Part 2

The Committee on Criminal Courts of the New York Charity Organization Society has appealed to the public to write, urging an appropriation of $700,000 for this institution, to the leaders of the Legislature: James J. Frawley, chairman Finance Committee of the Senate; Alfred E. Smith, speaker of the Assembly; Robert F. Wagner, majority leader of the Senate; Aaron J. Levy, majority leader of the Assembly. This the committee believes to be a conservative and economical estimate of what will be needed to put up new cottages and other buildings to accommodate present inmates, and to provide for reasonable growth in the next few years.

The letter sent out by the committee reads in part as follows:

“Twelve years ago the state authorities established Bedford Reformatory to care for women between the ages of sixteen and thirty, to try and save some, at least, of the young girls who were otherwise destined to a life of shame and degradation. What Bedford means to the community, the extraordinary work it is doing and has done is set forth in the enclosed article by Ida M. Tarbell.[2] That article is a challenge and a call to every man and woman in the state.

Footnote 2:

Miss Tarbell’s article which appeared in the _American Magazine_ was reprinted as a pamphlet by the committee.

“Bedford Reformatory now faces a crisis.”

“Today there are 178 more girls there than the place will hold. They are sleeping on cots in the hallways, in parlors, in the gymnasium, in the lavatories, in the linen room, everywhere they can put a bed. Two girls in a room is the rule instead of the exception, notwithstanding the moral dangers of this.”

“Chief Magistrate McAdoo and Chief Magistrate Kempner and their associates in New York and Brooklyn have been asked not to commit any more girls to the institution and the stream has stopped for a moment. But the magistrates are now at their wits’ ends. What are they to do with first offenders? The young girl who is just embarking on this kind of career—shall they fine her and force her to work all the harder at her unlawful calling to earn the money with which to pay the fine? All are agreed that this is objectionable. Fines neither deter nor reform. Shall they send her then to the work-house to mingle in close confinement with the hardened offender, there to become embittered and to have a prostitute’s life fastened more firmly than ever upon her? They must do this or discharge her to walk the streets again.”

EDITORIAL GRIST

THE BATTLE LINES OF CHILD LABOR LEGISLATION

ANNA ROCHESTER National Child Labor Committee

A majority of the twenty-nine state Legislatures which have been considering child labor laws this winter are still in session, so that many of the most important bills are still pending.

The campaign that is being waged against the most outspoken opposition is on in Pennsylvania, one of the two strongholds of glass manufacturers who employ boys under sixteen at night. With the single exception of West Virginia, where a bill based on the uniform child labor law was defeated this winter, night work for youths under sixteen is no longer allowed in the important glass-producing states. The uniform law was introduced in the present Pennsylvania Legislature by Representative Walnut and referred to the Committee on Labor and Industry. The committee reported it to the House with several amendments. The House rejected all but two of these. Now the uniform law, with the street-trading age limit reduced from twelve years to ten, and the age limit for breaker boys reduced from sixteen to fourteen, has reached its third reading in the House. If its friends can still protect it from the mutilations desired by the glass interests, the telegraph companies, the textile manufacturers and other opponents, Pennsylvania will be in a fair way to protect the 29,170 children employed in manufactories in that state.

The uniform law is also pending in Massachusetts, where it met no opposition in the hearing before the Committee on Social Welfare. Massachusetts has now a ten-hour day and the uniform law would bring her into line with Ohio, New York, Illinois, Mississippi and twelve other states that have the eight-hour day for all under sixteen.

But Massachusetts would lead the country in one respect if another bill that is likewise before the Committee on Social Welfare should pass. This provides for a five-hour day and compulsory school attendance for all workers under sixteen. If this is put into effect it will set a new standard for the Uniform Child Labor Law, which has been drafted by the National Child Labor Committee and endorsed by the American Bar Association. It is based on the best provisions of the best statutes now in force in the several states. Yet the National Child Labor Committee, fearing that two five-hour shifts for certain minors might tend to fasten on industry the ten-hour day for adults, would suggest that Massachusetts go one step further and fix a four-hour day for all under sixteen.

Connecticut, Ohio and Michigan will also advance beyond the standard of the uniform law if bills now pending are enacted. Michigan, it is true, is not trying to reduce the working day below nine hours, but merely to extend it to include canneries and four other occupations hitherto exempt. But Michigan and Ohio propose to raise the general age limit for employment from fourteen to fifteen, while Connecticut is considering sixteen years. Ohio intends also to increase the compulsory school attendance age from fourteen to fifteen for boys and sixteen for girls, and to require that boys of fifteen may not go to work unless they have completed the sixth instead of the fifth grade, the requirement of the present Ohio law and of the uniform law.[3]

Footnote 3:

The Ohio law has passed both Houses.

The Ohio bill includes, also, the street trading provisions of the uniform law. Special street trading bills are pending in Iowa, Nebraska, New York and also, we understand, in Michigan and Minnesota. Their outcome is doubtful because the average legislator seems to be blind to the bad results of street trading and cheerfully reflects the popular view that these “sturdy, little merchants” are all supporting widowed mothers and headed straight for the White House.

Many states are coming to recognize the needs of children over fourteen. This is evidenced not only by the wide discussion of vocational schools and the bills before the Legislatures of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Massachusetts, New York and other states, but also by the extension of child labor laws. Thus California, having proved the advantage of the eight-hour day for women and boys under sixteen, is considering the eight-hour limit for all under eighteen. Wisconsin is proposing to enlarge the list of hazardous occupations forbidden under eighteen and to provide for continued revision in the future by the Industrial Commission. The prohibition of night messenger service for those under twenty-one is included in the uniform law, as pending in Pennsylvania and passed in Delaware, but not in Massachusetts and Utah, where it has already been enacted. In Connecticut, a dangerous trades bill is pending and the bill for a general sixteen year limit includes an age restriction of twenty-one years for night messenger service. The same night messenger prohibition was included also in the bills based on the uniform law that went down to defeat this year in Utah, Idaho, Arkansas, Texas and West Virginia. Iowa, the only other state in which a night messenger law has been introduced this year, proposes an eighteen year limit.

Regulation of hours for all under sixteen was proposed in Nevada. In Tennessee, there is a bill now before the House Committee on Labor, providing for an eight-hour day under sixteen instead of the present sixty-hour week. A second measure adds mercantile establishments and the stage to the occupations prohibited to children under fourteen. Still another bill has passed in Tennessee, enlarging the Factory Inspection Department by adding a clerk and two deputy inspectors. The matter of enforcement has not received as wide consideration as it deserved. Industrial commissions are under discussion in many states, notably California and Ohio. In Iowa it is proposed to create within the Labor Department a bureau of women and children. Montana’s educational bill would provide for truant officers to enforce the child labor law. In Wisconsin a bill is pending covering some details of the issuing of employment certificates and in Utah it was proposed to increase the number of inspectors. Most important in this connection is the bill in Missouri to extend the jurisdiction of the Factory Inspection Department over the entire state (it is now confined to cities of 10,000 or more inhabitants) and to abolish the present fee system.

Two of the bills recommended by the New York Factory Investigating Commission and directly affecting child labor are still pending: one to prohibit work in cannery sheds by children under fourteen, and the other to prohibit the manufacture in tenement houses of dolls or dolls’ clothing and articles of food or of children’s or infants’ wearing apparel. Other bills recommended by the commission and already passed and signed standardize the issuing of employment certificates throughout the state; give the commissioner of labor power to inquire into the thoroughness of this work as carried on by local health officers; provide for physical examination in factories of children fourteen to sixteen. This last provision promises to be better than the present Massachusetts law because it permits the cancelling of employment certificates of children whom the examination reveals to be physically unfit for factory employment. Following the recommendation of the commission the present Legislature has also reorganized the Labor Department, established an industrial board, increased the number of inspectors and extended the jurisdiction of the Labor Department to cover the enforcement of the labor law concerning women and children in mercantile establishments in second class cities.

In a few states there is a fair record of progress in the legislation already enacted this year. New Jersey and Indiana have brought their educational requirements and provisions for working certificates up to the standard of the uniform law. Vermont has established a nine-hour day and Rhode Island a ten-hour day. The Vermont law also does away with the twelve year limit in certain occupations and substitutes the provision that

“A child under sixteen years of age, who has not completed the course of study prepared for the elementary schools shall not be employed in work connected with railroading, mining, manufacturing or quarrying, or be employed in a hotel or bowling alley, or in delivering messages, except during vacation and before and after school.”

Along with this the law has an absolute fourteen-year limit in “mill, factory, quarry or workshop, wherein are employed more than ten persons.” In North Carolina a bill was introduced with a fourteen-year age limit and a prohibition of night work, but the age limit was immediately amended back to the old thirteen (twelve for apprentices), the increased appropriation for inspectors was cut out, and only the night work prohibition was passed. The Child Labor Commission in Delaware drafted a bill based on the uniform law, which, in a much mutilated form, was finally passed and signed.

Only a few backward states show no progress whatever. Georgia defeated a child labor bill last summer. Alabama has no legislative session until January, 1915. The Florida Legislature has just convened and a bill based on the uniform law will be introduced. No child labor bill was introduced in South Carolina but a compulsory school attendance law was passed by the Legislature, only to be vetoed by the governor. The House passed it again over the governor’s veto, but it failed in the Senate by two votes. In New Hampshire, the only northern state with a general twelve-year age limit, a bill providing for a fourteen-year limit has been unanimously reported to the House and there seems to be a good chance of passing it.

The National Child Labor Committee is watching the situation and helping where it can in these campaigns. It hopes to report many more victories when the legislative season closes. Meanwhile it appeals to the citizens in every state to aid in the enactment and the enforcement of these laws.

ETERNITY AND A PENNY PILL[4]

RICHARD C. CABOT, M. D.

Footnote 4:

See Courses on Sex Hygiene. By Jane R. McCrady on page 124 of this Issue.

There are some things (chocolate, for instance, or tracts, or paper drinking-cups) that can be shot out of a slot at you and hit their mark. You can apply them to their uses at once. It is the same with the facts fired at you through the window of his booth by the railroad information man. Such facts set you on your track or your train at once.

But when people ask for clear directions about the train to proficiency in violin playing, belief in immortality, or understanding of sex, they always miss their train. Sometimes they complain of the officials.

After a course of lectures on sex last year some workers of my acquaintance handed in written questions beginning “What should I say to a young girl who,” etc., and were disappointed when no definite answer was forthcoming. To illustrate the difficulties of an answer let us ask a few parallel questions:

What paint shall I use for a Madonna?

What are the best words to use in a love sonnet?

What is the best book on being a millionaire?

What kind of bread makes you popular and handsome?

What liniment makes one’s sympathies most supple?

People rush to lectures on “sex hygiene,” sometimes for good reasons, sometimes to satisfy morbid curiosity, but often with a pathetic hunger for the bread of life. In the hope of forestalling such disappointments the lecturer should hang up before them a sign reading:

“This lecture will not solve fundamental problems. Seek ye the Lord.”

THE DAWN OF A BETTER DAY A MANUFACTURER SPEAKS

Dudley D. Sicher

[_This poem was read at a banquet of the Cotton Garment Manufacturers of New York during the last week of March. The author, a representative manufacturer, dedicated these verses, reflecting a new attitude toward employes, to his business associates._—Ed.]

Do we purchase Toil at the lowest rate As we buy our cloth and thread? Do our workers labor long and late For the price of their daily bread In gloomy lofts where shadows frown, In foul, unwholesome air, Till Want and Weariness drag them down Where—we neither know nor care? If such things be, they must pass away Ere we hail the Dawn of a Better Day.

Have they wrought us harm in the darker days, Have they kept the whole truth hid? Have they told false tales of our works and ways And of wrongs that we never did? Be not too wroth at the hiss of shame, But pass old slanders by. And cleanse your shirts of the taint of blame Where e’er the blame may lie. Old feuds, old sores be forgot for aye In the hopeful Dawn of a Better Day.

Let us wipe the slate of the bitter score, Let us turn the blotted page, And grant that we owe our workers more Than the dole of a “living wage.” They give us more than their time and skill In the health and strength they spend; And earn the right to the kindly will And helpful hand of a friend. We must give them more than the coin we pay Ere we hail the Dawn of a Better Day.

So, here’s a task that we may not shirk, For the toiling thousands plead; We must give them comfort while they work And help in every need; We must lend them strength if their souls are weak And teach them how to live; Nor let us, all to meanly seek Return for all we give, As we lift our eyes for the gladdening ray Of the golden Dawn of a Better Day.

If this light that leads us shall not dim They will see, ere the course is run, That the worker’s weal and the weal of him Who owns the shops are one. Then each shall have his rightful gain Ungrudged—and great and small Shall give their best of hand and brain For the good of each and all,— And we’ll stand together, come what may In the brighter Dawn of a Better Day!

CIVICS

THE SCHOOL CENTER

HENRY S. CURTIS

Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar: “Thou, O king, sawest and beheld a great image. His head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms were of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, and his feet part of iron and part of clay; and a stone smote the image upon the feet that were of iron and clay and brake them in pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken in pieces together.”

This image might represent America nearly as well as the empire of “the great king.” In the original democracies of Greece, the freemen met together in the market place to elect from their friends and acquaintances the officers who determined the policy of the state. The weakness of American democracy is that we have not organized this primitive element or _demos_ on which it is supposed to stand.

Politics in our cities have been corrupt, because there have been no meetings of the community to discuss community affairs. The individual has often been reckless in conduct, because he was not acquainted in the section in which he lived and consequently had no social accountability to public opinion. Foreigners have come among us and drifted in and out of the city slum, bearing with them their racial antipathies to each other, and casting no anchor in the locality because at no time have they become a real part of a community. We have had no real city communities or neighborhoods but mere districts of people in no way organized or related to each other. The feet of the image are of miry clay.

In the country sections the situation is little better. In the days of the pioneer the early settlers were drawn together by common dangers and necessities into a brotherhood of the wilderness. They assisted in erecting the cabin of the newcomer. The women had their quiltings and their sewing circles. The whole community met together to marry the lovers and bury the dead. The school house was the common center, where Sabbath service, debate, music school, and “spell down” were held.

These conditions have undergone an almost complete change. The specializing of industry and new machinery have made farmers independent of their neighbors. The community uses of the public school have fallen away.

The last few years have seen a rapid advance in the principles of Democracy through the initiative, referendum and recall, the presidential primaries and other measures; but the fundamental unit is still unorganized. The feet are still of miry clay. To secure the democratic control of the community or district is the greatest problem of our democracy. This result demands that some agora, forum, or neighborhood center shall be restored to the people.

If a neighborhood center is to be created, the facilities which the neighborhood wishes to use must be brought together in a single place. Thus each facility offered will bring patrons, not to itself alone, but to all the others as well, as each department in a department store brings customers to all the others.

A comparatively few years have seen the cities take up as municipal undertakings the public playground, the municipal gymnasium and bath, the branch library, and a few scattered beginnings in the way of municipal camps. While the undertakings have been carried on by the city and maintained by public funds, they have not been really furnished to all the people of the city, as a rule, because they have not been accessible. They have not been placed in communities, they have no definite clientele. They cut across the lines of the existing organizations of the people. The individual has no direct touch with the community that brings him into relationship with them. All of these facilities are at least as much for the children as adults, but they lie off the beaten paths of child travel, and hence secure a minimum rather than a maximum use.

The only public institution that is central to each community is the school. If this can be made the nucleus around which the other institutions can be gathered, it may be possible to create again a modern forum or market place, that will serve the same purpose as did the old. The large undertakings already under way for the improvement of the school itself can not be carried to full success without certain radical improvements in the school equipment. The playground activity demands larger playgrounds. New York is now paying more than a thousand teachers every summer to direct the play in its school playgrounds; but there are very few schools that have an out-door playground fifty feet square. It is not the same thing to play in a school basement that it is to play in the open air. The school basement is always sunless, and the air is not the same as it is in the open. The French requirement for the lighting of school buildings is that there shall be no other building within a distance equal to the height of the school. The gymnastic work, to secure the best results, must be done in the open air, and not in a dusty gymnasium. In London, all the longer exercises are always taken out of doors in pleasant weather. Some foreign cities now require a certain minimum playground space for every child. In Munich this is twenty-five square feet. In London it is thirty square feet. This would mean an acre of playground to 1,452 children, not a large amount surely, and much less than should be taken in the smaller cities. Throughout the middle states and the West, now generally a block for all new schools is given. In some cases the usefulness of the ground is being nearly destroyed by placing the school building in the center, but where the building is placed at the side or end, as it should be, this ground becomes available for many school and community uses.

This block should be shaded by trees. It should have grass plots, if they have to be renewed every year, as Jacob Riis says; and running around the outside should be a narrow space for children’s gardens where all the nature work material of the school could be grown. In one corner should be a school menagerie and benches should be placed under the trees.

During the school hours, the school park should belong to the nurses and mothers with baby carriages. From three to ten p. m. every school day, and all through the summer, it should be the playground of the children and the social center of the adults. In the winter it should be flooded for skating.