The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 24, 1924, Page 6

Rural Child Labor in the United States HE agricultural revolution which is spreading thru the rural regions of the United States has led to many unfortunate results. Large capitalis- tic corporations have invaded the country and are at present controlling huge estates operated by managers with hired labor on what may prop- erly be called a “factory system.” The farmers, under the. pressure of the monopolists and other exploiters, are sinking to greater and greater poverty and are forced into the class | of landless agricultural wage slaves; rural slums are developing, some of them under a tenancy system which | does not allow graduation into own- ership and holds thousands of fami- lies in a state of virtual serfdom; but the most tragic result of the agricul- tural revolution is the exploitation of the country child, who is chained hopelessly to the drudgery of the farm. Instead of children working side by side with the father and moth- er on the farm, we find them in many places in gangs of 25, 50 and 100, working under supervision of what is virtually a slave driver, whose chief interest is in the amount of money the children can earn for a financial corporation. It is the condition of these juvenile rural laborers that this article will attempt to ascertain. Extent of Rural Child Labor. The number of children engaged in agricultural pursuits has been stead- ily on the increase. Between the years 1880 and 1900 the number very nearly doubled, and between 1900 and 1910 it increased by approximately one-half. Of the total number of chil- dren 10 to 15 years of age reported by the 1910 census as bread winners, 1,431,254, or 71.9 per cent, were en- gaged in agriculture; of this number 260,195 were reported as “farm labor- ers working out,” that is, on farms away from home. The 1920 census shows a great decrease in the num- ber of rural child workers, but it should be noticed that the census was taken in January, when agricultural operations are practically at a stand- still. Besides, it must be remem- bered that children under 10 years of age, who by the hundreds work in various agricultural operations, are not included in the census occupa- tional returns. However, the findings of the children’s bureau disclose the true facts of the extent of child labor on farms; not only was there a de- crease in the number of children em- ployed in agriculture, but, on the op- posite, there was a considerable in- crease: at present 2,000,000 children are working on the farms to their in- jury. According to Edward N. Clopper, the enjoyment of the following rights is esssential to a normal childhood: 1. The right to be born in honor and so-v4ad in body and mind; to pro- tection from disease, and to the pro- motion of health, 2. The right to care, food, shelter, and clothing. 3. The right to education and train- ing sufficient to develop fully ‘his ca- pacity for knowledge and achieve ment. 4. The right to play and recreation, and to the companionship of his fel- lows. 5. The right to be safeguarded from neglect, abuse, exploitation and other injustice. All these fundamental rights are be- ing denied to the child of the landless farmer. The exploitation of the farm- ers by the capitalists and absentee owners has led to a condition where the farmers must depend upon the work of their families in order to make ends meet on most farms. Even on the home farms operated by the family, a premium is*put upon the labor of children. It often happens that the larger the farm the more work for the children, Likewise the larger the family, the larger the farm that is operated. This is particularly true of tenant farms, especially in one-crop sections, where the size of the farm granted to the tenant is based on the size of the family. Where families are hired for farm la- bor under contract—as in tho beet ‘aceasta teeta ieee att nian cea cine gee fields of Colorado, Michigan, Nebras- ka, Kansas and lIowa,in the truck gardens all along the Atlantic coast, or in the great onion fields of Ohio— the acreage to be cultivated is al- lotted on the same basis. The land- lords, employers and other exploiters of the agricultural wage earners de- vise such contractual conditions which mean a greater demand for ten- ants and laborers with larger fami- lies, and consequently greater exploi- tation of rural child laborers. Many reformists and philanthrop- ists, who interest themselves in child labor problems, have tried to show that the work of children in the open j air is not injurious; that “the fact that farm children work does not make them child laborers; that the child with a home in the country, where he lives under the cere of his parents, is ideally situated,” etc. All these assumptions are false, baseless and do not stand any criticism. Poor housing conditions, lack of the sim- plest sanitary devices, failure to ob- serve even elementary health precau- tions, lack of recreational life, wretch- ed schooling facilities f4nd poor qual- ity of teachers, burdens prematurely placed upon children in farm and housework, these are the drawbacks the fertilizer, etc. The tenant sup- plies nothing except his labor and that of his wife and children. When the crop is gathered he gets half, and with deductions made for the ad- vances, the landlord gets the rest. The number of acres granted for cul- tivation depends upon the number of children of the tenant, and as the machinery provided by the landlord is usually old and outworn, the tenant needs a great amount of labor in or- der to be able to eke out a “living.” As a result, thruout the south chil- dren of both sexes and all ages from 5 to 15 years are being employed as cotton pickers. The work is very fa- tiguing; there is exposure to the sun and heat in every part of the season; and because of the monotony of keep- ing the same position, the shoulders and arms ache from the ngscular ex- ertion, and the hands become cramped from holding the hoe. Be- sides, where the children are working out for sume one cicc the pay is at piece rates, 56 cents for 16 pounds; this encourages speeding, and the pickers are under a nervous strain. It also encourages longer hours of work; in cotton picking the working day is from 7 or earlier until sun- down, with almost no time off for CAPITALISM TRIUMPHANT! PEACE. . of country life under the system of wage slavery. A description of spe- cific facts will help to. make this clearer, Findings in Southern States. In West Virginia, children are car- rying burdens that properly belong to grown-ups. Walter W. Armen- trout, who investigated conditions there, found the following examples: A 12-yearold boy and his mother cultivated six acres of corn and raised and marketed 200 bushels of toma- toes. Two boys, 12 and 14 years old, op- erated a 140-acre farm, while the fa- ther worked in. a sand mine. A boy, 15 years old, does all the work on a 150-acre farm, his father being away at the mines, One boy, 12 years old, was found cperating a tractor, disking a 20-acre field, unaided. A girl, 15 years old, and her two brothers, 13 and 14 years old, hoed 15 acres of corn three times, cut corn one week, bound oats by hand 3 days, raked hay with a hand rake 18 days, picked up potatoes for three days, 25 bushels each, per day, etc. The worst phases of rural child la- bor are found in the one-crop sections of the South, where cropper tenancy prevails. Here the greedy landlords have developed a system of peonage which guarantees the rent to the land- Jord and insures poverty to the ten- ant. The landlord furnishes the land, work, stock, implements, seed, half dinner; many families take their din- ners to the field and eat as they go up and down the rows. On the truck farms of Maryland they work from 9 to 13 hours a day; Negro children working much longer hours. In addition to the time spent working on the field most of the children are compelled to do housework and tend to the chores, which makes their total “day’s” work unusually long. The earnings of the children are very small. On the Norfolk truck farms, the hourly rates range from less than 5 cents up to 40 cents and over. In Maryland, children usually get the prevailing rate for piecework by the basket or by the row, as, for example, 4 cents for a five-eighths bushel of tomatoes. In other cases they are paid by the hour, from 10 to 30 cents. One child of 5 was given 10 cents a day for dropping sweet po- tatoes, ‘ . Conditions in Other States. In states other than the south the conditons are not any better, In North Dakota, investigations of the children’s bureau revealed shocking conditions, Children between 6 and 17 years of age are performing every variety of work on the farms. Many heavy and more or less hazardous farm processes involving rest gm phys- ical strain, the and Virginia, children as young as 5 years of age are being mercilessly exploited by the landlords.’ Here - By LOUIS ZOOBOCK ery or dangerous implements, or the driving of four-horse or five-horse teams are commonly performed by children from the ages of 10 and up. . “Boys as young as 7 years of age and girls as young as 10 are commonly found driving stackers and hay forks, harrowing and raking hay, etc.” Of 845 children included in one study, 104 while engaged in farm work had had an accident resulting in some injury. Twelve of them had broken their arms or legs, or had broken bones in. other parts of the body; others had dislocations, sprains or had been crushed or badly bruised, or had bad cuts or lacerations. Per- manent injuries, stich as loss of an arm or leg, and even deaths, are a common occurrence. In the sugar beet fields of Colorado, Michigan, Kansas, etc., tens of thou- sands of children between the ages of 3 and 16 are being utilized in the work of taking care of the sugar beets. Some work in gangs under slave drivers, others merely as mem- bers of the laboring family, which often is a migratory family following the crops from locality to locality. At least 50 per cent of the hired workers on the beet fields are chil- dren who work 14 hours a day under a speeding system. The work is very hard and exhaustive; the continued stooping in kneeling and crouching positions when “thinning,” and the lifting and handling of heavy weights in “pulling” and “topping,” affect the posture and outline of the growing child’s body. Seventy per cent or more of the children employed in the sugar beet industry have postural de- formities and malpositions apparently due to strain. “A total of 676 cases of winged scapulae were found among the 1,022 children, 661 of the entire group having this defect; hence two children in three were taxing the muscles of an undeveloped shoulder girdle in this period of growth.” Similar conditions exist in other places. In Ohio, several departments of the state government have been aroused over child labor conditions in the onion fields, one official declaring them to be “outrageous and unbeliev- able.” He estimated that more than 4,009 children between the ages of 6 and 16 are working in the marshes weeding and topping onions. A Cleve- land newspaper man reported them as working 10 hours a day, “crawling on hands and knees thru mucky soil,” and that the children became com- pletely exhausted by the work. In the Imperial Valley of Califor- nia children as young as 3 years of age pick cotton from sunrise to sun- set in the extreme shadeless heat of the valley. The work is very hard and taxes the strength of the unde- veloped children. The cotton pick- ers usually have a long, loose strap of material at the opening of the bag which is slipped over the child’s head. The child picks the cotton, puts it in the bag, which he drags behind him. One boy stated to an investigator: “T sometimes pick till I have over 100 pounds. I pick as long as I can pull the bag, and until it gets so heavy that I can’t walk straight.” Another | boy said: “Us kids most always drag from 40 to 50 pounds of cdétton before we take it to be weighed. Three of us pick. I am 12 yéars old and my bag is 12 feet long. I can drag nearly 100 pounds.” This in brief describes the condi- tion of the rural child laborers. They — are forced to perform the hardest tasks on the farms; they are com- pelled to work long hours for the poorest pay; they are virtually de- for |nied an education, as they must work in order to supplement the meager earnings of the parents; they are de- prived of proper amusements and so- cial and intellectual opportunities to a most undesirable degree; they are forced to live in the cheapest and most unsanitary quarters; they are badly fed and undernourished, and as a re- sult cases of malnutrition, pellagra, and tuberculosis are very common, etc. To put it in a single sentence, under the system of wage slavery, the children of the tenant farmers and agricultural laborers have no op- portunities for education, health, rec- reation and the enjoyment of a nor- teen eens nn handling of machin- mal childhood,