The day book. [volume], June 16, 1914, LAST EDITION, Image 26

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
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FORBID AN ATROCITY LIKE CHILD LABOR,
SAYS JANE ADDAMS
Editor's Note. In an article in The Day Book Prof. Rock Sleyster gave
the amazing results of an investigation of 269 murders in the United States.
He showed that of 69-jjiurderers whose lives he had investigated, over 90
per cent had been compelled to go to work before they were 15 and that 55'
per cent were child slaves before they were 12. .
Here is an answer to the question: Why is the mUrder rate so high in
the United States?
, In the following article Jane Addams, the leader of Hull House and fa
mous advocate of social justice sums, up the child slave situation today.
. -
AN AUTHORIZED STATEMENT BY JANE ADAMS '
There is a bill awaiting passage in Congress that should become a fed
eral law.
It is the Palmer Child Labor Bill and it seeks to end this abuse by plac
ing it under the t jurisdiction of the government.
Manufacturers and the agents of manufacturers who depend for the
making of their products on child labor, are fighting the bill, struggling
against its passage with all the resources at their disposal, failing to reco'g
nize that the regulation and the abolishment of child labor will add to the
value of their products and increase their market possibilities because of
this added value. "
The Palmer Bill is drawn on the general lines of the Pure Food Law
and seeks to prohibit the employment of children under 14 yeaA in manu
facturing occupations and to limit
the work of children -under 16 to 8
hours a day.
The penalties imposed for the
breaking of the law are fines and the
Secretary of Commerce,, the Secre
tary of Labor and the Attorney Gen
eral constitute a permanent board
on rules and regulations and the Sec
retary of Labor is authorized to in
spect and prosecute for violations.
The law also provides that state fac
tory inspectors, truant officers "or
any other person" may bring com
plaints before the United States Dis
trict Attorneys and every separate
shipment is made to constitute a sep
arate offence.
There is nothing new in the body
of the proposed law except that it
puts child labor under the jurisdic
tion of the federal government.
Child labor presents an economic
problem that is intertwined with the
other problems of our communities.
It is caused by sheer poverty of par
ents, by the ambition of parents and
by the ignorance of parents -as well
as by the Law of Market which de
mands that a product be turned out
at the least possible cost to sell at
the highest possible price.
Then, too, the schools are some
times to blame. The children often
prefer working to spending their time
in school.
The parents 'among the poor, es
pecially those of foreigh birth, have
worked in their childhood at seasonal
occupations, tilling the soil, planting
the crops and reaping the harvest.
They cannot understand why their
children should not work also and
they send them to labor in factories,
in mills, in mines and in quarries
where the close confinement and the
wracking work results in a break
down of health and spirits, in prema
ture senility.
In the South, whole families ot
"poor whites" settle in the manufac
turing towns and live on the labor of
their children. Among this class are
the "dinner toters," fathers who
bring the midday meal to their chil-
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