Life — February 14, 1907 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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“While there is Life there's Hope.” VOL. XLIX. FEBRUARY 14, 1907. No. 1268, 17 West Toery-First Street, New Yorn, NATOR BEVER- IDGE’S Child-Labor Bill is a disquieting <" document, for the ) reason that it drags the sympathies with so much force in dif- ferent directions. It proposes to stretch the power of Con- gress to regulate interstate commerce to make it cover @> the failure of the State legis- AV iatures to pass proper laws regulating the employment of children in factories, mines and sweatshops. Itwould forbid railroads to receive for shipment out of any State commodities into the production of which had entered the labor of children under fourteen. Most of the more urgent fighters against child labor are for it. One of them, Mrs. Florence Kelly, calls it “the most humane measure before Congress since the Civil War.” They agree as to the extreme difficulty— impossibility, they call it—of getting effe tual child-labor laws through most of the State legislatures. The purpose of Mr. Beveridge’s bill is one of the most appealing that is con- ceivable. About the enormity of the abuses of child labor there is no question, though there may be dispute about their extent. Lamentable stories are told about the employment of young children in the Southern cotton-mills, and in various in- dustries in nearly all the States, at work so exacting and for such protracted daily periods that the young life is fairly burnt out of them, and they either die prema- turely, or grow up unschooled and with- ered wrecks, who hate work and are unfit for useful citizenship. There are States that protect young lobsters far more effi- ciently than they do young children. No- body fights for the children except dis- interested reformers and some of the labor unions. ‘The opposition to the child-labor laws comes from strong com- mercial interests, able to employ skilful advocates, and to influence legislatures IL ARSE by material arguments of the most power- ful sort. The temptation to floor them at one blow by the exercise of the federal power is exceedingly strong. om NEVERTHELESS, though the pur- pose that Senator Beveridge aims to accomplish is not only righteous, but of urgent importance, the means by which he would realize it are, in our judgment, more dangerous than the evil he would abate. It is no more the province of the Federal Government to keep children out of factories than it is to supervise their schooling. The constitutional powers of Congress over interstate commerce have been strained to the breaking-point al- ready, and every new concession of the right of interference by the Federal Gov- emment under the interstate commerce clause is promptly used as a precedent and an argument for some further and undreamed-of exercise of regulating power, That the interstate commerce clause should be interpreted to empower Congress to regulate child labor is alto- gether preposterous, unless we are ready to wipe the State lines off the map, and admit that our fathers’ notions of govern- ment were mistaken and that the State legislatures are a useless expense. Moreover, we question whether the Beveridge plan is necessary, or would be efficacious. The agitation about child labor is comparatively new and very active. It is much too soon to say it can- not win, as it should, in the State legis latures, and without going to Congress. And as to the eflicacy of the Beveridge plan, we find one of the strongest fighters for the right of children to grow up dis- believing even in its effectiveness. Edgar Gardner Murphy, of Alabama, says that without the support of local sentiment child-labor laws could not be enforced. He opposes Beveridge and his short cut, and prefers to go on and thrash the matter out in the State legislatures, where it belongs. AS WE go to press, there has been no violent earthquake for a fortnight, and things would seem quite stable, if it were not for the frequent tremors and jolts in Wall Street, and the railway acci- dents. The President seems about as usual. He is going to Massachusetts to inspect some of the institutions of learning, to which he has contributed inmates. We do not believe the story that he broke his eye-glasses in a rough-and-tumble altercation with Senator Foraker, Mr. J. P. Morgan and Mr. H. H. Rogers at the Gridiron Club dinner. Nobody knows what happened at the Gridiron dinner, which is a clandestine entertainment con- ducted without benefit of clergy, but everybody knows that Mr. Morgan and Mr. Rogers are comparatively prudent men, and past the age for rough-and- tumble exhibitions. Besides, they both got home in fair order. The President is expected to appoint a negro, Ralph Tyler, of Columbus, to be surveyor of the port of Cincinnati, with a salary of $5,000. This purpose is inter preted to be a demonstration for the bene- fit of Mr. Foraker that the Presidential heart is still true to the colored brother. If such appointments are to be made, it is infinitely better to make them in Ohio or any Northern State than in South Caro- lina or any Southern State. R. HARRIMAN has been ill for a month, but is reported to be nearly well again, so that it may soon be possible for the Interstate Commerce Commission to resume its inquiries in his proceedings as a dealer in railroads and an amalga- mator of competing lines. This paper has been criticized for taking too hopeful and indulgent a view of Mr. Harriman, That seems to us to be the right side to err upon at this time. So far as Mr. Harriman is concerned, it is not the side on which any very ominous amount of error is accumulating. For example, we find this in the Wall Street Journal: Building railroads is alike the vocation and avocation of J. J. Hill. Watching other men feeding and nourishing and building and creating railroad systems, then flying down like a hawk, but without even the flap of a wing, and gobbling them up—this is alike the vocation and avocation of E. H. Harriman. Maybe Mr. Harriman will be able to makc it clear to the Interstate Commerce Commission that he didn’t gobble up any railroads, but merely took them in out of the wet and made them comfortable. comicbooks.com