than the daily paper. These returns, however, represent an average of not more than three hours of work per day. An occasional newsboy earns as much as $10.00 per week.

Although adult home workers acquire considerable speed and may therefore earn fair wages, the rate of pay for home work is almost uniformly less than that paid in the factory. This imposes a double hardship on the children engaged in the sweated trades, for they work slowly, and if they receive a low rate of compensation their earnings are pitifully small. Consequently a child working from four to six hours per day usually earns not more than twenty cents, and many children actually fall far below this limit.

The wages of child workers are one of the best indications of a present social maladjustment.

5. Night Work and Overtime.

Night work for children is rapidly dying out. Night shifts in manufacturing establishments do not usually include children, but several exceptions occur, such as the night shifts in the glasshouses of Pennsylvania and the night work for older children in the Southern cotton mills. The evils more to be feared are long hours, or overtime, the principal occupations in which they persistently remain being the seasonal trades. On account of the necessity of doing the major portion of the year's work within a comparatively short time, these industries engage in overtime during a part of the year and operate on short time during the remainder. Among the trades in which children are largely represented and compelled to work overtime are: the paper-box industry, the confectionery trade, the canning and preserving of fruits and vegetables, artificial flower making, toy making, and, to a limited extent, the making of cotton and woolen goods.

The period of overtime extends from a few days, as in some of the mercantile establishments, to three months, as in many candy factories. The amount of overtime is often excessive, and frequently children are employed 13 or 14 hours per day for three or four days per week. The majority of factories engaging in overtime limit themselves to not more than four

nights per week. Although factories sometimes operate till 10 o'clock, and in some instances on Sunday as well, the usual closing time for overtime work is at or before nine P.M. In the cheaper stores in some cities the doors are not closed in the pre-Christmas season until very late in the evening. Here the workers may be employed for at least 14 consecutive hours.

CHAPTER III

GENERAL EFFECTS OF CHILD LABOR

1. Introduction.

The original opposition to child labor was largely based on humanitarian motives. The horrible conditions which formerly prevailed finally determined sympathetic men to abolish the atrocious system. Shaftesbury, Dickens, and the philanthropists developed the public opinion that investigated the evils of child labor, but the economists at first opposed its abolition on account of the reputed detriment to the industries affected, although later they discovered an economic justification for such legislation. This evolution first took place in England, but in the United States an almost similar development occurred. Here the original attitude toward child labor was the exact opposite of the one held to-day. In estimating the productive capacity of a nation, statesmen such as Hamilton included the labor of children, since this was regarded as entirely legitimate. Why should they not add to the wealth of the country? Furthermore, they would earn a wage that would partly compensate parents for having brought them into existence !

When our manufacturing enterprises began to spring up in the Eastern states, it was generally believed that industry could be made more productive and children more useful by their employment in gainful occupations, especially in the manufacture of textiles. The cotton and woolen mills therefore soon began to swarm with little children called from the farms and small towns of New England. The wages received were absurdly low, but this very fact made the business more profitable to the capitalist! In 1812 many children were employed at less than a half dollar per week, but by 1832 boys in the cotton mills commonly received $1.75 for a week's work. Our legis

lators, however, were not interested in the wages of children, their chief concern being with the development of industry. Child labor was a mere means to a justifiable end.

Child labor under the old domestic system had differed essentially from labor in the factory or in the tenements, but this contrast was not appreciated by the early economists or the American statesman of the beginning of the nineteenth century. There were no vital statistics to indicate the general unhealthfulness of cities and industrial centers.

There was little knowledge of average trade life or the injurious effects of premature toil. The requisites for economic survival then were likewise different from those of to-day and child labor was less detrimental to society. A strong impetus was therefore given to the employment of children wherever they could be used. Compulsory education had not yet dawned, and women were denied the opportunity of acquiring any considerable degree of learning, nor was the social necessity of education apparent. Consequently, no impelling motive existed to prevent the child from entering some gainful occupation. Changing social standards have now awakened the American people to the seriousness of the child labor problem.

2. Economic Cost of Child Labor.

The economic disadvantages of child labor are almost selfevident, but the results need to be briefly stated. One of the direct economic effects of child labor is a shortening of the period of trade life, owing to the physical depletion which results from premature labor in factories and workshops. The present conditions of industry are such that the boy who begins to work at an early age will be unable to endure the strain of industry as long as the child not subjected to such labor. Child labor therefore is to be regarded as a cause of inferior physique, and this naturally results in poverty. It is important that such precautionary measures be taken as will offer the greatest opportunity for an extension of each individual's industrial career.

Again, child labor draws prematurely upon our economic assets, and thus diminishes the amount of available labor power. By employing labor before it is mature an earlier

yield upon the investment will be realized, but the human being will be exhausted so much sooner that great harm will have been done and the total trade life will be actually shorter. The economic loss caused by this handicap depends upon two results: the death of the child or the worker in middle life; or his loss of earning power either in childhood or in later life through accidental or physical breakdown. The mortality of children in a number of industries, such as cotton and glass manufacture, is too high, and obviously is caused in part by their employment, although precise statistics on the subject have not yet been gathered. The economic loss due to a higher mortality cannot be replaced. The physiological effects of child labor all operate to lessen the general efficiency of a nation. Where the immediate result to the individual is deformity, stunted physique, or incapacity for hard work, the final effect is uniform reduced productive power.

a

Accident as an economic cost is receiving greater attention as the appalling loss of human life in industry is becoming better known. The child is more prone to accidents than the adult, and will suffer even in industries regarded as comparatively safe, since young boys and girls are naturally careless. Children cannot concentrate their attention on their work, and are therefore frequently the victims of accidents which maim them for life and lessen or destroy their economic capacity. The accident rate for girls has been shown to be especially high. Children are allowed or compelled to tend machines requiring the utmost care of the adult operator; therefore serious injury becomes almost inevitable, and the danger is often the greatest for the very class least capable of declining to accept hazardous employment.

In the recent federal investigation of conditions in the cotton mills it was found that children were generally employed in the less hazardous occupations and were not required to handle very dangerous machines; still the accident rate in the Southern cotton mills was 48 per cent higher for persons 14 and 15 years of age than for those 16 and over.1 The accident rate for

1 Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Vol. I, pp. 385-386.