CHILD LABOR IN CITY STREETS
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
CHILD LABOR
IN CITY STREETS
BY
EDWARD N. CLOPPER, PH.D.
SECRETARY OF NATIONAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE
FOR MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1913
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1912,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1912. Reprinted
January, 1913.
NORWOOD PRESS
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
Transcriber's Notes:
Text originally marked up as bold is surrounded by =, text in italics by
_, text in different font with ~. All footnotes can be found after the
chapter "Conclusion", before the Bibliography. Obvious printer's errors
have been remedied, a list of all other changes can be found at the end
of the document.
PREFACE
This volume is devoted to the discussion of a neglected form of child
labor. Just why the newsboy, bootblack and peddler should have been
ignored in the general movement for child welfare is hard to
understand. Perhaps it is due to "the illusion of the near." Street
workers have always been far more conspicuous than any other child
laborers, and it seems that this very proximity has been their
misfortune. If we could have focused our attention upon them as we did
upon children in factories, they would have been banished from the
streets long ago. But they were too close to us. We could not get a
comprehensive view and saw only what we happened to want at the
moment--their paltry little stock in trade. Now that we are getting a
broader sense of social responsibility, we are beginning to realize
how blind and inconsiderate we have been in our treatment of them.
The first five chapters of the book review present conditions and
discuss causes, the next two deal with effects, and the final ones are
concerned with the remedy. The scope has been made as broad as
possible. All forms of street work that engage any considerable number
of children have been described at length, and opinions and findings
of others have been freely quoted. I have attempted to show the bad
results of the policy of _laissez-faire_ as applied to this problem.
Simply because these little boys and girls have been ministering to
its wants, the public has given them scarcely a passing thought. It
has been so convenient to have a newspaper or a shoe brush thrust at
one, it has not occurred to us that, for the sake of the children,
such work would better be done by other means. Although good examples
have been set by European cities, we have not introduced any
innovations to clear the streets of working children.
The free rein at present given to child labor in our city streets is
productive of nothing but harmful results, and it is high time that a
determined stand was taken for the rights of children so exposed. A
few feeble efforts at regulation have been made in some parts of this
country, but this is an evil that requires prohibition rather than
regulation. There is no valid reason why just as efficient service in
streets could not be rendered by adults. Certainly it would be far
more suitable and humane to reserve such work for old men and women
who need outdoor life and are physically unable to earn their living
in other ways. We could buy our newspaper from a crippled adult at a
stand just as easily as we get it now from an urchin who shivers on
the street corner. It is only a question of habit, and we ought to be
glad of the change for the good of all concerned.
E. N. C.
Cincinnati, 1912.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE PROBLEM OF THE STREET-WORKING CHILD--PUBLIC
APATHY--RELATION TO OTHER PROBLEMS 1
II. EXTENT TO WHICH CHILDREN ENGAGE IN STREET ACTIVITIES IN
AMERICA AND EUROPE 24
III. NEWSPAPER SELLERS 52
IV. BOOTBLACKS, PEDDLERS AND MARKET CHILDREN 83
V. MESSENGERS, ERRAND AND DELIVERY CHILDREN 101
VI. EFFECTS OF STREET WORK UPON CHILDREN 128
VII. RELATION OF STREET WORK TO DELINQUENCY 159
VIII. THE STRUGGLE FOR REGULATION IN THE UNITED STATES 189
IX. DEVELOPMENT OF STREET TRADES REGULATION IN EUROPE 214
CONCLUSION 243
BIBLIOGRAPHY 245
APPENDICES 255
INDEX 277
CHILD LABOR IN CITY STREETS
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM OF THE STREET-WORKING CHILD--PUBLIC APATHY--RELATION TO
OTHER PROBLEMS
The efforts which have so far been made in the United States to solve
the child labor problem have been directed almost exclusively toward
improvement of conditions in mines and manufacturing and mercantile
establishments. This singling out of one phase of the problem for
correction was due to the uneducated state of public opinion which
made necessary a long and determined campaign along one line, vividly
portraying the wrongs of children in this one form of exploitation,
before general interest could be aroused. Within very recent years
this campaign has met with signal success, and many states have
granted a goodly measure of protection to the children of their
working classes as far as the factory, the store and the mine are
concerned. The time has now come for attention to be directed toward
the premature employment of children in work other than that connected
with mining and manufacturing, for there are other phases of this
problem which involve large numbers of children and which, up to the
present, have received but little thought from students of labor
conditions. The three most important of these other phases are the
employment of children in agricultural work, in home industries and in
street occupations. This volume will deal with the last-named
phase--with the economic activities of children in the streets and
public places of our cities, their effects and the remedies they
demand.
The street occupations in which children commonly engage are:
newspaper selling, peddling, bootblacking, messenger service, delivery
service, running errands and the tending of market stands. The first
three are known as street "trades," owing to the popular fallacy that
the children who follow them are little "merchants," and are therefore
entitled to the dignity of separate classification. Careful usage
would confine this term to newsboys, peddlers and bootblacks who work
independently of any employer. Many children are employed by other
persons to sell newspapers, peddle goods and polish shoes, and such
children technically are street traders no more than those who run
errands, carry messages or deliver parcels. Consequently the term
"street trades" is limited in its application, and by no means
embraces all the economic activities of children in our streets and
public places.
Wisconsin has written into her laws a definition of street trading,
declaring that it is "any business or occupation in which any street,
alley, court, square or other public place is used for the sale,
display or offering for sale of any articles, goods or merchandise."[1]
This covers neither bootblacking nor the delivery of newspapers.
In Great Britain the expression "street trading" has been officially
defined as including: "the hawking of newspapers, matches, flowers,
and other articles; playing, singing, or performing for profit; plying
for hire in carrying luggage or messages; shoe blacking, or any other
like occupations carried on in streets or public places."[2]
Street traders and street employees may be classified by occupation as
follows:--
STREET TRADERS STREET EMPLOYEES
(WORKING FOR THEMSELVES) (WORKING FOR OTHERS)
Newspaper sellers Newspaper sellers (on salary)
Peddlers (on salary)
Peddlers Bootblacks (in stands)
Market stand tenders
Bootblacks (on street) Messengers
Errand children
Delivery children
This classification is based upon the well-known economic distinction
between profits and wages. It is unfortunate that this distinction has
been applied to juvenile street workers, for it has operated to the
great disadvantage of the "traders." This class has been practically
ignored in the general movement for child welfare, on the ground that
these little laborers were in business for themselves, and therefore
should not be disturbed. Recently the conviction has been dawning
upon observant people that, in the case of young children at least,
the effects of work on an independent basis, particularly in city
streets, are just as bad and perhaps even worse than work under the
direction of employers. The mute appeal of the street-working child
for protection has at last reached the heart of the welfare movement,
and the first feeble efforts in his behalf are now being put forth,
regardless of whether he toils for profits or for wages.
This alleged distinction between street trading and street employment
should be clearly understood, as any movement designed to remedy
present conditions must be sufficiently comprehensive to avoid the
great mistake of protecting one class and ignoring the other. On the
one hand there is said to be an army of little independent "merchants"
conducting business affairs of their own, while on the other there is
an array of juvenile employees performing the tasks set them by their
masters. For purposes of regulation this distinction is hairsplitting,
narrow-minded and unjust, as it has been made to defeat in part the
beneficent aim of the great campaign for child welfare, but
nevertheless it must be reckoned with. Children under fourteen years
of age at work in factories and mines are often properly called
"slaves," and their plight is regarded with pity coupled with a
clarion cry for their emancipation. But tiny workers in the streets
are referred to approvingly as "little merchants" and are freely
patronized even by the avowed friends of children, who thereby
contribute their moral support toward continuing these conditions and
maintaining this absurd fiction of our merchant babyhood. As an
instance of this remarkable attitude, there was proudly printed in the
Pittsburgh _Gazette-Times_ of April 11, 1910, the picture of a
four-year-old child who had been a newsboy in an Ohio town since the
age of _thirty months_, and this was described as a most worthy
achievement!
That the term "child labor," whose meaning has so long been popularly
restricted to the employment of children in factories, mills, mines
and stores, is properly applicable to the activities of children in
all kinds of work for profit, is now virtually recognized by a few
states which prohibit employment of children under fourteen years of
age "in any gainful occupation." But unfortunately the courts have
rigidly construed the word "employ" to mean the purchasing of the
services of one person by another, hence newsboys, peddlers,
bootblacks and others who work on their own account, do not enjoy the
protection of such a statute because they are not "employed." Under
this interpretation a fatal loophole is afforded through which
thousands of boys and girls escape the spirit of the law which seeks
to prevent their _labor_ rather than their mere employment. It is for
this reason that, in states having otherwise excellent provisions for
the conservation of childhood, we see little children freely
exploiting themselves on city streets. This situation has been calmly
accepted without protest by the general public, for, while the people
condemn child labor in factories, they tolerate and even approve of it
on the street. They labor under the delusion that merely because a few
of our successful business men were newsboys in the past, these little
"merchants" of the street are receiving valuable training in business
methods and will later develop into leaders in the affairs of men. A
glaring example of this attitude was given by a monthly magazine[3]
which fondly referred to newsboys as "the enterprising young merchants
from whose ranks will be recruited the coming statesmen, soldiers,
financiers, merchants and manufacturers of our land."
It is extremely unfortunate that this narrow conception has prevailed,
as it raises the tremendous obstacle of popular prejudice which must
be broken down before these child street workers can receive their
share of justice at the hands of the law. The only fair and logical
method of approach toward a solution of the child labor problem in all
its phases is to take high ground and view the subject broadly in the
light of what is for the best interests of children in general.
The state recognizes the need of an intelligent citizenship and
accordingly provides a system of public schools, requiring the
attendance of all children up to the age of fourteen years. In order
that nothing shall interfere with the operation of this plan for
general education, the state forbids the employment of children of
school age. In respect of both these mandates, the state has really
assumed the guardianship of the child; it has accepted the principle
that the child is the ward of the state and has based its action on
this principle. A guardian should be ever mindful of the welfare of
his wards, and so, to be consistent, the state should carefully shield
its children from all forms of exploitation as well as from other
abuses.
However, in the matter of the regulation of child labor, a curious
anomaly has arisen--no one may employ a child under fourteen years in
a _factory_ for even one hour a day without being liable to
prosecution for disobeying the law of the state, because such work
might interfere with the child's growth and education; all of which is
right and indorsed by public opinion, but--merely because a child is
working independently of any employer, he is allowed to sell
newspapers, peddle chewing gum and black boots for any number of
hours, providing he attends school during school hours! Could anything
be more inconsistent? To this extent the state, as a guardian, has
neglected the welfare of its ward.
This lack of consideration for street workers was emphasized in a
British government report a number of years ago. Referring to the
statutory provisions for preventing overwork by children in
factories, workshops and mines, the report declared: "But the labour
of children for wages outside these cases is totally unregulated,
although many of them work longer than the factory hours allowed for
children of the same age, and are at the same time undergoing
compulsory educational training, which makes a considerable demand on
their energies. We think this is inconsistent. In the interests of
their health and education, it seems only reasonable that remedies
which have proved so valuable in the case of factory children should
in some form be extended to cover the whole field of child labour."[4]
To insure a good yield, a field requires cultivation as well as
planting; to effect a cure, a patient requires nursing as well as
prescription. So with the aim of the state--to insure a strong,
intelligent citizenship, its children must be cared for, as well as
provided with schools. If a patient is not nursed while the physician
is absent, his treatment is of little avail; if children are not
protected out of school hours, the purpose of the school is
defeated. No manufacturer would allow his machinery to run, unwatched,
outside regular work hours, for he knows how disastrous would be the
consequences; yet this is precisely what the state is doing by
ignoring the activities of children in our city streets--the delicate
machinery of their minds and bodies is allowed to run wild out of
schools hours, and the state seems to think nothing will happen! These
thoughts impel us to the conclusion that the state must watch over the
child at least until he has reached the age limit for school
attendance, and in the matter of labor regulation its care must not be
confined to the prevention of one form of exploitation while other
forms, equally injurious, are permitted to flourish unchecked.
Legislation regulating street trading by children in this country is
now in the stage corresponding to that of the English factory acts in
the early part of the nineteenth century,--the first meager
restrictions are being tried. Several of the street occupations, viz.
messenger service, delivery service and errand running, are ordinarily
included among those prohibited to children under fourteen years by
state child labor laws, because to engage in such work children have
to be employed by other persons. These occupations are covered by the
provision common to such laws which forbids employment of such
children "in the distribution or transmission of merchandise or
messages." The street "trades" of newspaper selling, peddling and
bootblacking are, as yet, almost untouched by legislation in the
United States, for there exist only a very few state laws and city
ordinances relative to this matter, and these of the most primitive
kind. The public does not yet realize the injustice of permitting
young children to engage, uncontrolled, in the various street-trading
activities. It was slow to appreciate the dangers involved in the
unrestricted employment of children in factories, mills and mines, but
when the awakening finally came, the demand for reform was insistent.
This gradual development of a sentiment favoring regulation
characterizes also the problem of street employment; the present stage
is that of calm indifference, ruffled only by occasional misgivings.
Even this is an encouraging sign, inasmuch as the factory agitation
passed through the same experience, and emerged triumphant,
crystallized in statute form.
It is hard to understand how the public conscience can reconcile
itself to the chasm between the age limit of fourteen years for
messenger service and freedom from all restraint in newspaper
selling--both essentially street occupations. Child labor laws are
framed in accordance with public sentiment, hence the people by
legislative omission practically indorse street trading by little
children while condemning their employment in other kinds of work.
Thus the state virtually assumes the untenable position that it is
right to allow a child of tender years to labor in the streets as a
newsboy without any oversight or care whatever, and that it is wrong
for him to work in the same field as a messenger, or an errand boy, or
a delivery boy, although such occupations are subject to some degree
of supervision by older persons. In other words, it is held that
little children are capable of self-control in some street
occupations, but not able to withstand the dangers of other similar
street work, even under the control of adults! After having described
the conditions prevailing in Philadelphia among newsboys, Mr. Scott
Nearing says: "There are many causes leading up to this condition.
Beneath all others lies the fundamental one--the lack of public
sentiment in favor of protecting these children. Closely allied to
this is another almost equally strong--the lack of public knowledge of
the true state of affairs."[5]
The Chicago Child Welfare Exhibit pointed out the fact that street
trades are quite untouched by child labor legislation in the city and
also in the state, declaring that in Illinois a boy or girl too young
to be permitted to do any other work may haunt the newspaper offices,
the five-cent shows, the theaters and saloons, selling chewing gum and
newspapers at all hours of the night.[6]
Among the arguments advanced in support of the unsuccessful effort to
secure legislation on street trading in Illinois in 1911 was the
following: "Each boy or girl street trader is a merchant in his or her
own right, and therefore before the law is not considered a wage
earner, although there is merely a fine-spun distinction between the
child who secures _wages_ as the result of his work and one who
obtains his reward in the form of _profits_. The effect on the child
of work performed under unsuitable conditions, at unsuitable hours and
demanding the exercise of his faculties in unchildish ways, is in no
wise determined by the form in which his earnings are calculated. That
the results of street trading are wholly bad in the case of both boys
and girls is universally recognized."[7] Miss Jane Addams has deplored
this situation in a public statement: "A newsboy is a merchant and
does not come within the child labor regulations of Illinois. The city
of Chicago is a little careless, if not recreant, toward the children
who are not reached by the operation of the state law."[8]
Even in the few localities where regulation of street trading has been
attempted, the delusion that there is some essential difference
between child labor in factories and child labor in streets persists
in the legislation itself. The latter form of exploitation is assumed
to merit a wider latitude for its activity, hence it is hedged about
by much less stringent rules. Attention is invited to this
inconsistency by the report of a recent investigation in New York
City: "We have in New York 4148 children between 14 and 16 years
employed in factories with their daily hours of labor limited from 8
A.M. to 5 P.M., while in mercantile establishments there are 1645 more
of similar age limit, none of whom can work before 8 in the morning or
after 7 in the evening. But on the streets of New York City we have
approximately 4500 boys licensed (to say nothing of the little fellows
too young to be licensed) to sell newspapers. That means 4500
legalized to work at this particular trade from 6 o'clock in the
morning until 10 o'clock in the evening (save during the school year,
when they are supposed to attend school from 9 A.M. to 3 P.M.) any day
and every day, seven days to the week if they so desire to do."[9]
_Broader Aspects of the Problem_
Let us consider the matter from another point of view and discuss the
opportunities for constructive work rather than confine our attention
to the need of the merely negative remedy of restrictive legislation.
The street is painted as a black monster by some social workers, who
can discern nothing but evil in it. Nevertheless the street is closely
woven into the life of every city dweller, for his contact with it is
daily and continuous. If it is all evil, it ought to be abolished; as
this is impossible, we must study it to see what it really is and what
needs to be done with it. It is the medium by which people are brought
into closer touch with one another, where they meet and converse,
where they pass in transit, where they rub elbows with all the
elements making up their little world, where they absorb the
principles of democracy,--for the street is a great leveler.
Dr. Delos F. Wilcox, in speaking to the subject "What is Philadelphia
Doing to Protect Her Citizens in the Street?" recently said: "The
street is the symbol of democracy, of equal opportunity, the channel
of the common life, the thing that makes the city.... I fancy that the
civic renaissance which must surely come, ... will never get very far
until we have awakened to a realization of the dignity of the
street--the common street where the city's children play, through
which the milk wagon drives, where the young men are educated, along
which the currents of the city's life flow unceasingly."[10]
An English writer has expressed a similar thought: "We have spoken of
the street as a dangerous environment from which we would gladly
rescue the children if we could, and so it undoubtedly is in so far as
it supplants the influence of the home, tends to nullify that of the
school and lets the boys and girls run wild just when they most need
to be tamed.... It is, in fact, so strange a mixture of good and evil,
so complex an influence in the growth of boy and girl, of youth and
man, among our great city population, that it is necessary to attempt
to analyze it a little more exactly. It is for the majority the medium
in which the social conscience is formed, and through which it makes
its power felt. In it the all-powerful agents of progress, example,
imitation, the spread of ideas and the discussion of good and evil are
incessantly at work."[11]
It is only natural that such a general agency for communication should
have been abused. Its popularity alone would inevitably lead to such a
result, with no restrictions imposed upon street intercourse. The very
popularity of the games of billiards, pool and cards and of dancing
led to their abuse and consequent disrepute in the eyes of many
persons who were blinded to their intrinsic worth as diversions, by
the abuses to which they were subjected. The marked success attending
the proper use of all these amusements in social settlements and
parish houses stimulates the imagination as to what might be
accomplished with the street if its abuses also were eliminated.
It is of course absurd to pass judgment summarily upon the street, for
the street can exert no influence of itself; the evil issues from its
abuse by those who frequent it, and it is this abuse that should be
suppressed. This immediately raises the question as to what
constitutes this abuse. We must bear in mind that the real purpose of
the street is to serve as a means of communication, a passageway for
the transit of passengers and commerce. It was never intended for a
playground, nor a field for child labor, nor a resort for idlers, nor
a depository for garbage, nor a place for beggars to mulct the public.
These fungous growths from civic neglect ought to be cut away. "A
place for everything and everything in its place" would be an
efficacious even if old-fashioned remedy: playgrounds for the
children, workshops for the idlers, reduction plants for the garbage
and asylums for the beggars. With these reforms effected and carefully
maintained, the street would soon become much more wholesome and
attractive.
These considerations have been advanced to indicate the intimate
relation which exists between the problem of the child street worker
and many other problems with which social workers are now struggling.
Child labor in city streets must be abolished, but at the same time
coöperation with other movements is necessary before a satisfactory
solution of the problem can be assured.
For example, it would be a short-sighted policy to prohibit young
children from selling goods in home market stands without reporting to
the housing authorities cases in which large families live in one or
two filthy rooms, displaying and selling their wares in the doorway
and from the window. Our Italian citizens are not committing race
suicide, but in spite of their numerous progeny they crowd together in
extremely limited space, combining their home life with the customary
business of selling fruit. Their young children assist in tending the
stands on market days and nights or sit on the sidewalk selling
baskets to passers-by; at closing time their goods are often stored in
the same room that serves for sleeping quarters, cots being brought
out from some dark hiding place. In such circumstances the mere
prevention of child labor is not sufficient--the housing conditions
also should be remedied so as to give the children a more suitable
place in which to play, study and sleep, a better home in which to use
their leisure.
Again, a movement to prohibit street work by children should give
impetus to that which seeks to make the public school a social center,
and especially to that for public vacation schools. Many of the homes
of city children very largely lack the element of attractiveness which
is so essential in holding children under the influence of their
parents, and this want must be filled as far as possible by making
the school an instrument not merely for instruction, but also for the
entertainment and socializing of the entire neighborhood.
Again, the regulating of street trading should be undertaken jointly
with the movement to supply adequate playground facilities.
Playgrounds are not a municipal luxury, but a necessary. Children must
have some suitable place for recreation. It is not a function of the
street to furnish the space for play, and as children cannot and
should not be kept at home all the time, it follows that ground must
be set apart for the purpose. On these points a British report says:
"We have no doubt that insanitary homes and immoral surroundings, with
the want of any open spaces where the children could enjoy healthy
exercise and recreation, are strong factors in determining towards
evil courses in the cases of the children of the poor."[12] The need
for more playgrounds in Chicago was partially supplied by having one
block in a congested district closed to traffic during August, 1911,
so that children could play there without risking their lives, from
eight in the morning to eight in the evening. In providing this
emergency playground, Chicago has set an example that will undoubtedly
be imitated by other cities.
In this way the abolition of child labor in city streets would result
in benefit not only to the children, but to the entire community as
well. It would promote a general civic awakening that would make each
town and city a better place to live in, a better home for our
citizens of the future.