The Butler County Press

- and the Worst is Yet to Come

Truths Pondered While Riding at Anchor
"Then gently scan your brother man"
-By Mr. Modestus-
We still have child labor.
We had quite a lot of it, to begin with.
In 1930 they counted all workers "gainfully employed."
Those aged from 10 to 13 years numbered 235,328.
The ones 14 years old numbered
Of those 15 years old there were 274,130.
That makes a total of boys and girls working, of 667,118.
Those 16 years of age numbered 587,817-gainfully employed."
NRA left them at work.
Only those under 16 years of age were prohibited from working-
In manufacturing, transport, trade, mining, and service occupations.
Of these there seem to have been about 125,000.
These are the ones affected by NRA--this 125,000.
In agriculture there were "gainfully employed" 470,479 under 13 years.
Of these, 139,697 were boys from 10 to 13 years old;
Girls of the same age so employed numbered 65,996.
Boys aged 14 to 15 years in
While the girls of same age and employment were 60,531 in number.
These were not children "doing chores around the farm"
They were "gainfully employed"
Which means that they were earning wages.
They pull weeds in the beet fields,
and the onion fields.
Strawberry farming depends upon them, too.
All down the line they help raise, and pack-and ship
Everything from cream to cucumbers.
Children have been a large part of the Cotton Crop
In the Old South.
It would be hard, now, to get in the cotton crop without them.
Their picking make up a large part
But, when the cotton picking machines are successful-
More successful than they now are-
When the cotton can be picked cheaper by machine than by hand-
Then child labor will be sure to leave the cotton fields.
Probably-not much before then.
In the old English mines--
Time was when women--half naked on hands and feet-
Tugged at cars of coal, to pull coal up from the mines.
Their children worked at the top, among the breakers
Picking out the refuse and the stones.
Then came mules, who could pull a better load..
After that came the machines,
cheaper even than human flesh and