is not obtainable the physician should certify further that the child has reached the normal development of his age. When a child leaves any position, his employer should be required to return his work permit to the office where it was issued instead of giving it to the child. Medical Inspection of Children at Work.-Medical inspection of children at work should be established and medical inspectors should have power to forbid the employment of a child in work for which he is not physically fitted. Enforcement. The staff of inspectors should be increased and attendance officers and juvenile court probation officers should have right of entry to all establishments where labor is employed subject to state regulation. Penalties. The minimum penalty for a first violation should be fixed at $25. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Age Limit. The 14 year age limit should be extended to include all the commonly specified gainful occupations. All exemptions and special permits should be abolished. A 16 year limit should be established for specified dangerous occupations and an 18 year limit for extrahazardous occupations. Street Trades.-The age limit for all forms of street trading should be raised from 10 to 14 years for boys and from 16 to 18 years for girls. Boys under 16 should be forbidden to trade after 8 P. M. (instead of 10 P. M.). The night messenger service (9 P. M. to 6 A. M.) should be closed to all under 21 years. Hours of Work.-Regulation of hours should apply not only to all under 16 years but to girls 16-18. Night work should be forbidden to such children from 6 P. M. to 7 A. M. instead of 7 P. M. to 6 A. M. School Attendance.-School attendance should be made compulsory for all under 16 years except those 14-16 who are legally and regularly employed. School Census.-Provision should be made for the taking of a census of the school population each year. At present, the decennial federal census furnishes the only information available relative to the children of school age in the District. Work Permits.-Work permits should be required not only of all under 16 but also of girls 16 to 18 years. No certificate should be issued to a child who has not completed the 5th grade nor until a physician has passed on the child's physical fitness for work; and where documentary proof of age is not obtainable the physician should certify further that the child has reached the normal development of his age. When a child leaves any position his employer should be required to return his work permit to the office where it was issued, instead of giving it to the child. Medical Inspection of Children at Work.-Medical inspection of children at work should be established and medical inspectors should have power to forbid the employment of a child in work for which he is not physically fitted. Penalties. The minimum penalty for a first violation should be fixed at $25 and for a second violation at $50. NEARLY TWO MILLION CHILD WORKERS Under Sixteen Years To-day. Placed in a Procession Twelve Feet apart they would reach from San Francisco to Boston and thence to New Orleans This Procession Is Recruited from More than One Hundred Occupations. NATIONAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE You have already proven yourself so deeply interested in the work of the National Child Labor Committee that we are now going to ask you to join in the celebration of the Tenth Anniversary, and we are making the invitation unique by not asking you for money. Next April 14th dates the Tenth Anniversary of the birth of this Committee. During the ten years the membership of the Committee has increased from 50 to 7,500 members. Thirty-five state and local committees have been organized. The necessary expenses have increased from a budget of $13,000 the first year to $60,711, and the printed matter issued by the Committee has increased from a few leaflets at the beginning to 6,073,375 pages in the present year. TEN YEARS OF PROGRESS At our Tenth Anniversary next April we shall be able to record that largely through the efforts of this Committee the child labor laws of all states except two have been revised and improved; that exact knowledge as to the conditions of working children exists, whereas these conditions were then unknown; that the causes, effects and methods of prevention of child labor have become matters of scientific study and treatment; that this Committee has brought about a recognized standard of protection of working children by drafting a Uniform Child Labor Law for the several states which has been approved unanimously by the American Bar Association and by many civic, religious and educational bodies; that as the direct result of our campaigning the Federal Government has now in successful operation the Children's Bureau. Since 1904 every state in the Union except New Mexico has passed laws relating to child labor or compulsory school attendance. In 1904 only fifteen states had a 14 year age limit for children working in factories; to-day thirty-four states and the District of Columbia have such a limit, and California, Montana and Ohio have set a higher standard. The number of occupations outside of factories generally included in the 14 year age limit has increased. In 1904 only eight states prohibited night work by children under 16; to-day thirty-two states and the District of Columbia have this provision, and sixteen states and the District have limited the working day for children under 16 to 8 hours. Since 1904 the night messenger service has been regulated by special laws in seventeen states; seven have closed it to persons under 21 years and ten to persons under 18, in addition to California which forbids all employment at night of persons under 18 years. Twenty-six states have so strengthened the requirements concerning a work permit that there is reasonable assurance that a child below the legal age will not receive one. Inspection of child labor has been established, reorganized or made more efficient in every state except Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota and South Dakota. Certain forms of child labor that were in 1904 entirely unregulated are now recognized as harmful and are included in one or another state child labor law. Thus in New York State agricultural work for anyone other than the child's parents is forbidden to all under 12 years and boys 12 to 14 may gather produce only six hours a day; and in Tennessee agriculture is included in the gainful occupations forbidden to all under 14 years during the school term. The New York child labor law now forbids tenement home work by childern under 14 years. The age of children in street trades had before 1904 been regulated only in Massachusetts and New York; to-day twelve states and eight cities besides the District of Columbia have set an age limit for street traders. This is a record of achievement which we are sure is pleasing to all our members. THE FUTURE The greatest work of this Committee is in the next decade rather than in the past. Exemptions to the 14 year age limit for poor children or for special occupations are permitted in many states. These must be abolished. In no state does the 14 year limit apply to all common gainful occupations at all times, and no state has closed all street trades to boys under 14 and girls under 18 years. There must be no weakening in the fight until this minimum standard becomes an established fact. A 16 year limit for all dangerous occupations and an 18 year limit for extra-hazardous work is effectively established in a few states. They must be made universal. Thirty-one states allow immature boys to face the moral dangers surrounding night messenger service. A 21 year age limit throughout the country is urgently needed. No state law measures up in all respects to the standard set by the National Child Labor Committee in regard to proof of age, physical examination, educational requirements, and method of issuing work permits. There is no state in the Union which regulates the hours of work of all minors, and provides for medical inspection of all workers under 21 years. Educators and social workers are saying that there is no gainful occupation which a child under 16 years can enter without harm. The National Child Labor Committee must bring this question before the people for discussion. In the majority of states, provisions for inspection and enforcement of child labor laws are still inadequate. The National Child Labor Committee must increase its forces to grapple with this phase of the problem. A thorough and critical examination of the methods of administering child labor laws is necessary in order to standardize this branch of the public service. Children excluded from industry must be provided with an educational opportunity suited to the needs of an industrial age. To-day in many communities the school opportunities are so lacking in attractive or vital elements that children are eager to leave school at the earliest possible moment and enter industries with the minimum of education required by law. Families temporarily affected by the operation of these humane laws must be safeguarded by the state until the children are old enough to be wisely employed. Through the agencies of this Committee, child labor scholarships have been organized in a number of cities, and the tendency to recognize the necessities of needy parents by making some provision aside from sacrificing their children to premature labor is being widely discussed; but the problems of industrial insurance, mothers' pensions, and the like, are in their formative stage, and all inquirers are looking to this Committee for definite information as to the extent to which the adoption of child labor laws will create or emphasize this problem. The work we must do in the coming decade does not appeal to the imagination or contain the "dramatic features" involved in getting eight year old girls out of an eleven hour day in the cotton mill. It appeals rather only to those with a broad, statesmanlike view of the whole subject. In future we must depend on the cooperation of those who realize that all the child labor laws thus far enacted are primitive and that we must advance to higher standards and to more scientific methods of administration before the two million working children in America have the opportunity for development which our country's welfare demands. The contract is a large one and its fulfillment requires a stronger and more effective organization than we have yet developed. These ends will be reached only by an increase in the Committee's membership. On the Tenth Birthday of the Committee we hope to see it made up of the following three divisions: 100 Guarantors 1,000 Sustaining Members 10,000 Associate Members and provided with a working income of not less than $100,000. |