You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Tuesday March 2, 1915
From the Chicago Day Book: Battle to Begin for Child Labor Law
By Lewis Hine
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The headline of The Day Book yesterday promised the opening of a battle to be lead by the Illinois State Federation of Labor with the focus of the fight to be on child labor legislation. Joining the State F. of L. in this fight will be the National Committee on Child Labor, the Consumer's League, the Women's Trade Union League, as well as various women's clubs. Together they will form the Illinois Committee on Child Labor.
The Day Book reports:
The Illinois Committee on Child Labor has just completed the draft of the bill which will be introduced at the present session of the Illinois legislature and which will extend the prohibition against child labor two years above that of the present law.
The general provisions of the new bill prohibits the labor of all children up to 14 and of children between 14 and 16 during the time of school.
From The Day Book of March 1, 1915:
BIG BATTLE FOR NEW CHILD LABOR LAW
ABOUT TO BEGIN
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Illinois Federation of Labor Attracts National Attention
by Efforts for More Humane Law-
Big Business Tries to Check Union Labor's Plan-
Legislature Soon to Act
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By Lewis Hine
Again has the State Federation of Labor won distinctive recognition and at the same time a primary victory in a battle the outcome of which will have influence upon the health and wealth of the coming generation.
Herschel Jones, special agent of the National Committee on Child Labor, announces that the committee has decided to get actively behind the Illinois Committee on Child Labor in its fight for better child labor legislation at Springfield this year.
Illinois was chosen by the national committee as the field of special endeavor, says Jones, because of the strength of the state labor body and its aggressiveness in the interest of childhood. It is a distinct compliment to the local labor organization to be so recognized.
The Illinois Committee on Child Labor has just completed the draft of the bill which will be introduced at the present session of the Illinois legislature and which will extend the prohibition against child labor two years above that of the present law.
The general provisions of the new bill prohibits the labor of all children up to 14 and of children between 14 and 16 during the time of school.
The state committee having the bill in charge was organized under the auspices of the Consumers' league, the Women's Trade Union league the State Federation of Labor, the National Child Labor Committee, and a number of women's clubs. James Mullenbach, Chicago, is chairman.
Meanwhile, the Association of Commerce and the Chicago Commercial club is busy advocating the Cooley scheme of industrial training, saying that their purpose in supporting the Cooley idea is the interest of the children of the state. When Victor A. Olander, secretary of the State Federation of Labor, at several public meetings asked agents of these bodies to prove their good faith toward the children by publicly agreeing to support the child labor bill they dodged the issue.
The Cooley measure, says the labor men, aims to base its training of the child almost entirely upon the job, even if it be a hopeless "blind alley" job, which the boy or girl of 14 may have drifted into. It is, they say, a cold-blooded, deliberate scheme to mould the minds of children to suit the alleged needs of the machinery of industry; a sort of a conscription of the innocents to do battle for the cause of the capitalists.
The child labor bill should have the support of every progressive citizen says the state committee, which advises active warfare against the Cooley dual system of alleged vocational schools.
[photograph added]
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