Explicit and Authentic Acts by David E. Kyvig

Author:David E. Kyvig
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780700622306
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2016-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

THE RESURRECTION and redirection of child labor reform during the 1930s provided a prime means to evaluate the opportunity for constitutional amendment during the New Deal and the resort instead to legislative solutions. Twists and turns continued in the effort to empower the federal government to regulate the employment of children. The reform drive that began with legislation in the 1910s, suffered two setbacks at the hands of the Supreme Court, prompted congressional passage of a constitutional amendment in 1934, and then shortly thereafter fell apart as states declined to ratify, resumed in the 1930s. Determined child protection advocates eventually obtained not a constitutional but rather a legislative solution, one in keeping with the pattern of the New Deal. Along the way, the quest for child labor reform contributed coincidentally to further delineation of Article V.

The election of Franklin Roosevelt, a Democratic congressional majority, and many new state legislators in 1932 revived the apparently moribund child labor amendment. Since its submission to the states by Congress in 1924, it had won only six ratifications and had been formally rejected by at least one house in no fewer than thirty-eight legislatures.71 The tide turned dramatically in 1933, the year of so many New Deal initiatives to revive, reform, and regulate the American economy. Between February 1 and July 15, nine state legislatures ratified the amendment. Five more approved it during December special sessions, bringing the total to twenty, more than half the number needed for adoption. A once-discouraged National Child Labor Committee, busy seeking other solutions to the growing exploitation of child labor during the depression, regained hope. Joining with the American Legion and the American Federation of Labor as well as traditional allies, it renewed efforts on behalf of the amendment.72

The 1933 turn in child labor’s fortunes was more immediately apparent in early New Deal legislation and its implementation. The National Industrial Recovery Act provided for industry-by-industry creation of codes of fair competition. The NRA sought to restrain destructive competition and to revive capitalism by establishing uniform and reasonable standards on prices, wages, and business practices. The first NRA code, adopted in July by the cotton textile industry, contained a provision, sought by the NCLC, agreeing to ban employment of children under sixteen in cotton textile mills. Later the same month, Roosevelt promulgated a blanket code to operate until the end of the year or until other industries adopted their own; it also incorporated a minimum employment age of sixteen, except for nonmining, non-manufacturing industries where fourteen- to sixteen-year-olds could work three hours a day when school was not in session. Overnight a national child labor ban had been established.

By the end of 1933, over 100 industry codes had been enacted, all but 6 banning all employment under sixteen and nearly half barring workers below eighteen. A year later more than 500 such codes were established, with only 13 allowing sub-sixteen-year-old employment. During the last half of 1933, over 100,000 children under sixteen were banished from the work force, and

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