Newspapers / The Charlotte Herald (Charlotte, … / Dec. 21, 1923, edition 1 / Page 5
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vitlME after time, as I traveled I About this country in search of * facts, pbout child labor, I struck officials, charity workers, and school people , who were despondent about the situation. “Oh, we’ve got some laws, But they don’t work. You can’t stob kids from lying about their ages. It eosts too much money'to enforce our lairs.” By the time I reached Wisconsin such observers had just about con yinced^me. And then what a shock I had in the offices of the Wisconsin Stgte Industrial Commission in Mad ison ! Sitting opposite me was Tay lor Frye, who has charge of the per mit system for air children of the State up to seventeen. He is a gray, fiairedy mild-mannered . person, wrap ped up in his job. He might be, so far as appearance goes, the presi dent of a small-town bank or perhapjs a teacher of agricultural engineering ha the university. I went at him a little as a terrier might go after k stick, sharp and hard. I was nearing the end of my investigation, and; I Was pretty sore about child labor in general. I knew that there are thous ands of children at work in Wiscon sin. . ; “You’re right,” he answered, “our laws aren’t what they might be on child labor. But they are much bet ter than they were, and perhaps a little better than in most States. Still, ‘*it’s too bad. We hope to im prove them.” i A few more questions—was there go State pride in this man? ,1 “N;o; we don’t enforce the laws we have quite perfectly,” he admit ted, “but we do enforce them pretty welL”; > Of course, having been made skep tical By experiences elsewhere, al though in Massachusetts I saw that they Were doing pretty well, too, I Was/ far from convinced by a mere statement, and so I jumped again: “How?” ’ H/e began to talk. His face lit up. Ha did have a lot of State pride. He went an for two hours. He get out hi9 table of statistics. He showed me files up to the minute—he show ed me, in short, a system of enforce ment of. child-labor laws so well con ceived,1’so ingenious, so cheaply ad ministered that at the end I had come to know that statutes can be rigid ly enforced, no matter whet is the power of the opposition. Yet standards are not what they shduld be in the State of Wisconsin. The fourteen-year-old boy and girl mdy work. The educational require ment is high, but th£ age is too low. ■ut Wisconsin does furnish proof fnat laws can be framed and machin ) Some people think that the millions or more American j boys and girls who now]work long hours athard labor , i in factories and fields cannot be given their equal chance for health, schooling/and happy life. They say it wtould take thousands of spies, and cost too > , much. But Mr. Cary finds that in Wisconsin, where ( the child-lawi laws are fairly strong, they are. 96 per cent enforced—without spies, and vdth very little ex-' pense—because they are practically self-enforcing. ery built up by means of which what ever laws you have can be made to work. In the first place, there is a set of honest, grinning teeth in the machin ery, placed there by one of the shrewdest pieces of legislation ever eilacted. It bears the pedantic title of the Treble Compensation Act. Every child who is injured while •t work illegally (whether because his permit is lacking or because he is injured while doing prohibited work) is paid three times as much chmpensation as he would get if he had been legally at work. The com pensation insurance company pays its regular amount: the employer of the hurt child must double it! The insur ance company is not allowed to pay that extra two-thirds—that is, un less the employer can’t pay it, goes bankrupt, or something. In, that case the insurance company has to come through! The maximum amouht recoverable for permanent total dis ability under this law may equal $49,000! • It would seem as though this law might let the State officers shut their eyes to everything except acci dents, knowing certainly that the in surance companies and the employers themselves won’t dare to permit any violation of the child-labor statutes. The theory of the law is that the child who is injured while so illegal ly employed should have full com pensation for his wage loss, just as he might have had at common law, and treble-indemnity provision makes it worth the employer’s while to be sure that he is living up to the child labor laws. The insurance pompanies have tak en it so seriously that in the past few years they have at their own expense put out hundreds of thous ands of pieces of literature, prepar ed by the Industrial Commission, warning their policy-holders that they have to watch out, and what to watch out for. Factory officials must know*these laws or .lose their jobs. In many States the employers vio ' . . ' . ■ ■ 'i i late the child-labor laws in ignor ance as well as in defiance. One of the most amazing incidents of my in vestigations took place in the anth racite fields of Pennsylvania, when it was made evident that the coal-mine managers almost universally thought they were operating under the last national child-If bor act, an act thrown put by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional more than a year previous. \ A Wisconsin child who has a per mit and who is working on ; a job which is open to him by law gets no treble compensation when he is hurt. In States where the machinery is in adequate, this would to some.degree nullify the law. But I say that per mits really mearj something. I saW that the percentage of children who slip through the barriers put around them for their own welfare is prob ably less than 5 per cent, and that the percentage is decreasing. When Mr. Frye told me their enforcement was not perfect, he meant merely that they would not and could hot claim 100 per cent efficiency. But he was able to prove that at that time it was about 95 per cent per mect. The system is founded on the cen tral authority of the commission. The commission issues the permits, keeps them on record, and, more over, exercises a sort of paternal guardianship of the individual child. Its discretionary power is great—-if it is merely suspicious, it can refuse to grant a permit. * That’s where Frye comes in. He has appointed all the permit officers. They serve without pay and like the job.. They are people who are in terested in child welfare, and Frye’s warm-hearted letters make them feel that they are part and parcel of the great State commission. Half the inspectors are school principals. The other half is made up of judges, bank officials, physicians, lawyers, etc. JSFo child is allowed to go to work unless the school officials certify that he has finished eighth grade or else been td school for nine years. But the educational officer can refuse to recommend the permit, neverthe less, and often does, prevailing upon the parents to keep the child in school.-: ' • ” ; If the child changes jobs, he has to have a new permit, so the State always knows where its child labor ers are working. Inspectors are con stantly on the job, seeing that the spirit as well as the letter of the law is obeyed. That brings up another point. There are not many inspectors in Wisconsin, and, ordinarily, a given place would be visited but once or twice a year. But if a violation is discovered, especially a violation un der ' suspicious circumstances, the inspector may visit that particular plant fifty times a year. If the em ployer does not see fit to improve, • .no.permits are issued to children to work in his plant. He goes on a little black list at Madison. It is easy to get on that list and hard to get off, yet today there are ldss than a score of live names on it! • Proof of age does not seem to bother When you insist on it. Last year 89 per cent of all permits were on either birth or baptismal certifi cates. ' '■ 7 ; , The statutory penalty for violat ing the law is $10 to $100 for every day that each individual child is un lawfully employed. It is a rare thing indeed for one of these cases to go to trial. The offender knows that he has no chance to win, and, therefore, settles on the best terms he can get, ■' Administration takes office space of about 20 by 30 in Madisop, and a similar space in Milwaukee. Per haps ten persons give all their times to it. It’s mighty cheap. So let me repeat—-child-labor stat ute* can be cheaply and easily en forced. There must be a hundred Ways. This one in Wisconsin is good. ' Others perhaps may be too. This one we know is at least 95 per cent effective. It can be done nationally too. The laws thrown out proved that, for ' they worked pretty well before they were declared unconstitutional. So if you don’t like child labor, write your heart to your congressman, now in W-ashingtop, . To make sure that the Sixty-eighth Congress does its most pressing duty, see that he votes for submitting the children’s . amendment to your legislature. (SAME OLD REDS V SAYS ADVOCATE I In a recent issue, The Central (ihristian Advocate, a leading organ the Methodist Episcopal Church, makes a* vigorous ■ attack on the agi tation for the recognition of Soviet Ifey&sia by the United States Govern ment. In its article, The Advocate sayS: . "We have it dinned into our ears that thd old Russia of the Bolshe Viki, the Red Communists is dead. With some reservations we have de clared as hluch ourselves. Senator Wheeler made that one of his strong est points that communism is break ing; arid that capitalism would soon be completely restored. There has been "a change/in policy,” we are asked to believe* and there are indi cations that thWt is a fact. But let us tarry beside that argument for a bit of time. : “The Bolshevik policy in Russia or any where' else for that matter, is two fold. (1) Its basic policy; and *2) its policy of opportunism. They exist only iri contrasts; the first grim ly held; the second an accommoda tion. Thei basic policy of Commun istic Russih, that is of the party which has absolute and impregnable con trol of Russia, is absolutely, unchang ed. It is as for year&fcn, interna tional niovement. It rVlik ' hot born when Kjerensky was kicked out. •* “Th^ basic policy of Bolshevism is not national. It has no conscious i—L- . -- ness of the word Nation. It is-not in a war for any land. Its enemy is capital. Its war is a class war. It has no sentiments as to nationalism. Internationalism is its country. As Dr. Hartman said of the Soviet troops he saw reviewed in Moscow, they marched down the avenue singing— what? Songs of Russia? Not one. They were songs of how the Red principles would conquer the world. That is basic. And to attain that end any means, accommodations, bargains, are unobjectionable. And they are a temporary bending like any sabotage. “In view of this fact alortg pomes the statement that Russia Haa revised its political theory, introducing;, step by step, as Senator Wheeler pointed out, stages of capitalism. But is all that frankly sincere? Does it im ply a change of basic policy in Soviet Russia? We have in our hand the volume containing the thesis of Lenin in imposing upon the people this change towards capitalism, of which Senator Wheeler writes with such convincing argument. But *the pol icy of Lenin is simply a self-acknowl edged accommodation to grim ne cessity. There is no change in the party: none as to Red Communish and its propaganda through -the world —including the United States—*-which Trbtsky characterizes as stubborn, cruel and sanguinary. - “Soviet Russia is opportunist at home: she is trie real article abroad. There is no change in her under ground foreign propaganda of Red Communism. / * * > The Christmas Spirit BY KATHERINE EDELMAN 1*11 HO would not be merry, who would not be glad, when all || J ov^er the earth there can be heard the jingle of Santa Claus’ sleligh bells, the patter of his reindeer’s hoofs and the chuckle *of the jj'olly little man. Who/would not t>e merry when everywhere we see eager, ex pectant /little children, their eyes and feet dancing in happy expec tation ojf the joy which they know is coming? Who would not be merry and glad at the sight of full stockings by thfe chimney, the gaily-ornamented tree with gifts oh "’■every ’ bouglh? * Who would not be merry and glad at the thought of the':gfcth(|£- • ing (and feast that make Christmas a celebration of the hoifce and of family ties? f Who would not be merry when everywhere we look we siind womjen at their very best, filled deep with tb.e; spirit ofj^ye and giving—when everybody seems to have beeii touched by ;the magic hand of,Christmas? Who would not be merry twhen in every home there is happy whispering and planning and streets and shops are filled with a gladsome throng all bent,upon the most unselfish mission in the world: to help bring joy tb others? Who would not be meitry and glad when the whole country is / radiating peace and joy anil good cheer; when the Christmas spirit has spread itself like an encircling mantle over the nation? Who would not be merry and' glad and of good cheer in the con viction that some day, when jthe Christian citizen serves God in re lation to his h9me, his fec&hhtjunity and his nation, there will be liter- , ally “On Ckrth peace, goott will' toward men.”? i SCHEDULE OF 70 MILES AN HOUR CAUSED WRECK ON N. Y. CENTRAL BUFFALO, N. Y., Dec. 17.—(Spe cial to The Herald.)—The New York Central officials apparently have the stage all set to blame Charles Pat terson, veteran engineer of Buffalo, for the crash of the third section of the Twentieth Century Limited into the second section of that train at Forsyth last Sunday morning, in which nine people were killed and many injured. Of course, this is the usual thing among railroad officials to blame 1 some individual when such wrecks occur. The railroad officials have it that Patterson ran past the cau tion signal and thus caused the wreck. The public, Fewevef, will remem ber that the New York,Central had been ordered/ by the public service commission to protect this crossing until sucli time as a subway could be built. Had the New York Central protected this crossing as instructed, the second section would not have crashed into a# automobile and con sequently Would pot have been stall ed, Patterson’s train would not have crashed into it. The New York Central officials admit that this train in competition with other trains to Chicago must make fast time. Engineer .Patterson was moving his heavy train along at a speed of 70: miles an hour as per his schedule. If he could not keep his train oil schedule, some^other engineer would have his job. The Central officials make engineers keep that schedule; From the time Patterson saw the cau tion signal and the danger sginal one block down the line, the stall ed section wias only a couple of hun dred yards away, and it did not give him time to stop. Paterson had re duced his speed from seventy to j twenty-five miles an hour when his section hit the second section. Had it not been reduced Patterson’s train would have plowed through the whole section and every pattenger on both sections would have been killed. Despite the fact that Superintend ent Brogan has declared that Engi neer Charles Patterson admitted he ran past the signals set against him, it was said by those close to the rail road situation that the veteran engi neer had made such admissions but held that the great speed at which his heavy train was driven precluded all chance of stopping in time to hold his engine out of the rear coach of the second section. He steadfastly holds to the statements that he is blameless, and it is said that that possibility may be the view of New York state officials who will have to decide just who may be called upon to answer criminal liability for the crash. At the hearing Tuesday Patterson is said to have testified that when he .flashed past the caution signal at j the first block his speed indicator; showed that his train was pounding ' through the f.og at more than 70 miles an hour. He took measures to reduce the speed and had cut it, down materially when in less than one min- j ute the heavy train tore past the block on which the great red danger beacon stood out. P From -that point to the rear coach of the halted'section was only a mat ter of a hundred yards or so, it is said, and quite to short a distance in which to stop the great train. “Gentlemen,' it must be apparent to you that everything was being done to stop that train.” Patterson is re ported to have stated frankly to his superiors at the hearing. “You know the speed requirements on the division. If I had been holding to my speed when I Hit the second sec tion there would- have been nothing left of either train, and I would not he hete .testifying;” ^ : ■; > . . • ; . Patterson is said to have told»the • Officials that his tjfain was moving for ward at,less than W miles an hour when the crash occurred. The highway at Forsyth turns, sharply onto the Mew York Central and Nickle Plate tracks and the tracks are so hidden that it is impos sible to see them. There has been i so many accidents at this place, that the crossing is known all over the country as “Dead Man’s Crossing.” Action has been taken by the pub lic service commission and other or ganizations anent this crossing. It is said that the Central had been hotified to protect this cross. If the Central had placed a gate there at a small cost and a small annual out lay this accident would not have hap pened. To save a couple thousand a year the Central will now have to spend a million in settling death claims, injuries and lost prestige of the road. j Despite the failure of the Central to heed the warning Of the public ser vice commission, its officials would now place the blame on Patterson. The public would think more of the Central if ih blaming Patterson it also would take part blame for its owh omissions. There is no denying that had this crossing been protected the second section would not have been stalled and there would bave been no accident. For Sale HOT POO STAND •— Best Location in Good Section — Also Handles Cigars, Cigarettes, Fruits and Candies Good money in this proposition. Best of.reasons for sailing. For full details, address Opportunity, Care Charlotte Herald, Box 163, Charlotte, N. C. - NOTE:—^This is not same place advertised two weeks ago.< That one has been sold. GOOD MONEY IN LOOKING YOUR BEST Keep your clothes cleaned and pressed, ancf notice the { difference in the treatment : accorded you. Men and \ women who know Charlotte \ send their clothes to Wright’s Pressing Club Phones 4043—4908 320 South College St. 0m m»»»»mmnmmwmm»umrin»f»mnm»mwnmim»»umtwwmrotc:»Mtwmmninnnmoro»Mnnmmmammo BELK BROS. CO. “Better Values For Loss” SeD it For Less BELK BROS. CO. “Home of Better Values” ;'! ' . ffxii', • V Our Big Store After Being Closed Two Days on Account of Fire in Adjoining Buildings - mm* L .. • .. . All Departments Doing Business Our Big - _• - v V l ITS? ■ In the Basement < lit Open anil Christmas Goods Are : Being Delivered IT WILL PAY HOLIDAY SHOP PERS TO VISIT ALL DEPART MENTS, WHERE INTERESTING PRICES WILL BE FOUND. 1:: All Departments Open Until 9 O’clock at Night Belk Bros. Company .. i Mfflitimir
The Charlotte Herald (Charlotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Dec. 21, 1923, edition 1
5
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