pass a law which will be in some respects a model for the rest of the Union. Thus far have we advanced in fifteen months in the way of legislation.1

Special Claim of Childhood

The consideration of the child, as a child, of his rights as a child, of his claims as a child to protection and care, is fast demolishing the old laissez faire philosophy which has so long been the curse of Southern political thinking. Of course the first step was the establishment of the common school system. I can remember when it was considered almost as much a disgrace, in Virginia, for a parent to send his child to the common school as to have to go to the poor-house himself. How far we have come in a few years, to the confessed duty of the state to provide an education for every child, white or black, and to the next immediate step, of compelling the ignorant and indifferent parent, to send his children to school!

The next demonstration of the leadership of the child was the agitation of the child labor question. It all dates in the South, from the beginning of this new, young, century of ours. Now there is not a single Southern state without a child labor law. Nor will it be long before legislation shall be perfected here, for compulsory education everywhere, with factory inspection provided. The employer of children will soon find himself so much an outcast, in public opinion, that he will fear to face a jury of his fellow-countrymen to answer for that crime. A few healthy prosecutions will have a marvelous effect in the South.

The distinction between childhood and manhood has begun to be recognized in other ways. The servant of this Committee, in the disbursement of a special fund entrusted to him, has been able to accomplish something along the line of distinguishing between the adult criminal and the child criminal, for instance. One of the encouraging facts connected with social remedial legislation. is that a small amount of time and effort and means in awakening public interest in a good cause, may do a vast deal of good, especially if there be no commercial interest directly opposed, as in the child labor reform. In North Carolina a reformatory for wayward youth has been established, following the example set in

Child Labor bill passed both House, but was vetoed by Governor Haskell, June 10, 1908.

Georgia the year before. Tennessee followed the example set in Georgia and North Carolina. Alabama, through the efforts of a member of this committee, Judge N. B. Feagin, passed a juvenile court law of a rather advanced type. Senator McDowell, who introduced and passed the child labor law in Mississippi introduced a juvenile court law, which will pass eventually. Two bills for the establishment of juvenile courts are on the docket of the Georgia Legislature. A reformatory for negro child criminals is being earnestly advocated in Georgia. These are but straws showing the direction in which the wind is blowing. May those who sow this wind be able to reap a whirlwind which shall sweep away the last vestige of the old penal systems that are a disgrace to our civilization; that shall wipe away the "blistering shams of the convict lease system." For the question will recur, if the child criminal may be reformed, why may not the adult criminal be turned into the way of righteousness instead of being hardened in his iniquity? The child is leading the way.

Protection of Womanhood

Another epochal step has recently been taken in the way of the protection of womanhood. The South Carolina Legislature, in fixing the sixty-hour week for children, added the same provision for women. The South Carolina manufacturers were advised by their lawyers that this latter provision was unconstitutional-there are always lawyers to be found who can discover the unconstitutionality of righteous legislation, though it does seem a little peculiar to have South Carolina lawyers invoking the aid of the Fourteenth amendment which they at other times hold to have been unconstitutionally adopted. To the credit of the South Carolina manufacturers be it said that they preferred not to contest that law. To the discredit of an Oregon laundryman be it said that he chose to contest a similar provision for that state. To the everlasting fame of a Boston lawyer, Mr. Louis D. Brandeis, the decision of the Supreme Court of Oregon was so presented before the Supreme Court of the United States, in a masterly brief, that the Supreme Court by unanimous vote, instead of the usual five to four, sustained the contention that the woman needs protection at the hands of the law. Said Justice Brewer in delivering this momentous decision: "The limitations which this statute places upon her (woman's) contractual powers;

upon her right to agree with her employer as to the time she shall labor, are not imposed solely for her benefit, but also largely for the benefit of all. Many words cannot make this plainer. The two sexes differ, in structure of body, in the functions to be performed by each, in the amount of physical strength, in the capacity for longcontinued labor, particularly when done standing, the influence of vigorous health upon the future of the race, the self-reliance which enables one to assert full rights, and in the capacity to maintain the struggle for subsistence. This difference justifies a difference in legislation, and upholds that which is designed to compensate for some of the burdens imposed upon her." Mark you, it was the child that led the way to this far-reaching decision, and the legislation which secured it. Similar legislation for protecting the vast army of women now in industry will follow. If I may be permitted to express a personal hope, some national organization similar to this should at once be formed, if this Committee is unable to undertake the work, to secure this protection for the women of our land. John Ruskin once said: “It is a shame for a nation to make its young girls weary." America is already thinking in its heart that it is a shame for a nation to make its women weary.

We say to those, who for whatever reason, of prejudice or of supposed self-interest, have been fighting the cause of child labor reform, "ye know not what ye do." I can fancy the complacence with which the employers of child labor all over the land heard of the birth of this Committee, less than four years ago. With not enough money for their expenses to buy one cotton mill or to secure a controlling interest in one coal mine, what can they accomplish? And yet thirty-four state legislatures have changed their laws or enacted new ones for the protection of the children who toil. Because the child stands out in the might of his innocence, the appeal of his very helplessness is irresistible. We would make overtures to those who have resisted the effort to save the children of this nation, not to invite further the condemnation of mankind.

In the most crowded mart of London there stood one day a wee bit lassie upon the curb-stone waiting for the thousand vehicles and teams to pass by that she might cross the street. A tall policeman took her by the hand, and with his other hand uplifted, stopped the traffic of London for the sake of the child. There may have been some grumbling and even curses on the part of teamsters,

but to have driven recklessly over that lassie's body would have been to create a riot. Better the policeman than the mob. And so we say, gentlemen, even if traffic, our sacred traffic, be stopped for a brief moment while we conduct the child along its appointed way, let the traffic stop. For the child means more to humanity than any material gain. Self-interest cannot withstand the universal interest in the welfare of the child.

CHILD LABOR IN NEW ENGLAND

BY E. W. LORD,

Secretary for New England, National Child Labor Committee.

The gospel of work has long been preached in New England. The New England Yankee has ever been noted for industry and thrift, and just as thrift has sometimes lapsed into parsimony, so the insistence upon universal industry may have been pushed to such an extreme that it has ceased in some cases to be a virtue. That children should not be without some employment has ever been a cardinal principle of our faith. We recognize that "Satan finds. some mischief still for idle hands to do," although we have also accepted somewhat grudgingly, it is true, that "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." The feeling that even the child ought to be usefully employed found early expression in the home life of our people, and in every well-ordered household even the youngest members of the family circle had their regular tasks to perform. As in the average home there was much that children could do, Satan's opportunities to furnish diversion were reduced to the mini

mum.

In no part of our country did the dawn of our modern industrial system introduce greater changes than in New England. There as elsewhere, the old occupations of the home have gradually been reduced in number, and, in the towns and cities at least, have now to a great extent disappeared; but the feeling of the people towards the inherent danger of idleness has remained much the same and has resulted in the prompt transfer of the workers from the home to the factory. The child who had little to do at home must naturally turn to whatever line of work might be possible outside, and the factories, which were rapidly established throughout all New England, offered in most cases the first available opportunity for what seemed to be profitable employment.

The history of the introduction of child labor and the struggle for its restriction are no different in New England than elsewhere. Maine and Massachusetts early adopted restrictive legislation, forbidding the employment of children under twelve years of age,