Child Labor Amendent

In light of a Republican congresscretin proposing that schoolchildren find gainful employment rather than eat school lunches, our Graphical History Tour stop for today looks at a proposed 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution a century ago this month. 

"The Shadow on the States" by O.P. Williams in New York American, ca. Jan. 29, 1925

The Supreme Court had overturned previous measures passed to outlaw, regulate, or tax child labor in Hammer v. Dagenhart and Bailey v. Drexel Furniture; so, with the support of African-American organizations, unions, teachers' federations, women's rights organizations, and religious groups, the House and Senate approved the amendment in 1924, sending it to the states for ratification.

The text of the Child Labor Amendment:

Section 1. The Congress shall have the power to limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age.

Section 2. The power of the several States is unimpaired by this article except that the operation of State laws shall be suspended to the extent necessary to give effect to legislation enacted by the Congress.

"Mowing Them Down" by Harold Talburt for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Jan. 26, 1925

In January, California and Arizona joined Arkansas in ratifying the proposed constitutional amendment; Wisconsin passed ratification in February.

"Of Such Is the Kingdom of Greed" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 1, 1925

In the same time, North Dakota, Utah, Idaho and Kansas rejected the amendment, although they reversed their stand and voted to ratify it during the Great Depression of the 1930's. Meanwhile, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana had already voted it down in 1924; Delaware, Connecticut and South Carolina also rejected the amendment in the first two months of 1925.

"Who Said Henpecked" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Feb. 1, 1925

Opposition to the amendment was led by business groups and, as Grover Page's cartoon illustrates, "states' rights" advocates in southern states.

By 1937, only 28 states ratified the Child Labor Amendment, eight short of the number required by the Constitution. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, however, limiting child labor (as well as establishing a minimum wage and mandating overtime pay) was upheld by the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Darby Lumber Co. in 1941, and ratifying the Child Labor Amendment became unnecessary.

Given our present Court's disdain for precedent, that could always change.

No time limit was set for the amendment's ratification, meaning that it could still be added to the Constitution. Because of the entry into the union of Alaska and Hawai'i in 1959, it would require ratification by ten more states, not just eight.