State-issued work permits, which, as I have told you, are, after all, the key to the enforcement of a child labor law, and we of course were required to recommend to the board that formulated the rules and regulations a provision for what should be in the rules and regulations, and also what State certificates could or could not be accepted.

In order to have the advice of the State officials, a conference of the State child labor officials was called in the summer. It was attended by 28 officials from various parts of the country, and the whole question of the relationship was quite thoroughly canvassed. At that time the State commissioners or factory inspectors, or whoever was charged with the enforcement of the State child labor law, voted they would like to have formal recognition by the Federal Government with reference to the enforcement of the Federal law, and as a consequence of their vote all of those who were charged with the enforcement of State child labor laws were commissioned inspectors under the Federal law on a dollar-a-year basis, the authority for appointing public officials being utilized in that way.

Mr. MONTAGUE. The State officials wished to be recognized also as Federal officials?

Miss ABBOTT. Yes, sir.

Mr. MONTAGUE. And then started in at a dollar a year?

Miss ABBOTT. Yes; and the help those State officials rendered in the enforcement of the Federal law was very considerable. In States where the Federal law was higher than the State laws they quite frequently, especially in the matter of hours, as they inspected for the State, checked up the hours also under the Federal law. A system of joint inspection was arranged in some places and an exchange of information in others, so that we had, I think, an increasingly genuine relationship.

When it came to the acceptance of State certificates, we were confronted with exactly the problem I have stated. In some States the legislative provisions with respect to what the certificates should be were inferior, and there was no adequate certificate system. In others it was substantially the same, and it was possible for the State board to rule that they should be the same, so we were able to accept the certificates of a very large part of the country for the purposes of the Federal act. That meant, however, that quite frequently we found it necessary to insist upon a greater uniformity than there had been before and to assist in securing that uniformity in local communities where the certificating law had been very badly administered.

Mr. SUMNERS. Could you indicate to us briefly what the powers of the permit-what do you call that officer?

Miss ABBOTT. The permit or certificate officer.

Mr. SUMNERS. What do you call the officer issuing them?
Miss ABBOTT. We call him the certificate-issuing officer.

Mr. SUMNERS. Yes. What powers does such an officer exercise in order to make effective the child labor law?

Miss ABBOTT. They examine the evidence of age, and are responsible for the final statement that goes on the certificate about the age, educational standard, and physical condition, if you have those standards in the law; and, if the employer holds a certificate of that

sort, and the child is under age, he is protected against the penalties of the law. That is the way in which it operates as a protection to the employer. For that reason it is extremely important, in the interest of the child, that they should be carefully and regularly issued and should not be issued carelessly, because it gives the employer immunity against punishment for the employment of a child in violation of the law.

Mr. SUMNERS. Ordinarily they pass on the question of dependency in some instances?

Miss ABBOTT. There are a few States in which there are so-called poverty exemptions. In Georgia, for example, the law is a 14-yearold law, except for the children of widows or children having a mother dependent on them for support, when they may go to work at 12 years of age. There are poverty exemptions in the District of Columbia. There are poverty-permit exemptions in Delaware and a number of other States, and a good many laws provide that the children shall not work between 14 and 16 (most of those already referred to are below 14) except in cases of necessity, and in a great many States this necessity clause is not enforced at all. The city of Detroit has recently been enforcing the necessity clause in the Michigan law and has reduced the number of employed children in the city from a very considerable number down to practically none. There are other States that have that same clause that are not enforcing it at all. If that is enforced, the certificate-issuing officer is the one who passes on the facts as to necessity.

Mr. SUMNERS. Now, if you do not have a State or local opinion supporting the Federal measure, then it would be necessary in such a case for the Federal Government to equip the State with its own administrative personnel?

Miss ABBOTT. Well, the experience we had was the other way. I can give you a very few concrete examples.

Mr. SUMNERS. I did not want to make a statement; I was really making an inquiry.

Miss ABBOTT. After all, the employers, most of them, want to obey the law and want to live up to the law, and they want it made as reasonably easy for them to do this as is possible. They want, therefore, if the certificates are liable to be questioned, to have a good certificating system. We recognized the certificates in several States in which the certificating system, after all, was very poor. When we came to make inspections, we found certificates has been issued for a good number of children who were in fact under the legal age, and, of course, our officers were under the necessity of cancelling all of those. They canceled a very considerable number on file with the employers; that is, which were in the employers' hands. Those employers immediately began to move to strengthen the method of certificate issuing in that community and to say that, after all, they wanted the people charged with issuing them in that State to be qualified to do it well, so that this kind of thing would not happen. So that in this way you have a building up of the resepect for the local office, and the local certificate there, so that he can really do the work well. I think that a working relationship of that sort is the end that is sought by an administrative officer who wants to build up the local machinery, and it is possible to do it very definitely in such a way as I have described.

Mr. FOSTER. May I ask you one question? One question that seems to be referred to frequently is whether the States, independent of any Federal enactment, can be expected to reduce this child employment. In that connection, may I ask you this: You referred, when you were testifying last week, to some 13 States whose standards you estimated as good, as equal to the standards under the Federal law that was declared unconstitutional. My question is this: How many of those 13 States came up to that standard while the Federal law was in effect? In other words, did the Federal enforcement help to bring them up or deter it?

Miss ABBOTT. I have some figures in reference to the bringing of the State legislation up to the standard in a number of laws passed at that time. Several of them did come up as a result of the fact they wanted to come up to the Federal standard in every respect, and you quite often heard in the discussion that the State wanted at least to be up to the Federal standard.

Mr. SUMNERS. Before you begin the explanation, are you certain that was the result of the Federal law, or that the same state of public opinion which put through the national legislation might not also have affected local legislation in the several States?

Miss ABBOTT. Well, of course, we have improvements in States that opposed national legislation definitely. It certainly was educational. It was educational to the employers and educational to the general public as to what the effect was. It was not as bad as the employers had feared, and it was much better in its effects than many people believed it could be.

Mr. MONTAGUE. In some part of your remarks, will you put into the record the two Federal decisions respecting the child-labor laws that were declared unconstitutional?

Miss ABBOTT. Yes; I would be very glad to do that.

Mr. MONTAGUE. So that we can see what power of enforcement was given by the National Government in the States.

Miss ABBOTT. Yes. As to the question I was asked last week, and that is much the same as Mr. Foster has asked now, of course it is extremely difficult to speak with great preciseness about the advancement that was made, because it is very hard to say whether one particular kind of provision is more valuable than another, and which one is most valuable, a law raising the age, or the educational qualifications, or the physical qualification, or the night-work law, or the eight-hour-a-day law for young children, or whatever it may be. So it gets extremely complex if you try to draw conclusions from it.

After a careful review of the legislation I should say there is probably no decided difference between the two decades-1900-1910 and 1910-1920-in regard to the extent of the State gains in the basic standards of minimum age, hours, and night work. It is undoubtedly true, however, that in regard to administrative features, particularly the machinery of employment-certificate issuance, standards for employment such as physical and educational requirements, and provisions for adequate enforcement, the last decade far surpasses the first.

In 1916, as far as I have been able to find out, there were 2 States that raised the age, there were 3 that raised the hours of work, or night work laws, and there were 2 that increased the standards for

issuing certificates under their own laws, like the educational or physical, and the administrative provisions were improved in four States.

In 1917, which was the year the child-labor law went into effect, there were 7 States that raised their age requirements, there were 11 States that raised the hours or night work laws, there were 9 that increased the enforcement by certificates, there were 10 that improved the administrative provisions.

În 1918 there were 3 that raised the age, 3 the hours or night work laws, and 3 the employment-certificate standards. Of course, in both 1916 and 1918, they were not years when many legislatures were in session. Some of the legislatures were in session in 1916 and 1918, some 11 or 12, as compared with 40 or 42 in the uneven year.

In 1919, 8 raised the age, 4 the hours of labor or night work, 11 the employment certificate, 5 the administrative provisions.

În 1921, 7 raised the age requirement, 7 the hours of labor or night work, 7 the standards for employment certificates, and 6 the administrative provisions.

In 1922, 1 raised the age, 2 the hours, 3 the employment certificates, 2 the administrative standards.

In 1923, 6 raised the age, 6 the hours of labor, 1 the employment certificate, 4 the administrative provisions.

As I say, a bald statement of that sort, without the details of the laws, is really quite inconclusive. You have great improvements made in a number of States in the legislation in 1917, 1919, and 1921, but how you will balance those up from year to year is very hard to say.

Remember, I said that since the child-labor law was passed 8 States, of the ones that were below, had moved toward the standard of the law, but none of them has measured up completely to the standard. I want to say again what I said in answer to a question, that, of course, in case of an act of this sort we ought to consider both the legislative standard and the enforcement of that standard, because the legislative standard means nothing unless there is enforcement machinery to go along with it. The State with not quite so good legislative standards may be doing more for its children by enforcement of its law than one that enacts a better one and does not enforce it; but that is an extremely complex thing to undertake, to measure the enforcement.

Mr. SUMNERS. During the period of the enforcement of the Federal child labor law did any of the States which were, at the beginning of that period, below the standard come fully to the standard? Miss ABBOTT. Yes; several of them did; quite frequently States that had quite good child labor laws did. Illinois changed its at once, so that it came up in full; Wisconsin changed its, so that when their inspectors came down to our conference they said, "We have already taken action to bring our standards up to the Federal in every particular." There were several others that did, either by improvement in the work permits or at least they were made as good as the standard the Federal Government had set.

Mr. SUMNERS. Were those States at that time that had a high standard, or did some of the States that were far down in the scale include themselves in the number that came up?

Miss ABBOTT. They did not include themselves in the number that came up in full, as I remember. The child labor law passed in North Carolina, which is a great advance over the one they had when the first Federal child labor law went into effect, was passed while the Federal child labor law was in effect and still operating; and the Virginia law, which was a great advance over the one Virginia had, was passed in 1921, while the Federal law was still in operation, also. Those were very great gains for the children which would not be indicated merely in a numerical count of the ones that came up in full to the Federal.standards.

Mr. SUMNERS. Did the laws in those two States come up to the Federal standard?

Miss ABBOTT. No; not quite. Virginia does not quite; North Carolina is still a good deal below. But it was a very great improvement over what their laws had been.

Mr. SUMNERS. Now, if it was the Federal child labor law that was there coercing or through education bringing them up, what is your explanation or judgment as to why they did not make the full measure of progress?

Miss ABBOTT. I think, as a legislator, you know what the difficulty is. You always have groups pulling in two directions. There was never any arriving at any of these standards by really a scientific decision that "this is the just thing and we will take that "; it is a controversy between groups, and one group comes in for the protection of the children, and another group comes in and wants to exploit the children, and then the point you finally touch is the point which is the balancing force in the State. What I am trying to point out is that the Federal law did not necessarily bring the State standards up to the Federal standard, but that it did not paralyze the local community and eliminate their sense of responsibility for their children. Instead of doing that, it quickened their sense of responsibility or at least was a contributing factor in quickening their sense of responsibility for the children.

If in a State you try to get a higher State standard, one of the things you are constantly met with is, "That is higher than the standard of such and such a State." That is what they always tell you about. One of the things you have to fight is the State that has not a very good standard and trys to measure itself by the lowest standard, as far as opposition to the law is concerned. If you move up the very lowest standard by the Federal law, you release the good intent of a State toward its children than would otherwise be possible, and so you are able to raise the standards in States that desire to raise the standards, but are kept from doing so by pleading of employers as to the effect that raising standards will have when other States are not doing it. Consequently, even in States with a very much higher standard than the Federal law, they found it was easier to move forward when the lowest level was taken out and a minimum standard was in effect, through the operation of the Federal law. I want to make that perfectly clear, what I think it does is to increase the sense of local responsibility for local children