Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/88

81 "Question. Does the influence of child labor reach into all classes of miners? For instance, if you find a man with three or four boys, and you find another man who, perhaps, has a large family of girls.… If it comes to a question of competition between these men, who will succeed and why?

"Answer. The one having the boys would because they would obtain work in the mines."

Both phases of the question are thus summarized by John Spargo :—"It is a well-known fact that the competition of children with their elders entails serious consequences of a twofold nature, first, in the displacement of adults, and, second, in the lowering of their wage standards." There is no question among the authorities on the subject. All are agreed that the labor of children replaces the labor of men, or else forces the men to take lower wages as a result of the child competition.

This displacement of men by children, and the lowering of men's wages by a competition with child wages, means to the laboring men who are affected by it, a lowered standard of life. The man who has a family of