The national child labor committee is interested in this bill because, after 10 years' experience in helping to get better laws in the various Commonwealths, we have found that it is difficult, if not impossible, to get uniformity of action in the different States. In many instances we find that the interests opposed to the legislation sought are opposed, not because they would be opposed on their own ground, but because they feel if they passed laws that would be more stringent within their Commonwealth they would be handicapped in competition with the same interests in other States. To some extent we believe that cpposition on this ground in not warranted. We take the position that child labor is the most extravagant form of labor to be employed ordinarily, and that the industries that are managed with reduced child labor, or that eliminate it, are working on more economical lines than the industries that employ child labor extensively and for long hours. But opposition to enacting laws in the States is just as vigorous from that point of view as though it were not sometimes founded on a fallacy.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the points I want to suggest to the committee are the following: First, assuming that Congress is able to pass such legislation as this, assuming it to be contitutional, I want to present to the committee the suggestion that the bill we are arguing for is not an unreasonable, drastic piece of legislation. That is the objection that has already been raised against the measure by those who do not wish this kind of legislation enacted. It has been said that we are asking the Federal Government to establish a standard that is entirely unique and does not exist to any extent, and therefore that it is unreasonable to ask Congress to take action which would not be upheld, or has not been upheld by the standards of any fair number of the people of a Commonwealth.

I wish to meet that argument with data that I have to present to the committee, but which I shall present now only in summary and which I will leave with the committee.

The first standard is the prohibition of child labor under 14 years of age in the ordinary manufacturing occupations. There are at present 40 States that have enacted legislation of this kind, either relating to a large number of industries or to certain specific industries. In addition, the law exists in the District of Columbia and Porto Rico. The bill next seeks to forbid the employment of children under 16 years of age in mines and quarries. There are 15 States that already prohibit such work by children of this age. I will not read the laws of these States, but they are contained in this brief. In addition to these 15 States there are 6 States that have such small mining and quarrying interests that there are less than a thousand people altogether engaged in the industry in any one of these 6 States. Therefore there are 21 States that either have the standard or have such slight industrial interests in the matter as to prevent any so-called practical objection to this legislation.

The third is the prohibition of child labor under 16 years of age for more than eight hours a day. The attitude of the American Commonwealths and of the Federal Government on the subject of the eight-hour a day is interesting in its present form and in its history. There are now 18 States that prohibit the employment of children under 16 years of age for more than eight hours a day.

This of itself presents a strong argument for making it a national standard, that 18 States have taken this position. But it is not as strong as the correlated facts that out of the 26 Staes that prohibit the employment of adults on State contracts for more than eight hours a day 13 of these States do not appear in the list of the 18 States to which I referred. That is to say, whereas 26 States forbid the employment of adults for more than eight hours a day on State contracts, only 13 of those are in the list of 18 States that forbid such employment of children under 16 years of age. In addition, there are 13 States that forbid the employment of convicts in our penitentiaries or other penal institutions for more than eight hours a day. Two of them limit the hours of work to six a day. Besides this, the Federal Government, after having for some years forbidden the employment of labor for more than eight hours a day on Government contracts, at the last Congress went even further and provided that no private contractor doing Government work should be permitted to employ labor for more than eight hours a day on private contracts or Government work.

We take the position that if eight hours a day are considered by 26 States long enough for every able-bodied adult man to work on State contracts, if eight hours a day are long enough for people nearly all adults, probably all adults to work on Federal contract work, either for the Government itself or for private contractors, if eight hours a day constitute a long enough day for convicts in our penitentiaries (and I suppose their limitation has not been established because of a desire to do kindness to those being punished, but on the same principle that if a man was sentenced to be electrocuted to-morrow morning at 9 o'clock, and at 8 o'clock the night before he attempted to commit suicide, we would send for all the doctors for miles around in order to save him and have the satisfaction of killing him officially. On that analogy I suppose the 13 States have established the eight hours a day in order to preserve the present efficiency of the laborers in the State institutions, and to preserve their efficiency for the future when they go into further punishments). If these hours are long enough for Government and State employees and convicts, we submit to you gentlemen that eight hours a day constitute a long enough day for children between 14 and 16 years of age who have just come out of school, who are in the very midst of that radical change that comes to every child at that time of life, going through the adolescent period, when they need protection and care, not only for their education and morals, but for their physical health.

The fourth standard refers to night work, and there are at present 33 States and the District of Columbia and Porto Rico that forbid the employment of any children under 16 years of age at night-a majority of the States.

A question at this point might reasonably be asked: If so many States have taken this stand-if within the past 10 years so many States have made such advances toward the standard sought in this bill-why, then, this relief from the Federal Government in accomplishing what seems to be a foregone conclusion in the future by State legislatures? The fact is, in a number of these States I have mentioned the law refers only to specific industries, and I am men

tioning them here simply to establish a principle as a standard and not as affording the protection that is sought.

The sentiment in many of these States where the laws are more sweeping is that while they would not fear protecting the children against these conditions, yet as a matter of fact the laws are ignored. In some of the States the departments of factory inspection are entirely lacking. The State will pass a law, but make no provision for the machinery to enforce the law. In other States the inspection departments are either so limited by small appropriations or such a small force or so tied down by other conflicting influences that their efficiency is greatly impaired.

The second matter to which I desire to call your attention just for the moment is one that will be presented ably by Mr. Brinton, of Pennsylvania, formerly United States district attorney, and Dean Lewis, who will present the lawyer's point of view regarding the constitutionality of this measure. I would like, however, to read to the committee the specific objections we have heard thus far on the ground of constitutionality. Assuming now that the standards we seek here are reasonable, that we ought to ask for their establishment, the next question is whether Congress can do it--whether it would be constitutional? I suppose there is no man who would undertake in this country to ask the question whether it would be constitutional or not. As one of your Congressmen said to me some time ago, when we first presented the matter here in Washington, nobody can tell at all until it goes before the "court of last conjecture." If Congress should hesitate to pass laws on the ground that they might be declared unconstitutional, we should never have built up the body of constitutional law that now exists.

Assuming the standards reasonable, here are the objections that have been raised, and we have endeavored to prepare a memorandum giving direct quotations from decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in answer to each one of those objections. I will not take the time to read those answers, but simply state the objections. The first objection is that it violates the rights of the States. The second objection that it infringes the right of free contract. In answer to that objection, may I ask your indulgence just to read a few sentences.

The CHAIRMAN. It is very obvious that in dealing with children there are no contracts that are binding. The State itself must provide the contract.

Mr. LOVEJOY. Yes; the only instance in which contracts with minors have been considered valid in recent years is between the guardian of a minor child and an employer in the form of an apprenticeship, and that is becoming so out of good form that in the recent Children's Code enacted in Ohio it has been left out on the ground that it establishes a kind of slavery. But justice McKenna, in the case of Hoke v. United States (227 U. S., 308), even denied that people have rights in the ordinary sense of the use of that word. He said, "It is misleading to say that men and women have rights. Their rights can not fortify or sanction their wrongs; and if they employ interstate transportation as a facility of their wrongs, it may be forbidden to them to the extent of the act of July 25, 1910."

The third objection is: Congress has no power to regulate the hours of labor. There is an historical answer to that showing the Supreme Court decision.

Fourth. It violates the fifth amendment of the Constitution, which provides that "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." It does not take life, but seeks to conserve it. It does not deprive of liberty. The only liberty of which it could be charged that the citizen is deprived is the right to make labor contracts with a child, and we should like very much to have the opponents of this bill set up the claim that they own property rights in the labor of children. That would be the strongest possible argument to be advanced for seeking this kind of legis lation.

Fifth. Congress has power to regulate interstate commerce, but this seeks to prohibit such commerce. It does not seek to prohibit interstate commerce at all. It seeks only to regulate the commerce that shall enjoy the facilities of interstate traffic. A man may presumably manufacture as many goods with adult labor as with child labor. Therefore the stream of his output is not interfered with unless as he may direct.

Sixth. It affects intrastate commerce as well as interstate com

merce.

Seventh. Granting that Congress has power to forbid interstate commerce in goods that would injure the consumer (as in the food and drugs act), there is nothing directly injurious in goods made by children.

Eighth. This bill would establish a precedent by which the power of Congress over interstate commerce would be unlimited.

I think it is obvious, in reply to this, that the precedent, as established, already exists; that Congress has proven, by the enactment of every law, that its power over interstate commerce is unlimited; that its discretion only applies to the kind of legislation and the extent to which it applies that power.

The last objection is this: The power of Congress to regulate or prohibit interstate commerce depends on the kind of injury such commerce might do.

It is admitted that if the goods injure the consumer, either physically or morally, or if they injure the producer, Congress may regulate; but here the producer is not injured or the consumer is not injured. Goods made by children may be just as free from taint as goods made by adults. We answer that it may injure the producer→→ that has already been referred to-that it also does injure the consumer, not probably materially, but certainly it injures the consumer morally. You may desire, as a citizen of the State of Maryland, to refrain from using the products of the labor of little children. You may wish to know when you go into a market whether your goods are free from that taint. If you succeed in getting the State of Maryland to devise a law to limit that kind of labor, it would give you some kind of relief, but not the relief you seek. But, as a consumer in the market, it does not protect you. There is nothing in the goods to show whether those goods are made of child or adult labor. Your State is powerless to protect you. You believe the employment of young children is detrimental to their health, to their educational advancement, and directly, therefore, to our standards

of American citizenship. You wish to uphold our citizenship in the interest of the general public. You are unable to do it because in buying the necessaries of life you become an unwilling and innocent party to the breaking down of our Government standards of citizenship.

How, then, can you be relieved from this complicity in a system that strikes at the very foundations of the Republic unless by invoking the only power that will bring relief, the only power that can control the kind of stream that flows through interstate commerce? The bill as it has been introduced by Mr. Palmer is a very brief, plain bill. We think there is no possiblity of misunderstanding the bill. There are many details that might have been introduced, and the committee may discover in an investigation of the measure that it is necessary to enter a little more in detail in the matters of administration. But these questions, I suppose, will be taken up by those who are versed in the law and the details of the administration of the acts of Congress. The bill seeks to place in the hands of three Cabinet officers the administration of the law, and under their direction, as a permanent board, gives the Secretary of Labor power to enforce the law, with the assistance of his deputies. It does not, however, seek to take out of the hands of State officials any function they have already performed. A State factory inspector, truant officer, or any other citizen may bring evidence before a United States district attorney for prosecution.

One criticism at this point has been made that no State factory inspector would be interested, because he owes no duty to the Federal Government; his duty ends in his own State. This in theory is a good objection. In fact it is not. We are not demanding that any State factory inspector shall bring evidence before any United States district attorney. The bill does not try to impose any new duties on State officials, but it gives the State official new privileges.

In the long experience that Mrs. Kelley and others have had in seeking the enforcement of the labor laws in different States evidence can be brought from many sources to show that improper factory inspection and insufficient enforcement of the law have often arisen from department demoralization and hostile local courts.

For two or three years the cannery industry came under my observation in the up-State districts of New York. In many counties the whole interest, not only the manufacturers in the small towns, but the farmers who furnished the raw material for the canneries, favored the exploitation of young children in canneries. A great many cases were brought into court, but, as far as I know, during the year or two of most vigorous activity on the part of the New York State Department of Labor to bring these cases to prosecution every case was turned out of court either by the judge, who would throw out the evidence, or by a hostile jury obtained in the county, which would fail to bring in a verdict, because the sentiment of the county was favorable to the breaking down of the law. In a situation like this you would think that if a State factory inspector could go before a Federal grand jury and obtain a true bill it would be possible to secure a prosecution and uphold the standards of the law, where now he finds the law borne down by a hostile sentiment, although the sentiment of the State at large may be in favor of the law.