This is considered the most radical provision of the measure and is the one which will arouse the greatest opposition. Not only manufacturers of cotton in Georgia, but textile manufacturers of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and all the New England states except Massachusetts will be equally hostile and will stoutly maintain that such a law would ruin the American textile industry.

The canners will also oppose the bill because, as in all seasonal occupations, they desire to rush their plants to the maximum while the season is on. However, if it has been determined that the youth engaged in our industrial occupations ought not to be exposed for a longer period, the financial interests of particular industries must obviously submit to considerations of general welfare. This is not a new standard among us. The eight-hour day for children under sixteen years of age has in the past few years become so popular a means of protecting youth in industry that eighteen states and the District of Columbia now provide this limit for employment in mills, factories and other industries. In some instances this law is weakened by exemptions, as in Indiana and Washington, but on the other hand Porto Rico has been enterprising enough to limit. the hours to six per day for such children.

The American people have taken a curious way of expressing their belief in the principle of the eight-hour day, for a further analysis of the labor laws of our states shows that some twenty-six states and the United States Government itself have established the eight-hour day for adults on state work. A fair number of these states have also established the eight-hour day for employment of convicts in reformatories and penitentiaries. The Federal Government by recent law has taken a further step and declared that no private contractor shall employ men for more than eight hours a day on government contracts. Of these twenty-six states, thirteen do not appear in the list of those which provide the same protection for children under sixteen years of age while Connecticut and others provide that eight hours "is a lawful day's work," and Montana establishes the eight-hour day for engineers in mines. A total of thirty-odd states, the District of Columbia, Porto Rico and the Federal Government recognize the principle of the eight-hour day. It can hardly be considered a radical step therefore to apply the same principle in the few remaining states.

Schedule III.

States which limit labor of children under sixteen, to eight

hours a day in mills and factories:

Columbia, and Porto Rico:

Arizona,

Eighteen states, District of

Missouri,

Nebraska,

Nevada,

New York,

North Dakota,

Ohio.

Oklahoma,

Porto Rico (6 hours),

Washington (for girls),
Wisconsin.

Mississippi,

The following twenty-six states have an eight-hour day for adults on state work:

Among these states the following do not appear on the first list:

This makes a total in both groups of thirty-one states, the District of Columbia, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the United States.

The following states limit the labor of convicts to eight hours or

Thirteen states have limited the hours of work to eight a day for all persons in mines.

Night Work.

The prohibition of night work by children under sixteen has become so well established in the various commonwealths that we should anticipate no opposition to its extension throughout the country had not experience proven the contrary. When the National Child Labor Committee began ten years ago to advocate prohibition of night work for boys under sixteen in the glass industry we were met in every glass manufacturing state by the vigorous opposition of both manufacturers and workmen, who claimed that it would be impossible to continue glass manufacture with this restriction. Men in New Jersey urged that they could not compete with Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana and the other glass manufacturing states if this law were enacted. West Virginia made the same objection, as did Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Maryland. During these ten years this inhuman practice of exposing little boys to the excessive heat of the glass house at night has been abolished in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Kansas, leaving only Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia in the black list of states exploiting children at night in this industry.

But this advance in other states has apparently made no impression upon the manufacturers in these states. Last winter when a bill was introduced in Pennsylvania similar to the bill ten years ago, to prohibit night work by young boys in factories, precisely the same opposition was advanced-with this exception: that whereas ten years ago the Pennsylvania glass manufacturers said: "If you pass this law we cannot compete with New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Maryland, Wisconsin, Missouri and West Virginia,"

they are now compelled to say-"We cannot compete with Maryland and West Virginia."

For many years the glass industry has been heavily subsidized by the American consumer who has paid a protective tariff, in some instances as high as sixty or eighty percent. While it has thus been fed by the bounty of American citizens it has continued to exploit the health and educational future of American youth. If the glass industry requires even the tariff protection afforded by the Underwood Law and at the same time the sacrifice of American boys, we may as well frankly face the question whether in the interest of humanity we should not restore a higher tariff protection than it has ever enjoyed-high enough to protect not only the industry, but the children who labor in it. Or if this is too expensive, should we not face the alternative which any self-respecting business man would face of nailing up the shop and going into some occupation less brutal in its demands upon childhood?

The prohibition of night work for children under sixteen has become pretty well established among our states. It is forbidden in mills and factories in thirty-three states, the District of Columbia, and Porto Rico. While there will be opposition from several centers in which glass, textiles or other articles are produced at night, we are confident that the defense of such employment of young children has become so obsolete that this kind of opposition will make little impression on the fair-minded public. The schedule of states in which night work is forbidden under sixteen is as follows.

Schedule IV.

Night work forbidden under sixteen in mills and factories in the following thirty-three states, the District of Columbia and Porto Rico:

The point of view of those opposed to this standard is most frankly expressed in a recent article in the Charlotte (N. C.) Observer. In its issue of January 31st, 1914, the Observer says: "Not a cotton mill in the South could ship its goods out of the state in which they are made if this bill were a law."

The same concrete opposition is shown by the organ of the glass manufacturers in Pennsylvania and by champions of other special interests elsewhere. We are pleased to have the issue so clearly drawn.

If this statement is not true, the mills that are manufacturing cotton under humane conditions in Southern states should publicly repudiate this gratuitous defense of a condition of child employment which has become intolerable to the national conscience. If, however, the plea is true, it is time all Americans should know it. It is desirable that the cotton mill interests, which have for ten years professed to be leaders in child labor reform, but which have, through this entire period, opposed every specific attempt to improve the laws, should have their position clearly set forth. If the statement is true we are no longer left in doubt as to the motive which has killed every creditable child labor bill in the past ten years in any prominent Southern cotton manufacturing state and has as consistently opposed every such measure in Northern cotton manufacturing states. The opposition has been based on the belief that cotton cannot be manufactured in Georgia, the Carolinas, or Alabama under such conditions as would be established by this law. In other words, we are warned that we cannot use cotton manufactured in these numerous establishments built by American capital, protected by American laws, operated by American management and American workmen unless children under fourteen years of age are employed and unless children under sixteen years are worked more than eight hours a day. To make the objection concrete, we are asked to believe that a cot