105 EAST 22D STREET NEW YORK CITY CHILD LABOR AND SOCIAL PROCEEDINGS OF THE FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING ATLANTA, GEORGIA APRIL 2-5, 1908 NEW YORK CHILD LABOR AND SOCIAL PROGRESS CONTENTS PAGE COMPULSORY EDUCATION, THE SOLUTION OF THE CHILD LABOR .Lewis W. Parker 40 THE EDUCATION OF MILL CHILDREN IN THE SOUTH......Alfred E. Seddon 72 REPORTS FROM STATE AND LOCAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEES : CITIZEN'S CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.... 124 A. J. McKelway, Secretary for the Southern States. NATIONAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE: Abstract of Secretary's Report and Treasurer's Report, for year ended September 30, 1907..... PROCEEDINGS OF THE FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING: PROGRAM AND RESUMÉ OF THE MEETING: And brief addresses by Clifford L. Anderson, Felix Adler, Mayor Joyner, Asa G. Candler, Hooper Alexander, Mrs. Hamilton Douglas, Charles Bernhardt, Mrs. A. O. Granger, Kate Bar- THE BASIS OF THE ANTI-CHILD LABOR MOVEMENT IN THE IDEA OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION BY FELIX ADler, Ph. D., Chairman of the National Child Labor Committee. The National Committee holds at this time its first public conference in the Southern States. Let me, therefore, as its chairman, succinctly indicate its scope and purpose. The first point to bear in mind is, that the committee does not propose to supplant, but to supplement, the state and local committees; it does not intrude on the province of these committees. It stands ready to give aid and advice, when invited to do so. It has, as a matter of fact, stimulated the establishment of state and local organizations, where previously such organizations had not existed. Again, it is conducting important investigations, which would be beyond the power of the local committees. The National Committee is a kind of steering committee. It keeps steadily in view the fact that our country is passing more and more from agricultural into industrial conditions; and it seeks to prevent the recurrence of the evils incidental to incipient industrialism. I have said that the Child Labor Committee is national, not only in name but in scope and purpose. I make this assertion because all sections of our country are represented in it, because it deals with a problem common to almost all the states, but chiefly because this Committee is attempting to eradicate from among our people a practice which is uncongenial to American civilization. My object, in the brief time at my disposal, will be to indicate the deeper foundations on which the attempt to abolish child labor rests. That foundation is, in a word, the inconsistency of child labor with Americanism, with the ideas by which American civilization is characterized. American civilization is characterized by the spirit of fair play. It is not fair for the strong to take advantage of the weak. It is not fair for the adult to put the heavy burdens which he ought to bear on the weak shoulders of a child. American civilization is characterized by compassionateness to |