An Excellent Law

The recent session of the Illinois legislature passed a first class child labor law and it has just become operative. It is a law which if properly enforced will improve the future citizenship of the state in no small degree. The law, while stringent, is none too much so and the authorities should see that it is enforced in letter and spirit. 

The Chicago Evening Post say of it editorially:
The child-labor law passed at the last session of the legislature is now in effect. It is one of the most stringent measures of the kind in existence, and if it is rigidly enforced it cannot fail to bring about a most gratifying improvement. Already it is estimated that 2,500 children have been charged because the conditions of their employment did not comply with the law.

The vital features of the new law are these:

No children under 14 years of age shall be employed. 

Children between 14 and 16 years of age must possess an age and school certificate containing an affidavit of age and of ability to read and write from the child's teacher, an affidavit from its parents as to age, the certificate to be issued by the board of education.

Children under 16 years of age are not to be employed in dangerous occupations, and the law defines what occupations are dangerous, so that the matter cannot be left for opinion and expert testimony.

Children under 16 years of age are not to be employed more than eight hours a day or forty-eight hours a week they are forbidden to work except between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

It is not likely that any employer in the state is ignorant of the provisions of this law, and so there can be no good reason why its enforcement to the very letter should not begin with today. For no matter how strong of desirable a law may be, its whole effectiveness lies in its proper enforcement.