Edward Nicholas Clopper

“ However, in the matter of the regulation of child labor, a curious anomaly has arisen—no one may employ a child under fourteen years in a factory for even one hour a day without being liable to prosecution for disobeying the law of the state, because such work might interfere with the child's growth and education; all of which is right and indorsed by public opinion, but—merely because a child is working independently of any employer, he is allowed to sell newspapers, peddle chewing gum and black boots for any number of hours, providing he attends school during school hours! ”

“ It is almost unnecessary to call attention to the importance of a new book by Jane Addams. As a servant of the public good Miss Addams, both through her work at Hull-House and through her writings, has made for herself a name all over the world. She does not view things from a standpoint of destructive criticism, but rather from that of constructive, her aim being always to better the conditions in the particular field which she is considering. ”

“ The street is painted as a black monster by some social workers, who can discern nothing but evil in it. Nevertheless the street is closely woven into the life of every city dweller, for his contact with it is daily and continuous. If it is all evil, it ought to be abolished ”

“ An occupation that fits a boy for nothing and is devoid of prospects, is a curse rather than a [74] blessing in this day of specialization. In spite of the division of labor so elaborately realized to-day, a boy or girl who enters any of the regular industries has at least a fighting chance for acquiring a trade. If the child is honest, capable and diligent he will be promoted to a better position in time if misfortune does not overtake him. The trapper boy in a coal mine is in a fair way to become a miner. The lad who works in a machine shop has the opportunity to make a machinist of himself. ”

“ Another argument in favor of street trading advanced by those who are interested in maintaining present conditions, is that it affords a splendid training for a business career because of the competition that rages among the boys. This is doubtless true, as far as it goes, but the great difficulty is that street trading leads nowhere. It is a blind alley that sooner or later leaves its followers helpless against the solid wall of skilled labor's competition. ”

“ Three classes of persons, who add little to the general circulation, while detracting much from the tone of the business and working a real injury to themselves, are engaged in selling newspapers; these are the small boy, the semi-vagrant boy, and the young girl. The business of selling newspapers in Chicago is so systematized that the 'vagrant' cannot prosper, and yet the 'vagrant' is in our midst. He can be found on State Street at 11 o'clock on a Saturday night with one newspaper under his arm—not attempting to sell it, but using it as a bait to beg from the passers-by. ”

“ It is the medium by which people are brought into closer touch with one another, where they meet and converse, where they pass in transit, where they rub elbows with all the elements making up their little world, where they absorb the principles of democracy,—for the street is a great leveler. ”

“ The British interdepartmental committee appointed in 1901 to inquire into the employment of school children, denounced the tolerance of street trading on the ground of necessity: "We think that in framing regulations with regard to child labour and school attendance ... the poverty of the child or its parents ought not to be made a test of the right to labour.... We do not think it is needed; we think that all children should have liberty to work as much and in such ways as is good for them and no more." ”

“ One of the most important features of the movement in America should be the absolute prohibition of such work by minors under eighteen years at night; this is urged because it is in harmony with the provisions of our most advanced child labor laws and is fully justified because of the evil character of the influences rampant in cities after dark, and because such night work affords children a constant opportunity to cultivate their acquaintance with, if not to know for the first time, conditions from which every effort should be made to isolate them. ”

“ The lack of proper training during childhood almost invariably brings about a tragedy in the lives of working people. The premature employment of children at any kind of labor which interferes with their education and their training in work for which they are fitted is most disastrous in its effects and far outweighs in future misery the little income thus secured in childhood. ”

“ If our civilization is to continue and to improve with time, every child must have a proper opportunity to grow under conditions as nearly normal as [244] possible; we must secure to the children their birthright—the right to play and to dream, the right to healthful sleep, the right to education and training, the right to grow into manhood and into womanhood with cleanness and strength both of body and of mind, the right of a chance to become useful citizens of the future. ”

“ There is no valid reason why just as efficient service in streets could not be rendered by adults. Certainly it would be far more suitable and humane to reserve such work for old men and women who need outdoor life and are physically unable to earn their living in other ways. We could buy our newspaper from a crippled adult at a stand just as easily as we get it now from an urchin who shivers on the street corner. It is only a question of habit, and we ought to be glad of the change for the good of all concerned.
E. N. C.
Cincinnati, 1912. ”

“ Child labor laws are framed in accordance with public sentiment, hence the people by legislative omission practically indorse street trading by little children while condemning their employment in other kinds of work. Thus the state virtually assumes the untenable position that it is right to allow a child of tender years to labor in the streets as a newsboy without any oversight or care whatever, and that it is wrong for him to work in the same field as a messenger, or an errand boy, or a delivery boy, although such occupations are subject to some degree of supervision by older persons. ”

“ It seems incredible that we have been so engrossed with throwing safeguards about the children in regular industries that we have altogether neglected the street worker, for the arguments against child labor in factories, mills, mines and retail shops apply with even greater force to the work of children in our city streets. ”

“ If a patient is not nursed while the physician is absent, his treatment is of little avail; if children are not protected out of school hours, [11] the purpose of the school is defeated. No manufacturer would allow his machinery to run, unwatched, outside regular work hours, for he knows how disastrous would be the consequences; yet this is precisely what the state is doing by ignoring the activities of children in our city streets—the delicate machinery of their minds and bodies is allowed to run wild out of schools hours, and the state seems to think nothing will happen! ”

“ Manchester says: "Drunkenness is rare among these boys ... they are in many ways attractive; but the closer our acquaintance grows with them the more overwhelming does this propensity to gambling appear. Indeed, it may reasonably be said that the whole career of the street trader is one long game of chance.... They tend to become more and more unwilling to work hard; they are the creatures of accident and lose the power of foresight; they never form habits of thrift; and their word can be taken only by those who have learnt how to interpret it." ”

“ The life of the street trader is a continual gamble, unredeemed by any steady work; it is undisciplined and casual, and exposed to all the temptations of the street at its worst. The great majority of the boys who sell papers drift away into crime or idleness or some form of living by their wits. ”

“ Children under fourteen years of age at work in factories and mines are often properly called "slaves," and their plight is regarded with pity coupled with a clarion cry for their emancipation. But tiny workers in the streets are referred to approvingly as "little merchants" and are freely patronized even by the avowed friends of children, who thereby contribute their moral support toward continuing these conditions and maintaining this absurd fiction of our merchant babyhood. ”

“ We know that the work of the newsboy lacks the oversight and discipline of adults, that it exposes the children to the varied physical dangers lurking in the streets, that the early and late hours cause fatigue, that the opportunities for bad companionship are frequent, that irregularity of meals and use of stimulants tend to weaken their constitutions, that it offers no chance for promotion and leads nowhere. We know further that the presence of the newsboy in our streets cannot be justified on the ground of poverty. ”

“ But unfortunately the courts have rigidly construed the word "employ" to mean the purchasing of the services of one person by another, hence newsboys, peddlers, bootblacks and others who work on their own account, do not enjoy the protection of such a statute because they are not "employed." Under this interpretation a fatal loophole is afforded through which thousands of boys and girls escape the spirit of the law which seeks to prevent their labor rather than their mere employment. ”

“ Jane Addams's work at Hull-House is known throughout the civilized world. In the present volume she tells of her endeavors and of their success—of the beginning of Hull-House, of its growth and its present influence. For every one at all interested in the improvement of our cities, in the moral education of those who are forced to spend much of their time on the streets or in cheap places of amusement—"Twenty Years at Hull-House" is a volume of more than ordinary interest and value. ”

“ American legislation on street trading still clings persistently and pathetically to the theory that uncontrolled labor is much better for children than labor under the supervision of adults, and consequently authorizes very young children to do certain kinds of work in the streets on their own responsibility, while forbidding them to work at other street occupations even under the control of older and more experienced persons. This official incongruity must ultimately be rescinded and replaced by more rational and comprehensive legislation. ”

“ The temptation for newsboys to develop into "short change artists" is an ever present one, for the bustle of the street creates a most favorable condition for the practice of such frauds. Yet in spite of the many temptations which assail them, numbers of newsboys are scrupulously exact in the matter of making change, even under the most trying circumstances. Another common form of deceit, used to play upon the sympathy of passers-by, is practiced after nightfall by boys of all ages in offering a solitary newspaper for sale and crying in plaintive tone, "Please, mister, buy my last paper?" ”

“ Wisconsin has written into her laws a definition of street trading, declaring that it is "any business or occupation in which any street, alley, court, square or other public place is used for the sale, display or offering for sale of any articles, goods or merchandise." ”

“ But, above all, where the kind of occupation is unsuitable for children, where the work continues too long, where it takes place at unseasonable times and in unsuitable places, child labor gives rise to serious consideration; in such cases it is not only dangerous to the health and morality of the children, but school discipline is impaired and compulsory education becomes illusory. ”

“ When we remember that twelve out of every one hundred boys between ten and sixteen become delinquent, and that over 60 per cent of these boys come from street trades, it does not take long for a [138] business man to figure out that it is rather poor economy to let a ten-year-old boy go into at least this field of labor.... From an economic standpoint the family that sends out a ten-year-old boy to sell papers loses a great deal more in actual money from the boy's lack of future earning capacity than the boy can possibly earn by his youthful efforts. ”

“ All forms of street work that engage any considerable number of children have been described at length, and opinions and findings of others have been freely quoted. I have attempted to show the bad results of the policy of laissez-faire as applied to this problem. Simply because these little boys and girls have been ministering to its wants, the public has given them scarcely a passing thought. It has been so convenient to have a newspaper or a shoe brush thrust at one, it has not occurred to us that, for the sake of the children, such work would better be done by other means. ”

“ Recently [5] the conviction has been dawning upon observant people that, in the case of young children at least, the effects of work on an independent basis, particularly in city streets, are just as bad and perhaps even worse than work under the direction of employers. The mute appeal of the street-working child for protection has at last reached the heart of the welfare movement, and the first feeble efforts in his behalf are now being put forth, regardless of whether he toils for profits or for wages. ”

“ In the case of both boys and girls the effect of this occupation on future prospects cannot be anything but thoroughly bad, except, possibly, in casual and exceptional cases. We learn that many boys who sell while at school manage to obtain other work upon becoming fourteen, but for those who remain in the street the tendency is to develop into loafers and 'corner boys.' The period between fourteen and sixteen is a critical time in a boy's life. Street trading provides him with no training; he gets no discipline, he is not occupied the whole of his time ”

“ It was found that 54.6 per cent of all the working delinquents had both parents living, while newsboys and bootblacks, street vendors and telegraph messengers were found to be more fortunate in this respect than the great mass of working delinquents, even surpassing the whole body of delinquents, working and non-working. As the report says, "One so frequently hears of the newsboy who has no one but himself to look to that it is rather a surprise to find that the orphaned or deserted child appears among them only about half as often relatively as among the whole group of workers." ”

“ Like other street occupations, the messenger service is a blind alley; it leads nowhere. A very few boys are promoted to the position of check boy in the telegraph office, and fewer still have an opportunity to learn telegraphy. Some of the boys become cab drivers because they have familiarized themselves with the city streets; others become saloon keepers because they have become well acquainted with this method of making a livelihood; some are attracted by the life of "ease" which opens before them and enter into agreement with prostitutes, upon whose earnings they subsist ”