are only fitted

together upon the premises. The subdividing of the work is carried on to

an extent that a number of contractors, each performing a distinct

function, co-operate in the completion of a single building. When this

specializing began and the ingenious hod-hoisting device made it

unnecessary for men to make beasts of burden of themselves, a general

alarm was created over the prospect of great numbers of workmen being

thrown out of employment. To-day a far greater number of men are

steadily employed in this fundamental industry than at any time in its

history.

Examples of this kind can be cited indefinitely to demonstrate the

larger results which flow from greater economy in effort. Allowances are

seldom made for the enterprises which could not be carried on at all

were it not for labor-saving methods.

The lowering of the cost of commodities enables the average person to

indulge in what were formerly considered luxuries, and by this

encourages the development of new industries. The tendency under the

influence of machinery is for industry to spread out fan-shape, ever

widening as the distance from the starting point increases. Were it not

for the limitations set by the purchasing capacity of the people and the

periodical disarrangements or panics which occur as a result of what is

conveniently termed over-production, there would be no check. To fear a

surfeit of wealth seems absurd considering the needs of the average

person. What is meant by over-production is the inability to buy what

has been produced.

Russia with her immense population is unable to consume the products of

her few mills, while in the United States, where the efficiency of labor

is higher than anywhere else and is being increased at a marvelous rate,

not to speak of the half-million aliens absorbed every year, the

percentage of unemployed is lower than it has been for years, and even

less than during the earlier part of our history when manufacturing was

in its infancy.

To increase the purchasing capacity of the people either by higher wages

or cheaper products is to reduce the surplus and maintain an

equilibrium, hence the economic value of higher standards of living.

Production cannot be greater than the ability of the average person to

consume, any more than water can rise higher than its source, therefore

increased production must be accompanied by the same increase in

consumption, if normal conditions are to be maintained. No matter to

what extent machinery, division of labor or economy in management may be

perfected theoretically, the demand for labor ought not to be

diminished. The eight-hour work is advocated by many, not because of the

personal benefit to the workman, but upon the same grounds that they

would favor the curtailment of production, in the belief that it would

increase the number of the employed. By decreasing the average amount of

work done in order that it may be distributed more evenly may accomplish

that object temporarily, but if generally practiced would decrease the

demand for work through the increase of the price of the commodity.

It is doubtful if workmen in a particular craft have ever succeeded for

a length of time in erecting a wall around themselves and preventing as

many extra men as could be employed from getting in if the emoluments

were sufficient. So even if it were possible to so restrict work as to

create a scarcity of workmen, this pressure from without would prove

irresistible and the normal level would be maintained. If on the

contrary a lack of work would make a number of workmen superfluous,

there would be a tendency for them to find their way into growing

occupations. Union regulations, such as apprenticeship rules, can and do

prevent undue crowding into a trade owing to a sudden and temporary

demand which would prove highly injurious unless checked, for it would

serve to break down standards upheld by the union. Through such means an

assimilation of those entering the trade is gradually accomplished.

Unions have been frequently charged with trying to restrict output. The

same accusation has also with equal effect been made against industrial

combinations for seeking to create an artificial scarcity. In many cases

where unions endeavor to prevent rush or driving work injurious to the

worker, they have been accused of limiting work. Such restrictions can

be easily defended. That labor organizations have in some instances

attempted to prevent the use of labor-saving appliances there can be no

question considering the prevailing ideas on the subject, and organized

workmen can give force to their opposition, but that such is the policy

of labor movement is far from fact as I have just illustrated. The

opposition to labor-saving methods is not confined to workmen alone, for

employers will rail against competitors able to give better service for

less cost. The same resentment at being forced out of a settled

occupation is entertained by all.

The actual injury done by machinery is caused by the suddenness of the

changes that result. Since there could be no way of regulating inventive

genius, and the incentives for using improvements will remain as great,

the rational and the only way to meet them is by preparation. The

working class suffers most because it is less able to accommodate itself

to new situations. The rising generation should be better equipped with

a general knowledge of mechanics, and taught how to handle tools with

skill. Such a training would undoubtedly relieve the difficulty and it

could only be adequately supplied by the public schools. The results

would be to increase the independence of workmen, as they would not then

rely upon a small division of a trade or upon a single employer.

Independence and higher wages go together. Unskilled laborers in some

cases learn more than skilled mechanics for the reason that workmen

trained only in one craft are usually unfitted for other work, while

those accustomed to being thrown upon their own resources are more

adaptable.

In the case of the aged workman the situation is specially hard, as he

cannot find any place in an industrial system in which alertness counts

for more than skill. He cannot profit by accumulated experiences as

others do. It is the tragic side of the question, this grievous

predicament of the worker who has spent his energies adding to the

nation’s wealth. It can and ought to be overcome, not by any system of

alms-giving which must always prove inadequate, not by retiring him to

idleness, but by keeping him employed at such work as his long training

and peculiar abilities fit him for. As his earning power declines at a

certain period, some system of insurance could supply the deficiency.

In respect to the material advantages of machinery, it surely has

enlarged the capacities of the people and multiplied their

opportunities. The possibilities are such as to make the mind tremble in

anticipation. It is the agency which alone can raise wages, reduce the

working time and enhance the buying power of money—a threefold gain.

The feeling against machinery will not cease until the workman profits

more directly as a producer as well as a consumer, until he is treated

as a human being and not as a mere animated tool, until he becomes more

than a tender, an incident in production. The human element must become

more evident and the toiler made to feel his partnership. The true

mission of machinery, would then be revealed to all as the only means

which liberate man from drudgery, increase his control over nature and

provide the leisure essential to a higher culture.

One of the acknowledged evils of machinery is the exploitation of child

labor which usually follows its introduction. Such was the case in

England, and we find it repeated to-day in the new industrial districts

of the South. In such industries where the repetition of a small

mechanical process enables child labor to be employed, the temptation to

take advantage of the opportunity is great; for children have no rights

to assert, no wage scale to uphold or working time to protect. In that

respect child labor is akin to slave labor. It must be added for

fairness that the capitalists utilizing such opportunities are not alone

to blame, for shortsighted and grasping parents often drive their

children into the mills because of the paltry sum which can be added to

the family income, and in time they get into the habit of depending upon

the pittance purchased at so terrible a price.

The inducement of a “plentiful supply of cheap labor” is also held out

to capitalists by small communities as a means of persuading them to

locate factories in their neighborhood. These are the two chief

obstacles in the way of reform. In course of time, however, as the

consequences become more evident and the exultation over the

establishment of a new factory wears off, the public conscience revolts

against this debasement of the helpless children and the law is

eventually evoked to suppress the evil. The strenuous efforts being made

in the South upon the part of the labor organizations and sympathizers

to enact protective laws lead us to hope that we will at least be spared

the dreadful experiences of England during the first half century of the

factory system.

V. Tendencies of Factory Legislation and Inspection in the United States

By SARAH S. WHITTELSEY, Ph.D., New Haven, Conn.

TENDENCIES OF FACTORY LEGISLATION AND INSPECTION IN THE UNITED STATES

By SARAH S. WHITTELSEY, Ph.D.

The introduction of the factory system in American industry acted in

this country, as it had in England, to develop certain abnormal

conditions of labor that in the end required government interference.

Thus in the manufacturing states, chiefly in the North and East, there

has come into existence a very considerable body of factory law. The

enactment of such regulative statutes is the prerogative of each of the

several states acting independently and according to the discretion of

its own legislature; in consequence there is great variety in these laws

and in their scope,—from the comparatively complete codes of

Massachusetts and New York to absolutely no regulation whatever.

_Present Factory Laws of the United States._[23]

“In all, about half the states have so far passed what may be called a

factory act; that is, laws for the regulation, mainly sanitary, of

conditions in factories and workshops. These include ... the New England

states generally, New York and the Northern Central and Northwestern

states following their legislation. There are almost no factory acts in

the South nor in the purely agricultural states of the West, but these

statutes are being passed rapidly and moreover, in states where they

have already been enacted, are being amended every year.

“The most usual statutes are those making provision for proper

fire-escapes, or against use of explosive oils, etc.; for the removal of

noxious vapors or dust by fans or other contrivances; requiring guards

to be placed about dangerous machinery, belting, elevators, wells,

air-shafts, crucibles, vats, etc.; providing that doors shall open

outward; prohibiting the machinery from being cleaned while in motion;

laws to prevent overcrowding and to secure sanitary conditions

generally.”[24] Building laws also reinforce these measures.

Antedating such factory acts proper, the same states have very generally

passed statutes regulating child labor and forbidding employment to

those under a stated age. In eleven states this age limit is fourteen

years, in nine over twelve, and in four,—New Hampshire, Vermont,

Nebraska, and California,—ten years; eleven also make educational

provision for older children and illiterate minors.[25]

The majority of states have further legislated upon the hours of labor

of minors, while fifteen limit the working time of women as well,

generally to sixty hours per week, but in Massachusetts to fifty-eight

hours, in New Jersey to fifty-five, and in Wisconsin to forty-eight.[26]

Eight also provide for time for meals, and five prohibit night work.[27]

This limitation of hours for women and children, considered “wards of

the state,” very generally necessitates a similar working day for the

adult male laborer in the factory, while it in a measure avoids the

serious question of constitutionality that a broader statute could not

fail to raise.

“There is absolutely no limitation for persons of any age or sex only in

Iowa, Kansas, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah,

Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida,

Mississippi, New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, and the District of

Columbia.”[28]

Besides these statutes, other laws that must be mentioned, as

immediately affecting the interests of factory labor, are those which

regulate wage payment and fines, also the employers’ liability acts

which allow recovery of damages for bodily injury sustained in service.

Thirteen states have passed laws regulating the period of payment by

individuals and corporations, and nine others stipulate weekly or

fortnightly payments by corporations. Only Massachusetts, Indiana and

Ohio have attempted to “prevent the withholding of wages or the

imposition of a fine by factory employers for imperfect work.”

Outside of the New England states “anti-truck acts,” similar to the

English statute and stipulating a money payment, have been passed in

sixteen states, five of which, however, limit its application to

corporations. It may be noted in passing that several of these

wage-regulating laws have already fallen under the ban of the courts.

Employers’ liability statutes supplement the factory acts by affording

additional reason for care on the part of the employer in guarding

dangerous machinery and otherwise providing for the safety of those in

his employ. Twenty-two states have legislated upon the “fellow-servant”

question, and ten make employers liable for injury caused by defective

machinery. Of these, however, only six apply in full to factory labor.

The states that have passed factory acts and regulated hours of labor

“have usually created one or more factory inspectors, charged with the

duty of seeing that the statutes are carried out generally with powers

to enter personally or by deputy and to inspect all factories at any

time.”[29]

The child labor laws are variously entrusted for enforcement to the

factory inspectors, school committee or board of education,

commissioners of labor, or left to the care of the police.

_Historical Development._

It may seem perhaps that such a sketch fails to show the underlying or

directive principle of this legislation, but a detailed study of the

laws adds confusion rather than enlightenment. Studnitz considered that

he had seized upon the real causal force and summed up the situation in

the statement that American labor legislation has been determined by the

political and social strength of the laborers demanding it, rather than

in accordance with the natural needs and varied conditions of industry

within the states.[30]

Allowing this explanation at least as to the immediate agency, we must

nevertheless recognize the fact that other forces are at work and that

there are traceable tendencies of a natural growth even when arbitrary

human action is so apparent. The most casual acquaintance with the

history of labor legislation must convince us that the action of

economic law has inevitably necessitated the legal regulation of labor;

and this really in spite of human opposition and in the face of extreme

doctrines of non-interference. Industrial labor unregulated has

everywhere developed the same symptoms. Competition between producers

tends to encourage all possible reductions of costs, to reduce wages, to

increase the use of cheap child labor, to perpetuate long hours of

labor, etc., and to range the interests of the employing class against

those of the operative class. In the struggle which results from this

antagonism the employer has the advantage of position to force his own

terms of contract upon the laborer, for he has in his hands an

accumulated capital which is equivalent in power to effective

organization. Such conditions left to work themselves out have

invariably acted to degrade the social status of labor, the heaviest

pressure falling upon those who could least resist it. This was the

experience of England first, then felt on the Continent and in this

country in the New England states and other centres of manufacture, and

to-day we are becoming aware of like tendencies in the cotton-goods

industry of the South.

It was almost universally the evils attending child labor that evoked

the first acts of regulation. But although abuses were very serious,

legal remedies were most timidly applied. Even with the example of the

successful issue of the English laws the New England legislatures

contented themselves with the passage of most inadequate measures,

measures that could hardly have been looked upon as anything more than

unenforcible threats. We realize how complete a change of attitude

toward this “intermeddling legislation” has been brought about during

the course of the past sixty years when we compare a few of these old

laws with those to-day in force. Contrast, for example, the detailed and

exacting requirements of the present law concerning child labor in

Massachusetts with the older Vermont statute, which is quite typical of

the earlier order and “merely requires the selectmen of towns to inquire

into the treatment of minors employed in manufacturing establishments;

and if a minor’s education, morals, etc., are unreasonably neglected, or

he is treated with improper severity or compelled to labor unreasonable

hours, they may, if he has no parent or guardian, discharge him from

such employment and bind him out as apprentice with the minor’s

consent.” (Vt. 2518.)[31]

Early measures were certainly neither severe in the regulation imposed

nor exact in defining the parties held to be responsible. They generally

involved a question of volition, making “willful” transgression alone

punishable, and thus unenforcible in the letter, were given into the

hands of town officials who had neither the power nor the effective

desire to investigate or to bring suit.

Such enactments stood for little more than a public recognition of

abuses which they in no wise checked, but the increasing menace of the

situation, the threat, not to be scorned, of a future sickly and

illiterate labor population, forced the passage of more adequate

measures and the resort to a better mechanism of enforcement than that

of town officials and the general police. In such reforms Massachusetts

took the lead, enacted and repealed several contradictory statutes, and

finally by the slow process of continued amendment evolved the present

really enforcible law.

We feel in studying the halting stages of this development not only that

there was a pardonable ignorance of ways and means in attacking a new

problem, but also the influence of a more or less skeptical public

opinion concerning this policy of interference which reflected itself in

hedging clauses that weakened and sometimes vitiated what would

otherwise have been good measures.

In spite of many drawbacks to advance, however, there was no retrograde

motion, but a continued development of strictness and detail in

exactions, of clearer definition and placement of responsibility and of

more adequate provision for inspection. As these laws gradually

demonstrated their practical usefulness and convinced the public of

benefit instead of harm, the former attitude of timidity gave place to a

decided peremptoriness, the former indiscriminate _omnibus ad quos hae

litteræ pervenerint_ to placed responsibility.

Meantime the way was opened for more wide-reaching regulations

concerning hours of labor, workroom conditions, etc., and a broader

conception of the province of such legislation and of that which might

be considered proper subject of legal interference. Whereas the first

attempts to protect even little children from conditions that imperiled

their health and life were bitterly opposed in England upon grounds of

national policy, to-day we find statutes that regulate not only child

labor, hours of labor, factory constructions and the use of machinery,

but also others that stipulate times and manner of wage payment, and

forbid fines in dealings with adult male employees. And this has come to

pass in America where “freedom of contract” is the constitutional right

of every individual citizen.

Our laws have indeed very steadily progressed from measures of simple

protection to detailed regulation of conditions, and even to the

securing of special benefits to labor.

This broader application of the legal remedy has been accompanied also

by marked territorial extension, following the growth and spread of

manufactures. Other states have felt the necessity of adopting a labor

code and have naturally, in a general way, followed the forms of New

England and New York. They range, however, through all stages of

incompleteness. A curious phenomenon constantly appears in this

imitative legislation. When a state legislature passes a new labor law,

or revises an old one, it does not necessarily adopt the latest form nor

that which has proved to work most satisfactorily in another state, nor

yet a combination of choice clippings from several. A state legislature

is generally perfectly content with a law that is about as poor as the

average and looks forward most placidly to the inevitable train of

amendments that must follow in its wake. By this I do not mean to

criticise in the least the enactment of less strict regulations as a

lower age limit or longer hours of labor, which may be proper under

given local conditions, but alone the continued repetition of blunders

and faults of construction that have elsewhere proved their character

and their power to nullify the intent of the law. Fortunately experience

proves in the end an effective, if dear, teacher and one of the lessons

that it ultimately drives home is that even a state legislature cannot

legislate the laws of nature out of the world arena. As Jevons said,

“The state is the least of the powers that govern us.” But as the

physician through his knowledge of medicine and physiology, and by his

diagnosis of the symptoms of disease, is able to pit law against law,

and to restore health where he found abnormal conditions; so the

statesman who understands the social order and the tendencies of

economic forces is often able to control their action. In either case, a

knowledge of the active agencies is absolutely necessary to the solution

of the problem. The recent organization of bureaus of labor statistics

is certainly significant in this connection. To-day, when a question of

labor legislation is presented, there is, in many states, such a

qualified advisory body to whom the whole matter may be referred for

investigation and study, and whose regular duty it is to inquire into

and report upon labor and industrial conditions within the state. This

indicates a growing appreciation of the necessity of accurate

information and of the exercise of due care in passing acts of

regulation.

_Enforcement by Inspection._

The problem of enforcement of these laws has proved even more serious

than that of their enactment. Labor laws, however good, cannot enforce

themselves. It may appear to be for the laborer’s own interest to report

violations and seek the legal remedy, but the indisputable fact is that

he does not do it. Moreover, not only is the individual laborer often

not in a position to do so safely, but even the labor union shrinks from

the task. The whole history of the movement for the regulation of labor

shows the absolute necessity of efficient inspection, a fact which has

unfortunately been most clearly demonstrated in the general lack of such

inspection. In nothing do the states differ more widely than in their

provision for inspection. There are such specifically differentiated

departments as that of Massachusetts or New York; there are such

combinations as that of Connecticut, where a single inspector with two

or three assistants enforces the factory, workshop and bake-shop acts,

while the Board of Education is charged with the child labor laws; and

there is dependence alone upon the general police force.

Inspection always lags too far behind legislation and has given some

ground of credit to the often-repeated criticism that this labor

legislation is not in fact intended seriously, but has been entered upon

the statute books rather to still the clamor of agitators for reform

than to effect any real change in conditions. It is certain at least

that the serious effectiveness of these laws develops in exact

proportion with the inspecting power,—with the organization, number and

qualification of inspectors. If the charge of insincerity, however, had

been true, we might expect to find that the better the laws became, the

stronger the pressure that would be brought against the development of

costly inspection. The legal remedy being given, is it not the privilege

of the individual to avail himself of it, rather than the duty of the

state to force it upon him? On the contrary, however, the history of

inspection runs parallel and in the same direction with that of the

legislation just reviewed. The same economic and social forces that were

the _raison d’être_ of these laws have quite as distinctly and steadily,

though more slowly, created the supplementary machinery of enforcement.

The unreliable and haphazard inspection of town officials has passed

entirely, superseded by the inspector whose sole duty is inspection, in

which duty he is aided by assistants immediately under his own command,

or by members of other departments of government. The tendency towards

the development of _distinct_ inspection departments is quite

unmistakable though the exact form of their future organization is less

easily predicted. There are two toward which present forms lean, one

exemplified in Massachusetts, the other in New York.

In Massachusetts the inspectors are organized as a division of police,

under the chief of police as chief inspector, exactly as the detective

division, for instance. That of New York is a separate and distinct body

under a chief appointed by the governor to hold that single office.

The question is therefore raised as to whether organic connection with

the police department or separate and distinct autonomy is the more

practical and advantageous form. It is conceded that Massachusetts has

developed the most efficient corps of inspectors in this country, but

this cannot at present be taken as conclusive proof of policy, because

Massachusetts was earlier in the field, and because opposing obstacles

were hardly so serious as those met in New York. Further, such

connection with the police department in Massachusetts seems to have

been largely due to local conditions and to have grown out of measures

dictated by immediate convenience at the time of the passage of the

early child labor laws, rather than a deliberately chosen system of

administration. A clipping from the history of the department will make

this clear.

“At first the unreliable mechanism of truant officers and local town or

city officials was solely depended upon for inspection. Then, under new

child labor statutes, a single deputy was in each case detailed by the

police department to aid enforcement (1866, c. 273; 1867, c. 285). The

law of 1877 (c. 214), increasing the duties of factory inspection by

regulations looking to the safety of employees, provided that members of

the State Detective Department should act as inspectors of factories and

public buildings, to report and prosecute violations of this act as well

as of other measures relative to the employment of women and minors....

In 1879 (c. 305), the governor was authorized to appoint two regular

inspectors from the police department....

“Better administration was finally secured in 1888 (c. 113), by

separating the detective and inspecting forces.... With the enactment of

stringent steam-boiler inspection laws, a new department of boiler

inspectors ... was created.”

While in some ways this affiliation with the police has been helpful,

there are also drawbacks in the combination under one head of work in

fields that are so large and so distinctly marked off from one another

not only in object, but most essentially in methods of work. It would

seem that a due co-operation between district departments could be made

to afford all of the advantages of the closer relationship, while it

would insure the whole time and energy of the chief to a task that is

quite enough to occupy his entire attention. Indeed, with the increasing

number and detail of regulations, the many technicalities that arise in

the application of labor laws and the rapid growth of the factory system

of industry, another specialist will soon be demanded to fill such an

office. The necessary increase in numbers alone must make the police

connection awkward.

In framing many of these laws, for example the factory acts, much has

necessarily been left to the discretion of inspectors in the decision of

what is “adequate” provision. Especially where appliances not

contemplated in the ordinary law are offered, very careful judgment is

called for. Such powers cannot be entrusted to untrained and

inexperienced persons, however well intentioned, nor is the training of

police duty any sufficient preparation. It would not be considered

appropriate to appoint a policeman inspector of stationary steam boilers

or examiner of engineers, yet under present factory laws, technical

knowledge of industrial processes, machinery, etc., is sometimes equally

demanded. In Massachusetts the original method of detailing police as

inspectors when occasion demanded, or even permanently installing them

in these positions, has been abandoned for the stricter and more

adequate tests of civil service examinations open to all applicants. And

again her example indicates a general trend.

The tendency in inspection already is, and in the future must be more

markedly, toward the growth of a distinct and specialized department, in

which the chief and his assistants are trained for their work. Such a

department, while it would not stand in the relationship which some at

present hold to the police, would come into closer touch with other

departments, as the Board of Education and Bureau of Labor.

_Uniform Labor Legislation._

The influence of state boundary lines upon the course of legislation in

this country is an interesting question, and one upon which entirely

diverse opinions are held. Some go so far as to claim that there never

can be really successful legislation so long as such boundaries hold;

that if a good labor law is passed in one state and enforced there, the

benefit that may result to the few operatives is balanced by the

restriction which it puts upon the producer and the consequent

discrimination against capital in that state as compared with its

neighbors. Capital therefore seeks investment in those sister states

instead of in the law-trammeled one, thus reacting against the interests

of the labor market there; while states that so profit in their freedom

are the more loath to give over their advantage by enacting similar

measures. Thus legislation in one state becomes at once detrimental to

its own industrial interests, and a check upon legislation elsewhere.

Loud protests of this tenor were heard, for example, in Massachusetts a

few years ago, when at a time of business depression the cotton mills

suffered from the competition of Southern rivals. A somewhat extended

study of the situation at that crisis, however, failed to show that

these detrimental consequences had followed in actual life, or that the

stress felt by the mills could have been removed by a suspension of the

laws complained of.

On the other hand, when we begin to reckon with the difficulties that

must be encountered in any attempt to legislate upon labor conditions in

this country treated as a whole (even disregarding entirely the present

constitutional impediment), we find arguments showing that local

self-government has probably furthered the development of labor

legislation. In the first place, it is much more difficult to persuade a

body with such wide jurisdiction to pass what must often be experimental

measures and may endanger national interests. Suppose, however, that

this legislation was undertaken, it would be well-nigh impossible to

frame a measure that would apply with justice throughout and in

communities where industrial occupations differ entirely in kind, or, if

of like order, range through many stages of development. It would mean

that such legislation must conform to a very low margin of production in

order to avoid injury to states where conditions are backward, and that

would leave unregulated much that has clearly shown need of regulation

in states where there is higher organization of industry. Would it not,

in fact, be absolutely necessary to mark out territorial divisions that

might not of course follow state boundaries, but would not in the end

differ essentially from them in character? Again, such divisions mapped,

what an impossible labor is put upon the central body if it would

legislate wisely for the several sections! Would it not be necessary at

least to appoint some advisory body to study the local needs of each

section and to report recommending appropriate measures? In the end,

what would we have in the least better than the present system?

Within a single state the labor interest is united, the pros and cons of

the situation can be more easily investigated, effects more easily

watched and even more accurately predicted. Jevons might indeed have

considered it a well-fitted laboratory for his scientific

experimentation in legislation. The success of a local experiment acts

often as an incentive to labor elsewhere to demand like privileges, and

as against the argument of an insignificant tax upon production, the

political power of the labor party has very generally won the day. The

second state feels itself at no greater disadvantage than that which

took the initiative in the movement, and may easily take the precaution

of passing restrictions that are a trifle under those of its neighbor.

This discussion, however, leaves us still face to face with a confusion

of local regulations, among which there is total lack of any uniformity.

The situation has for some time attracted public comment, and there is a

growing desire for uniformity especially in the protection of child

labor and in the curtailment of the hours of labor, which are the

regulations that particularly affect the interests of capitalists.

Quixotic attempts to force an amendment of the Constitution, and to

secure the passage of a national eight-hourday law, have been chronicled

in the movement, which nevertheless, with more moderate aims, has

steadily gathered strength. At last, under the Industrial Commission of

1898, the problem of uniform legislation has been clearly recognized and

carefully studied, “in order,” the act reads, “to harmonize conflicting

interests and to be equitable to the laborer, the employer, the producer

and the consumer” (Sec. 3). Empowered to report with recommendations

either directly to Congress or to the several state legislatures, the

Commission addressed itself in this “matter of domestic law” to the

state legislatures. The report submitted is of such interest and

importance that I quote in full its recommendations so far as they apply

to factory labor:

“Perhaps the subject of greatest public interest to-day is that of the

regulation of the hours of labor permitted in industrial occupations,

and especially in factories.... Obviously Congress has no power, without

a constitutional amendment, to legislate upon this subject. The

Commission are of the opinion that a uniform law upon this subject may

wisely be recommended for adoption by all the states. We believe that

such legislation cannot, under the federal and state constitutions, be

recommended as to persons, male or female, above the age of twenty-one,

except, of course, in some special industries, where employment for too

many hours becomes positively a menace to the health, safety, or

well-being of the community; but minors, not yet clothed with all the

rights of citizens, are peculiarly the subject of state protection, and

still more so, young children.

“The Commission are of the opinion, therefore, that a simple statute

ought to be enacted by all the states, to regulate the length of the

working day for young persons in factories (meaning by ‘young persons’

those between the age of majority and fourteen); and in view of the

entire absence of protection now accorded by the laws of many states to

children of tender years, we think that employment in any capacity or

for any time, under the age of fourteen, should be prohibited. The

question of shops and mercantile establishments generally appears even

more subject to local conditions than that of factories; therefore the

Commission see no need for even recommending to the states any uniform

legislation upon this subject. But child labor should be universally

protected by educational restrictions, providing in substance that no

child may be employed in either factories, shops, or in stores in large

cities, who cannot read and write, and except during vacation, unless he

has attended school for at least twelve weeks in each year.”[32]

These are certainly conservative recommendations and illustrate again

the difficulty of finding any common ground of action even in the

fundamental requirements of health and education. The exception made

with reference to shops and mercantile establishments upon the ground of

local differences in conditions is interesting. So much evidence has

been brought of abuse of child labor in the mercantile houses of many

large cities, especially in respect to these two matters of overwork

through long hours and of interference with common-school education

(above recognized) that several states have voluntarily extended

provisions of the factory laws concerning minors to cover such

establishments. These conditions appear to reproduce themselves with

remarkable similarity in various locations, and it is not altogether

clear what local conditions could intervene to make the universal

application of the measure proposed for factories undesirable.

Notwithstanding all moderation and the exceptions allowed, two of the

commissioners still recorded themselves as considering it “unjust and

impracticable to attempt any uniform laws regulating labor in all the

states,” and a third concurring with these adds that, “the conditions to

be dealt with will work themselves out better under local

self-government than under any iron-clad rule adopted by or suggested

from a central power.”[33]

The protestors are from the Southern states and their protest seems

peculiarly pertinent at this time, when the prevailing conditions of

child labor in these states are attracting so much attention. Not to

digress into a discussion that would lead us too far afield, let it

suffice to sum up the evident facts of the situation in a single

paragraph.[34]

Whatever their previous condition of freedom, barbarism or poverty,

there are to-day, in the cotton mills of the South, large numbers of

little children, some under ten years of age, who can be and are

employed sometimes eleven and more hours a day, sometimes eleven hours

of the night. Indeed conditions parallel the times of Shaftesbury in

England! Attempts to pass bills that can hardly be deemed extravagant in

the protection demanded, and even compulsory education measures, have

been opposed and frustrated. The reasons given for such resistance of

legal interference may be summarized about as follows, at least in

Alabama, which has been the field of a recent encounter: That the bill

presented by the Alabama Child Labor Committee[35] is “outside

interference” and “only the entering wedge”; that “Georgia (facing the

more difficult task in) having double the number of spindles, should act

first”; that against the expressed desires of mill officers, parents

insist upon the employment of their children or “take their families to

other mills where no objection is made” (and this the law would make

impossible);[36] that the prodigiously early development of this

particular class of Southern children together with “the length and heat

of the day” which “are prime factors respecting the hours that may be

appropriated to labor”[37] make it inadvisable to limit the hours of

labor of children to ten out of a possible twenty-four, or to require

that they should sleep and not work at night. We cannot say that the

movement for uniform legislation or even for labor legislation “under

local self-government” is unopposed.

The recommendations of the Commission also include the following:

“Further regulations, especially in the line of bringing states which

now have no factory acts up to a higher standard, is earnestly

recommended.

“In states which have many factories the well-known factory act of

Massachusetts or New York, based upon the English act which served as a

model to all such, is recommended for adoption.

“The sweat-shop law also, which is now practically identical in the

important states of New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Ohio, is

recommended for general adoption.

“A simple and liberal law regulating the payment of labor should be

adopted in all the states, providing that laborers shall be paid, for

all labor performed, in cash or cash orders, without discount, not in

goods or due bills, and that no compulsion, direct or indirect, shall be

used to make them purchase supplies at any particular store.”[38]

The report refers also to other statutes which reinforce certain common

law doctrines, such as those concerning intimidation, strikes, boycotts

and black-listing, to those protecting the political rights and legal

rights in suit of labor and to the recognition accorded to trade unions

in provisions for incorporation and protection of labels, making however

no special recommendation concerning them to the states.[39]

We see, therefore, that beyond the elementary regulation of child labor

and hours of labor for minors, the Commission would have the states

establish a standard of good sanitation and of safe conditions in

factories everywhere, and above this, especially suggests a scientific

and well-tested law for adoption in states having large manufactures.

The restriction of hours is always looked upon chiefly as a health

measure, but it is certain that the general bodily vigor of the worker

has been more markedly affected by modern improvements in ventilation,

lighting and sanitation than by any of the shorter day statutes. Factory

acts assist materially in forcing this advance and have received a due

recognition of their usefulness. In recommending the universal passage

of a sweat-shop act, the Commission endorses the old saying, that an

ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. As a matter of fact, such

laws have been passed, and in an incredibly short time (since 1892, when

New York passed the first of this series), in those states in which the

evil is important. Attempts to extirpate the evil in these states

threaten to drive it into neighboring sections. Connecticut, for

example, lying between Massachusetts and New York, in both of which

quarters the anti-sweat-shop war is being vigorously pushed, has enacted

a similar statute simply as a protective measure.

It is clear that the ultimate effect of uniform labor legislation will

not be one law applying throughout the length and breadth of this great

land, but rather a graded system. It will determine a minimum standard

of regulations, a basal plane, of competition for American industry.

Above this it will still be necessary for the local government in many

places to impose stricter requirements where there is complexity of

organization, but in that which is fundamentally essential to the common

well-being of the community there will be one limit approved for all

that may not be transgressed.

The suggestion made in the Industrial Commission’s report as to how this

standard may be determined is especially well considered:

“In conclusion the Commission would recommend the establishment by all

the states of labor bureaus or commissioners, who shall, besides their

local duties as now defined, be charged with that of exchanging their

statistics and reports, and of convening at least once in a year in

national conference for general consultation, which national conference

shall have power to submit directly to Congress its recommendations for

such federal legislation as a majority of the state commissioners may

deem advisable, and shall also submit to all the states, through the

commissioners of each separate state, their recommendations for such

uniform state statutes upon labor subjects as may seem wise and

desirable.”[40]

If we rightly interpreted the action of local governments in

establishing these bureaus of labor, as a step towards more scientific

legislation in those states, surely this plan of a national conference

of state commissioners of labor stands for a still more important

extension of the scientific method in questions of labor legislation. It

also illustrates a tendency that is becoming more and more evident,

namely, the fuller reliance that is being placed upon “intelligence as a

social regulator” and “publicity for controlling industry and commerce.”

Make known the actual conditions that prevail, point out the appropriate

remedy, and the weight of an informed public opinion will go far to

force reform whether through an act of legislation or through the

influence which may be exerted by consumers upon producers. Indeed the

battle cry of the day is, “Give us but an enlightened public opinion and

our fight is three-quarters won.”

The suggestion of regulating business relations through the pressure of

public sentiment has been seized upon with almost too great avidity by

some who would apply it as the immediate and sufficient solution of all

labor difficulties and as an argument against the enactment of any

statutory regulations whatever. Such a proposition appears, however, of

doubtful value at present under the conditions of unenlightenment that

unfortunately prevail, and it may be feared, does not proceed from the

best friends of labor.

_Constitutionality._

Recurring to this fact of opposition, already earlier noted, it has been

questioned whether this counter-movement does not offer a real menace to

the future growth of the labor laws, and indeed to the continued

existence of the present body of legislation. In a number of instances

where labor laws have been brought to the test of a court decision they

have been pronounced unconstitutional and annulled upon the ground that

they “contravene freedom of contract,” are “class legislation” and so

forth. This has been the fate of statutes regulating the hours of labor

for women over twenty-one years of age in Nebraska, California and

Illinois; of weekly payment laws in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Missouri,

West Virginia and Indiana; of anti-truck acts in Pennsylvania, Ohio,

Illinois and West Virginia; and of those prohibiting company stores or

coercion of purchase in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Tennessee.

In Massachusetts, on the contrary, the regulation of hours was sustained

“as a health or police regulation.” Also at the time when the bill for

the extension of the act concerning weekly payments was before the

legislature the justices returned as their opinion to the House of

Representatives that such an act was within the constitutional power of

the General Court to pass. It is also worthy of notice, that in spite of

the decision by the Supreme Court of Nebraska in 1894,[41] a new law

defining hours of labor for women was passed in 1899, and to-day applies

not only in factories, but in restaurants and hotels as well. Again, in

the report just reviewed, the commissioners have recommended the general

enactment of an anti-truck and freedom of purchase act in spite of the

decisions of Pennsylvania, Illinois and Tennessee courts.

Verdicts of unconstitutionality have therefore hardly affected more than

the very border of the factory laws; the regulation of child labor, of

workroom conditions, of hours of labor for minors, have never even been

questioned. It hardly seems likely that any of these laws will ever be

put to the court test at all. Both in England and in this country, they

have proven generally beneficial to public interest, they have been

pretty cheerfully accepted and obeyed; they have gained public approval;

they have the political support of a large labor party. Perhaps the

apparently adverse action of the courts ought rather to be looked upon

as a healthfully conservative influence against possible evil results of

hasty and ill-considered legislation or attempts to interpose

legislation where the object could be better obtained by the effective

organization of labor and should be left to the initiative of the

unions.

Factory legislation has been inevitably necessitated by the action of

economic and social forces, and may, in fact, be regarded as a natural

phenomenon accompanying the growth of the factory system of manufacture.

It has developed against the opposition of extreme doctrines of free

contract, and having demonstrated itself in the facts of actual life has

also created a new theory of the relation of the state to labor and

industry.

“The state may determine the plane of competition; it may equalize the

conditions of contract as between employer and employee; it may

intervene to protect the standard of living of the workers. The only

limits that theory places upon these lines of interference are

considerations of the general good.”

In the historical development of factory laws, well-marked tendencies

are traceable. The early attitude of timidity has given place to that of

peremptory command. Progress has been steadily toward increased severity

in the regulations imposed, increased exactness in detail and

definition, towards distinctly placed responsibility and towards more

adequate inspection.

The expansion of industry in this country has of course been accompanied

by a like territorial extension of the labor laws. Accomplished through

the independent action of the several state legislatures, the result has

been an unfortunate confusion of unrelated and non-uniform measures. One

of the recent and most important tendencies of this legislation is the

movement for greater uniformity, made especially prominent by the

attention given to it as a part of the study of the Industrial

Commission. It indeed seems probable that these efforts will eventually

issue in the determination of a minimum standard of labor legislation

for the country as a whole, above which common basis the states will

rise in grade according to the development of industrial organization

and consequent increase of regulation demanded. This is necessarily a

matter of voluntary conformity on the part of the separate state

legislatures and therefore a fulfillment to be awaited with all

patience.

VI. Juvenile Courts

PROBATION AND JUVENILE COURTS

By MRS. EMILY E. WILLIAMSON, ELIZABETH, N. J.

President New Jersey State Conference of Charities and Corrections

Perhaps the most practical movement in penal reform is probation,

putting a stop as it does to the source from which crime is recruited.

The principle involved in probation is prevention and, where properly

applied, has resulted in a very large diminution of crime. Massachusetts

reports a falling off of 75 per cent in juvenile crime, owing to

probation. Juvenile and first offenders should never be dealt with as

real criminals under the law except in special cases of depravity.

Penological science lays down general rules for the treatment of

juveniles and first offenders, absolutely prohibiting imprisonment

except for those convicted of flagrant crimes, as it breaks down

self-respect, placing a stigma on character that is never removed. Its

deterrent power is destroyed with its relief from care and comfortable

support and it hurts the physical, mental and moral health of the

prisoner. The main object in the sentence of the convicted juvenile or

first offender should be his rescue from a criminal life; therefore a

complete investigation should be made of his character, home and

environment before trial. In Massachusetts the probation act requires a

probation officer to inquire into the nature of every criminal case

brought before the court, and he may recommend that any person committed

by the court be placed on probation. The question for the court, upon

the information of the probation officer, is to decide whether it is

safe for society to allow the prisoner to go at large. It has become an

established fact among the people of Massachusetts, after several years

of trial, that in the administration of justice the probation system has

been wise and beneficial.

The probation law enacted by the legislature of Illinois in 1899

declares the purpose of the law to be as follows: “This act shall be

liberally construed to the purpose that its end may be carried out, to

wit: that the care, custody and discipline of a child shall approximate

as nearly as may be that which should be given by its parents; and in

all cases where it can be properly done, the child be placed in an

approved family home and become a member of the family by legal adoption

or otherwise.” The Illinois juvenile court in its instructions to

probation officers states that it will be the endeavor of the court to

carry out both the letter and the spirit of the foregoing act, and to

this end the court will have in mind the following considerations: _The

Welfare and Interests of the Child._—To save the child from neglect and

cruelty and from the danger of becoming a criminal or dependent. _The

Welfare of the Community._—Lessening the burdens of taxation and loss of

property through the ravages of the criminal class and by preventing

pauperism and crime. _Temporary Care._—The law forbidding the keeping of

any child in a jail or station-house, a place of detention is provided

under the care of the court. Whenever practicable the child is to be

left with his parents or with some suitable family. _Supervision After

Action of the Court._—The probation officer is expected to keep a

special oversight of the child by frequent visits at regular intervals

and by reports from parents or custodians.

In Pennsylvania the law requires that the probation officer shall be

notified when any juvenile offender is brought before the court, that he

shall make such investigation as shall be directed by the court, be

present to represent the interests of the child when the case is heard,

furnish such information and assistance as the judge may require and

take such charge of any child before or after trial as may be ordered.

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota

and New Jersey have state probation laws. San Francisco and Washington,

D. C., have probation officers for the cities alone. New York has at

last provided for probation and also for children’s courts, but the

plans are not yet completed.

Voluntary probation officers in many cases in the large cities assist

the paid officer, and in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and New York the

child-saving societies of all denominations have placed

officers—appointed by them for this purpose—at the disposal of the

court. Their services have always been accepted. In New Jersey the State

Board of Children’s Guardians greatly assists the county probation

officers. Wise child-saving work can be done with this mutual

co-operation.

In March, 1900, a bill prepared by Justice Franklin T. Fort, of the

Supreme Court, was passed by the New Jersey legislature, providing for

the appointment of probation officers and authorizing judges of the

Courts of Quarter Sessions to appoint one probation officer and, with

the consent of the board of county freeholders, as many other probation

officers, not exceeding three, one of whom may be a woman, as the judge

deems wise. The classes of offenders who may be probated, _i. e._,

respecting age, etc., is left entirely to the discretion of the judge.

Seven counties in New Jersey have probation officers—Hudson, Essex,

Morris, Union, Middlesex, Mercer and Atlantic.

In February, 1902 at my request, I was appointed, by the court,

probation officer for Union county, New Jersey, to serve without salary,

the court granting fifty dollars a month for a clerk and allowing

necessary expenses—in all not to exceed eight hundred dollars annually.

The following are the descriptive blanks and rules prepared by me and

allowed by the court. In addition, case cards are kept in which all

records in detail are entered. A synopsis of each case is also entered

in a history book which is easily referred to by an index kept on the

Dewey plan. Each probationer is visited by the probation officer or her

clerk once a month and in special cases oftener. The probationer reports

regularly at the office, either in person or by letter, at such times as

directed.

UNION COUNTY PROBATION OFFICER. RECORD.

No.

Name

Address

Age Height Weight

White or colored Color of eyes Hair

Complexion

Special marks

Religion Church

School Teacher

Nationality Married or single

Number of children, names and ages

Occupation

Employer’s name and address

Father’s name and address

Occupation

Mother’s name and address

Occupation

Other members of family

Previous offense

Present offense

Date committed to Probation Officer Years expire

Fine, $ Costs, $

Re-arrested

Cause of Re-arrest

REMARKS:

Ledger number

UNION COUNTY COURT OF QUARTER SESSIONS.

RULES GOVERNING PROBATION.

THE PROBATIONER is required by the Court,

FIRST.—To furnish promptly, by letter or in person, such information

as the Probation Officer may require.

SECOND.—To mail on the first of each month a letter, stating his

present residence and occupation, place of employment and the name of

his employer; also the number of days employed during the previous

month, the place or places of employment and the names of his

employers. If the Probationer is of school age, the number of days of

school attendance must be given. The truth of these facts must be

certified by parent, employer, school teacher or some other person

satisfactory to the Probation Officer.

THIRD.—Evil companions and bad associations must be avoided. Strict

temperance must be observed. The Probationer must in every way conduct

himself as an upright and law-abiding citizen.

FOURTH.—To report promptly to the Probation Officer every change of

residence. To consult the Probation Officer before moving out of the

State of New Jersey or out of Union County.

FIFTH.—If the Probationer undertakes to pay fines or costs at stated

periods these payments must be prompt. If unable to meet the

obligation promptly he will send advance notice to the Probation

Officer.

The probation period is three years. If during this period of trial

the Probationer fails to observe strictly each of the above rules, he

is liable to be taken into custody at any time by the Probation

Officer to serve the full term of his suspended sentence. Liberty

depends entirely on the good conduct of the Probationer.

During the three months that I have held this office twenty-six cases

have been probated to me by the judge of the county court and forty-six

by the police justices of the county. The ages of the probationers and

the character of the charges made against them are as follows:

───────┬───────┬──────┬──────┬─────────┬───────────┬────┬──────┬──────

│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │

│ Total │ │ │ │ │ │County│Police

│number.│White.│Black.│Catholic.│Protestant.│Jew.│Court.│Court.

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

Males │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │

over │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │

16 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │

yrs. │ 31│ 25│ 6│ 12│ 18│ 1│ 14│ 17

Males │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │

under│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │

16 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │

yrs. │ 28│ 28│ │ 20│ 6│ 2│ 6│ 22

Females│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │

over │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │

16 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │

yrs. │ 6│ 4│ 2│ 3│ 3│ │ 2│ 4

Females│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │

under│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │

16 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │

yrs. │ 7│ 6│ 1│ 6│ 1│ │ 1│ 2

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

│ 72│ 63│ 9│ 41│ 28│ 3│ 23│ 45

───────┴───────┴──────┴──────┴─────────┴───────────┴────┴──────┴──────

───────┬─────────────┬────────┬──────────┬────────┬─────────┬─────────

│ │ │ │ │ │

│ │ │Disorderly│ │Malicious│

│Embezzlement.│Larceny.│ conduct. │Assault.│mischief.│Mischief.

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

Males │ │ │ │ │ │

over │ │ │ │ │ │

16 │ │ │ │ │ │

yrs. │ 1│ 11│ 16│ 2│ 1│

Males │ │ │ │ │ │

under│ │ │ │ │ │

16 │ │ │ │ │ │

yrs. │ │ 7│ 9│ 1│ 5│ 1

Females│ │ │ │ │ │

over │ │ │ │ │ │

16 │ │ │ │ │ │

yrs. │ │ │ 4│ │ 2│

Females│ │ │ │ │ │

under│ │ │ │ │ │

16 │ │ │ │ │ │

yrs. │ │ 6│ 1│ │ │

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

│ 1│ 24│ 30│ 3│ 8│ 1

───────┴─────────────┴────────┴──────────┴────────┴─────────┴─────────

───────┬────────┬──────────┬─────────

│ │ │Probated

│ │ Previous │ without

│Truancy.│Offenders.│ trial.

───────┼────────┼──────────┼─────────

Males │ │ │

over │ │ │

16 │ │ │

yrs. │ │ 12│

Males │ │ │

under│ │ │

16 │ │ │

yrs. │ 5│ 13│

Females│ │ │

over │ │ │

16 │ │ │

yrs. │ │ 4│

Females│ │ │

under│ │ │

16 │ │ │

yrs. │ │ │ 4

───────┼────────┼──────────┼─────────

│ 5│ 29│ 4

───────┴────────┴──────────┴─────────

The secretary of the New Jersey State Charities Aid Association in his

report says: “It is easier in Union than in most counties to learn

whether such an officer is needed by the court, by the prisoner and by

society, for the records of the Union County Jail are exceptionally

complete. The Warden’s report contains statistics on two most important

points—the ages of the prisoners and the number of the commitments.

These two points are most important because the probation system

presumes that all persons who are inexperienced in crime, whatever their

actual age, can be better treated under supervision outside of jail than

in idleness within jail.

“The New Jersey law was made broad enough to include both children of 7

years and adults of 83, except where safety demands the prisoner’s

incarceration. From the Warden’s report it appears that 591 persons were

sent to the county jail last year for terms averaging twenty-nine days.

Of this number only 181, or 30 per cent, had served previous sentences.

The great majority, 70 per cent, or 410, had never been previously

committed. Among these first commitments are found persons of every age

from 7 to 70 excepting 52, 56, 58, 62 and 69, while the years 71, 77 and

83 have one representative each. Take what age we will, public sentiment

would approve another chance outside of jail, for every first offender,

provided the dignity of the law and the welfare of society would be in

no way jeopardized by suspending sentence. Our probation law provides

for failures to reform outside of jail and gives to the probation

officer and the court power to inflict the original but suspended

sentence at any time within three years from the date of conviction. It

is manifest that every successful case of probation nips in the bud a

potential and probable career of crime.”

The oversight of adult first offenders by a probation officer is of

immense value in reforming the offender and also results in a great

saving of expense to the taxpayer. The first is the primary object and

probably I cannot do better than cite some cases which are under my

care: J. E., aged 22, a bright Irishman, not intoxicated, in a quarrel

which took place in a saloon, interfered and used too much strength in

separating the combatants; charged with malicious assault, court would

have committed him to county jail for six months had there been no

probation officer. Probation officer returned the man to his home,

helped him to secure employment, visited his accuser and warned him not

to molest J. E. Young man’s weekly calls to report have become friendly

visits; he is always well dressed and is entirely self-respecting.

N. M.; American; aged 59; painter; married; offence—grand larceny; never

arrested before; while drunk, stole mayor’s horse and buggy from

hitching-post on main street; man not an habitual drunkard, character

good, provided comfortable home for his family, always industrious and

kind. Had there been no probation officer N. M. would have been sent to

state prison. He is now doing well and reporting regularly.

Two boys, 9 and 12 years, arrested on charge of disorderly conduct

(threw a fish-head at an old woman); belonged to the “gang;” had fairly

good homes; did not attend school regularly; found upon investigation to

be mischievous and truants only. Probation officer handed boys to truant

officer, who immediately placed them in school. Boys report each week,

come to office in Sunday clothes and evidently enjoy these visits. One

lad has been employed on Saturdays, by probation officer’s clerk, doing

odd jobs and is very proud of this evidence of favor. There has been a

great improvement in the whole family owing to pressure through this

little fellow.

In cases of non-support which are always tried before police justices,

probation has proved of inestimable value. The following is an example:

Mr. B. drank occasionally, earned eighteen dollars a week and failed to

support his family; was arrested and handed to the probation officer.

After a thorough investigation, including conditions in the home, the

man was ordered to request his employer to hand Mrs. B. ten and one-half

dollars every week—one and one-half dollars for each of the five

children and three dollars for Mr. B.’s own board. Besides this the man

was required to pay the house rent, eight dollars a month. After the

first month, at the request of the wife, he was allowed to give her the

money himself. Each week the man reports the payment. Had Mr. B. been

sent to jail, he would have lost his self-respect and his situation, he

would have become an expense to the taxpayer and his family dependent on

the charity of the community.

Three little Polish girls, aged 9, 10 and 11 years, arrested and

indicted by the Grand Jury for grand larceny; on investigation found

parents, who could not speak English, were not implicated; homes above

the average. Children had stolen ribbons, lace and other articles for

personal adornment, saying some had been presents; others were hidden

between two old mattresses in a garret; parents terribly frightened when

discoveries were made. Upon arrest of children and after bail had been

secured, I began to take supervision of them; examined each one

separately at my office; sent for priest, and arranged for daily

instructions by the Sisters—little girls had been regular attendants at

school. Later, without trial, they were probated to me by the court for

an indefinite period.

The police magistrates of Hudson and Union counties avail themselves of

the services of the probation officers and it is in these courts that

good preventive work can be done by seeing the accused as soon as a

charge is made and by investigating the case before trial, and also, in

many instances, preventing the charge being entered by talking the

matter over and promising to see the accused. In Elizabeth, the largest

city of Union county, arrests and commitments have fallen off 40 per

cent since the work of the probation officer has become known.

Three Italians appeared at my office, one to complain of two boys and

the others the fathers of the boys. These men had come to ask me to take

charge of the little fellows, who were mischievous and annoyed the

complainant. All three were satisfied with my decision.

A Jew, who was in the habit of making charges of disorderly conduct

against mischievous boys, after a talk with me, promised to bring no

more children before the court until I had investigated each case for

him. He had not realized the serious harm inflicted upon the boys’

characters by their being brought into court. At the end of an hour he

was fully convinced. The railway detectives also report cases to me

before making charges and abide by my decisions.

There is great danger of perfunctory work on the part of the probation

officer and very grave danger from the uneducated officer. Public

opinion has still to be aroused; therefore the need of the best work

along these lines. Where good work has been done, the public has

recognized that the practice of inflicting short terms of imprisonment

for minor offences is useless and harmful. The need of men and women of

sound judgment and high character for this work is great, and in the

development of the system it is hoped that many specialists will devote

some time to the installation of the work and help to bring about the

proper administration of the law.

Boston was the first city to set apart special hours for the trial of

juvenile offenders, and the excellent way in which these trials are

managed is an object lesson worth studying. Persons not connected with

the trial are required to leave the court room, the officer who made the

arrest tells his story, the complainant his, and the witnesses are

examined. The child is called to the judge’s desk and tells his story in

a quiet voice. Confidential relations are at once established between

the child and the judge. The probation officer then makes his report

upon the case, after which the judge announces his decision.

The same methods are employed in Chicago, Philadelphia and Minneapolis

and will be in New York. In Chicago, a judge has been appointed who only

tries children’s cases; in New York, a judge is to be chosen from time

to time. The value of this way of conducting juvenile trials cannot be

overestimated, as it robs the trial of all the sensational element. It

also makes it easy for the various child-saving societies, such as the

St. Vincent de Paul, Children’s Aid and Prevention of Cruelty to

Children and for truant officers to co-operate with the court.

The following is a pen-picture of a trial held before the court in which

I am probation officer: Court room crowded, twenty-two lawyers present;

prosecutor reads the indictment. Boy eleven years old arrested for

stealing brass worth eighty dollars, from railroad, and selling it to a

junk man for twenty cents; had been bailed by kind neighbor, who

delivered the boy. Court officer calls witnesses; boy brought; so small

that his eyes are just on a line with the rail; boy weeping; prosecutor

exclaims, and says boy should be in day-nursery; audience in back of

room rises and presses forward to look at boy; lawyers inside of rail

jump to their feet; court raps for order; boy realizes that he has

become an object of pity and curiosity, cries louder and calls for his

mother, who comes forward with a baby in her arms; judge and prosecutor

confer, boy is handed over to probation officer to be produced to stand

trial when called, virtually ending the matter.

THE JUVENILE COURT IN PHILADELPHIA

By JUDGE ABRAHAM M. BEITLER

Court of Common Pleas No. 1, Philadelphia

At its session in 1901 the legislature of our state passed an act, with

a rather lengthy title, which has become known as the Juvenile Court

Act. It passed the Senate by unanimous vote and in the House there were

but three votes against it and one hundred and forty-seven for it. The

act commits to a Judge of the Court of Quarter Sessions some new powers,

and imposes upon him some new duties.

The scope of these powers and duties is, I am sure, understood by but

few. That there may be a wider acquaintance with the new law and a

clearer appreciation of the benefits possible to· be secured by its

enforcement, I have tried to condense into a brief article a statement

of its salient features, and, besides, to give some data as to the work

done since the act was put into operation in Philadelphia.

The act deals only with juveniles, and only with those under sixteen

years of age, and of juveniles under sixteen only with the unfortunate

and the erring. By its terms it applies to “dependent or neglected”

children, and “delinquent” children. The first class, the act says,

shall include any child who is destitute or homeless or abandoned or

dependent upon the public for support, or who has not the proper

parental care or guardianship, or who habitually begs or receives alms,

or whose home, by reason of neglect or cruelty or depravity of the

parents, is an unfit place for such a child, or any child under eight

years of age found peddling on the streets.

A “delinquent” child is one who “violates any law of this state, or any

city or borough ordinance.”

The Court’s jurisdiction may be invoked by a petition, which must be

verified by affidavit, stating that the child therein referred to is

either dependent or neglected or delinquent.

Upon the filing of the petition, the Judge may issue either a summons or

a warrant. The former requires the party having the custody of the child

to produce it in court. The latter imposes the duty of bringing the

child into court upon the officer armed with the warrant. Pending the

final disposition of any case, the child may be retained in the

possession of the person having it in charge, or in some suitable place

provided by any association having for one of its objects the care of

delinquent or neglected children.

As a matter of fact, very few cases are brought into court upon either

summons or warrant. The Judge holding the court finds, upon the day

fixed for the hearing of juvenile cases, that he has, perhaps,

twenty-five cases on his docket, and to him they are all new cases. Most

of them originated in the magistrates’ courts or in the station-houses.

The parent or parents of a child or children, for instance, may have

been arrested for drunkenness or vagrancy. The magistrate hearing the

case sends the parents perhaps to the House of Correction, and then

something must be done for the immediate care of the children. They are

turned over to the Children’s Aid Society or the Society to Protect

Children from Cruelty. On the day for the hearing of juvenile cases, the

children will be brought in by the Society’s agents, and a petition will

be filed setting forth briefly the facts.

Sometimes the children are abandoned or homeless waifs turned over to

the Society by the police.

The Judge sitting in the Juvenile Court proceeds to inquire carefully

into each case. He has the assistance of the prior examination into the

facts of each case by the Society’s agents. Sometimes the power of the

Court is invoked to compel the attendance of relatives, or even of

parents. After a careful hearing, the case of each child is decided, and

a decree made. The testimony heard is taken down in a short narrative

form by a stenographer, and then typewritten and filed for future

reference. If the Judge is satisfied that the parent or parents of a

child ought not to have the custody of the child, but are able to

contribute to its support, he may make an order requiring the payment of

such sum as the circumstances warrant. Children are sometimes turned

over to relatives, and sometimes to a charitable society, regard being

had always to the religion of the child in selecting the society.

Delinquents generally come into court from the magistrates’ courts;

sometimes directly, sometimes from prison.

Now that the act is being better understood, and its benefits more

generally appreciated by the magistrates and the police, a probation

officer is usually advised when a “delinquent” is taken into custody.

The hearings are generally held by the magistrate at the station-house,

and in a large number of cases, perhaps in a majority of cases, a

probation officer is present to hear the testimony against the child and

to set on foot an investigation not only of the charge on which the

child is held, but as to his or her previous record and home life and

surroundings. It is earnestly to be hoped that all our police

lieutenants and police magistrates will speedily come to appreciate how

greatly the probation officer can assist them and the Court, and will

let no case be heard without having previously notified the nearest

probation officer.

It is in the handling of these “delinquent” cases that the Judge has the

most delicate and difficult tasks imposed on him. Sometimes the boy or

girl is charged with some trifling offence, and the investigation made

by the probation officer shows that the child is not really bad. The

probation officer goes to the child’s home; if he attends school she

calls on his school teacher; if he attends Sunday school she

communicates with the Sunday school teacher; if he works, she goes to

his employer, and endeavors in every way to ascertain what the child’s

previous life has been and what his home surroundings are.

Sometimes it is apparent that even where the child is not depraved or

incorrigible, it is best for his sake that he shall not be returned to

his home. A single case will serve as an illustration.

Recently, a boy of thirteen was arrested for larceny. He was guilty. His

father was a drunken brute. His mother was a hardworking, honest woman,

but in the household she was a mere drudge, without voice or influence.

The father sent the boy upon the street to steal. The Judge before whom

the case came, heard the father and mother. The father promised to

behave himself. The mother begged to have the boy returned to her. He

was sent home, and a probation officer appointed in his case. Two months

later, the boy was again arrested for larceny. The case against him was

clear. This time the Court refused to listen to the pleadings or the

promises of the parents, and committed the boy to the House of Refuge.

The first time the boy was in the Juvenile Court was perhaps not the

first time he had offended. Had we had a Juvenile Court into which he

could have been taken when he made his first departure from the path of

rectitude he would have been perhaps committed to the Children’s Aid

Society, and that Society would have found him a home with some

Christian family and his whole life would have been changed for the

better. As it is, he has been committed to an institution whose splendid

work in reclaiming incorrigibles gives every hope that the boy will yet

turn out a good citizen.

What to do with a bad boy is a problem as old as time. If the wisdom of

the past had given us one formula to follow, the task imposed on the

Judge dealing with “delinquents” would be simple, but the question every

time it arises is as new and as difficult as when it was first

presented. That some boys would be better off if severely punished, the

first time they lie or steal, is undoubtedly true. That the way of the

transgressor is hard ought to be taught both as a moral precept and an

actual fact. Still, the question in every case is, how shall this boy be

handled? With the best motives and after the most careful and patient

inquiry, the Judge can at best but guess. To send the boy home from

Court after his guilt had been confessed or established, and do nothing

more, as was frequently the old way, was often to give rise to the

belief on the part of the boy that the law is not stern but lenient, and

that after all, to steal, to be caught, to be convicted and to face a

Court is not a serious but a trifling matter. To his companions the

released boy was often a sort of a hero. The bad effect on him reached

to all who were of his age and class and knew of his lucky escape. On

the other hand, to refuse to send the boy home left but one alternative,

to commit him to prison or to the House of Refuge.

Whether committed or sent home, the boy was given but little chance in

comparison to that which the Court can, under the Juvenile Court Act,

now extend to him.

This brings us to consider the probation officer.

The act says, Section 6:

“The Court shall appoint or designate one or more discreet persons, of

good character, to serve as probation officers during the pleasure of

the Court; said probation officers to receive no compensation from the

public treasury. In case a probation officer shall be appointed by any

Court, it shall be the duty of the Clerk of the Court, if practicable,

to notify the said probation officer in advance when any child is to be

brought before the said Court; it shall be the duty of the said

probation officer to make such investigation as may be required by the

Court, to be present in order to represent the interests of the child

when the case is heard, to furnish to the Court such information and

assistance as the Judge may require, and to take such charge of any

child before and after trial as may be directed by the Court.”