sides of the Ohio River, and I believe it is no different there from that in other localities. I, therefore, am at a loss to comprehend the statements of inspectors who claim that employers do not misrepresent conditions; that they have never had employers make false statements about their minor employees, and that they have the hearty co-operation of the employers of their states. We have many broad-minded, philanthropic employers in the State of Ohio-men with whom it is a pleasure for the factory inspector to do business; but we could not truthfully state that the employers all over the state give us their hearty support. In fact, we have had to fight every inch of the way, and are still fighting. We have fought for legislation, and we have contended for enforcement. Our inspectors have gone into establishments expecting to find ideal conditions as far as child labor was concerned, only to learn that the few minutes' wait at the office was sufficient to allow the children to be sent out the back way. In conducting our squad campaigns, we have had instances of a number of inspectors entering a department store a few minutes ahead of the regular inspector for the district, who is generally well known; and on the arrival of the latter, the mad rush of the floor managers to get the children out while the inspector was detained in the office, resembled a panic. When this was done they found the store full of inspectors and themselves caught in the act of trying to deceive.

The age and schooling certificates are also a source of more or less trouble to the inspector. For while we have the able, cheerful and conscientious support of some of the school authorities in this feature of our work, there are too many who cannot see their way clear to take it up in the right spirit, and this makes it difficult for both employer and inspector.

These are only slight reminders of some of the obstacles the inspector meets in his work. His position is not an enviable one. He is frequently a public target for criticism. People interested in the children want to know what the inspector is doing that so many children are allowed to work in the factories. The adult worker cannot understand why his grievances are not righted, and there is a clamor from the general public for protection in places where they assemble for learning or amusement. At present the public buildings are receiving the attention of the entire Ohio department, but

this is not always accepted gracefully as a reason for failure to keep up the factory and child labor part of our work at the same time.

Public Responsibility

But, with all this, I am hopeful that we are about to see the dawn of better conditions in every respect. Public sentiment is becoming enthused, not spasmodically, but with a steady, growing, enduring enthusiasm, and it is this which will leaven the larger part of this whole question. It is the greatest essential, in my estimation. Public sentiment is what demands laws for the good of the people, and it is public sentiment that enforces them. It was public sentiment aroused, developed and stimulated by the labor organizations, and the women's welfare and patriotic organizations, that secured the passage of the eight-hour law for minors in Ohio; and it will be this same influence that will make possible a rigid enforcement of it.

The National Child Labor Committee, representing public sentiment, as it does, in a sort of semi-official manner, is a very important factor in the solution of the great industrial problems. It represents in large measure the crystallized sentiment in this work, and it is meet that we should come together in this way to learn of each other's experiences, difficulties, purposes, and principles, to the end that we may work together harmoniously and understandingly.

The labor organizations of the country have for years recognized the evils in the industrial world, and have fought valiantly against their progress. They have endeavored to put into practice and to teach the principles of the brotherhood of man. They have tried to scatter the seeds of altruism, brotherliness, and fair-play far and wide, and I feel that some of their efforts have fallen on good ground, and in due season we shall reap the harvest. Nay, if I read the signs of the times aright, the harvest is ripening, and the reapers are gathering in great numbers. Broad-minded men and women in all ranks of life are devoting time and energy to this vital work. People of leisure and wealth; people of learning and wide experience; college students, club women, labor and patriotic and political organizations, the church and the press, have all taken hold of this work in dead earnest, and its success is assured. We fully realize that factory legislation is really only in its infancy; that its possibilities are great, and while our progress may be slow at times, it will never stop altogether. There is always a goal to be

attained, and each and every one may have his share in the result, if he will.

"There's a fount about to stream,

There's a warmth about to glow,

There's a flower about to blow,

There's a midnight blackness changing into gray;
Men of thought and men of action,

Clear the way."

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CONSUMER

BY FLORENCE KELLEY,

General Secretary, National Consumers' League.

The prime responsibility of the consuming public is it own ignorance. At the close of every public meeting at which the aims of the Consumers' League are presented, people who look intelligent come to the speaker and say, "This is an entirely new idea to me. I never knew that things are as you describe them. What can we do about it?" The principal task of the League is, therefore, to enlighten men and women who are eager to do right if they can but know what is right. What then are the sources of knowledge available for the consumer to-day?

Some of them lie ready at hand. Everyone can see how small is the newsboy in the street. If, in buying papers, we give the preference to big boys, we use the obvious means to encourage big boys and discourage little ones in the newspaper business in the streets. And nothing could be more clearly our duty than this. If the public refused outright to buy papers from little newsboys as effectively as it long ago ceased to buy hair shirts and horsehair furniture, no little newsboys would be undergoing a daily process of ruin and demoralization upon our city streets.

Everyone can see, too, how big or little is the messenger and telegraph boy who comes to the home or the office. It costs only a postal card or a telephone call to protest to the management that we prefer to be served by big messengers, not little ones. Whenever enough people refuse to be served by boys as messengers, our telegrams and messages will be delivered by men as responsible and trustworthy as the uniformed letter carriers of Uncle Sam.

Everyone can see, in the stores, how big and how little are the cash children. If a child is undersized, I do not wish to be served by her, even though she may have working papers. She should be sent to the country to recuperate and attain the normal stature of a child of her age if she be really fourteen or fifteen years of age. To be served by undersized children is no better than to be served by underaged children. In both cases alike the consumer is the indirect

employer and can by no means escape a share in the moral responsibility for the employment.

When enough women act upon the conviction that girls should be in school-not in retail trade-until they are fifteen or sixteen years old, the weary little cash girl will follow the duel and the lottery into the memories of a sinful past.

The newsboys, then, and the cash children we can see for ourselves, together with the messengers and the lads who deliver goods for the milkman and grocer. The careless ordering of groceries to be delivered in homes in the evening is a source of overwork and cruelly long hours for thousands of delivery boys every Saturday night in the year. And there is the less excuse for this because these boys come directly under the eye of the housewife who is their ruthless indirect employer.

The second obvious means of getting knowledge of our unseen young servants, is the voluntary organization of consumers acting through visiting committees or executive secretaries. Thus the Consumers' League of the City of New York has had, for nine years, the same visiting committee who confer with merchants on the interesting subjects of hours, wages, seats, vacations, Saturday halfholidays, lunch and rest rooms, and all other points affecting the welfare of the young workers and the consciences of the customers who are their indirect employers.

This committee verifies and rectifies its information from the point of view of the young wage-earners themselves, by a widely ramified acquaintance in working-girls' clubs, vacation houses, settlement classes, and many other sources of information.

The National Consumers' League goes beyond the store to the factory, and in one narrow field of manufacture, that of women's and children's white stitched underwear, awards the use of its label to manufacturers who employ no children below the age of sixteen years, give out no work to be done away from their own premises, employ no one longer than ten hours in one day, and obey the state factory law.

At present it is, however, only a small part of the mass of young workers about whom we can get sufficient, trustworthy information through our own observation or by means of voluntary organizations. How then, are we to act intelligently about these other unseen young servants?