Solution of the Child Labor Problem/Chapter 1
The child labor problem is generally looked upon as a fourteen-year problem. The dividing line between the land of schooling and the land of work has been set at fourteen, hence the child of thirteen and eleven months has been rigidly excluded from the factory, while to the child of fourteen and one day, the factory doors have opened wide. The fourteen-year limit has been recognized and accepted by the state legislatures, and everywhere laws exist which on the one hand prohibit the child under fourteen from working, and, on the other hand, require attendance at school up to the age of fourteen. By common consent, expressed through widely adopted legislation, fourteen has been made the open sesame to the industrial world.
Practically all of the states place the minimum limit at fourteen, for one or more of the employments which children enter,—factory, mine, store, messenger service. In nearly all of these cases, however, the period from fourteen to sixteen is surrounded by certain restrictions, such as a prohibition of night work, of work for more than fifty-five hours a week, of work in dangerous trades, and the like. The fourteen-year minimum is, however, a generally accepted standard, and it is on that standard that the campaign for the passage and enforcement of legislation is being waged.
The age of fourteen has been made a fetish, and it is held constantly in the public eye.
The period of legislative protection is being extended, in a few cases, from fourteen to eighteen. Laws have been passed in eleven states which prohibit employment under eighteen in specific industries, at night, and for more than a stated number of hours per week.[2] The eighteen-year statutes, however, represent the exception. The fourteen-sixteen-year standard is the one generally adopted. Even the laws providing eighteen as a maximum limit of protection, set fourteen as the minimum. "Could the fourteen-year limit be enforced, the child labor problem would be solved," thinks the man on the street. Should this attitude become general, a point will eventually be reached at which fourteen will be regarded as the "right age."? The public will believe implicitly that child labor under the standard age limit of fourteen is "wrong"; while child labor over that age is "right." The basis for the popular impression has already been established by making compulsory education laws, and laws prohibiting child labor, revolve about fourteen as planets revolve about the sun. Already the age is generally accepted; a continuation of the present policy will lead to its being reverenced; and any attempt to break away from this fetish will meet with as many obstacles as are encountered in an attempt to persuade savages to cease from worshiping their Sun God.
II. Maturity and not Age the Real Test
What is the purpose in setting an age limit for child labor and why was that limit set at fourteen?
An age limit seems necessary in child labor legislation, although it is extremely unsatisfactory. The real test of preparedness to work is not age but maturity. It must be perfectly evident, to even the casual thinker, that the years fourteen-sixteen have no relation to maturity, and therefore have no rational basis for their existence. They coincide but roughly with the period of puberty in children, and with nothing in the law. At fourteen the body is still so plastic that it may be injured temporarily or permanently by work. Fourteen does not in any way coincide with maturity, yet the constantly dropping water of agitation has worn away the stone of indifference and—"children under fourteen should not work"—represents public sentiment. Should this attitude persist, a point will eventually be reached where the indifference to all child labor legislation, so prevalent in the past, will have been replaced by a stratum of prejudice in favor of fourteen, harder to penetrate than the original indifference.
A dozen years ago, such child labor laws as were in existence, were based on a twelve-year minimum. Twenty-five years before that, children of ten might legally go to work. As wealth increased and the necessity for the work of the child diminished, the standard has been gradually pushed upward, until in 1910 it has reached fourteen. Is there any reason to believe that by 1930 it should not in the normal condition of social legislation have risen to sixteen or seventeen or even eighteen?
An eighteen- or nineteen-year minimum, with protection to twenty-one, would be far more rational than the present fourteen-year minimum with protection to sixteen. At eighteen or nineteen the body is usually mature, while twenty-one is the legal limit of maturity. If this standard were adopted, the state would forbid work until physical maturity, eighteen or nineteen, and protect the worker until legal manhood, twenty-one. The age of twenty-one is at best an arbitrary one, but its adoption as the upper limit of child labor legislation would have the advantage of making coincident the age of legal majority and the age of legislative protection.
"But," exclaims the man on the street, "you couldn't adopt such a standard now, it would throw millions out of work into hoboing, prostitution, and starvation. And think of the widowed mothers, dependent on their children for support. You couldn't enforce such a law."
Certainly not. So long as the man on the street believes that such a law cannot be enforced, it is unenforceable. Legislation which affects the real or imagined interests of capital requires a strong public opinion to pass and enforce it. What, then, is the advantage of the discussion? Merely this. A child labor standard of eighteen-twenty-one does not appear to us nearly so extreme as a standard of fourteen-sixteen appeared to the man on the street in the United States in 1850, or in England in 1800.
The whole thought of the early nineteenth century was opposed to any form of industrial regulation, and when it was proposed to correct unspeakable child labor abuses, through legislation, a howl of protest was raised. After a long struggle, the first English Child Labor Law was passed in 1802. Although it related to apprentices only, regulating their work up to the age of twelve, in an inadequate and insufficient manner, it was looked upon as the first step toward socialism and chaos.
With the development of modern productive machinery, the nation piles up year by year a greater and greater mass of wealth in the form of a social surplus. As this surplus grows, the community is better prepared to keep its children away from monotonous toil until they are so mature that the development of their bodies and minds will not be seriously impaired by it.
The existence of a social surplus makes possible a long, well-rounded childhood. The increase of the social surplus makes possible a gradual extension of the period of childhood, and a fuller development of its possibilities. Why should these children work? We are already creating enough wealth for all. A point in the development of the social surplus has been reached which would amply justify the raising of the child labor age at least one and perhaps two years. Every effort should therefore be made to prevent further emphasis on the fourteen-sixteen year standard.
The age test is, however, at best unsatisfactory. As previously indicated, the child labor problem is a problem of maturity and not of age. Stanislaus Mattcvitcz may say in response to a question, " Yes, me fourteen," and he may prove his age by producing his passport or his immigration record, but has he proven his fitness to work? By no means: He has not proven that his body is mature, or that his mind will not be atrophied by five years of intimate contact with hides in a leather factory.
On the other hand, snppose that a competent expert has examined his bone and muscle structure, ascertained his weight and height, and tested his mental development. These things are definite and indisputable, and prove what the "me fourteen" argument can never prove; mature preparedness for work.
No age limit can be fixed which will apply fairly or even adequately in a cosmopolitan country like the United States. Some races mature earlier than others, and in every race, individuals differ in their point of maturity. Some children of sixteen are as well prepared for work as other children of twenty. The real criterion is not, therefore, "How old are you?" but "Are you mature?" Unfortunately scientists have never come to an agreement as to an effective test of maturity. Weight and height are some index; the hardness of certain bones is another index; and the growth of hair on the face and body is still another. As to which one, or which combination of these indices, should be accepted as a rational basis for judging of the maturity of a person, there is no general conclusion.
Irrespective of the method of applying it, the true ultimate test of fitness to work will be maturity, and all immature children will be excluded from the factory, not because their birthday record does not show high enough, but because either in mind, in body, or in both, they are immature.
The standard previously suggested of an eighteen-year minimum with protection to twenty-one would be prima facie evidence of maturity, but it would be by no means final. The ultimate test must inevitably be physical and mental capacity to withstand the deaden- ing influence of monotonous factory toil.
III. Aspects of the Problem
There is a child labor problem and it is not, as generally supposed, merely a problem of the child. It is a problem of many aspects, phases, and viewpoints, which can best be emphasized by a few illustrations picked up in the world of working children.
One bitter morning in March the snow whirled around the corner of a silk-mill. In the lee of the corner, with her thin shawl wrapped about her head and shoulders, stood a child who looked scarce thirteen. Her face was weary, though she had just hurried from bed into her clothes, and, after gulping down her breakfast, had run to the mill, "So's not to get docked for being late." But the night shift was slow in "getting up its ends." Half-past six came, but the spindles still whizzed on. Meanwhile the damp snow played havoc with the broken shoes.
"How old are you?"
"Fourteen."
"Fourteen? You look awfully small for fourteen. How long have you worked in this mill?"
"Three years and a half."
"Well, how old were you when you started?"
"Thirteen."
When this girl began work the legal limit was thirteen; meanwhile the legislature had raised it to fourteen; but the child's knowledge of mathematics was not sufficient to show her that thirteen plus three and one-half did not make fourteen.
At last the night shift "came off" and this frail bit of humanity, who had worked three and a half years between her thirteenth and fourteenth birthdays, walked stolidly into the mill to stand for eleven hours in front of a spinning-frame, listening to the whirring of the machinery and watching the gliding of the threads.
That side of the picture, the child's side, is the one most frequently emphasized, but there are other aspects of equal importance. A boy of eighteen had been working for seven years in a soft-coal mine.
"Yes, I can write,—only my name, though. Read? Sure; I read the paper most every day, but it's slow work."
"Didn't you go to school? "
"To school? Did I? Well, I guess I did. It was in one door and out of the other. How is a feller going to school if he starts at eleven in the mines?"
The school is also interested in child labor.
Then there is the manufacturer's side of the child labor problem. On one mill hang two signboards,—
| Small Girls | Small Boys |
| Wanted | Wanted |
For years the signs have hung there, until they are old and worn, and meanwhile the manufacturer has secured and is still securing the merchandise which he desires. Every morning the children come trooping along the road and into the mill. Many of them answer well to the description of the sign. They are "small." While this mill is the exception, and while few advertisements for "Small girls" are seen, yet the low standard set by the "small girl" manufacturer must, in the competitive struggle, be accepted by other manufacturers; hence the "small" ones secure employment everywhere.
So, from many sides, the child labor problem is a problem. It is a problem to the child who works; to the home which sends its children into the mills; to the schools which fail to educate the working children; to the manufacturer who wants "small girls and boys;" and to the society which demands and gets cheap goods.
IV. The Extent of Child Labor
It is of little interest and of no practical importance that the census of 1900 places the number of children between ten and fifteen engaged in gainful occupations at a million and three-quarters, while certain critics state that it should be two millions. If the census figures are accepted, seven-tenths of the child laborers were boys and three-tenths were girls. But these definite figures are, as such, matters of little importance, because if there were but a hundred thousand, or even a hundred children, whose lives were stunted and misshapen by premature work, the conditions would imperatively demand recognition and reform. The only facts worth remembering in this connection are that the child laborers are very numerous, and that about one-third of them are girls.
A discussion of the extent of child labor should include a distinction between the work of children on the farm, in the home, and in the factory, mill, and mine. Three-fifths of all of the child laborers are engaged in agriculture, particularly in cotton-picking in the Southern States. As yet no attempt has been made to legislate against agricultural child labor. There has been considerable agitation regarding the child berry-pickers in the trucking states; and in some states, work in the canneries has been prohibited. Agricultural labor as such has not, however, been touched, first, because of the assumed educative value of the work; second, because the farmers hold the balance of power in many if not most legislatures; and third, because domestic service and agricultural labor are generally regarded as of private concern and not subject to legislation.
What are the relative merits of these arguments?
A child on the farm with his father or in the house with her mother will in a majority of cases receive an elementary training infinitely superior to the training afforded by any school. As the majority of children engaged in farm labor and domestic service are still working with their parents, it is neither possible, nor is it immediately desirable, to legislate regarding them.
Domestic service and farm labor are, however, undergoing a process of evolution. It is one thing to work at odd jobs around the farm, under the direction of a father, and quite another to pick strawberries twelve or fourteen hours a day under the eye of a boss. One occupation is educative; the other is monotonous and as physically harmful (save for the fresh air) as any factory toil. It is one thing to help mother around the home, making beds, dusting, and the like; and quite another to slave, half-fed, in the kitchen of a boarding-house under the hawk-eye of its mistress.
In a recent address[3] Dr. Woods Hutchinson makes the statement that some forms of farm work are as badly in need of supervision as is the factory work,—a statement which is greatly strengthened by a glance at the following quotation from Dr. Edward T. Devine:
"On Wednesday night of this week, I happened to sit at dinner by the side of a gentleman who lives in Brooklyn, and raises cotton in the Panhandle of Texas.… I asked him how early the children began to work, and he said without hesitation, 'at six and younger.' 'I recall,' he said, 'one boy of six who earned fifty cents a day the season through.' He had described the way the bag is slung about the neck and dragged on the ground behind so that the picker may use both hands.
"I inquired how big a boy had to be before he was strong enough to drag one of these bags, and he said, 'Well, you see we made the bag to fit the child.' I then inquired about the schools.… His answer was, 'It is a pretty rough country. School is kept during the months where there is nothing to do in the fields.… I admit,' said he, 'that is not ideal, but there is a saying down there that ignorance and cotton go together.'
"Finally, I asked him, 'And what is the effect of cotton picking throughout the season on the health and strength and growth of the children?' A thoughtful look came into his face (I honestly believe he had never thought about it before), and he said, 'Of course, it destroys their vitality.'"[4]
Thus far to a limited extent, but nevertheless surely, farm labor and domestic service are ceasing to have their old significant relation to home life. As they broaden out into the larger spheres of labor-employing agencies, they must and will eventually become the subjects of legislation aimed to correct any abuses which may exist in them.
In 1900, of the 1,750,178 working children between ten and fifteen,
| 60.7 % | were in agriculture. |
| 16.2 % | were in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. |
| 15.9 % | were in domestic service. |
| 6.9 % | were in trade and transportation. |
| 0.2 % | were in professional service. |
Thus there is a wide variation in the percentages of children engaged in different occupations.
So, too, there is a variation from state to state. The Southern States lead in the total amount of child labor, but a large proportion of their children are engaged in cotton picking. On the other hand, in the great manufacturing states there is a smaller total of working children, but a larger proportion of them are engaged in manufacturing.[5] With the exception of Pennsylvania, the Southern States have the greatest totals of child laborers, while the great manufacturing states have the largest number in manufacturing. As "Child Labor" usually refers to manufacturing rather than to agriculture, the real relation of the Northern States to the problem is apparent.
The official authority which comes into the most direct relation with the child labor problem is the Factory Inspection Department. In some of the more advanced states, the issuance of certificates has been placed in the hands of the school authorities, but even in such states, the factory departments have the largest measure of responsibility for enforcing the law. The statistics furnished by the factory departments are interesting, if not conclusive. The work of the factory inspectors is usually curtailed by lack of either inspectors or of office force, or of both. The resulting figures show, with some degree of accuracy, the changes from year to year in the amount of child labor, and they justify the statement that the problem is one of serious magnitude.
V. The Child as a National Asset
Into this problem, with its peculiar setting and its broad interests, enters the "Child Labor Reformer," the "Fanatic," the "Deluded Social Agitator," emphasizing the human side of industry and the statistical side of the child labor question, and clamoring for legislation and later for its enforcement. Is he justified in his demand?
The human appeal of the Reformer-Fanatic-Agitator is just and strong. Unquestionably the children are abused. Unquestionably they need protection. As has already been indicated, the statistical side of the problem is insignificant. What matter whether the true number of child workers be seventeen hundred thousand or twenty hundred thousand? Neither figure is within the bounds of definite comprehension and both are intolerable in their vastness. The child labor question is a question not of statistics, but of children. So long as children are wrongfully at work, there will be need for child labor reform.
The reformer is often extreme; some of his statements are unwarrantable; and his figures are at times ridiculous. But one thing the reformer has done, and that one thing not only justifies his existence and activity, but makes of it a boon to his country,—the reformer has awakened the public conscience to a realization of the fact that the child is a national asset.
The child is a national asset, an asset of the first magnitude. Slowly the public mind is being awakened to the fact that whether the national ideal be the building of battleships, the painting of pictures, or the manufacturing of undershirts, the one really essential thing to the attainment of the ideal is a high type of citizenship. A condition precedent to high type citizenship is protected childhood.
Many problems have been discussed in recent years. There has been talk of temperance, of labor unions, of wages, of religion; but no one has so direct a bearing on the future as the problem of child labor. The problem itself may not be so important, it may not bear on a large portion of the population, but the ultimate result of the agitation has been a widespread interest in children. The child labor problem is a type of the modern social problem, the agitation of which has led to a real interest in childhood,—hence, in the future.
- ↑ Republished by permission of Educational Foundations.
- ↑ Handbook of Child Labor Legislation, 1909. National Consumers' League, 105 E, 22d St., New York City.
- ↑ "Overworked Children." By Woods Hutchinson, M.D. Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference of the National Child Labor Committee, January 1, 1909. P. 119.
- ↑ "The New View of the Child." By Edward T. Devine, Ph.D. Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting, National Child Labor Committee, 1908. Pp. 4-5.
- ↑ Census of Manufactures, 1900. Part ii, p. 987.