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only result of which will be to protect the law-abiding mills from being put at a disadvantage by the law-breaking ones, nor can we expect successful opposition to the demand for raising the age limit for girls. The South's sense of gallantry and chivalry is not a delusion, but a definite fact that all classes must reckon with. And in view of the disastrous physical effects of the steady employment in the mills of girls under fourteen-the future mothers of the South's citizenship-not only our sense of chivalry, but the deepest consideration of humanity and patriotism call for this next most important advance in North Carolina child labor legislation. In the name of humanity and womanhood, this reform will be won; and as for other policies of our Committee, it would be presumptuous for me to speak in advance of their meeting. The conservative policy of our North Carolina Committee, while it may not seem to have won all that a more radical course might have attained, has some manifest advantages. First, we must not go too far ahead of the public sentiment, and in the second place, the cooperation of fair-minded and progressive manufacturers has silenced or discredited the opposition on the part of the other manufacturers, who might have criticized our policies as meddlesome, besides getting better feeling and enthusiasm on the whole than would otherwise have been possible.

I think the future of child labor legislation in the South is very bright. If there are two points that the South emphasizes more strongly than anything else, they are its respect for womanhood and the racial supremacy of the whites, and both of these points are so much involved in this question that there seems to be no possible doubt of the success of the cause.

I remember that last summer I spent some time with one of the big plantation owners of the South. I rode out with him one morning last July over his plantation, and saw the negro children going to school with a teacher trained in Booker Washington's School in Tuskegee, all of them given ample educational facilities. That is one side of the picture. That afternoon we went to the cotton mill, and with the older people, there came out a multitude of white children, old-looking, some misshapen, humpbacked and sallow. They reminded me more of Markham's picture of "The Man With the Hoe" than anything I had ever seen. Of course, the child labor law of Georgia is only of recent adoption, but I was told that a boy of fourteen I saw had never been to school at all. The manager of the mill told me so frankly. Well, that illustrates my point about saving the white children. If we are to give children of the colored race the advantages of educational facilities and good health and try to keep the white children bound out in cotton mills, it will mean decadence for the South, and prove us untrue to its ideals.

CLARENCE H. POE,
Vice-Chairman.

REPORT OF THE OHIO CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE

The Ohio Committee is pleased to report most satisfactory progress in the work of improving the child labor situation in this state since the last annual meeting of the National Committee.

One of the most advanced laws which regulate child labor in this country has just been enacted by the legislature of this state and will go into effect July 1st, 1908. This measure is known as the Reynolds Bill, having been introduced by Representative Reynolds, of Cleveland, and during the period of its consideration by the legislature, its passage was earnestly advocated by the Ohio Child Labor Committee and by many friends of the movement, including members of several clubs and labor organizations. The measure provides, among other things, that no boy under sixteen and no girl under eighteen shall be employed more than eight hours in any one day, and that at least thirty minutes daily shall be allowed employees for lunch. Another one of the excellent features of this law is the provision for additional factory inspectors, eight of whom may be

women.

Considerable opposition to this law has developed among many of the manufacturers of the state, who complain of the eight-hour provision, declaring that business cannot be conducted successfully with a portion of the employees working eight hours and the rest ten hours. Some manufacturers have decided, it is said, to ignore the law with a view to bringing on a test of its constitutionality. It will be interesting to watch the developments of the situation during the next few months.

According to the terms of an agreement made with the National Committee, the Ohio Child Labor Committee is about to be reorganized on a basis which will afford all residents of Ohio who contribute to this antichild labor movement, the opportunity to keep closely in touch with the work being done by both State and National Committees and have, without extra cost, the double satisfaction of helping to improve conditions in their own state and at the same time supporting the cause in all the other states of the Union. This is to be accomplished by making every member of the National Committee in Ohio a member of the State Committee also, the membership fees to be forwarded, as heretofore, to the National Committee, to be disbursed as needed in the general work. It is expected that this arrangement will result in a large increase in the membership from this

state.

Respectfully submitted,

ALBERT H. FREIBERG,
Chairman.

REPORT OF THE CHILD LABOR LEAGUE OF WARREN, OHIO

Progress in local conditions is reported by the executive committee along two lines. It seems certain that some instruction in manual training and cooking will be introduced into our public schools next September. According to the last report of the investigating committee, and the report of the truant officer, no children of school age are at the present time employed illegally in factories.

During the past year, the League held two open meetings. The first

was devoted to a consideration of the physical, educational, moral and social interests of children of school age, and was addressed by a physician, the superintendent of public schools, a clergyman and the mayor. The second meeting, devoted to the subject of manual training in the schools, was addressed by one of the manufacturers, a physician, the principal of the high school and the superintendent of public schools. Various local organizations have discussed the subject of child labor, and the chairman of the League, by invitation, recently presented the subject to one of the local missionary societies.

While the League can boast of no statistical information as to the result of its work, the active co-operation of officials in the enforcement of the law regulating the early employment of children is indicative of efforts well spent.

The League has at present forty members, each of whom is an associate member of the National Committee.

Respectfully submitted,

PHEBE T. SUTLIFF,
Chairman.

REPORT OF THE PENNSYLVANIA CHILD LABOR ASSOCIATION

The Pennsylvania Child Labor Association, a federation of the local child labor organizations existing in several parts of the state, was formed in the spring of 1907. Inasmuch as the State Legislature is not in session during the present winter (1908), the organization of the state association has not yet been completely effected, each local organization being at present engaged in a campaign of education looking toward concerted action next winter.

I have been requested by the Philadelphia Committee and the Pittsburg Association to present the following outline of conditions in our state. As reported one year ago, through a court decision declaring two sections of its child labor law unconstitutional, Pennsylvania lost almost all that had been gained by the child labor law of 1905. We sank back to the affidavit evidence of age, the notary issuance of affidavits, the twelve-hour work day and the night work exception for the benefit of the glass industry.

A bill to remedy this condition was introduced last winter by the Pennsylvania Child Labor Committee, but met with the determined opposition of the chief factory inspector, who had introduced an opposition bill allowing the notary issuance of certificates, the glass house exception for night work, and introducing what is even at present not allowed by law, a system of ninetyday special twelve-year-old poverty permits, besides abolishing the present reading and writing test for beginning work. Both the committee's bill and that of the factory inspector failed to pass the legislature. The chief factory inspector thereupon, by interpreting the existing law according to his wishes, removed the reading and writing test as a condition for the issuance of an affidavit. Fortunately the Attorney General has ordered this restored.

One bright spot during the year's history was the passage last winter of a new compulsory education law, raising the age from thirteen to fourteen years (so that it agrees with the child labor law), giving truant officers the right to enter factories, and most important of all, requiring all employers of children to report four times each year to the superintendent of schools the name, age, place of residence and parents' names of every child under sixteen in his establishment. Few superintendents yet realize the powerful instrument the law has placed in their hands, to stop child labor within their districts. In one town, however, the borough of Olyphant, with a total school population of but 1,102, the school superintendent has used the new law with most commendable vigor, succeeding in forcing sixty-seven children out of collieries and silk mills into the schools. The average age of the boys was eleven and one-half years and of the girls twelve years. All these children had affidavits on file showing them to be either fourteen or sixteen years of age.

The association will have the benefit, in its campaign for next winter, of the important material now being gathered by investigators connected with the Pittsburg Survey.

FREDERICK S. HALL,

Secretary.

REPORT OF THE RHODE ISLAND JOINT COMMITTEE ON CHILD

LABOR

By invitation of the executive committee of the Providence Public Education Association, certain organizations in the state working in behalf of the betterment of conditions and opportunities for Rhode Island working children were asked to send delegates to a conference to consider the advisability of joint co-operation in some practical direction. The societies represented at this conference, ten in number, formed themselves into a joint committee, and, on January 30, 1908, held two public meetings— the afternoon meeting on the subject of "Child Labor," the evening meeting on "The True Ideal of a Public School System that Aims to Benefit All." Both meetings were well attended. Dr. E. W. Lord, secretary for New England of the National Child Labor Committee, and Mrs. Florence Kelley, of the National Consumers' League, were the principal speakers at the afternoon meeting, presided over by Bishop McVickar, Chairman of the Rhode Island Child Labor Committee.

The general interest in the meetings seemed to indicate an aroused public sentiment in favor of better legislation for the working children of the state. The joint committee decided to present a bill to the present Assembly asking that the limit of the day's work for children be put at seven p. m. instead of eight as at present, and that the privilege given mercantile establishments of exemption from the law for four days before Christmas and on Saturday nights be withdrawn. The bill also required that to obtain a working certificate a child of fourteen must show ability to read and write simple sentences in English, and that there be no sufficient reason to doubt that such child

was physically able to perform the work which it intended to do. It was asked that this bill go into effect September, 1909. The committee to which the bill was referred by the House, amended it to go into effect in September, 1910, and also inserted another amendment giving the factory inspectors the right to demand of proprietors or managers of factories satisfactory evidence that a child apparently under sixteen, and whose employment certificate is not filed, is actually over sixteen.

The bill as amended passed the House the latter part of April and was sent to the Senate and by them referred to the Committee on Special Legislation, where it now lies. The Assembly has taken a week's recess and it is possible the bill may yet get before the Senate this year. The women's clubs representing the State Federation have been loyally supporting the bill through their delegate on the Joint Committee, and the Child Labor Committee of the Consumers' League has also exerted itself in its behalf.

MRS. CARL Barus, Chairman, Joint Committee.

REPORT OF THE WISCONSIN CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE

The Wisconsin child labor law of 1903 had been in effect between three and four years when the biennial session of 1907 approached. Its enforcement had shown it to be one of the most useful and practical laws, and it seemed necessary to take a step forward.

Two features of the law had been often questioned: (1) Vacation permits in specified industries at twelve and thirteen years. (2) The granting of permits by factory inspectors. After long consideration and study, the Wisconsin Child Labor Committee decided that it could not recommend the refusal of vacation permits until municipal playgrounds and truant officers were greatly increased in number, nor any present curtailment of powers of factory inspectors.

But several weaknesses of our law we determined to correct by providing for: (1) A detailed and thorough dangerous employment clause. (2) An educational test. (3) A nine-hour day for children under sixteen; work forbidden after six at night or before seven in the morning, and some minor changes, such as requiring uniform application and permit forms, prompt report to the commissioner of labor on all applications or permits and increase in the test of physical efficiency. In the sharp contest that ensued, these minor improvements were lost in committee, but were not rejected on their merits and will later win their way.

The bill was amended in committee at the eleventh hour, by the insertion of a perishable goods clause demanded by the canning factory interests, permitting night work to children under sixteen "in cases where it is necessary to save perishable goods from serious damage." We hope to report

3By amendments, the educational requirement was stricken out, and employment of children in mercantile establishments was permitted up to 10 p. m. on Saturday; but even in this weakened form the bill failed of passage.

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