Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/102

95 of employers that child labor laws are enacted. They are men hungering after profits,—and when they take them in the form of children, the community balances the account. But competition is disappearing from industry, and is being replaced by combination. Moreover, manufacturers are coming to see, more and more, the undesirability and the unprofitableness of child labor. Child labor has ceased to be an industrial benefit and has become instead an industrial detriment. And the thinking manufacturer recognizes this fact. But even granting for the sake of argument that the average employer is a profit-hungry, child-grabbing ogre, it would be impossible for the children to get into the mills unless they were willing to go, or unless their parents were willing to send them. The manufacturer may provide the means for child labor, but he cannot secure the children without their consent, or that of their parents.

The statements which are constantly made, laying the entire blame for child labor upon the manufacturer, are, therefore, unfounded