CHAPTER VIII_Child Labor in City Streets

THE STRUGGLE FOR REGULATION IN THE UNITED STATES

The economic activities of children in city streets, commonly called

street trades, are not specifically covered by the provisions of child

labor laws except in the District of Columbia and the states of

Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Nevada,

New Hampshire and Wisconsin. The laws of many other states as well as

of those mentioned, however, prohibit children under fourteen years of

age from being employed or permitted to work in the distribution or

transmission of merchandise or messages. If newspapers are

merchandise, then children under fourteen years would not be allowed

to deliver newspapers under the provision just stated. This raises a

nice question as to what is included in the term "merchandise." That

there is any distinction between newspapers and merchandise is

practically denied by the street-trades laws of Utah and New

Hampshire which provide that children under certain ages shall not

sell "newspapers, magazines, periodicals or _other_ merchandise in any

street or public place"; the question of delivery, however, is left

open by these laws. The Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia,

in the case of District of Columbia _vs._ Reider, sustained the

juvenile court of the District in its decision that newspapers are not

merchandise and consequently that children under fourteen years of age

engaged in delivering newspapers are not affected by the law.[140] The

judge of the trial court stated in his opinion, "No one will seriously

contend that the nature of the employment in the case at bar is at all

harmful to the child." The case at bar was the prosecution of a route

agent for a morning newspaper on account of having employed a minor

under fourteen years of age to deliver newspapers. This opinion is

typical of the misplaced sympathy so commonly bestowed upon these

young "merchants" of the street. In the case cited, the court

permitted itself to be drawn aside into an interpretation of the

letter of the law instead of viewing the matter in the light of its

spirit. The purpose of such a law is to _prevent the labor_ of

children, not to distinguish between closely related forms of labor.

Its object is to afford protection, not to provoke discussion of

purely technical points. The _labor_ of delivering merchandise does

not differ in any respect from the _labor_ of delivering newspapers

(the possibly greater weight of merchandise does not alter the case,

inasmuch as it is usually carried about in wagons); and as the child

labor law of the District of Columbia forbids the delivery of

merchandise by children under fourteen years at any time, it follows

that the delivery of newspapers by such children should not be

allowed, because the intent of the law is to protect them from the

probable consequences of such work. Moreover, the District of Columbia

law prohibits children under sixteen years from delivering merchandise

before six o'clock in the morning; yet, under the interpretation given

by the juvenile court, it is perfectly proper for a child even under

the age of _fourteen_ years to perform the _labor_ of delivery before

that hour, provided he handles newspapers instead of packages. The

inconsistency of this is only too apparent. The spirit of the law is

lost sight of in the close interpretation of its wording. This is one

of the obstacles always encountered in the movement for child labor

reform after prohibitory legislation has been enacted.

American legislation on street trading still clings persistently and

pathetically to the theory that uncontrolled labor is much better for

children than labor under the supervision of adults, and consequently

authorizes very young children to do certain kinds of work in the

streets on their own responsibility, while forbidding them to work at

other street occupations even under the control of older and more

experienced persons. This official incongruity must ultimately be

rescinded and replaced by more rational and comprehensive legislation.

The fallacy of permitting such a distinction on the ground that the

child is an independent "merchant" in the one case and an employee in

the other, must also be abandoned in favor of a more enlightened

policy.

_Present Laws and Ordinances_

The following table shows all the laws and ordinances governing

street trading by children in existence in the United States in 1911.

The city council of Detroit passed an ordinance in 1877 which forbids

newsboys and bootblacks to ply their trades in the streets without a

permit from the mayor. No age limit is fixed, no distinction is made

between the sexes and no hours are specified. Applicants for the

permit are customarily referred to the chief truant officer for

approval, and as a rule permits are not issued to boys under ten years

of age or to girls. An annual license fee of ten cents is charged, and

the license holder is supplied with a numbered badge which must be

worn conspicuously. Owing to its manifest weakness, this ordinance is

of little avail.

It will be observed from the following table that the common age limit

for boys in street trading is ten years. When we pause to reflect on

the import of this, it is hard to realize that intelligent American

communities actually tolerate such an absurdly meager restriction; yet

the movement for reform has progressed even this far in only a very

small part of the country--in most places there is no restriction

whatever! Some day, and that not in the very remote future, we shall

look back upon the authorized exploitation of the present period with

the same degree of incredulity with which we now regard the horrors of

child labor in England during the early part of the nineteenth

century.

STATE LAWS

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|ing, | | | |

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|ing | | | |

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1903 |girls, 16; |10-13 |10 P.M.|truant |ding to law

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|girls, 12; |12-15 | | |

|ing |12-15 | | |

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1909, as |girls, 18; |12-15 |6.30 |inspectors |imprisonment 10-

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Massachu- |Mayor and aldermen or selectmen may make re-|Max. fine $10 for

setts, 1902 |gulations of bootblacking and sale of news- |child; max. fine

as amended, |papers, merchandise, etc; may prohibit such |$200 or max.

1910 |sale or trades; or may require license to be|imprisonment 6

|obtained from them. School committees in |months for parent

|cities have these powers as to children |allowing, person

|under 14 years. |employing, or

| |any one furnish-

| |ing articles to,

| |a child to sell

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CITY ORDINANCES

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1902, by | girls, 14; | 11-13 | 8 P.M., | of licensed |of license

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| | | or | |dent

| | | P.M. | |

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| | | and 3 | |to Newark

| | | P.M. | |City Home at

| | | nor | |expense of

| | | 10 P.M. | |

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In an attempt to minimize the bad effects of street trading most of

the communities which have enacted laws or ordinances on the subject

provide for the issuance of licenses to boys, and in some cases also

to girls, in the belief that in this way the work of the children can

best be brought under some degree of control. However, this is merely

temporizing, although it affords an opportunity to gather facts and

undoubtedly marks a step toward a better solution of the problem. This

is brought out clearly by a recent British report on street trading:

"Our general impression, gathered in towns in which by-laws had been

made, was that, though in exceptional cases much good had resulted

from their adoption, on the whole this method of dealing with what we

have come to consider an unquestionable evil, has not proved adequate

or satisfactory. In many instances it has been pointed out to us that

a system of licensing and badging is but a method of legalizing what

is indisputably an evil, and that a set of by-laws, however rigorously

enforced, can at best only modify the difficulties of the

position."[141]

The social workers of Chicago, keenly alive to the menace of the

situation, bewail the lack of protection for street workers in the

following words: "The child labor law and the compulsory school law

and the juvenile court law form the body of protective legislation

which has been developing in behalf of the children of Illinois during

the past twenty years. By none of the three, however, except in so far

as street trading by a child under ten is counted an element in

dependency, is the street-trading child safeguarded against parental

neglect or greed, the vicious sights and sounds of the city street and

the demoralizing habit of irregular employment."[142]

_Opposition to Regulation_

The opposition to bringing the street trades under some degree of

restriction has come, as might be expected, from very interested

sources. In Illinois the newspaper publishers figured prominently in

the movement to prevent the passage of the street-trades measure

introduced in the legislature of that state at its session of 1911.

This has not always been the case, however, as the circulation

managers of the five leading daily newspapers of St. Louis wrote

letters to the legislature of Missouri favoring the passage of that

section of the child labor bill of 1911, which provided that boys

under ten years and girls under sixteen years should not sell anything

in any street or public place within the state. This provision was

enacted into law, but it is safe to say that if the rational age limit

of sixteen years for boys had been advocated instead of ten years, the

newspapers would have been most active in opposing this section. In

Cincinnati the circulation managers of the newspapers most affected by

the street-trades ordinance passed by the City Council in 1909 agreed

to its provisions before the measure was submitted to the Council,

and consequently it passed without opposition.

In New Haven and Hartford repeated attempts have been made to secure

regulation of street trading by means of city ordinances, and at two

sessions of the state legislature bills have been introduced which

provided for such restriction, but all these efforts have been

persistently fought by a leading newspaper of Hartford in which city

it has always been customary to have girls as well as boys selling

newspapers on the street. In 1910, a city ordinance was passed in

Hartford providing that boys and girls under ten years should be

prohibited from trading in the streets and that between the ages of

ten and fourteen years they should be licensed and not allowed to sell

after 8 P.M. The newsgirls were not banished from the street because

it was held that they were "a pretty good sort of girl after all," and

that so long as it could not be proved that they were _demoralized_ by

the work, they should be permitted to go on with it. In other words,

the city clings to the fine old American policy of delaying action

until some calamity makes it necessary.

The objections offered by interested parties to the by-laws drafted by

the London County Council at a hearing held in 1906, show that the law

of self preservation operates in England as in other quarters of the

Earth. News agents, employing little boys to deliver newspapers,

declared that conditions were not bad; that the work was healthful;

that the wages were a great help to poor parents; that they could not

afford to employ older boys; that the lads should be allowed to begin

at 6 A.M. and work not more than ten hours a day outside of school

with a maximum weekly limit of twenty-five hours; that to prohibit the

delivery of newspapers before 7 A.M. and after 7 P.M. would be a great

injustice to the trade; that boys wouldn't stay in bed even if 7 A.M.

were fixed as the hour for beginning work; that such work does not

interfere with schooling; that the boys are well looked after; in

short, that the by-laws would ruin them and bring starvation to the

children. One news agent in declaiming against the hours fixed for the

delivery of newspapers, insisted that the restriction would throw boys

out of employment and send them to trade in the streets with their

undesirable associations, apparently unmindful of the fact that

delivery boys themselves worked in that environment. The dairymen were

horrified at the limit placed on hours, urging that the little boys in

their employ should begin to deliver milk at 5 A.M., as early work was

beneficial and the wages useful to poor parents. Shopkeepers denounced

the by-laws as too drastic, because they would prevent such light work

as errand running at noon and casual employment in the evening after

7, resulting in hardship to both parents and children; one

acknowledged that if he were prevented from employing cheap labor his

business would suffer; another said that he employed a boy at noon and

also from 5.30 to 9 P.M., the work being light and the parents

satisfied, and that the training was good for boys. A fruiterer

actually declared that the limit of eight hours on Saturday would make

a boy valueless to him; another said he employed a boy for one hour in

the morning, from 6 to 9 in the evening, and also on Saturday morning

and evening, in running errands, and that the work was not heavy;

another employed boys after school from 6 to 9.30 P.M., insisting that

the work was good for them, as it kept them from the street and gave

them an insight into business habits.[143] It should be remembered

that all this work was performed by the children in addition to

attending school both morning and afternoon.

The testimony given before the British Interdepartmental Committee of

1901 by the secretary of an association representing many thousand

retail shopkeepers, would be amusing if it were not so sinister. He

presented the subject of child labor in a most favorable aspect,

declaring that the wages were needed on account of poverty in the

families; that the work was light and had a _very beneficial_ effect

on health because it was done in the open air; that good meals were

given in addition to cash wages and were _very beneficial_; that the

effect on the boys' character was _very beneficial_, as the work

cultivated businesslike habits and kept the boys from running the

streets, frequently affording promotion to the higher grades of

shopkeeping.[144] Another British Committee, investigating conditions

in Ireland, reported, "We found but one witness (a newspaper manager

of Belfast) to testify that the present conditions of selling papers

in the street were satisfactory and cannot be improved; and that

instead of tending to demoralize, they have the opposite effect."[145]

_Ways and Means of Regulating Street Work_

As to the control of street trading by children there are two methods

by which the desired end may be approached. First, a mutual agreement

as to self-imposed restrictions among the managers of all the business

interests in connection with which children work on the streets. This

method, however, can be dismissed from consideration at once on

account of its impracticability. Street work embraces many different

kinds of commercial activity, and as one manager is the competitor of

all others in the same line of business and is free to adopt such

lawful means of placing his wares on the market as he sees fit, it

would be clearly impossible to force any one into such an agreement

against his will. Moreover, new competitors may enter the field at

any time who would not be bound by the agreement of the others, and

consequently this would soon be broken by the force of competition

following the intrusion of these new parties.

Second, regulation by constituted legislative authority. This is the

more feasible method, and such regulation may be obtained from either

of two sources--the municipality or the state. There is a question as

to which of the two is the better for the purpose. Regulation by the

state has the advantage of making the provisions apply uniformly to

all cities within its borders and is obtained by no more effort than

is required to get an ordinance through the Council of a single

municipality. On the other hand, the municipal ordinance has the

advantage of being secured by residents of the community who are

intelligently concerned in the local problem and who will therefore

take an active interest in having its provisions enforced. However,

the good features of both these methods are united in the English

plan, a modification of which has been adopted by Massachusetts.

According to this plan the state fixes a minimum amount of

restriction and authorizes local authorities, including boards of

education, to increase the scope of restriction, and provides

penalties for violation of the same.

As to the degree of regulation, an ultra-conservative measure would

prohibit boys under ten and girls under sixteen years from selling

anything at any time in the streets or public places of cities, while

the age limit for boys is raised to fourteen years for night work. The

issuance of licenses to boys ten to fourteen years of age who wish to

engage in street trading is the usual accompaniment of such

restriction, and while ordinarily of little avail, it could be made of

some assistance to truant and probation officers in their efforts to

enforce the compulsory education and delinquency laws. The age limit

for boys has been advanced to eleven years by the School Committee of

Boston, and to twelve years for newsboys and fourteen years for other

street workers by the state of Wisconsin. But all efforts to secure

such regulation should be based upon the principle that street trading

is an undesirable form of labor for children, and consequently should

be subject to at least the same restrictions as other forms of child

labor.

_Probable Course of Regulation in Future_

American child labor laws usually contain a provision to the effect

that no child under sixteen years shall engage in any employment that

may be considered dangerous to its life or limb or where its health

may be injured or morals depraved. This is sonorous, but

ineffective,--the particular kinds of improper work should be

specified. In this list of undesirable forms of labor, street work

should be included. Great Britain has had far more experience in the

matter of regulating the work of children than any state of this

country, and, in the light of all this experience, her departmental

committee of 1910 has emphatically declared that street trading by

boys under seventeen and girls under eighteen years should be

absolutely prohibited. This should be our ideal in America. Commenting

on the banishment of young girls from the streets of New York City,

Mrs. Florence Kelley says, "If the law against street selling and

peddling by girls to the age of sixteen years can be thus effectively

enforced in a city in which the depths of poverty among the immigrants

are so frightful as they are in New York, there is no reason for

assuming that it is impossible to prohibit efficiently street selling

by boys."[146] Girls under eighteen years should never be allowed to

go out in the streets for commercial purposes, no matter how innocent

these purposes may be in themselves. One of the most important

features of the movement in America should be the absolute prohibition

of such work by minors under eighteen years at night; this is urged

because it is in harmony with the provisions of our most advanced

child labor laws and is fully justified because of the evil character

of the influences rampant in cities after dark, and because such night

work affords children a constant opportunity to cultivate their

acquaintance with, if not to know for the first time, conditions from

which every effort should be made to isolate them. For night messenger

service the age limit should be twenty-one years.

The enforcement of such regulation as is now provided by the few

states and cities which have given this subject any attention, is

variously intrusted to factory inspectors, police, truant and

probation officers, but in Boston the school committee has delivered

this task into the hands of one man who is known as the supervisor of

licensed minors. The Boston plan for enforcement seems to have given

better results than the common system of intrusting the enforcement to

officers already overburdened with other duties, but it is clearly

impossible for one officer to handle the situation unaided in a large

city--the plan would be considerably improved by the appointment of

several assistants.

"The licensing by the Boston School Committee of minors of school age

to trade in the streets of Boston came about through an act of

legislature in 1902. The need of supervision of minors licensed under

this act became very apparent, as their numbers increased and their

street influences reacting on their school life became better

understood. To meet this need a supervisor of licensed minors was

appointed whose duties are to secure the strict enforcement of the

law, regulations governing the various forms of street work of

children of school age, also to have general supervision of the

details of the licensing department."[147]

Human nature in children is not in the least unlike human nature in

adults. Just as we need an interstate commerce commission backed by

the federal government to supervise the large business affairs of men,

so do we need a supervisor of children's commercial activities in city

streets, clothed with authority by the municipal government.

The Boston plan is now being advocated for New York City: "In the

street trades the Committee recommends that the principle of

supervision of licensed minors, as practised for a number of years in

Boston, be adopted, and that an office be created in the Department of

Education that shall have supervisory control of all minors engaged in

street trades. It recommends furthermore that the minimum age limit

for licensing boys be raised from ten to fourteen years, and that the

legal limit for selling at night be reduced from 10 to 8, to

correspond more nearly with the provisions of labor legislation

dealing with children in factories."[148]

The first attempt to control the situation in New York City was

intrusted to the police, but the results were not satisfactory, as

they looked upon the matter with indifference. Subsequently the truant

officers also were charged with this duty, and in 1908 four men were

assigned to give their entire attention to this work between 3 P.M.

and 11 P.M., and at present eight men are so engaged, but no very

marked improvement is noticeable. In Rochester the enforcement of the

state law was brought about through the efforts of the women of that

city; both business women and shoppers were asked to consider

themselves members of a vigilance committee and to notify the board of

education and the police department by telephone whenever any

violations of the law were observed upon the streets. Within five days

so many complaints had been received that both the superintendent of

schools and the president of the board of education arranged a meeting

at which their attention was invited to the widespread disregard of

the law. As a result, steps were taken at once to insure enforcement,

and finally the board of education appointed one truant officer, and

the commissioner of police detailed a policeman especially for the

work of reporting violations.

In addition to providing an improved method of enforcement, efforts

have been made in Boston to deal more effectively with the difficult

problem of keeping street traders out of saloons, the licensing board

having issued an order to all holders of liquor licenses to prohibit

minors from loitering upon the licensed premises, more especially

newsboys and messenger boys.

The efforts of the school committee to regulate street trading in

Boston have been further supplemented by organizing a Newsboys'

Republic, which is described as follows: "Perhaps the most important

result of supervision so far has been the gradual introduction of a

plan for self government among the licensed newsboys through the

so-called Boston School Newsboys' Association. This association is

pledged to the enforcement of the license rules and the suppression of

smoking, gambling and other street vices, more or less common among

the street boys of certain neighborhoods. The association is run by

the boys themselves, through officers of their own choosing,

consisting of one newsboy captain and two lieutenants for each school

district; also a chief captain and general secretary and an executive

board of seven elected from the ranks of the captains. The general

duties of the captains and lieutenants are, first, to see that all

licensed newsboys of their respective school districts live up to

their license rules, and the principles of the association. Secondly,

to see that all boys not licensed shall not interfere with or in any

way hurt the business of the licensed newsboys. These duties are

performed through weekly inspections on the street, supplemented by

monthly inspection at schools, at which time branch meetings of all

the boys in each district are frequently held."[149]