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Show CHILD LABOR. Child labor in the United States is the subject of a bulletin recently issued by the census bureau as a result of an agitation for the enactment of a national law regulating and restricting the employment em-ployment of children in the factories and sweatshops sweat-shops of the land. The bulletin is based on the censtis of 1900 and shows in that year a total of more than one aud three-quarter millions of children chil-dren between the ages of 10 and 15 years employed in the United States as bread winners. Probably more than a million of these were workers in factories, fac-tories, mills and sweatshops. Considering the growth of population and the greatly increased output out-put of the factories of the country, it is not unreasonable unrea-sonable to suppose that a census at the present time would show a total of more than 1,500,000 immature im-mature workers in the manufactories of the land. i The situation is one which requires legislation which will keep the children in school during the usual school terms, and permit them to get out in j God's sunshine and breathe God's pure, fresh air at other times. Several other states have on their statute books laws regulating the hours of employment of children, chil-dren, and prescribing between what hours the labor shall be performed. For example, the Xew York law on the subject permits children to work nine, hours a day, between G o'clock in the morning and G o'clock at night. Other states impose similar limitations, but the enforcement of the laws is left to people who wink at violations to please either the parents of the children or the manufacturers. Actual Ac-tual employment of children in Utah has not developed de-veloped to any serious proportions, and any prohibition pro-hibition here would not be a handicap on any one, but it would be well to enact a law to prevent the practice being generally established. Included in the inhibition should be the employment of young boys as messengers. State laws do not suffice, however. The condition is a national disgrace and needs a national law to meet the requirements, j It is true that the work the children are hired to do is usually not hard manual labor, and it is in some cases not attended by any great risk to life or limb, but there are children tending machines ma-chines in some, factories which the employer's children chil-dren of the same age would not be permitted to approach unless attended by an adult. Accidents, trivial and serious, ranging from burns and bruises to the loss of fingers, arms, legs, sight and even life are everyday occurrences among the little slaves to financial greed. The bureau of labor of the state of Minnesota recently made an exhaustive investigation into the subject of accidents among wage-earners and found that boys under 16 years of age met with twice as many accidents as men, and girls under 16 sustained thirty-three times as many accidents as women. It is not carelessness on the part of the children which accounts for these facts, hut immaturity qf judgment and a lack of the mechanical knowledge necessary to keep themselves them-selves out of danger. The Minnesota statistics' .bow conclusively that men. not children, should ' r- ...: , ? - . i-v :. .., ... J-.,. , .., . . . t . " .,...., .. ,.' .-.V . '. . " be employed, to run the machinery in the factories of the country, without considering the moral question ques-tion involved. Of course, a boy or girl may be hired, for $2.50 to $t a week, while a man would demand more how much he could get depending upon his ability and need's and upon the employer's employ-er's avarice or generosity. The reason for employing children is self-evident greed for money. A specious argument is set up by the employes that parents request and even demand employment for their children in the mills and factories. It is true, no doubt: but the paltry earnings of the children would not be necessary neces-sary to keep the soul and body of the worker's family fam-ily together, and these requests and demands would vanish and recur nevermore forever if the employers employ-ers gave their employes a square deal and the employs em-ploys gave their employers and their own families the same. And in the cases of widows and orphans, a just levy of taxes would provide means by which they could be cared for. not out of charity, but out of justice, for the community owes a living to orphan or-phan children, and substantial care to the women left with children to raie. and the sooner the fact is recognized and provided for the better. Another feature contributing largely to this deplorable de-plorable condition which should not be lost sight of is the criminal debauchery of the fathers and ! sometimes the mothers of the child slaves. Generation Gen-eration after generation have occupied positions in the older manufacturing centers, working from early childhood and passing out in the prime of life, leaving to their posterity an enfeebled constitution consti-tution and weakened mentality and a consequent lack oi moral stamina. Intermarriage also probably prob-ably tends toward moral lack. The result in some instances is shiftlcssuess and drunkenness, an entire en-tire absence of home influence which Avoid d tend to any betterment of social conditions, and necessary neces-sary hustling by the children for food and clothing for themselves. If the factories Avere closed to such as these, and no provision made for their support. thicA-ery and criminality Avould follow, which avouM be even more deplorable than the debilitating influences in-fluences of the factory. Honesty and decency and uprightness cannot be legislated into the hearts of men. but laAvs tending to better the euviroimiens of human beings also tend toward bettering their morality. Any Liav preventing children from Avork-ing Avork-ing must be accompanied with stringent compulsory compul-sory education laAvs and for competent provision for the support of boys and girls neglected Immorally Im-morally incompetent parents. A peculiar yet indisputable fact concerning the enactment of child-labor laws is that they always meet with the same strong opposition Avhich confronts con-fronts other laAvs of benefit to Avage-earners. opposition oppo-sition backed by money and guided by cunning and unscrupulous laAvyers. Utah has an eight-hour law for smeltermen, but after it passed the legislature it was fought through the courts up to the supreme court, Avhere. it Avas finally settled in the workers' favor. Funds to defend the law were provided by the workers, who could ill afford the expense. Such is the history of all legislation for the benefit of Avage earners, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that selfishness prompts to activity both sides in the premises. But on the one hand it is a broad-minded, broad-minded, patriotic selfishness a selfishness Avhich Avould make and save humanity, which would live and let liA-e; Avhile on the other hand it is a nar-roAv-minded, greedy selfishness a selfishness Avhich would force the worker to ceaseless drudgery, imperil the liA'es of the children and sap the life-blood life-blood of the nation, all to add a 1'cav more dirty dollars to dividends, all to increase the prosperity of the already prosperous, and caring nothing by what means it is accomplished. Between the blackness of the blot of negro slavery slav-ery of ante-bellum days and the blackness of the blot of child slavery of the present time there is but slight choice. We unite with that great body of men and women who have agitated this subject in demanding laws, and. more important, in enforc-j enforc-j ing such laws, as will effectually stop this crime. |