It is too
obvious for dispute that it was the possession of capital wanting
employment, and of natural advantages for using it, that called those
multitudes of human beings into existence, to eat the food which they
paid for by their labor."(5)
But when child labor in the factories became such a scandal and such a
disgrace that child-labor was finally forbidden by laws that possessed
the advantage over our own that they were enforced, the proletariat
ceased to supply children. Almost by magic the birth rate among the
workers declined. Since children were no longer of economic value to
the factories, they were evidently a drug in the home. This movement, it
should not be forgotten however, was coincident with the agitation and
education in Birth Control stimulated by the Besant-Bradlaugh trial.
Large families among migratory agricultural laborers in our own country
are likewise brought into existence in response to an industrial demand.
The enforcement of the child labor laws and the extension of their
restrictions are therefore an urgent necessity, not so much, as some of
our child-labor authorities believe, to enable these children to go to
school, as to prevent the recruiting of our next generation from the
least intelligent and most unskilled classes in the community. As long
as we officially encourage and countenance the production of large
families, the evils of child labor will confront us. On the other hand,
the prohibition of child labor may help, as in the case of English
factories, in the decline of the birth rate.
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