CHIL

CHAPTER XIV

CHILD LABOR

HILD labor has a depressing effect upon the rate of wages. Thousands of children of immigrants are employed in the mills of New England and the Middle Atlantic States. The inference which readily suggests itself to the popular mind is that child labor is the product of immigration. It is a historical fact, however, that child labor originated in the United States with the introduction of the factory system during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Early writers on economic subjects favored the employment of children in factories, because it would save adult male labor for agriculture, fishing, shipping, and the skilled trades. Child labor was advocated on religious and philanthropic grounds. The various immigrant races which succeeded one another in the nineteenth century found child labor as an integral part of the factory system in the United States.

During the ten-year period from 1899 to 1909, with its unprecedented immigration, the average number of children employed in factories remained stationary, viz., in 1899– 161,276, in 1909-162,493, while the relative number decreased from 3.4 per cent to 2.4 per cent of all wage-earners.2 1 Carlton, loc. cit., pp. 380-385.

2 XIII. Census, vol. viii. Manufactures, p. 253. It is probable that the number of children at work has decreased as well. The number of wage-earners for 1899, owing to the method of computation followed at the XII. Census, was considerably underestimated: The average number was computed "by using 12, the number of calendar months, as a divisor into the total of the average numbers reported for each month." The effect of this method is shown in the case of twelve

The most significant fact to be noted concerning the relation between child labor and immigration is the large proportion of children employed in factories in States where there is practically no immigrant population. Children of native-born American parents are drawn into the mills as a substitute for immigrant labor. This conclusion is derived from Table 93, showing the dependence of factories upon child labor in six leading manufacturing States, according to the recent census.

TABLE 93.

PER CENT OF CHILDREN UNDER 16 EMPLOYED IN FACTORIES, IN THE UNITED STATES AND IN SIX LEADING MANUFACTURING STATES, 1909, AND PER CENT OF FOREIGN-BORN, 1910.1

In the four leading manufacturing States of the North with a large immigrant population, child labor holds a subordinate place in the industrial organization, while in North and South Carolina one in every eight or nine factory operatives is under the age of 16. The lowest per cent of child workers is in New York, which is overrun by immigrants, old and new.

selected industries, where the average number computed "as an abstract unit (like the foot-pound)" was 475,473, whereas the total "computed on the basis of time in operation would have exceeded 650,000," the variation being as high as 36 per cent.-XII. Census. Manufactures, Part I., pp. cvi., cx., and cxi.

1 XIII. Census, vol. viii.: Manufactures, pp. 270-271; vol. i: Population, pp. 161-162.

The latest available statistics of the distribution of children employed in manufactures by nativity relate to the year 1900. The figures are given in Table 94.

TABLE 94.

DISTRIBUTION, BY PARENT NATIVITY AND COLOR, OF THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN OF BOTH SEXES, 10 TO 15 YEARS OF AGE, ENGAGED IN MANUFACTURES AND MECHANICAL PURSUITS, BY GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISIONS, 1900.1

In the country at large, the percentage ratio of children of each nativity employed in manufactures corresponded to the percentage of all breadwinners of the same nativity, engaged in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits.' In other words, on the whole the foreign-born sent to the factories no more than their quota of children. There is a marked difference, however, in the ratio of children of native parents for each section of the country: in the South the

* Occupations, XII. Census, Table LVIII., p. clix.

The per cent distribution, by parent nativity and color, of persons of all ages engaged in manufactures in the United States was as follows: white of native parentage, 39.8 per cent; white of foreign parentage, 56.0 per cent; colored, 4.2 per cent.—Ibid., Table XXXVI., p. cxiii.

overwhelming majority of factory workers under 16 years of age are children of native parents.

Another important fact is the age distribution of children employed in factories. The Immigration Commission in its study of households of cotton-mill operatives in the North Atlantic States found but one child under 14 years of age at work in a total of 795 children between 6 and 13 years, and that a French-Canadian. There are as yet no comparable data more recent than the census figures for 1900. The latter are presented in Table 95.

I

TABLE 95.

COTTON-MILL OPERATIVES UNDER 14 YEARS OF AGE IN THE PRINCIPAL MANUFACTURING STATES, 1900.❜

While, as has been shown above, the absolute number of children employed in factories is greater in the North than in the South, the children under 14 in the cotton mills of the South far outnumber those of the same age in the great manufacturing States of the North. This is, no doubt, due to the child-labor laws of the Northern States.

No one in the Northern States to-day defends the employment of children under 14 in factories. In the Southern States, however, the economic needs of the growing manufacturing industries have produced eloquent advocates of

• Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 10, Table 46, p. 419. • Occupations at the XII. Census, Table LXV., pp. clxix.-clxxxv.

child labor in positions of influence. Foreign-born wageearners are a negligible factor in the Southern labor market. The growth of manufacturing industries in the South is restricted by the natural increase of the native population. In order to extend their operations, the manufacturers of the South must resort to the employment of children, as did their predecessors in New England a century ago before immigration came to supply the needs of American industry.

This situation is by no means confined to the South. Absence of foreign immigration has created a demand for the labor of native American children in the canneries and shoe factories of rural and semi-urban Missouri.

The rural districts of Missouri lost, from 1900 to 1910, 3.5 per cent of their population. The total population of the State increased only 6 per cent. The foreign-born in 1910, as well as in 1900, constituted 7 per cent of the total population of the State at large, and only 3.3 per cent of the State outside of St. Louis and Kansas City. The additions to the foreign-born population through immigration since the census of 1900 averaged only 1310 persons annually, but the increase was concentrated in St. Louis and Kansas City, whereas the remainder of the State lost in ten years 8380 of its foreign-born population. The statistics of the State Labor Bureau show an increase of the number of working children in the smaller cities, the towns and rural sections, "which can be traced to the large number of shoe factories and canneries which sprang up, outside of St. Louis, Kansas City, and St. Joseph, during 1908." The foreignborn labor supply in those sections is negligible. The Commissioner of Labor offers the following explanation for the increase in the employment of children:

"The cotton mills are set forth. . . as the savior of the people, religiously, educationally, and, according to Dr. Stiles, physically." —Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Supplement, March, 1910. A. J. McKelway: The Mill or the Farm, p. 54. XIII. Census. Population, vol. i., pp. 27, 61, 135, 149, 178 (computed).