Working Our Children: Where are the Benefits, After All?
CINCINATTI, OHIO – As the third annual meeting of the National Child Labor Committee comes to an end, those of us who are in question of the subject have to think: what benefits are there to child labor, after all? At this point, it is hard to believe that there is in any way, shape, or form a positive effect of child labor, and I stand by that belief.
The meeting between the liberators left us thinking that there was no possible way that the long term effects of child labor could be positive. The Committee, led by a representative of Jane Addams’ Hull House, certainly gave those in attendance reason to believe that. There are many children in the United States that are having to work every day to help support their family, and the problem is, they are one of the main resources of income for the American family.
“Our children should be in school, for God’s sake,” commented a fellow attendant of the meeting, Florence Kelly. She, like myself, had been sent by her newspaper to report on the incident and what the group was working toward, and left it very convinced. “Some of the numbers that the committee members put up there for us to see were quite astonishing.”
Astonishing they were, I’d say. One of the heaviest numbers that I witnessed was critical of the child labor situation in Pennsylvania. According to the committee, last year alone there were about 40,140 children in the state working hard labor, 3,243 which cases were illegal. However, out of all those, there were only 22 prosecutions against child labor and $750 in fines imposed. If you do the math, that means that each case of illegal child labor in Pennsylvania enacted just 23 cents. Less than a quarter isn’t that much for an owner to pay, and plus, they should be paying more than just money for such cruelty in the first place.
The meeting certainly left me convinced that child labor has to end in the United States as soon as humanly possible. Our children are losing their childhoods to it, and they should be having the opportunity to play and go to school instead of working jobs for low pay and long hours. I don’t think I’ve ever been more convinced about something as much in my life as I am about this touchy subject, and we should do something to stop it.