§ 4. Child-labor. In agricultural conditions, such as have prevailed generally in America, there is little need of limiting the hours of work for children and the age at which they may begin to work. The barefoot boy trudging over clover-fields to carry water to the harvesters may be the happier, healthier, and better for his work. Child-labor in agriculture has never become a social "problem" so long as the children work with their own parents at their own homes; but the labor of children for wages, especially in gangs on large farms (as in beet cultivation and cranberry-picking) or in canning factories, has exhibited evils as pronounced as any in urban manufacturing conditions.

The evil of forcing children into factories was early recognized. The most obvious evils of child-labor are neglect of the child's schooling; destruction of home life; overwork, overstrain, and loss of sleep, with resulting injury to health; unusual danger of industrial accidents; and exposure to demoralizing conditions. The usual assumption that the worker is able to contract regarding the conditions of labor on terms of equality with the employer is most palpably false in the case of children. The child, subject to the commands of his parents and guardians, is not a free agent. Often poverty leads parents to rob their children of health, of schooling, and of the joys of childhood. Lazy fathers are tempted to support themselves in idleness on the wages of their young children. In some immigrant groups, particularly, conditions of child-serfdom have developed in America. The competition of child-labor also depresses the wages of adults, and thus the evil grows.

§ 5. Child-labor legislation. The limitation of hours was first applied to children working in English factories early in the nineteenth century, and thence has extended throughout the world, tardily following the spread of the factory system. The first American law of the kind was in Massachusetts, in 1842, limiting to ten hours the labor of children under twelve years of age in manufacturing establishments. Following this, all the earlier state laws fixed the minimum age low and the maximum of hours high, and the laws were poorly enforced for lack of adequate administrative machinery and of public interest. In all these respects many states gradually improved their child-labor laws in the latter part of the last century, and much more rapidly since 1903. Now the maximum working-day for children in about one half of the states is 8 hours, in one quarter is 9 hours, and in one quarter is 10 hours (and in a few southern states it is 11 hours). Night work by children is very generality forbidden (in about forty states). During the same time the minimum age has been pretty generally raised to 14 years for factory work, with higher ages (16, 18, or even 21 years) in some states for certain occupations dangerous to health or morals. In addition to these general limitations, special provision is made for individual examinations, to determine whether the child is mentally and physically fit to work and has met the requirements of the compulsory education laws of the state.

The culmination of years of effort in and out of Congress was the enactment, September 1, 1916, of a child-labor law that prohibited the interstate shipment of goods produced in factories wherein any child had, within thirty days, been employed under unfavorable conditions as to hours of work as specified in the act. This act was soon, however, declared unconstitutional. Another way of attacking the problem through the use of the federal taxing power was then found. In the so-called "Revenue Act of 1918" (enacted February 24, 1919) a child-labor employment tax was imposed on the entire net profits of persons or of corporations employing children at specified times and under specified ages (16 years in mines, 14 in mills, canneries, workshops, or factories). The constitutionality of this act has been questioned in a district court, but, up to this writing, not in any higher federal jurisdiction.                                  ,

In the labor section of the treaty of Versailles of 1919, among the nine points, or general principles, held to be of special and urgent importance, the sixth reads: "The abolition of child-labor and the imposition of such limitations on the labor of young persons as shall permit the continuation of their education and assure their proper development."

Child-labor legislation, viewed as a merely negative policy, is not of great moment. Its real significance is to be judged only in connection with the broader social policy of protecting and developing all of the children of the nation to be healthy, intelligent, moral, and efficient citizens. Children growing into blighted and ignorant manhood and womanhood are threats to society.

§ 6. Limitation of the working-day for women. Legislation to limit the hours and conditions of employment of women usually comes later than the limitation of child-labor. The grounds of special laws to protect workingwomen are that women are less able than men to protect themselves in the labor contract, that they are physically weak and are peculiarly exposed to certain dangers to health, that as future mothers they need protection for their own and the public welfare, and that in the period of maternity the dangers are especially great. The work of women in factories operates in some ways to depress the wages of men, and it is harmful in its effects upon the home and family life. At present five states limit the hours of women to 8 a day, twelve to 9 a day, fifteen to 10 a day, four to 11 or less a day. A number of states forbid the work of women in designated places of work, such as saloons, mines, or where constant standing is required. Only as late as 1911, in America, has legislation, now in four states, given maternity protection, as is now more fully provided in European countries in connection with systems of health insurance.

In all of the great industrial countries of Europe night work by women is restricted (prohibited between 10 p. m., and 5 a. m., or yet more narrowly limited); but legislation along this line is found in only eight American states.

§ 7. Limitation of the working-day for men. The general assumption made in law has been that the adult male worker is competent to judge of the working conditions, hours of labor, and wages, and is capable of protecting his own interests sufficiently by his power of refusal to accept employment. The legislatures have, much more tardily than in their legislation for children and for women, acted contrary to this assumption; but, when this has been done, the courts in America have vigorously asserted the general doctrine and denied the constitutionality of the laws. However, some exceptions were made in legislation, and, after much apparent hesitation and vacillation, were allowed by the courts to stand, and these have now grown in number until they form an impressive total.

These exceptions have come in various ways. There is, first, the eight-hour limitation in public employment, required in federal employment in 1868, really effective since 1892, and now in force likewise in about two thirds of the states. In almost the same jurisdiction - national, state, and municipal - eight hours is the legal day for work done by private contractors for the government. Work on railroads and street railways, particularly in the direct operation of trains, such as the work of dispatchers, signalmen, and trainmen, is subjected to a large variety of regulative measures, hours being limited in some cases to eight, in others to nine, ten, twelve, or sixteen, and in a number of cases a specified minimum number of hours of rest is required after the maximum hours of labor. These laws are primarily for the protection of the public, but they afford a protection to the employee much needed, as many well authenticated cases of excessive and exhausting hours demonstrate.

The limitation of hours has very recently been extended to many private businesses in which exceptional conditions exist affecting the health of the workers or the safety of the public. This development has occurred almost entirely since the United States Supreme Court in 1898 (Holden vs. Hardy) sustained a Utah statute limiting to eight the hours of labor in underground mines. Now eight-hour laws in certain specified cases are found applying to mines, smelters, tunnels, and a variety of other kinds of work, and in a few cases the limit is nine, ten, or eleven hours.