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FACTORY LEGISLATION IN 
 
 MAINE 
 
 BY 
 
 E. STAGG WHITIN 
 
 SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 
 
 FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 IN THE 
 
 Faculty of Political Science 
 Columbia University 
 
 1908 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/factorylegislatiOOwhitrich 
 
FACTORY LEGISLATION IN 
 MAINE 
 
 BY 
 
 E. STAGG WHITIN 
 
 SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 
 
 FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 IN THE 
 
 Faculty of Political Science 
 Columbia University 
 
 1908 
 
*$$ 
 
 Copyright, 1908 
 
 BY 
 
 E. STAGG WHITIN 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The police power of the state is " the power of promoting 
 the public welfare by restraining and regulating the use of 
 liberty and property." Factory legislation is composed of 
 statute laws which define the method and form the police 
 power shall take in its relation to that part of the commun- 
 ity who labor in factories, workshops and industrial estab- 
 lishments of all kinds. It would immediately appear that 
 factory legislation is a term including in most of the states 
 much more than the narrow construction of the word would 
 indicate. Even in the State of Maine, where as yet no 
 elaborate factory code has been evolved in the sixty years of 
 factory legislation, its scope is much broader than would 
 at first be supposed. If one may define it as similar in scope 
 to that of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics it 
 would be " limited to legislation which has relations to the 
 commercial, industrial, social, educational and sanitary con- 
 ditions of the laboring people," i. e., conditions that have re- 
 sulted from the fact that they were laborers in those fields 
 that are recognized as " labor " fields. It takes for granted 
 that such persons, because they are restricted by economic 
 pressure to seek a living wage by selling their time to others, 
 are not free competing agents in society and thus must 
 be protected by the state. Such legislation is simply in 
 fulfilment of the guarantee in the constitution of the states 
 of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and 
 is simply the concrete and definite expression of the police 
 power which every state may use for the protection of the 
 individual. Such legislation would include in the State of 
 5] 5 
 
 183499 
 
6 PREFACE [6 
 
 Maine all the laws published by the Commissioner of In- 
 dustrial and Labor Statistics in his report of 1907. 
 
 The national government has long regulated the labor 
 of seamen and in recent years has extended its police power 
 so as to regulate labor conditions in certain lines within the 
 respective states. As yet this control has only been exer- 
 cised under the constitutional right of the regulation of inter- 
 state commerce. The Interstate Commerce Commission at 
 present exerting its power over the employees of all com- 
 mon carriers has taken out of the hands of the states the 
 regulation of wages, hours, employers' liability, etc., for 
 employees when engaged in interstate commerce. For this 
 reason, from this study have been omitted all laws, though 
 enacted by the State of Maine, that relate directly to per- 
 sons employed on common carriers, or as seamen, because 
 they not only form a class separate from factory legislation, 
 but because no comprehensive study of them would be pos- 
 sible without discussing the field of national legislation. 
 
 I desire to extend my thanks to those who have aided me 
 in the writing of this thesis. I am especially indebted to Dr. 
 Samuel McCune Lindsay, Professor of Social Legislation, 
 Columbia University, for his co-operation in the planning 
 and execution. To Dr. Owen R. Lovejoy, Secretary of the 
 National Child Labor Committee, and H. S. Braucher, 
 General Secretary of the Associated Charities of Portland, 
 Maine, I owe much for help in reaching those interested in 
 factory legislation in the State. The assistance of Miss 
 Adelaide R. Hasse, Librarian, Department of Public Docu- 
 ments, New York Public Library, of Dr. Ernest Emery, 
 State Librarian, Augusta, Maine, and of his courteous as- 
 sistant, Rev. Dr. Livingston, in placing their libraries at my 
 disposal has been invaluable. The courtesy of the Bureau 
 of Industrial and Labor Statistics, through Commissioner 
 Lyons and Major House has extended even to allowing me 
 
7 ] PREFACE j 
 
 to use proof sheets of their report for 1907. Valuable sug- 
 gestions have been received from conferences with Mr. 
 George E. Morrison, State Factory Inspector; Mrs. Mary 
 L. Burnham, State Officer of the Protection League ; George 
 W. Grover, Probation Officer, Portland, Maine; Mr. W. H. 
 Looney, of Portland; Mrs. George C. French, President of 
 the Civic Club, Portland; Mr. E. P. Wentworth, Superin- 
 tendent of the State School for Boys, Portland; Miss Elsie 
 Nutt, Headworker of the Fraternity Settlement, Portland; 
 and Mr. A. Eagles, President of the Central Labor Union, 
 Portland. These acknowledgments would only be half 
 made if I omitted to mention Abner Nichols, Chairman of 
 the Legislative Committee of the State Federation of Labor, 
 to whom I am indebted for much of the material relating 
 to labor organization. 
 
 Ernest Stagg Whitin. 
 Columbia University, April, 1908. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FACE 
 
 Preface 5 
 
 PART I— HISTORICAL 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Basis of Legislation, 1821 
 
 (1) Industries and their regulation in the district of Maine. (2) Laying 
 
 foundations in legislation for children. (3) The control of the time for 
 
 manual labor. (4) Regulations in regard to wages. (5) Regulation and 
 
 inspection of dangerous machines and the protection from fire 15 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Early Child Labor Laws, 1847-1855 
 (1) Early factory conditions. (2) Educational campaign. (3) The first 
 child-labor bill. (4) The example of England and other states. (5) Value 
 of enforcement by school committees questioned. (6) The act of 1847. 
 (7) Act of 1848 regulating hours of labor. (8) Attempt to repeal the act 
 of 1848. (9) Gov. Dana's child-labor message of 1850. (10) Regu- 
 lation of local compulsory education 26 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Movement from Local to State Regulation Aided by 
 Industrial Conditions, 1 861-1886 
 (1) Investigations of 1868 to 1874. (2) The first mandatory act regarding 
 attendance (1875). (3^ The r ' se °f tne l aDor movement results in a 
 demand for better state regulations. (4) State regulations result in 1887. 47 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 Attempts Toward Regulation of Wages 
 (1) Knights of Labor. (2) Strikes vs. legislation. (3) Legislation about 
 wages. (4) Wages of married women. (5) Payment of wages. (6) 
 
 Fortnightly payment. (7) Truck acts. (8) Mechanics' lien 53 
 
 9] 9 
 
IO CONTENTS [ IO 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 General Factory Acts of 1887 
 (1) The progress of the ten-hour movement during 1886. (2) The need of 
 legislation. (3; The legislature of 1887. (4) Safety appliances on 
 boilers. (5) Attendance laws 68 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Expansion of Factory Legislation, 1887-1903 
 (1) The bureau of statistics and inspection. (2) Labor aids enforcement. 
 (3) Some faults in the laws. (4) Failure of school authorities to co- 
 operate. (5) Bureau vs. factory department. (6) Changes in factory 
 department. (7) Results from child-labor law enforcement. (8) Diffi- 
 culties of enforcement of labor laws during financial depression. (9) 
 Employment bureau law. (10) Powers of the factory inspector defined 
 by court. (11) Attempts to improve compulsory education laws. (12) 
 Effects of compulsory education laws on child labor (1899-1903J. (13) 
 Maine mining bureau. (14) Revival of the labor movement 83 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Child Labor Campaign, 1905-1907 
 (1) Agitation by the Federation of Women's Clubs. (2) The legislature of 
 I 9°5« (3) The legislature of 1907. (4) Other labor legislation before 
 the 73d legislature. (5) The fifty-eight hour bill. (6) Initiative and 
 referendum 102 
 
 PART II— ADMINISTRATION AND THE FACTORY LAW, 1908 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Introductory 
 
 (i) Meaning of referendum. (2) Necessity for period of education 123 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 Agencies of Enforcement 
 (1) The lack of co-ordination among agencies of enforcement. (2) The 
 organization of a department of labor and child protection 126 
 
lx ] CONTENTS II 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 Child Labor 
 (i) Defects in the law of 1907. (2) Poverty of the parents. (3) The 
 canning industries. (4) Mercantile establishments. (5) Street trades.. 130 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 Provisions Affecting All Employees 
 (1) Arbitration. (2) Fifty-eight hour law. (3; Employers' liability. (4) 
 Conclusion 139 
 
 APPENDIX 
 Index to Labor Laws of the State, 1908 . 142 
 
PART I 
 
 HISTORY 
 
• 3 TY | 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Basis of Legislation (1821) 
 
 § 1. Industries and their Regulation in the District of 
 Maine. — It is not generally realized that Maine is a manu- 
 facturing state, still less that factory bells could have an- 
 nounced the birth of the State of Maine. In the year 18 16, 
 four years before that eventful day, a writer in the Massa- 
 chusetts Compendium * describes, in quaint language, the 
 manufactories of the State : 
 
 There are many ponds in Kennebec County, from one mile 
 to less in length to seven or eight miles, the streams flowing 
 from them to Kennebec, Androscoggin, Sandy Rivers, etc., 
 afford some of the best mill sites in the world, saw mills, grist 
 mills and fulling mills, machines for carding wool are common, 
 a paper mill and a factory for cotton and wool are established 
 on a beautiful stream in Gardiner, factories for cotton and wool 
 are likewise at Winthrop, Readefield and other places. Cop- 
 peras is made at Winthrop and iron at Clinton. — Anson (the 
 town in which the writer lives ) contains generally good land, — 
 it has two grist mills, one has two pair of stones and the other 
 three pair, — saw mill, fulling mill, two carding machines, trip 
 hammer, bark mill, and various machines turned by water, a 
 number of dwelling houses, stores, etc., contribute to form a 
 pretty village. Mills and such villages are common here- 
 abouts. . . . 
 
 Maine inherited from Massachusetts as its birthright cer- 
 
 1 Massachusetts Compendium, no. 4, p. 72; pub. Portland, 1816. 
 15] 15 
 
l6 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [^ 
 
 tain legislation, which, while " blue " according to the stand- 
 ards of our time, tended then to show only its virility. 
 This legislation groups itself under the four heads most con- 
 spicuous today in our labor laws : ( i ) legislation for children ; 
 (2) control of the time of labor; (3) regulations in regard 
 to wages, and (4) regulation and inspection of dangerous 
 machines and the protection from fire. 
 
 § 2. Laying Foundations in Legislation for Children. — The 
 child was the subject of the earliest and most social of the 
 legislation among the early Pilgrims, the Massachusetts 
 Colony and those settlers in Maine, whose coming antedates 
 these more renowned settlers. The first volume * of the 
 Massachusetts records shows provisions for school facilities 
 as early as 1636, while in 1642 an attempt was made to pro- 
 vide some general system of education which should be 
 compulsory upon the children of the colonists. The record 
 of the Colonial Court, is, in part, as follows : 
 
 This Court taking into serious consideration the great neglect 
 of many persons and masters in training up their children in 
 learning, and labor, and other employments which may be 
 profitable to the commonwealth, do hereby order and decree, 
 that in every town, the chosen men appointed to manage the 
 prudential affairs of the same, shall henceforth stand charged 
 with the care of the redress of this evil ; — and for this end, 
 they, or the greater number of them shall have power to take 
 account from time to time, of all parents and masters, and of 
 their children, especially of their ability to read and understand 
 the principles of religion and the capital laws of this country 
 and to impose fines upon such as fail to render such account 
 to them when they shall be required ; and they shall have power, 
 with the consent of the court, or the magistrate, to put forth 
 apprentices the children of such as they shall find not able and 
 fit to employ and bring them up. 
 
 1 Records of the Colony of Massachusetts, vol. i. 
 
1 7] THE BASIS OF LEGISLATION 17 
 
 The selectmen of every town were further required " to 
 have a vigilant eye over their brethren and neighbors, to see 
 that none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of 
 their families, as not to endeavor to teach, by themselves 
 or others, their children and apprentices, so much learning 
 as may enable them perfectly to read the English tongue and 
 (obtain) a knowledge of the capital laws; upon penalty of 
 twenty shillings for each offence therein." 
 
 In 1647 tne fi rst comprehensive law was enacted. The 
 following extract * shows the general scope of the law, the 
 system it inaugurated, and the principles upon which that 
 system rested. The original form of spelling is given only 
 in the preamble : 
 
 It being one chiefe project of ye ould deluder, Sathan, to 
 keepe men from ye knowledge of ye Scriptures, as in formr 
 times by keeping ym in an unknown tongue, so in these lattr 
 times by perswading from ye use of tongues yt so at least ye 
 true sence and meaning of ye originall might be clouded by 
 false glo of saint seeming deceivers, yt learning may not be 
 buried in ye grave of or fathrs in ye church and commonwealth 
 the Lord assisting or endeavors. 
 
 It is therefore ordered by this Court and authority thereof 
 that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath 
 increased them to the number of fifty householders, shall then 
 forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such 
 children as shall resort to him, to write and read ; whose wages 
 shall be paid, either by the parents or masters of such children, 
 or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply, as the major 
 part of those who order the prudentials of the town shall 
 appoint ; provided that those who send their children be not op- 
 pressed by paying much more than they can have them taught 
 for in the adjoining towns. 
 
 1 Records of the Colony of Massachusetts, vol. ii, p. 203. 
 
1 8 FA CTOR Y LEGISLA TION IN MAINE [ x g. 
 
 And it is further ordered that when any town shall increase 
 to the number of one hundred families or householders, they 
 shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to 
 instruct youths so far as they may be fitted for the university ; 
 and if any town neglect the performance above one year, then 
 every such town shall pay five pounds per annum to the next 
 such school, till they shall perform this order. 
 
 Of this old law the historian, R. C. Stanley, 1 says : 
 
 It will be seen that this law was not in the interest of the select 
 few, but that it provided a system of common schools for all 
 and made that system compulsory. It will also be seen that 
 under the law were certain principles, now for the first time 
 boldly proclaimed and clearly enunciated, but clung to, empha- 
 sized and reiterated by frequent legislation in Massachusetts 
 and in Maine until this day. The first of the underlying princi- 
 ples of these earliest school laws was that the safety and 
 prosperity of the State required that the youth of the State 
 should be educated. 
 
 Second, That the parent was in the first instance responsible 
 for the education of his children. 
 
 Third, That the State has a right to enforce this responsibility 
 upon the part of parents. ' 
 
 Fourth, That the State may, by legislative enactment, not 
 only require the child to attend school, but may fix a standard 
 of rank which shall determine the kind of education and 
 minimum amount. These principles were set forth in the law 
 of 1642. 
 
 It should be noticed that the principle underlying these laws 
 was not that the State should educate the child for the benefit 
 of the child or its parents, but because the safety of the State 
 demands that the child be educated. 
 
 It should also be noted that attendance at the schools pro- 
 vided by the law was not made wholly compulsory, for the 
 
 1 Annual Report of the Board of Education, 1852. 
 
I9 ] THE BASIS OF LEGISLATION ! 9 
 
 parent had a right to provide equivalent education in any way 
 he might elect. The law was based on the principle that 
 the child must be educated. If the parent does not provide the 
 means then the child must attend the public schools. This 
 fundamental idea is retained in the school laws of today. 
 
 The uniting of the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth 
 and Maine under the new charter * of 1691 made these laws 
 applicable to the children of the colony of Maine. 
 
 The duty of enforcement of the laws lay upon the select- 
 men, until, in 1789, a general school law was passed which 
 included ministers of the Gospel as well in the good work. 
 The year previous, 1788, these ministers 2 had been given a 
 " benefit " of three hundred and twenty acres of " minister 
 lot," together with the use of a similar lot known as the 
 " ministerial lot/' while the school of the town was given 
 a similar " school lot " of three hundred and twenty acres. 
 Natural it was that the duty of pastoral truant officer be 
 given by the State to these good dominies, because payment 
 had already been provided for their services. At least this 
 duty was plain, for the law 3 of 1788 reads : 
 
 And it shall be the duty of the Minister or Ministers of the 
 Gospel and the Selectmen (or such other persons as shall be 
 especially chosen by each town or district for that purpose) 
 of the several towns or districts, to use their influence and best 
 endeavors that the youth of their respective towns and dis- 
 tricts do regularly attend the schools appointed and supported 
 as aforesaid, for their instruction; and once in every six 
 months, at least, and as much oftener as they shall determine it 
 necessary, to visit and inspect the several schools in their re- 
 
 1 MacDonald, Select Charters, 205-212. Poore, Charter and Consti- 
 tution, vol. ii, p. 942. 
 
 2 Laws of 1789, Massachusetts, chap, xix, sec. 7. 
 8 Laws of 1788, Massachusetts. 
 
20 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ 20 
 
 spective towns and districts, and shall inquire into the regula- 
 tions and discipline thereof, and the proficiency of the scholars 
 therein, giving reasonable notice of the time of their visitation. 
 
 How " vigilant an eye " was kept over the children, there 
 are no records to show, but the " benefit of ministry " was 
 enjoyed until the year 1832, when an act was passed to regu- 
 late the question of school lands which seemed to have been 
 carried over by the "Act of Separation," x and to appro- 
 priate " the income of certain ministerial funds to the sup- 
 port of schools." 
 
 Inheriting these traditions, the new State passed a com- 
 prehensive school law in January, 1821, 2 perpetuating the 
 principles of the old Massachusetts law, but failing to defin- 
 itely locate the responsibility of enforcement upon any of 
 the school or ecclesiastical authorities. 
 
 This omission ought not to have excused the selectmen 
 from their legal responsibility. Section 6 of the Articles of 
 Separation states " That all the laws which shall be in force 
 within the said District of Maine, upon the said fifteenth day 
 of March next, shall still remain, and be in force, within the 
 said proposed State, until altered or repealed by the govern- 
 ment thereof, such parts only excepted as may be inconsistent 
 with the situation and condition of said new State, or repug- 
 nant to the constitution thereof." But the ministers and 
 selectmen were busy with other things, and seldom, prob- 
 ably, did the duty of enforcement of school attendance 
 weigh heavily on their shoulders. 
 
 We shall trace in the chapters that are to follow the way 
 in which by subsequent legislation the state made definite 
 the regulations in regard to the activities of young children 
 
 1 Journal of the Constitutional Convention, 1819-1820, p. 12. 
 
 2 Revised Statutes (Maine, 1822). 
 
2i] THE BASIS OF LEGISLATION 2l 
 
 and the powers of those in whose hands the duty of enforce- 
 ment rests, but it is in this early legislation that we find the 
 promise of the later development of this principle. 
 
 § 3. The Control of the Time for Manual Labor. — Prob- 
 ably no " blue law " of the old colonies was more rigidly 
 enforced than that providing for a day of rest on the Sab- 
 bath. It is unnecessary here to trace the differing forms 
 in which this semi-religious legislation expressed itself in 
 the colonial and district period of Maine history, because its 
 spirit survives the "Act of Separation " and was enacted in 
 statute form in the session of 182 1. 1 Surely no one can 
 doubt the sincere conviction of our ancestors as shown in 
 this act, that the State has a right to control and limit the 
 time during which the persons in the State could legally per- 
 form certain specified acts of labor. Despite its religious 
 emphasis this right is clearly and emphatically enunciated. 
 Its quaint language will justify a careful reading by the 
 modern student of the subject. 
 
 Whereas the observance of the Lord's day is highly pro- 
 motive of the welfare of the community, by affording necessary 
 seasons for relaxation from labor and the cares of business; 
 for moral reflections and conversation on the duties of life, 
 and the frequent errors of human conduct; for public and 
 private worship of the Maker, Governor and Judge of the 
 world; and for those acts of charity which support and adorn 
 a Christian Society ; And whereas some thoughtless and irrelig- 
 ious persons, inattentive to the duties and benefits of the Lord's 
 day, profane the same, by unnecessarily pursuing their worldly 
 business and recreations on that day, to their own great damage, 
 as members of a Christian Society ; to the great disturbance of 
 well disposed persons, and to the great injury of the com- 
 munity, by producing dissipation of manners and immoralities 
 of life. 
 
 1 Revised Statutes, 1822. 
 
22 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ 22 
 
 Sec. i. That no traveller, drover, waggoner, teamster, or 
 any of their servants, shall travel on the Lord's day, or any 
 part thereof (except from necessity or charity,) under a penalty 
 not less than four dollars nor more than six dollars and sixty- 
 six cents ; which penalty may be recovered with costs of prose- 
 cution, upon complaint before any Justice of the Peace in the 
 County where the offence may be committed; one moiety 
 thereof to the complainant and the other moiety to the use of 
 the County within which the offence may be committed; or 
 before the Circuit Court of Common Pleas of the same County 
 by presentment of the Grand Jury, in which case the whole 
 penalty shall enure to the benefit of the County: Provided 
 however, That all prosecutions for the said penalty shall be 
 commenced within six months after the offence was committed, 
 unless the offender resides without the State. 
 
 Sec. 2. That no person or persons whatsoever shall keep 
 open, his, her, or their shop, warehouse, or workhouse, nor 
 shall, upon land or water do any manner of labor, business, or 
 work, (works of neceessity and charity only excepted,) nor 
 be present at any concert of music, dancing or any public diver- 
 sion, show or entertainment, nor use any sport, game, play, or 
 recreation, on the Lord's day, or any part thereof, upon penalty 
 of a sum not exceeding six dollars and sixty-six cents, nor less 
 than four dollars for each offence. 
 
 Sec. 3. That no vinter, retailer of strong liquors, innholder 
 or other person keeping a house of public entertainment, shall 
 entertain or suffer any of the inhabitants of the respective 
 towns where they dwell, or others not being travellers, 
 strangers, or lodgers in such houses, to abide and remain in their 
 houses, yards, orchards or fields, drinking, or spending their 
 time either idly or at play or doing any secular business on 
 the Lord's day or any part thereof, on penalty of three dollars 
 and thirty-three cents, payable by such vintner, retailer or inn- 
 holder, or person keeping such house of entertainment, for each 
 person so entertained or suffered ; and every person so drinking 
 or abiding, (except as aforesaid,) shall pay a fine not less than 
 
23] THE BASIS OF LEGISLATION 23 
 
 two dollars, nor more than four, for each offence; and every 
 such licensed person, upon any conviction after the first, shall 
 pay a fine of six dollars and sixty-six cents for each offence; 
 and having been three times convicted, shall be debarred from 
 renewing his license forever after. And although it is the sense 
 of this Legislature, that the time commanded in the sacred Scrip- 
 tures to be observed as holy time, includes a natural day, or 
 twenty- four hours ; yet whereas there is a difference of opinion 
 concerning the beginning and the ending of the Lord's day 
 among the good people of this State, and this Legislature being 
 unwilling to lay any restrictions, which may seem unnecessary 
 or unreasonable, to persons of sobriety and conscience : 
 
 Sec. 4. That all the foregoing regulations, respecting the due 
 observation of the Lord's day, shall be construed to extend to 
 the time included between the midnight preceding and the sun 
 setting of the same day. 
 
 Sec. 5. That no person shall be present at any concert of 
 music, dancing, or other public diversion, nor shall any person 
 or persons use any game, sport, play or recreation, on the land 
 or water, on the evening next preceding or succeeding the 
 Lord's day, on pain of three dollars and thirty-three cents for 
 each offence; and no retailer, innholder, or person licensed to 
 keep a public house, shall entertain, or suffer to remain, or be 
 in their houses or yards or other places appurtenant, any per- 
 son or persons, (travellers, strangers or lodgers excepted,) 
 drinking or spending their time on the said evenings on penalty 
 of three dollars. 
 
 Sec. 6. That the fines and penalties aforesaid, shall be, one 
 moiety thereof to the town wherein the offence shall be com- 
 mitted, and the other moiety thereof to any person or persons 
 who shall inform and sue for the same; to be recovered by a 
 complaint to a Justice of the Peace, with costs of suit, or the 
 said fines may be recovered by presentment of the Grand Jury 
 before the Circuit Court of Common Pleas, in the County 
 wherein the offence or offences shall be committed, and when 
 thus recovered, shall enure to the town wherein the offence 
 
24 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [24 
 
 shall be committed. And whereas the public worship of Al- 
 mighty God is esteemed by Christians an essential part of the 
 due observance of the Lord's day, and requires the greatest 
 of reverance for a due performance of the same : 
 
 Sec. 12. Be is further enacted, That the special authority 
 given by this act to Tythingmen, for preventing the breaches 
 thereof, shall not be construed or understood to exempt any 
 Sheriff, Grand Jurors, Constables, or other officers or persons 
 whatsoever, from any obligation or duty, to cause this act to be 
 put in execution, but they shall be held to take due notice and 
 prosecute all breaches thereof, such special authority notwith- 
 standing. 
 
 Sec. 13. That all the penalties and fines, incurred and paid 
 for any of the offences aforesaid, mentioned in the seventh, 
 eighth, and tenth sections of this act shall be for the use of the 
 State. And that all said offences, the penalties against which 
 exceed seven dollars, shall be prosecuted by presentment of the 
 Grand Jury, before the Circuit Court of Common Pleas, in the 
 County wherein the offence may be committed; But all of- 
 fences, the penalty whereof does not exceed seven dollars, ex- 
 cept the offender lives out of the County in which the offence 
 may be committed, shall be prosecuted by complaint before a 
 Justice of the Peace in such County; but when the offender 
 lives out of such County, he may be prosecuted by presentment 
 as aforesaid, although the penalty does not exceed seven dollars. 
 
 This law remained in this form until the amendment of 
 1864, which is in effect today. (See page 62). 
 
 § 4. Regulations in Regard to Wages. — Wages had not 
 become at this early time the complicated problem that we 
 shall discuss later, but as early as 1821, an act * was passed 
 protecting the laborer from " foreign attachment," giving 
 him the preferred claim to wages. Chapter 61, 1 Section 15, 
 reads : " By reason of any amount due from him to the prin- 
 1 Revised Statutes. 1822. 
 
25] THE BASIS OF LEGISLATION 2 ? 
 
 cipal defendant, as wages for his personal labor for a time 
 not exceeding one month." 
 
 § 5. Regulation and Inspection of Dangerous Machines 
 and the Protection from Fire. — The early beginnings in the 
 regulation and inspection of dangerous machines and the 
 protection from fire may be seen in the act x approved March 
 19, 1 82 1, providing " for the prevention of danger by fire, 
 and the safe keeping of gunpowder :" Section 1 of this act 
 makes it a duty incumbent upon the Selectmen to make re- 
 gulations as to the keeping of gunpowder in certain towns. 
 Section 2 imposes a penalty for the violation of such regu- 
 lations and provides a mode of recovery. Section 3 makes 
 liable for seizure powder kept contrary to the regulations. 
 Section 4 provides for redress by persons damaged by ex- 
 plosions of powder illegally kept. Section 5 gives power 
 of search for powder to the Selectmen, with permission to 
 enter any building, while the sixth section, annexed to the 
 law almost like a postscript, provides a penalty of from ten 
 to fifty dollars for anyone suffering a stove, chimney or 
 stove-pipe to be defective. Out of this provision for in- 
 spection and regulation grew the powers of the factory de- 
 partment sixty-six years later. 
 
 In the following chapters we shall show the development 
 of these principles to meet the needs of the growing indus- 
 trial activities of the State. 
 
 1 Revised Statutes, 1822. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Early Child Labor Laws. 1847-1855 
 
 § 1. Early Factory Conditions, (1841-1843). — The early 
 days of the new State were busy ones for the law-makers, 
 who had a large territory with a population representing 
 for the most part lumber, fishing and agricultural interests. 
 Natural it is that the struggling manufacturers should have 
 been left for a quarter of a century to look after the interests 
 of their own employees. Judging of the conditions in early 
 times from a description of the conditions at the York 
 Manufacturing Company of Biddeford, in the official Regis- 
 ter x of 1841, it would seem that probably little legislation 
 was needed. After describing this company as one having 
 seventeen thousand eight hundred spindles, five hundred and 
 seventy looms, capitalized at a million dollars, it gives the 
 statistics for 1840 as eight hundred female operatives, and 
 two hundred male, with a pay roll of three thousand dollars 
 per week, and a hundred and fifty thousand a year, and 
 goes on to say, " No hands, male or female, are employed 
 under fourteen years of age, and very few under sixteen. 
 None are admitted until they have been properly instructed 
 in reading and writing, and in order to show their pro- 
 ficiency, they are in all cases required to write their names 
 before going into the mills. Writing schools are gener- 
 ally kept in the evening for the improvement of those who 
 desire it. It is a general regulation of the company that 
 
 1 Maine Register, 1841 (Portland). 
 
 26 [26 
 
27] EARLY CHILD LABOR LAWS 2 j 
 
 those in their employment or living in their houses, who 
 have not had the kinepox, shall be vaccinated, and a physi- 
 cian is employed for this purpose. An arrangement is made 
 with the physician of the place, at the expense of the com- 
 pany, to attend, in case of sickness, upon all females in their 
 employment, without charge to them for medical advice or 
 attendance." How authentic this account is, we have no 
 means of telling, but it appears to have been written by some 
 State official. Probably it is not a true picture of the con- 
 ditions under which the twenty-three thousand four hun- 
 dred and thirty-eight persons reported * to be employed in 
 manufactories in 1843 were laboring, yet an example like 
 this must have had a good effect on the other companies, 
 and the competition for labor kept a fairly high average. 
 By that year fourteen millions of capital had been invested 
 in the manufactories of the State, and the value of the 
 manufactured goods was over ten millions. 
 
 The State was not without voluntary associations for 
 the aid of the mechanic. As early as 181 5 there was in- 
 corporated the Maine Charitable Mechanics' Association, 
 which in 1841 was described as follows: 2 "This Associa- 
 tion has a fund of from fifteen hundred to two thousand 
 dollars, its design is to encourage the mechanical arts, to re- 
 lieve indigent members and widows and orphans of deceased 
 members when in need, and also to assist members by loans 
 of money. It is an excellent institution and has much en- 
 hanced respectability and intelligence of mechanics in the 
 city of Portland." 
 
 § 2. Educational Campaign. — The interest in education 
 seemed to be growing from year to year and the school sys- 
 tem was becoming more adequate. Governor Kent, in his 
 
 1 Maine Register, 1843. 
 
 2 Maine Register, 1841, p. 86. 
 
2 8 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ 2 g 
 
 inaugural address x in 1841, probably expressed the senti- 
 ment of the people: " We are justly proud of our system 
 of common schools and New England can point to no higher 
 evidence of wisdom, patriotism and foresight of the fathers 
 of our land. The principle of universal education, upon 
 which the system is based, lies at the very foundation of 
 our republican institutions." The movement to better the 
 facilities for general education was greatly advanced by a 
 convention of teachers and those interested in education held 
 in Augusta, January, 1846, where a committee was ap- 
 pointed, consisting of Amos Brown, Philip Eastman, A. S. 
 Packard and Samuel P. Benson, to study the defects in 
 the educational system and suggest measures for their re- 
 moval. This committee submitted a memorial 2 to the legis- 
 lature the next year. As a result the education bill 3 of 
 1846 was passed, which for the first time gave the State a 
 centralized educational agency or Board of Education, hav- 
 ing the interest of the whole State at heart. It was only 
 when the evolution of the school system had reached this 
 point that the State was ready to undertake adequate legis- 
 lation for the protection of the less fortunate children in 
 the community. While this Board was simply a confeder- 
 ation, as it were, representing the town school committees, 
 still it was the first attempt to get away from the old Massa- 
 chusetts town system. The breaking-away from the town 
 system made possible the conception of regulations apply- 
 ing to the whole State, but it was many years, as we shall 
 see, before centralized enforcement became possible. 
 
 In 1847 tms movement took effect in legislation. In 
 Governor Dana's message to the legislature that year, he 
 
 1 Governor's Annual Message, 1841, p. 19. 
 
 2 Bublic Documents of Maine, 1846. 
 8 Laws of 1846. 
 
2 g] EARLY CHILD LABOR LAWS 2 Q 
 
 points out that * " a large portion of our population expects 
 no education for their children, except that they may be 
 able to read and write intelligently and acquire the rudi- 
 ments of arithmetic. This they feel will be secured during 
 the period of their minority even without effort. " The 
 Governor goes on to plead for some means of overcoming 
 this indifference on the part of the people to adequate edu- 
 cation, and suggests that the legislature consider the estab- 
 lishment of agricultural schools as a means to this end. 
 Fortunate it is that the legislature did not restrict its 
 discussion to the agricultural school proposed by the Gov- 
 ernor, but went carefully into the whole problem involved. 
 A newspaper 2 of the time tells us of an educational meet- 
 ing held at the State House on the evening of May, 19th, 
 1847, specially called to hear an address by William G. 
 Crosby, Secretary of the Board of Education. The re- 
 porter states that there assembled a " recherche " audience 
 consisting of legislators, the Governor, the Council, judges, 
 the Board of Education, local doctors, and so forth. 
 
 " There were among the audience men of learning; men 
 representing the communities whose prejudices had been ex- 
 cited, whose coming — with truth it may be said — from all 
 quarters with lethargic indifference upon the subject of com- 
 mon school education is the predominant and most unhappy 
 feature." Secretary Crosby, we are told, dwelt upon the 
 failure in regard to physical and moral education, and 
 pointed out that " one of the greatest evils existing was 
 neglect of children to attend punctually upon the means of 
 instruction." " Facts were cited," the reporter tells us, 
 " which would astonish any man who feels an interest in 
 popular education. The remedy for existing evils, it was 
 
 1 Governor's Annual Message, 1847. 
 
 2 Eastern Argus (May 22, 1847). 
 
30 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ 30 
 
 remarked, was easy to be found. It lies with the people, to 
 them it belongs to furnish it, and with them the respon- 
 sibility." 
 
 §3. The First Child Labor Bill (184/). — How much 
 interest was excited by this meeting we can only judge from 
 the fact that some two weeks later, on June 2d, in the 
 Senate, " Mr. Bellamy laid on the table a b.'ll for the better 
 instruction of youth in manufacturing establishments, and 
 it was referred to the Committee on Education. It pro- 
 vides that children under fifteen years of age should have re- 
 ceived three months' schooling each year, and those under 
 twelve years of age, four months' schooling." * 
 
 The bill must have been the cause of some discussion at 
 the meeting held the next evening, June 3d, of which a 
 chatty reporter in announcing it in the " Notes by a 
 Straggler," 2 tells us, 
 
 The friends of education will hold a meeting this evening to 
 discuss important subjects relating to common school educa- 
 tion. I am glad to hear of this — and hope that the meetings 
 will be kept up at least as often as once a week during the 
 session. Amid the fun and frivolity incident to the Capital 
 during the session, it is refreshing to have friends of progress 
 in education and other measures of benefit to the people awake 
 to their duty. Here center many of the leading men of the 
 State — the representatives of its towns and villages. New 
 ideas for the promotion of education and the advancement of 
 mankind gathered here, may be carried home with them, and 
 made to scatter their benefits there, and thus do good a 
 hundredfold. 
 
 § 4. The Example of England and Other States. — Un- 
 fortunate it is that the reporter could not have told us 
 
 1 Eastern Argus (June 5th, 1847). 2 Ibid. 
 
3I J EARLY CHILD LABOR LAWS 3I 
 
 exactly what took place at the meeting, but it will not be 
 impossible by a little research on our own part to review 
 in brief a few of the points which must have been presented 
 to so " recherche " an audience. We may well suppose that 
 Mr. Bellamy, who to the readers of today would seem to 
 have been looking forward with no uncertain vision, must 
 have been questioned as to the sources from which he de- 
 rived his bill. If we may picture him as looking backward 
 — and his name would suggest the possibility to a younger 
 generation — he could not have failed to develop the follow- 
 ing facts, which he could have secured without much trouble 
 from the then Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of 
 Education, the young Horace Mann. 1 
 
 The old country had been closely followed in her legis- 
 lation by the sisterhood of New England States. The Health 
 and Morals of Apprentices Act of 1802 2 had been followed 
 in Connecticut in 18 13 by an act 3 providing that " the pro- 
 prietors of all manufacturing establishments were required 
 to see that all the children of their employ were taught read- 
 ing, writing and arithmetic, and the Selectmen of the town 
 required to report violations to the court." The Sadler in- 
 vestigation for Parliament had resulted in the adoption by 
 Massachusetts in 1836 4 of an act providing that " no chil- 
 dren under fifteen years shall be employed to labor in any 
 manufacturing establishment or in any other business unless 
 such child shall have attended some public or private school 
 ... at least three months of the twelve next preceding, any 
 and every year in which such child shall be so employed 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Statistics of Labor of Massachusetts, 1876,. 
 p. 267. 
 
 2 Act 42, Geo. Ill, c. 73. 
 
 3 History of Compulsory Education, J. W. Perrin (Chicago, 1896), 
 p. 26. 
 
 4 Laws of Massachusetts, 1836, p. 950. 
 
32 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [^ 2 
 
 . . . .'' and also providing for forfeiture, for each offense 
 by a manufacturer, of $50, to go to the use of the School 
 Committee. 
 
 In 1842 1 this act was strengthened by placing the re- 
 sponsibility of enforcement on the School Committee and 
 giving the fine to the person prosecuting. It further pro- 
 vided that ten hours should be the working day for children 
 under twelve years, and established a penalty for violation 
 of the act. 
 
 The same year, 1842, 2 Connecticut had amended her legis- 
 lation on the subject, providing for the three months' school- 
 ing for children under fifteen years, with a penalty of 
 twenty-five dollars, and a ten-hour day for children under 
 fourteen years (Massachusetts was twelve years), with a 
 penalty of seven dollars for each violation. School certi- 
 ficates were required, and the school committee had the 
 duty of enforcement and inspection. 
 
 In 1846 3 New Hampshire had provided that children 
 under fifteen years of age should attend school for three 
 months, and those under twelve, six months, and had pro- 
 vided for certificates, a fifty-dollar penalty to go to the 
 prosecutor, with enforcement by the school committee aided 
 by the school commissioner and the attorney general. 
 
 Now the proposed Maine bill followed the Massachusetts 
 act of 1836 in having three months of school required for 
 all factory children under fifteen years, even to the wording. 
 It literally copied from the New Hampshire act of 1846 the 
 provisions for six months' schooling for factory children 
 under twelve years of age, reducing it, however, to four 
 months, and the requirement for school certificates and en- 
 
 1 Laws of Massachusetts, 1842. 
 
 2 Laws of Connecticut, 1842. 
 
 8 Laws of New Hampshire, 1846. 
 
33] EARLY CHILD LABOR LAWS 33 
 
 forcement by school committees, both of which first appear 
 in the Connecticut act of 1842. In respect to the penalty of 
 fifty dollars the precedent of both Massachusetts and Con- 
 necticut was followed, but the division of the fine money 
 between the town and the prosecutor was a natural result 
 from the confused precedents in the other states. The 
 power to call upon the attorney general to aid the enforce- 
 ment came from the New Hampshire law. The omission 
 of the ten-hour restriction, which was in the Connecticut and 
 Massachusetts laws, was an imitation of New Hampshire, 
 where the extended term of schooling for children under 
 twelve had been substituted. 
 
 § 5. Value of Enforcement by School Committees Ques- 
 tioned. — Unfortunately the records of not only this meet- 
 ing, but of the legislative debates, are limited to the meagre 
 notes found in the official paper. The weakness in the pro- 
 posed legislation is rather suggested by a motion made in the 
 Senate on June eighteenth to the effect that " the Commit- 
 tee on Education be asked to inquire into the expediency of 
 making it a penal offence when superintending school com- 
 mittees in cities and towns neglect or refuse to perform their 
 duty." x The answer to this query is contained in Secretary 
 Crosby's report for the following years. He says, 2 
 
 I regard the visits of the school committees as of incalculable 
 value. The law requires them " to use their influence and best 
 endeavors that the youth in the several districts regularly at- 
 tend the schools." It has been contended that our superin- 
 tending school committees possess the legal authority to enforce 
 the regular attendance of scholars, under the same penalty 
 [expulsion], but I do not so construe the law creating that 
 office, in defining its powers and duties. It has been proposed 
 
 1 The Age (June 25, 1847). 
 
 2 Report of the Secretary of Education (April 25, 1848), p. 63. 
 
34 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [34 
 
 to legislate upon the subject [attendance], but I entertain the 
 belief that compulsory enactment would be of no permanent 
 good, that they would only serve to keep alive, for a time, a 
 spirit of opposition, or open hostility, which would retard the 
 progress of enlightened public sentiment, that they would ulti- 
 mately be a dead letter on the statute book. . . . The only 
 effective mode of reforming this evil is by awaking the public 
 mind to a due appreciation of a thorough education. 
 
 The bill in regard to " youth in manufacturing establish- 
 ments " must have been amended in some way to be limited 
 simply to " cotton and woolen " mills. In so doing Maine 
 followed more closely the English legislation than that of 
 her sister States. /Ml we know of the amendment is that 
 it appears on the record * of July third in the afternoon that 
 there was " passed to be engrossed the bill to provide for the 
 better education of youth in cotton and woolen mills." Its 
 passage probably was uneventful, coining as it did between 
 the official reception of President Polk, who arrived in state 
 the previous morning, and the grand celebration 2 on the 
 Fourth of July, when all the guns in the State saluted the 
 State's visitor, the national President. 
 
 § 6. The Act of 1847. — An act 3 to provide for the better 
 education of youths in cotton and woolen manufacturing estab- 
 lishments. 
 
 Sec. 1. From and after the 1st day of January, in the year 
 of our Lord, eighteen hundred and forty-eight, no child under 
 fifteen years shall be employed to labor in any cotton or woolen 
 manufacturing establishment unless such child shall have at- 
 tended some public or private day school, where instruction 
 
 1 The Age (July 5, 1847). 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
 3 The Age Extra, 1847. Pub. Laws passed Leg. 1847. 
 
35 ] EARLY CHILD LABOR LAWS 35 
 
 is given by a teacher, qualified as the law of the State requires 
 teachers in our public schools to be qualified, at least three 
 months of the twelve months next preceding any and every 
 year in which said child shall be so employed. 
 
 Sec. 2. No child under the age of twelve years shall be em- 
 ployed in any cotton or woolen manufacturing establishment, 
 unless such child shall have attended some public or private 
 day school, where instruction is given by a teacher qualified 
 as in section first of this act is provided, at least four months 
 of the twelve months next preceding any and every year in 
 which such child shall be so employed. 
 
 Sec. 3. The owner, agent or superintendent of any cotton 
 or woolen manufacturing establishment, who shall employ any 
 child in such establishment under fifteen years of age, without 
 first having deposited with the clerk or agent thereof, a certifi- 
 cate from a teacher duly and under oath certifying that such 
 child has attended school under his or her charge as is provided 
 by this act, shall forfeit the sum of fifty dollars for each offence, 
 to be recovered by indictment in any court competent to try 
 the same, one-half to the complainant, and the other half to the 
 town where the offence was committed, for the use and 
 benefit of the public schools, to be apportioned among the 
 several districts as the school money is apportioned. 
 
 Sec. 4. The superintending school committees within the 
 State may inquire into any violations of the act, and make 
 report of the same to the county attorneys of the several 
 counties, and it shall be their duty, as soon as may be possible 
 after the receipt of said report, to prosecute for such viola- 
 tions. 
 
 The Governor approved this act August 2, 1847. 
 
 § 7. Act of 1848 — Regulating Hours of Labor. — The act 
 of 1847 omitted the regulation in regard to the hours of 
 labor which had been part of the legislation of both Massa- 
 chusetts and Connecticut in their acts of 1842. This omis- 
 sion seems to point clearly to a lack of appreciation by the 
 
36 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [36 
 
 friends of education as to the real needs of labor. The 
 act seems to have for a time met the demands of the educa- 
 tors, but the labor interests come to the front in the follow- 
 ing year, encouraged probably by the English legislation of 
 1847. On March thirty-first there were presented to the 
 Senate petitions signed by Isaac Fosset and others " for the 
 passage of a law making ten hours a legal day." * They 
 were " referred to a joint select committee consisting in the 
 Senate of Messrs. Chapman, Chase and Doughty." x The 
 petitions caused no comment in the daily press, but we find 
 on June third, 2 that Edward F. Reynolds and Daniel Reed 
 and others present a like petition. On the fifth, 2 Reuben 
 Curtis, George W. Cummings, E. B. Foster and C. W. 
 Redeout head petitions. June seventh, 2 Lemos Graves does 
 likewise, while on the thirtieth 3 of the same month Joseph 
 Staples adds to the list his followers. 
 
 The Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred the 
 petition of Reuben Blake and others (389), reported July 
 tenth of the same year. 4 These good legislators argued 
 that there were standards by law for weights and measures, 
 but at present none for men's work, and that they were 
 living in a high latitude in which there were very short days, 
 to which both man and beast must conform. The committee 
 went on to find : " Your committee is firmly of the opinion, 
 from all the facts and information they can procure, that 
 men can accomplish more work in ten hours where that 
 system is reduced to practice, than when they work as long 
 as they can see. . . Labor has a right to special legislation 
 as well as capital. It also is a right under the Constitution, 
 that one man is not another man's tool." They went on to 
 
 1 Kennebec Journal (June 2, 1848). 
 
 ^ Ibid. (June 9, 1848). " Ibid. (July 7. 1848). 
 
 4 Public Documents, 1848. 
 
37] EARLY CHILD LABOR LAWS ^7 
 
 show their attitude in regard to the child : " One word in 
 relation to the youth, whom the accompanying* bill proposes 
 to protect. This country is in fact approaching the old 
 country in relation to manufactories, and it seems to your 
 committee particularly necessary, that some legislation 
 should be had to secure to the youth who go into these es- 
 tablishments as operatives, the means in some measure to 
 preserve their health and to improve their minds. Give to 
 these youths but the time and they will find means of im- 
 provement." The report ends in an eloquent plea for phil- 
 anthropies to give the youths facilities for improvement. 
 The report was signed by Hiram Chapman, the chairman, 
 and was accompanied by a bill regulating the hours of labor. 
 On July 28th in the Senate Mr. Chapman moves the con- 
 sideration of the ten-hour bill, which is described in the 
 press x as follows. " The bill provides that ten hours shall 
 constitute a day's work, except in pursuance of an express 
 contract requiring a greater length of time. It also pro- 
 vides that no agent or other officer of any corporation shall 
 employ any minor under the age of sixteen for more than 
 ten hours in any one day under penalty of ten dollars." 
 Under the question of engrossing, the bill was debated, 
 Messrs, Chapman, Dodge and Pool defending, while it was 
 opposed by Messrs. Fluet, Thomas, Tripp, Dumost, Town- 
 send, Fox, Hale and Dyer. The motion was made to 
 amend by striking out the provision that it should go into 
 effect upon the approval of the Governor. This was passed. 
 The bill was laid on the table indefinitely by a vote of nine- 
 teen to eleven. The next day 2 Mr. Chapman moved to 
 reconsider the bill, stating that the Senate would hear from 
 the " three thousand petitioners, who would not remain 
 
 1 Kennebec Journal (August 4, 1848). 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
38 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [38 
 
 content with the action of this legislature in regard to it." 
 Senator Treat said a portion of his constituents, among 
 those engaged in the mechanical arts, were induced to de- 
 sire its passage. How it was with another great interest 
 among his constituents, the agricultural, he had not had the 
 opportunity to ascertain." On August ninth x the bill " was 
 amended in concurrence and passed to engrossing." The 
 amendment offered was that in the last part of Section 2, 
 providing that " all fines shall be paid, one half to the city, 
 town or plantation, where the offence is committed, and 
 the other half to the persons so held to labor or to their par- 
 ents or guardians on complaint to any court competent to 
 try the case." It was also provided that it should not go 
 into effect until April 20, 1849. ^ * s probable that the 
 agricultural interests were afraid of the bill, for a further 
 amendment was added at this last joint committee meeting 
 providing that the section should not apply to monthly labor 
 or agricultural employment. The bill as approved 2 by the 
 Governor on August tenth read as follows : 
 
 Sec. 1. In all contract for labor, ten hours shall be a legal 
 day's work, and no person shall be required or holden to per- 
 form more than ten hours' labor in any one day, except in 
 pursuance of an express contract requiring a greater length of 
 time; provided the provision of this section shall not apply to 
 monthly labor or agricultural employments. 
 
 Sec. 2. No minor under the age of sixteen years shall be 
 employed in any labor for any manufacturing or other corpora- 
 tion for more than ten hours in any one day, and if any manu- 
 facturer, or agent, or other officer of any corporation, shall 
 employ any such minor in violation of the provisions of this 
 section, he or they shall be punished by a fine not exceeding 
 
 1 The Age (August 15, 1848). 
 
 2 The Age Extra, 1848. 
 
39 ] EARLY CHILD LABOR LAWS 39 
 
 one hundred dollars ; and all fines shall be paid, one half to the 
 city, town or plantation where the offence is committed, the 
 other half to the person so held to labor, or to their parent or 
 guardian, on complaint to any court competent to try the case. 
 Sec. 3. This act shall take effect and be in force on and after 
 April 20, 1849. 1 
 
 § 8. Attempt to Repeal the Act of 1848. — In the next 
 legislature, 2 1849, tne bill was introduced on July 12th to 
 amend the bill of the year before by repealing the second 
 section relating to the employment of minors by manufac- 
 turing corporations, but was laid on the table by the friends 
 of the children. On August 4th it was again laid on the 
 table. On August 13th the motion to postpone was lost by 
 a vote of 43 to 51. The amendment was passed by a vote 
 °f 57 to 5 2 > an d sent to De engrossed. The next day final 
 action was taken by sending the bill to the Governor. On 
 August 15th the Governor returned the bill, together with 
 another bill relating to common sellers of intoxicating 
 liquors. The Governor stated 3 that " the legislature af- 
 forded me no opportunity to devote to them the considera- 
 tion which each of these measures, from their importance 
 demands or to communicate at length on my objections to 
 them. The first bill repeals an act of 1848 which prohibits 
 the employment of minors under the age of sixteen for more 
 than ten hours in any one day. I regard the repeal of the 
 law, to say the least as a measure of very doubtful policy." 
 
 The Governor must have given extremely careful consid- 
 eration to the subject, for at the opening of the next ses- 
 sion of the legislature he sent the following message, which 
 would do credit to any governor, or president, for that 
 matter, even in the early part of the twentieth century. 
 
 1 The Age (Dec. 6, 1848). 2 The Age (August, 1849). 
 
 ■ The Age Special (August 18, 1849) . 
 
4 o FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ 40 
 
 § p. Governor Dana's Child Labor Message of 1850} — On 
 the morning of the final adjournment of the last legislature, 
 a bill entitled " an act to amend the eighty-third chapter of 
 the laws of eighteen hundred and forty eight " received its 
 final passage, and was presented for my approval. That chap- 
 ter contains, section two, which is as follows : " No minor 
 under the age of sixteen years shall be employed in any labor 
 for any manufacturing or other corporation for more than ten 
 hours in any one day; and if any manufacturer, or agent, or 
 other officer of any corporation, shall employ any such minor 
 in violation of the provisions of this section, he or they shall 
 be punished by a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars ; and 
 all fines and forfeitures accruing by virtue of this act shall be 
 paid, one half to the city, town or plantation, where the offence 
 is committed, the other half to the person so held to labor or to 
 their parent or guardian, on complaint to any court competent 
 to try the same." The bill in question repeals that section. 
 Entertaining doubts of the expediency of repealing this provi- 
 sion, and being deprived of an opportunity for deliberation 
 upon the subject, by the immediate adjournment of the legisla- 
 ture, I retained the bill for further advisement. The considera- 
 tion since given it, has not removed, but confirmed, those 
 doubts. 
 
 The dependence, degradation and want, of the operatives in 
 other countries — the mental and physical imbecility to which a 
 large portion of them are reduced, have excited the fears of 
 many patriotic minds, that the large and increasing employment 
 of capital and labor, in like pursuits, in our own country, must 
 produce like results. While on the other hand, the present 
 condition of our operatives, well fed, clothed and paid, healthy 
 and intelligent, is presented as undeniable evidence that those 
 fears are unfounded. But it should be remembered, that our 
 manufacturing interest is, comparatively, in its infancy, and 
 that consequently, its effects upon our population are but 
 slightly developed. 
 
 1 Public Doc, 1850, Senate Doc. 21. 
 
UNIV 
 
 4I ] EARLY CHILD LABOR LAWS 4! 
 
 In other countries, the occupation has descended from father 
 to son, from mother to daughter, generation after generation; 
 the child is taken from the cradle to the factory; the only 
 atmosphere he breathes, is that of the mill ; the only education 
 he receives, is perfection in his art; impure air, and stinted 
 mental food, forbid development of mind or body. By such 
 a process, gradual, though sure in its effects, the foreign 
 operative has been divested, in a great degree, of the most 
 desirable attributes of humanity. But in this country, even 
 around our most extensive manufacturing establishments, we 
 have not, within the strict meaning of the expression, a manu- 
 facturing population. A large proportion of our operatives, 
 are those who have been reared in the free air and healthful 
 exercise of the farmer's home, participating in all the varied 
 enjoyments, cares and duties, of ordinary domestic life, and 
 in all the opportunities, which our institutions afford, 'for a 
 good practical education. With health, habits and characters, 
 thus formed, and fitted for usefulness in any sphere, they resort 
 to the factory for temporary employment, and soon return 
 again to other pursuits. A small portion, however, adopt this 
 as a permanent occupation, and fix their homes in the vicinity 
 of the manufacturing establishments. Of these the number 
 is annually increasing and rapidly forming a permanent manu- 
 facturing population, which before another generation has 
 passed, will be sufficiently numerous to perform a large propor- 
 tion of all the requisite labor. And the question arises, shall 
 they be required to give to their children, a full opportunity, 
 such as they received, for physical, moral, and mental develop- 
 ment, to fit them for usefulness and success, in any sphere of 
 action, which they may afterwards select? or shall they be al- 
 lowed to limit, from childhood, their mental, as well as natural 
 vision, by the walls of a cotton mill, and thus make them, for 
 life, the mere appendages of the loom and spindle ? 
 
 It may, perhaps, be assumed, that this is a subject, which 
 may be safely left to the discretion of parents, and that there- 
 fore, legislative regulations are unnecessary. In other coun- 
 
42 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [42 
 
 tries, it has been thus left to the discretion of parents, and a 
 numerous, degraded population are now reaping the conse- 
 quences, in misery and wretchedness. Again, it may be asked, 
 why may not a manufacturing, as well as any other population, 
 regulate the labor and education of their children? The 
 answer is obvious, that we have no other industrial pursuit in 
 which large numbers of children can be constantly and profit- 
 ably employed. It is a fact well known, that thousands of 
 children in our state are absent from our public schools, merely 
 from thoughtlessness and indifference on the part of parents. 
 If the well being of these children can be thus overlooked, 
 from mere indolent neglect, how greatly must this evil increase, 
 when to this cause is added, a constant pecuniary reward for 
 disregarding their true interests. In our manufacturing towns, 
 this reward is offered; the operative, who is a parent, can 
 make an important addition to his earnings, by taking his 
 children with him to his labor, and thus the temptation is daily 
 before him. Hence the necessity for legislative interference, 
 which does not exist in relation to any other industrial pursuit. 
 
 Here may be found the hidden cause, that has undermined 
 and deteriorated the manufacturing population, in every other 
 country. It is not, that this employment tends less than many 
 others to health of body or activity of mind, but because the 
 earnings of the child constitute an ever present temptation to 
 the parent, to impose upon him, toil and confinement, incon- 
 sistent with a full development, that can only be acquired under 
 the discipline of home, and the school room, and in the en- 
 joyment of the free air of Heaven. The cause which has 
 gradually produced such results elsewhere, must, in time, pro- 
 duce the same results here, unless counteracted. And to this 
 end, legal restraint should be given, in aid of parental judg- 
 ment and affection, in their unceasing struggle with parental 
 cupidity and necessity. 
 
 We are destined to be a great manufacturing people; and 
 it depends upon wise legislation whether that destiny shall 
 he to us, a blessing or a curse. The interest is now in its 
 
43 ] EARLY CHILD LABOR LAWS 43 
 
 infancy, and if properly regulated, the anticipations of evil, 
 which many entertain, may never be realized. We may con- 
 tinue to exhibit the present favorable contrast between the 
 operatives of this, and all other countries. Maine has no laws 
 regulating manufacturing labor or education, except the one 
 proposed to be repealed, by this bill, which prohibits the em- 
 ployment of minors less than sixteen years of age, more than 
 ten hours in a day. No one will pretend, that persons under 
 that age can, with impunity, be employed daily, for a greater 
 length of time. But it is said, that mills must be in operation 
 more than ten hours a day, and that it is consequently necessary 
 to employ only such as can labor more than that time, and 
 that therefore many a child is deprived of the privilege of af- 
 fording, by his earnings, pecuniary relief and comfort to 
 indigent parents or friends. If the prohibition was only to 
 operate upon a few isolated cases of this nature, now or Here- 
 after, it would be unwise to continue it. A child might, 
 perhaps, relieve by its earnings, the necessities of a poor 
 widowed mother, and derive much happiness, with but little 
 perceptible injury, from the effort; but if for the purpose of 
 affording such relief, the state permit that child, and with it, 
 others, and their descendants, for three or four generations, 
 to engage thus in premature toil, it permits the mother to be 
 relieved, at the incalculable cost, of entailing upon thousands 
 of offspring, mental and bodily imbecility, poverty and wretch- 
 edness. The descent to such a condition, from such a cause, 
 is imperceptible but sure, and more to be feared, because its 
 silent progress awakens no effort for its arrest. Our legisla- 
 tion should be directed to the prevention of this wholesale dilu- 
 tion of the race, even though it produce in some instances in- 
 convenience and suffering. 
 
 I would not, from these remarks, be understood, as ad- 
 vocating a system of legislation, for the purpose of protection 
 of labor against capital; for this should not be regarded as a 
 question of labor, but of education. And by education, I 
 mean, not merely the instruction which the school affords, but 
 
44 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [44 
 
 the full growth — the harmonious expansion of both the inner 
 and the outer man. Let the legislature discharge the duty, 
 which the constitution imposes, of exercising a watchful care, 
 in providing such an education for our youth, and it never will 
 be required to act, in protection of the laborer, from the op- 
 pression of the capitalist. Under our free government, if 
 honestly and equally administered, for the good of all, enter- 
 prising, intelligent labor, must ever be as independent of capital, 
 as capital can be of such labor ; the one can never fall a prey, to 
 the unreasonable demands of the other, until it becomes en- 
 feebled, ignorant and degraded. 
 
 Instead of repealing the present prohibition, I would recom- 
 mend, that it be retained, until an opportunity is had for a 
 careful examination of the whole subject, and the adoption of 
 such regulations as will for long succeeding years, command 
 the gratitude of a class of healthful, intelligent and independent 
 operatives. 
 
 Governor Dana's message placed the rights of the factory 
 child to education squarely before the people of Maine, and 
 his veto of the amendment gave them the protection of a law 
 equal to that of any other state at the time. 
 
 § 10. Regulation of Local Compulsory Education. — The 
 Governor, in speaking of the labor laws of 1847-8, justified 
 them on a purely educational basis, and as such they ap- 
 pealed to the most enlightened elements in the community. 
 But it was just this educational basis which was their 
 greatest source of weakness. It lay in their enforcement 
 by the still only partially organized educational authorities. 
 Even in the same year, 1850, the feeling of the inadequacy 
 of this legislation was so strong that a bill 1 was passed pro- 
 viding that the town authorities might provide for habitual 
 truants between the ages of six and fifteen, who were with- 
 
 x Pub. Doc. 1850, House Doc. 9, p. 23. 
 
45 ] EARLY CHILD LABOR LAWS 45 
 
 out occupation, by any ordinance which did not conflict 
 with the constitution. 1 It also allowed them to impose 
 penalties under these laws. 
 
 It was perfectly logical for those who were interested in 
 the protection of factory children to see that they were only 
 a part of the whole number of children who need to attend 
 school. This act of 1850 extended the right of education 
 to all children, which the act of 1847 na d only insured to 
 factory children. Unfortunately it was only a right which 
 could be granted by the town authorities if they chose. 
 
 In 1853 ^e Maine Education Association 2 was organ- 
 ized, and through its influence more definite legislation was 
 passed in 1855. In that year a strong bill 3 was introduced 
 providing that " if any person shall while the public school 
 is in operation furnish employment to any child required 
 by law to attend such school, thus affording the child in- 
 ducement to disregard the requisites of the law, he shall for- 
 feit and pay five dollars for each day the said child shall thus 
 be hindered from attendance," but the final act 4 as ap- 
 proved March 14, 1855, appears simply as an amendment 
 to the educational act of 1850, and still leaves enforcement 
 and regulation to the school committee. In it 
 
 all towns are hereby authorized and required to make all need- 
 ful provisions and arrangements concerning habitual truants 
 and children between the age of six and fifteen years not 
 attending school without any regular and lawful occupation 
 and growing up in ignorance, and may also make such ordi- 
 nance and by-laws respecting such children as may be most 
 conducive to their welfare and the good order of such town 
 
 1 Lazvs of 1850, art. cxciii, § 14. 
 
 2 Maine Register, 1855, p. 176. 
 
 3 House Journal, 1855. " Public Instruction of Youths," art. xli, § 4. 
 
 4 Laws of 1855, chap, cliv, sec. 14. 
 
4 6 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ 4 6 
 
 and there shall be annexed to such provision suitable penalties 
 not exceeding any one breach a fine of twenty dollars : provided, 
 That said ordinance shall not be repugnant to the laws of the 
 State. 
 
 Even this law, which for the first time compelled the au- 
 thorities to provide facilities for the enforcement of the law, 
 leaves that entirely in the hands of the local authorities. 
 The report f of the Secretary of Education in 1861 shows us 
 that even as late as that, invoking of centralized authority 
 was thought unwise. He says, " We do not feel authorized 
 to compel the attendance of children by law as is done in 
 some countries." 
 
 1 Report of Secretary of Education, 1861, p. 10. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The Movement from Local to State Regulation and 
 
 Enforcement Aided by Industrial Conditions 
 
 (1861-1886) 
 
 § 1. Investigations of 1868 and 18/4. — The outbreak of 
 the War took the whole attention of the community, and 
 little was paid for some years to these problems. It was 
 not until the troops came marching home that the people of 
 Maine could begin to take note of their losses, not only in 
 men, but in the industrial line. In 1869 J- A. Poor was 
 appointed general statistician of the State to make a re- 
 port x which had been requested by the Department of the 
 Interior. In this report he says, " The progress of Maine 
 in wealth, population and industrial importance had nearly 
 kept pace with that of the whole country from 1790 to 
 1836 . . . Till the legislature of Maine in 1836 resorted 
 to measures to restrict the introduction of capital into rail- 
 roads and manufactories, the two great agencies required 
 for her appropriate development. Maine at once began to 
 decline in population and influence as shown by the census 
 returns of 1840, 1850 and i860." These rather dismal 
 statements evidently did not satisfy the people of Maine, 
 who must have realized the remarkable development in pros- 
 perity which had set in, for in 1873, February 24th, the fol- 
 lowing resolve was approved by the Governor : 2 
 
 1 Leg. Doc. 1869; Sen. Doc. 1. 
 
 2 Statistics of Industries and Finances of Maine, p. 1 (Augusta, 1884). 
 
 47] 47 
 
4 8 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ 4 8 
 
 That under the direction of the Secretary of State, there be 
 annually collected, arranged and printed, in condensed form, 
 statistical details, relating to all departments of labor in the 
 state, especially in its relation to manufacturing, mining, com- 
 mercial and industrial interests, together with the valuation and 
 appropriations for various purposes, of the several towns and 
 cities of the state. It shall be the duty of the person employed 
 in the compilation of said statistics, to secure, by circulars to, 
 and correspondence with assessors and other persons, as com- 
 plete a compilation as practicable, of the industrial progress of 
 the state ; it shall be the duty of assessors of the several towns, 
 to furnish the statistics called for, as completely and promptly 
 as practicable. To meet the expense of said compilation the 
 governor is hereby authorized to draw his warrants upon the 
 treasury for an amount not exceeding one thousand dollars, 
 from any moneys not otherwise appropriated. 
 
 As a result of the resolve, E. S. Whitman was ap- 
 pointed statistician, and his report, 1 based upon the census 
 of 1870, which was taken the year after the report of Mr. 
 Poor, showed a very gratifying state of affairs. He says, 
 " Notwithstanding there was a loss of population the last de- 
 cade in Maine, there was a steady increase in the products of 
 our manufacturing industry and wealth, and this, too, while 
 the resources of the State were taxed on account of the war 
 of the rebellion. The growth of manufactures from i860 
 to 1870 was 108%, making no allowance for discount to 
 bring currency values to the gold standard. The growth 
 since 1870, according to our estimate, has been 21%. It is 
 evident that Maine has entered upon a new era of 
 prosperity and growth since 1870." He also goes on 
 to prove that the condition of women and children in in- 
 dustry has been bettered and that there are probably few 
 children engaged in gainful occupations. 
 
 1 E. S. Whitman, Statistics of Maine Industry, 1873, p. II. 
 
49 ] LOCAL TO STATE REGULATION 4 g 
 
 This demand for industrial statistics was probably en- 
 couraged by the remarkable findings of the Massachusetts 
 Bureau of Statistics of Labor, which was started in 1869. 1 
 
 § 2. The First Mandatory Act Regarding Attendance 
 (1875). — Despite the good conditions reported by the 
 Statistician, Mr. Whitman, Governor Dingley pointed out 
 in his annual address of 1874 2 that "there were 13,436 
 persons in the State above ten years of age who could not 
 read or write." He blames this to the school system, but 
 goes on to say, " Even the factory act in this State, which 
 requires certain attendance at school of children who work 
 in manufacturing establishments is a dead letter." He 
 pleads the need of creating public sentiment on this point. 
 The following year Governor Dingley makes more definite 
 the need of some law to compel school attendance. " In 
 the judgment of many of the best educators," he says, 3 " the 
 time has arrived for the State to enact a law making at- 
 tendance upon some school a certain portion of the year 
 obligatory upon children between eight and fourteen years. 
 In my annual address a year ago, I urged an action of this 
 character whenever public sentiment should be advanced 
 sufficiently to secure its enforcement to any considerable 
 extent. Discussion within a year or two has certainly 
 aroused public attention to the dangers which threaten free 
 institutions from the many ranks of ignorance and the in- 
 dications are so hopeful that such an enactment would not 
 be suffered to remain a dead letter but would on the con- 
 trary prove in many cases an instrument for good, that I 
 recommend this important subject to your favorable con- 
 sideration." 
 
 1 Annual Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1907, 
 P. 13. 
 
 2 Governor's Annual Message, 1874, P- 18. 
 
 3 Ibid., 1874, P- 19- 
 
5 o FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [$ Q 
 
 After careful consideration, the legislature of that year 
 passed a bill x providing that every child between the ages 
 of nine and fifteen be required to attend school at least 
 twelve weeks in every year each year unless excused by the 
 school officers. This was the first mandatory act regarding 
 school children and marked a forward step as compared with 
 the local regulations, but still the execution of this law de- 
 volved on the school committees and supervisors, for whom 
 no help was offered. To put a premium upon enforcement, 
 the Governor in his message 2 of 1878 recommended that the 
 attendance, rather than the number of scholars enrolled, 
 should be the basis for the apportionment of school money, 
 but this was not incorporated in the school law. 
 
 § 3. The Rise of The Labor Movement Results in a De- 
 mand For Better State Regulations. — The rise of the labor 
 movement following upon the panic tended to give to this 
 educational movement a more industrial spirit, and in 1880 
 we find that the friends of the children have looked again 
 to the law of 1848, providing for the education of youths in 
 cotton and woolen manufactories. The amendment simply 
 strengthened the old bill, but it is interesting to note that 
 the secretary charged with copying the bill 3 gives it the 
 title, "An act to amend an act, Section 16, Chapter 48 of 
 the Revised Statutes, relating to the employment of chil- 
 dren in cotton and woolen mills." For the first time, the 
 distinctly labor appeal for correctional legislation is clearly 
 discernible. The bill provided for " the substitution for the 
 word ' fifty ' between the words ' forfeit ' and ' dollars ' on 
 the third line the words ' one hundred ' and for the word 
 1 may ' between the words ' committee ' and ' inquire ' in 
 
 1 Acts and Resolves, 1875, items i, ii, iii, pp. 7-8. 
 
 2 Governor's Annual Message, 1878, p. 21. 
 
 3 Acts and Resolves, 1880, chap. cci. 
 
ijl] LOCAL TO STATE REGULATION ^ 
 
 the sixth line and for the word 'is to ' in the last line the 
 word ' shall ' so that the said section shall read as follows : 
 "Any agent or superintendent of any factory for each viola- 
 tion of the provisions of the preceding section forfeits one 
 hundred dollars, to be recovered by indictment, one half to 
 the prosecutor, and the other to the town where the offence 
 is committed, to be added to its school money. The super- 
 intending school committee shall inquire into such viola- 
 tions and report them to a County Attorney who on receipt 
 thereof shall prosecute therefor.' " Thus by small degrees 
 a more rigid law was being developed. 
 
 The next five years were years filled with much strife be- 
 tween capital and labor, which will be dealt with later in the 
 discussion of the wage problem. Little or nothing was 
 attempted in the children's legislation until the year 1885. 
 In the annual message * of Governor Robie it is stated that 
 " the employment of women and minors by our manufactur- 
 ing corporations has created considerable criticism in con- 
 sequence of the violation of the law restricting them each 
 day to a limited period of labor, and I would suggest that 
 the matter be sufficiently considered to the end that the law 
 shall be rigidly enforced by additional amendments so that 
 the hours be fixed for labor corresponding with the best in- 
 terests of the laboring classes." That year three bills were 
 introduced, none of which passed. They were all entitled 
 "An act to regulate the hours of labor and employment in 
 manufacturing establishments." 2 House Bill No. 132 ap- 
 plied only to minors, making fifteen years the period of 
 limitation, but allowing employment of children between ten 
 and fifteen who had a certificate of attendance at a public 
 school for four months for each year preceding. It re- 
 
 1 Governor's Annual Message, 1885, p. 42. 
 
 2 House Journal, 1885. 
 
52 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ 52 
 
 stricted the number of hours to ten hours per day or sixty 
 per week for children between ten and twelve, but permitted 
 work after school hours for children over twelve. House 
 Bill No. 131 was identical with No. 132, except that it pro- 
 vided that the ten-hour clay or the sixty-hour week should 
 apply to minors under eighteen and women. It provided 
 for inspectors to be appointed on request, the penalty a fine 
 between fifty and one hundred dollars, differing slighty 
 from the preceding bill which had a fine of one hundred 
 dollars. House Bill No. 11 was similar to this second, ex- 
 cept that it provided that half the fines should go to the 
 prosecutor and half to the town, and the town was to name 
 constables or inspectors of manufacturing establishments 
 and provide for their support, giving them full power to in- 
 vestigate. The failure of these bills was probably due to 
 the strong opposition on the part of the manufacturers, who 
 were attempting, to restrain the ever-increasing demands of 
 the labor movement. 
 
 § 4. State Regulations Result in 1887. — This awakening 
 found expression in the political campaigns of the next year, 
 but we must defer the discussion of this topic until the fol- 
 lowing chapters. Suffice it to say that the movement which 
 we have been tracing came to a head the next year, when 
 the feeble attempts of the statisticians grew into a bureau 
 of labor statistics and the labor movement brought about the 
 establishment of a factory department, to enforce the State 
 regulations in regard to the hours of labor and the employ- 
 ment of women and children, while even the educational acts 
 were made to provide truant officers. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Attempts Toward Regulation of Wages 
 
 § I. Knights of Labor. — The constitution of the Knights 
 of Labor, adopted in 1886, shows us the direction taken by 
 the labor movement. The opening paragraphs read: 
 
 The alarming developments and aggressiveness of great capi- 
 talists and corporations, unless checked, will inevitably lead to 
 the pauperization and hopeless degradation of the toiling 
 masses. 
 
 It is imperative, if we desire to enjoy the full blessings of 
 life, that a check be placed upon unjust accumulation, and the 
 power for evil of aggressive wealth. 
 
 This much desired object can be accomplished only by the 
 united efforts of those who obey the Divine injunction: " In 
 the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." 
 
 Therefore we have formed the order of the Knights of 
 Labor, for the purpose of organizing and directing the power 
 of the industrial masses, not as a political party, for it is more 
 — in it are crystallized sentiments and measures for the benefit 
 of the whole people. 
 
 Seven hundred thousand working-men x in 1886 accepted 
 this constitution from which we have just quoted. Of these, 
 seventeen 2 thousand were in Maine, thirteen thousand of 
 whom had joined the Order of the Knights of Labor during 
 the previous year. No wonder was it that an industrial 
 
 1 Hollander and Barnett, Studies in American Trade Unionism, p. 378. 
 
 2 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1887, p. 157. 
 
 53] 53 
 
54 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [54 
 
 revolution was feared when a labor organization such as 
 this was growing more powerful every day and each year 
 the reforms demanded were growing in proportion. The 
 cry of ' the greatest good for the greatest number ! was be- 
 ing backed by the power of the strike and boycott. Not 
 only political parties hurried to proclaim affiliation with the 
 labor cause, but men were nominated on a platform of the 
 order and elected to the legislature with the purpose of in- 
 troducing there the reform measures of the platform of the 
 organization. T. J. Lyons, a stone-cutter of Vinal Haven, 
 a member of the Rock Bound Assembly of the Knights of 
 Labor, was such a representative. 
 
 § 2. Strikes vs. Legislation. — If the power to legislate 
 had been the only power of this organization, maybe little 
 legislation would have resulted, but since its organization in 
 Philadelphia in 1869 by Uriah Stevens, 1 it had succeeded 
 in using effectively the power of the strike and the boycott 
 to enforce its demands. The report of the State statis- 
 tician 2 for 1886 gives abundant testimony of the use of the 
 strike in the order for the purpose of dictating wages and 
 the closed shop. The Knights being in most cases not a 
 trade organization but an assembly of workingmen of dif- 
 ferent trades, its power of boycott was immensely increased, 
 so that in some cases they were able to demand that the rate 
 of wages be submitted to the " arbitration and approval of 
 the district committees," which on account of the rapid 
 growth of the order, if nothing else, was a very precarious 
 board of arbitration. Naturally many strikes occurred be- 
 cause of the refusal of the manufacturers to submit to this 
 dictation, and probably the little that was received in in- 
 creased wages did not equal the $250,000 estimated by the 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics. 1887, p. 156. 
 
 2 Statistics of Maine, vol. iv, 1886, pp. 95-105. 
 
55 ] ATTEMPTS TOWARD REGULATION OF WAGES 55 
 
 state statistician as lost in wages by the laboring people on 
 account of strikes. 
 
 Such conditions could not help but bring about a desire 
 on the part of both employers and employees that some less 
 warlike measures be taken to correct the evils. It was the 
 demand of all parties that a definite bureau of labor statistics 
 be organized similar to the one which had done so much 
 work toward eradicating labor disputes in Massachusetts. 
 The bill 1 for the purpose "was presented as a labor meas- 
 ure and its passage was urged by the labor organizations of 
 the State, whose membership at that time numbered about 
 16,000, most of whom were enrolled in the Order of the 
 Knights of Labor. Among the officers of each local as- 
 sembly was designated a statistician, whose duty it was to 
 collect from the members information relating to the in- 
 dustrial conditions surrounding their everyday life. By 
 this means a record was kept of actual conditions applying 
 to labor, wages, time work, causes for idleness, cost of 
 living, etc. The object in doing this was to have at hand 
 reliable information that could be used at any time as a 
 barrier of defence when requiring of employers an increase 
 of wages, reduction of hours of labor or other improve- 
 ments in working conditions, and as a base for legislation 
 when it shall be desired. It was intended that the State 
 Bureau should work along these same lines, using the local 
 statisticians as sources of information upon all subjects ap- 
 plying directly to labor conditions." The bill as presented 
 by Mr. Lyons to the legislature was worked out by him, he 
 tells us, to meet these conditions, and it is an interesting 
 coincidence that it became his duty in 1907, as labor com- 
 missioner of the State, to develop the work planned by this 
 bill. The act as approved was as follows : 
 
 1 Com. Lyon's Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 
 1907, P. 5- 
 
56 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [56 
 
 Sec. 1. There is hereby established a separate and distinct 
 department, which shall be called the Bureau of Industrial and 
 Labor Statistics. 
 
 Sec. 2. It shall be the duty of this department to collect, 
 assort, systematize, and present in annual reports to the gov- 
 ernor, to be by him transmitted biennially to the legislature, 
 statistical details, relating to all departments of labor in the 
 state, especially in its relations to the commencial, industrial, 
 social) educational and sanitary conditions of the laboring 
 people; and to the permanent prosperity of the productive 
 industries of the state, and also to inquire into the immediate 
 causes of strikes, lock-outs or other disturbances of the rela- 
 tions between employers and employees. 
 
 Sec. 3. The governor shall, with the advice and consent of 
 the council, appoint immediately after this act goes into effect, 
 and thereafter biennially, on the first Wednesday in February, 
 some suitable person, who is identified with the industrial and 
 labor interests, and who shall be designated commissioner of 
 industrial and labor statistics, with an office in such place as 
 shall be designated by the governor. 
 
 Sec. 4. The commissioner herein named, shall receive an 
 annual salary of fifteen hundred dollars, and to aid in carrying 
 out the provisions of this act, said commissioner is hereby au- 
 thorized to employ such assistance and incur such expense, 
 not exceeding fifteen hundred dollars per annum, as shall be 
 necessary to carry out the provisions of this act. 
 
 Sec. 5. The commissioner shall have power to take and pre- 
 serve evidence, examine witnesses under oath, and administer 
 the same, and in discharge of his duty, may enter any public 
 institution of the state, and at reasonable hours when open for 
 business, any factory, workshop, mine or other place where 
 labor may be employed. 
 
 Sec. 6. All state, county, city and town officers, are hereby 
 directed to furnish to said commissioner upon his request, all 
 statistical information in reference to labor and labor indus- 
 tries, which shall be in their possession as such officers, and 
 
cy] ATTEMPTS TOWARD REGULATION OF WAGES cy 
 
 said commissioner shall cause to be published and circulated 
 in this state six thousand copies annually of the results of its 
 labors, as to the objects for which commission is created. 
 
 The establishment of a bureau of labor statistics had gone 
 beyond the period of experiment. Bureaus l had been es- 
 tablished in Massachusetts in 1869, Pennsylvania 1872, 
 Missouri 1876, Ohio 1877, New Jersey 1878, Illinois 1879, 
 Indiana 1881, New York 1883, California 1883, Michigan 
 1883, Wisconsin 1883, Iowa 1884, Maryland 1884, Kansas 
 1885, Connecticut 1885, and coincident with the establish- 
 ment of the Maine Bureau there were established Bureaus 
 in North Carolina, Minnesota, Colorado and Rhode Island. 
 Two years before the National Bureau had been started in 
 Washington. The large number of Bureaus existing at 
 this time made it especially desirable that Maine should 
 have means of actually gaining knowledge of wages and 
 other labor conditions existing in the State to compare with 
 those of other States. 
 
 § 3. Legislation about Wages. — The establishment of a 
 statistical bureau for investigation of the problem of wages 
 did not necessarily exhaust all the possible legislation on the 
 subject. While the regulation of the amount of wages by 
 legislation is unknown in this country, still it is possible to 
 legislate as to the time of payment, the person to whom it 
 shall be paid, the conditions under which part shall be for- 
 feited for failure to live up to the contract, etc. The old 
 English law went so far as to regulate the wage in certain 
 trades, but in this country such legislation has been looked 
 upon as dangerous to the spirit of democracy. By the year 
 1887 Maine had on her statute books a number of laws deal- 
 ing with wages. They were for the most part feeble at- 
 tempts to bring the common-law usage into line with the 
 1 Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1887, p. 5. 
 
58 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ 5 g 
 
 newer industrial development, and a resume is at this time 
 necessary to the understanding of the two bills that were 
 introduced into the legislature of 1887. 
 
 § 4. Wages of Married Women. — Wages of married 
 women were first a matter of State legislation, as we have 
 seen, in 1821, when a law in regard to foreign attachments 
 was passed. (See page 124). There next developed the 
 act which finally secured to "married women their right 
 to property." The laws of 1821, Chapter 57, Section 9, 
 allowed women who were abandoned by their husbands to 
 make contracts. The amendment of 1841 broadened this 
 regulation to include wives of criminals, while the act of 
 1844, chapter 117, was entitled, "An act to secure to married 
 women their rights in property." In the Statutes of 1847, 
 Chapter 27, and in 1848, Chapter 73; 1852, Chapter 227; 
 1855, Chapter 120; 1856, Chapter 250, the rights to pos- 
 sess and manage property were extended. By the statute 
 of 1857, Chapter 59, married women were authorized to 
 receive and sue for wages of personal labor performed for 
 other than their own families. The statute has been 
 amended by 1862, Chapter 148; 1863, Chapter 214; 1876, 
 Chapter 112; 1883, Chapter 207; and 1889, Chapter 176, 
 but the clause regarding wages remained as it was in the 
 statutes of 1857, and it reads as follows: " She may receive 
 the wages of her personal labor, not performed for her own 
 family, maintain an action therefor in her own name and 
 hold them in her own right against her husband or any other 
 person." l 
 
 This development in the rights of women to declare their 
 equality with men before the law was slow, but when we 
 realize that it is one of the doctrines of the Knights of 
 Labor to secure for both sexes equal pay for equal work and 
 the demand for woman suffrage was not unknown to the 
 
 1 9T Maine, 552. 
 
59 ] ATTEMPTS TOWARD REGULATION OF WAGES 59 
 
 legislature of 1887, we may see how far beyond these laws 
 the discussion had gone. 
 
 § 5. Payment of Wages. — The right of all adults to re- 
 ceive their own wages was established when the laws for 
 married women were passed. But there still remained the 
 question of the time of payment, and the use of substitutes 
 for cash. "A regular pay-day is quite a modern institu- 
 tion," a writer in 1890 tells us, 1 " and the experience of the 
 past has led men to be cautious of letting it go by without 
 receiving their money. Formerly, stores were run by many 
 of the different firms in connection with their works, and 
 pay-days were so far between that the help was obliged to 
 trade at these stores and pay whatever was asked, the prices 
 being in most cases higher than goods could be purchased 
 for, had they their money to buy with. Finally the stores 
 were closed up, and then the help had no protection at all, 
 and many of the stone workers there today can show due 
 b.'lls for work done years ago that have never been paid." 
 
 Freund points out, in his " Police Power" 2 " Two 
 classes of provisions relating to the payment of wages may 
 be distinguished, the one requiring payment at stated times 
 or intervals, weekly, monthly, or semi-monthly, the other 
 requiring payment of wages in cash." The conditions de- 
 scribed were bettered by legislation, falling naturally under 
 the head of the " fortnightly payment act," dealing with the 
 time features, and the " truck " or " store " acts and " me- 
 chanics' liens," dealing with the failure to pay in cash. 
 
 § 6. Fortnightly Payment. — The same legislature, 1887, 
 which established the Bureau of Industrial and Labor 
 Statistics passed a strong act 3 regulating the time of pay- 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1890, p. 146. 
 
 2 Ernest Freund, Police Power, p. 319. 
 8 Laws of 1887, chap, cxxxiv, pp. 1-5. 
 
60 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [6 
 
 ment of wages and prescribing that they should be paid 
 every two weeks. 
 
 Sec. 57. Every manufacturing, mining, quarrying, stone- 
 cutting, mercantile, street railroad, telegraph, telephone and 
 municipal corporation, and every incorporated express and 
 water company, and any person or firm engaged in any of the 
 above specified kinds of business, having in their employ more 
 than ten persons, shall pay fortnightly each and every employee 
 engaged in its business, except municipal officers whose ser- 
 vices are paid for by the day, or teachers employed by muni- 
 cipal corporations, the wages earned by such employee to within 
 eight days of the date of said payment, provided, however, 
 that if at any time of payment, any employee shall be absent 
 from his regular place of labor, he shall be entitled to said 
 payment at any time thereafter on demand. 
 
 Sec. 58. Any corporation violating any provision of the 
 preceding section shall be punished by a fine of not less than 
 ten, nor more than twenty-five dollars on each complaint under 
 which it is convicted, provided, that complaint for such viola- 
 tion is made within thirty days from the date thereof. When 
 a corporation against which a complaint is so made, fails to 
 appear after being duly served with process, its default shall 
 be recorded, the allegations in the complaint taken to be true, 
 and judgment rendered accordingly. When judgment is ren- 
 dered upon any such complaint against a corporation, the court 
 may issue a warrant of distress to compel the payment of the 
 penalty prescribed by law, together with costs and interest. 
 
 This act does not provide for any means of enforcement, 
 probably with an idea that the Knights of Labor would 
 itself act as the inspecting and enforcing authority. It was 
 not until 1893 that it was made the duty of the factory in- 
 spector to enforce this regulation. 
 
 The constitutionality of this act seems to have been taken 
 for granted on account of the similarity to that of the 
 
6i] ATTEMPTS TOWARD REGULATION OF WAGES 6 1 
 
 Massachusetts weekly payment law applying to all manu- 
 factories which was held by the Supreme Court of Massa- 
 chusetts to be constitutional in 163 Mass., 589. In Maine 
 no attempt has been made by the factory department to 
 bring any more than moral suasion to bear upon the 
 violators of the act as we shall see later on. The enforce- 
 ment of the regulation might mean the failure of the com- 
 pany and thus result in depriving the laborer of his occu- 
 pation, which was not the intent of the law. In some states 
 such legislation has been declared unconstitutional, but as 
 yet no case has been taken to the United States Supreme 
 Court. Mr. Freund believes it would be declared constitu- 
 tional by that tribunal. He says, 1 " There is no reason to 
 assume that the decision of the Federal Supreme Court 
 in the matter of the truck legislation will not be followed if 
 a weekly payment act should come before that tribunal, 
 so that the Fourteenth Amendment will present no obstacle 
 to legislation of this character." 
 
 The payment each fortnight is understood to be the full 
 amount of wages due under the contract, but often it 
 happens that the employee leaves before the end of the fort- 
 night. In so doing, the question is raised as to whether 
 or not wages shall be paid and what amount. The general 
 factory act of 1887 contained a clause to provide for this 
 contingency. It reads as follows : 2 
 
 It shall be lawful for any person, firm or corporation engaged 
 in any manufacturing or mechanical business, to contract with 
 adult or minor employees to give one week's notice of intention 
 on such employee's part, to quit such employment, under a 
 penalty of forfeiture of one week's wages. In such case the 
 employer shall be required to give a like notice of intention to 
 
 1 Freund, Police Power, p. 320. 
 
 2 Laws of 1887, chap, cxxxix, sec. 4. 
 
62 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [fe 
 
 discharge the employee ; and on failure shall pay to such em- 
 ployee a sum equal to one week's wages. No such forfeiture 
 shall be enforced when the leaving or discharge of the em- 
 ployee is for a reasonable cause, provided, however, the en- 
 forcement of the penalty aforesaid shall not prevent either 
 party from recovering damages for a breach of the contract 
 of hire. 
 
 This regulation tested before the Supreme Court of 
 Maine in Cote v. Bates Manufacturing Company, Dec. ioth, 
 l8 97> (39 Atl. Rep. 280) in which the statute was upheld 
 as to a case where notice was given. In the case of failure 
 of either party to give notice, there should be no forfeiture 
 and the employee was " entitled to receive amount due him 
 when he quit work, for labor before then performed." The 
 regulation does not hold against infants as they are " not 
 liable for breach of contract for service," as decided in 
 Derocher v. Continental Mills, (58 Me. 217). 
 
 If men are paid by the fortnight, the query naturally 
 arises, what is a fortnight's work? First, it does not in- 
 clude work on Sunday. By the law of 1821 (see page 21) 
 work on the Lord's Day is prohibited. In 1865 the law 
 was amended to read : " Whoever, on the Lord's Day keeps 
 open his shop, workhouse, warehouse, or place of business, 
 travels or does any work, labor, or business on that day, 
 except works of necessity or charity, uses any sport, game 
 or recreation, or is present at any dancing, public diversity, 
 show or entertainment, encouraging the same, shall be 
 punished by fine not exceeding ten dollars." This has been 
 upheld by numerous decisions. These decisions hold that 
 the only labor which is legal is " walking for exercise in the 
 open air with no purpose of pleasure." If it was done for 
 either pleasure or pay it would be in violation of the Sunday 
 law, O'Connell v. City of Lewistown, (65 Me. 34). 
 
63] ATTEMPTS TOWARD REGULATION OF WAGES 63 
 
 Overtime is not included in the fortnightly pay. The 
 definition of overtime has been the cause for certain litiga- 
 tion in the courts in regard to the ten-hour legal day. In 
 1848 ten hours was made a legal day for all but monthly 
 hirings and agricultural employments. Any time over the 
 ten hours per day was to be on special contract and paid 
 accordingly. The question raised is one of what shall be 
 considered as a special contract. Work done after the 
 completion of ten hours' labor by an employee at the request 
 of the employer implies a promise of payment, (Bachelder 
 v. Beckford, 62 Me. 526, Supreme Court of Maine, 1872) 
 but where a laborer hires for a twelve-hour shift knowing it 
 to be of twelve hours' duration and accepts his payment 
 without claiming more, it is inferred that he agrees to work 
 for the two hours extra at the stated wages. (Fitzgerald 
 v. International Paper Co., Feb. 28, 1902, Sup. Jud. Court 
 of Maine, 52 Atl. Rep. 655). 
 
 § 7. Truck Acts. — Though laws were passed as we have 
 seen to regulate the time of payment, it was often uncertain 
 as to how and to whom they were to be paid. The poor 
 laborer was often embarrassed by many debts and would 
 be forced to assign all his goods to a trustee. Some- 
 times he would assign his wages in advance to certain 
 parties to avoid their recovery by still other parties. Natur- 
 ally many abuses arose and in some cases where the assign- 
 ment of wages was made to the employer as trustee and the 
 wages were paid through a company supply store, a condi- 
 tion of peonage existed. In his message of 1887, Governor 
 Bodwell called the attention of the legislature to the con- 
 ditions existing. 1 
 
 I also recommend that trustee process so far as it relates 
 to the wages of the laboring man be abolished. The undoubted 
 
 1 Annual Message of Governor, Public Documents, 1887, p. 17. 
 
64 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [64 
 
 result of these steps will be to curtail the credit of laboring 
 men and to keep them from incurring obligations which readily 
 absorb their earnings. It will force the relations between em- 
 ployer and the employed to a cash basis, and will largely benefit 
 the laboring man by adding perceptibly to the value of his 
 daily wages. It will, I think, be found that the saving result- 
 ing to the labor of the State for the cash basis will show in an 
 addition to the aggregate deposits in the savings banks of the 
 State. Imprisonment for debt and trustee process both being 
 removed, the laborer is made a free man, with no unjust penal- 
 ties menacing him and no one tempting him to incur needless 
 debt. 
 
 The assignment of wages had been restricted by the act 
 of 1876, which required the recording of such assignments. 
 It reads : 1 
 
 Sec. 1. No assignment of wages shall be valid against any 
 other person than the party thereto unless such assignment is 
 recorded by the clerk of the city, town or plantation, organized 
 for any purpose, in which the assignor is commorant while 
 earning such wages. 
 
 Sec. 2. The fee to be paid the clerk for any such record is 
 twenty-five cents. 
 
 This provision applied only to cases where the whole sum 
 to be received from the contract was not assigned (Augur 
 v. Couture, 68 Me. 428). Also the assignment of transfer 
 checks or coupons standing as wages need not be recorded, 
 (Stenson v. Caswell, 71 Me. 510). The law was amended 
 in 1897 making it more definite as to commorant, making 
 the reading : 2 
 
 No assignment of wages is valid against any other person 
 1 Laws of 1876, chap, xciii. 
 '-' Laws of 1897. chap. ccci. 
 
65] ATTEMPTS TOWARD REGULATION OF WAGES 65 
 
 than the parties thereto unless such assignment is recorded by 
 the clerk of the town in which the assignor is commorant while 
 earning such wages; and if said assignor is commorant in an 
 unorganized place while earning such wages, said assignment 
 shall not be valid against any other person than the parties 
 thereto unless said assignment is recorded by the clerk of the 
 oldest adjoining town, provided that there be an incorporated 
 town adjoining such unincorporated place, and if there be no 
 such adjoining town such assignment shall be recorded in the 
 office of the register of deeds for the registry district in which 
 said unincorporated place is located. No such assignment of 
 wages shall be valid against the employer unless he has actual 
 notice thereof. 
 
 This act was still further amended in certain details by 
 the act of 1907. 1 
 
 The recording of assignment was a step in the right di- 
 rection but it was greatly strengthened by the act of 1877 2 
 amending the act of 1854 3 which provided that no employer 
 could be appointed a trustee for more than twenty dollars. 
 It reads : 
 
 No person shall be adjudged trustee by reason of any amount 
 due from him to the principal defendant, as wages for his per- 
 sonal labor, or that of his wife or minor children, for a time 
 not exceeding one month next preceding the service of the 
 process, and not exceeding twenty dollars of the amount due to 
 him as wages for his personal labor ; and this is not exempt in 
 any suit for taxes or for necessaries furnished him or his 
 family ; moreover, wages of minor children and of women, are 
 not, in any case, subject to trustee process on account of any 
 debt of parent or husband. 
 
 1 Laws of 1907, chap, cccvi. 
 
 2 Laws of 1877, chap. ccx. 
 
 3 Laws of 1854. chap, lxxxv. 
 
66 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [66 
 
 It will easily be seen that these provisions permit assign- 
 ment of wages " to be earned under existing contracts," 
 (Wade v. Bessing, 76 Me. 413; Haynes v. Thompson, 80 
 Me. 125) but when the assignment is once made for the 
 wages due the laborer at the end of the month and the 
 employer is duly notified to hold said wages, it is not pos- 
 sible for the creditor to further proceed against the next 
 month's wages. (Collins v. Chase, 71 Me. 435). Further 
 protection to wages was given by the act of 1897 which 
 states those things which cannot be seized when an attach- 
 ment is made. It reads : x 
 
 Nor shall the amount due him as wages for his personal 
 labor for a time not exceeding one month next preceeding the 
 service of the process, and not exceeding twenty dollars, be 
 liable to attachment on any trustee process in a suit brought 
 against him upon any debt contracted prior to said time. 
 
 It was not until Maine abolished imprisonment for debt in 
 1889 that labor was free from the oppression of the creditor 
 and the evils of the trade store were done away with by the 
 combined effect of these laws and the fortnightly payment 
 act. The finding 2 of the U. S. Supreme Court that truck 
 acts applying to all employees are constitutional places such 
 legislation on a sound basis. 
 
 § 8. Mechanics Lien. — It often happens that the employer 
 instead of the employee is forced to assign or dies and his 
 estate is in the hands of executors. In such a case there 
 are almost always certain employees whose wages are not 
 paid. Since the first regulation of " foreign attachment " 
 in 1 82 1 these wages have been a prior claim. In 1878 s 
 
 1 Revised Statutes, 1903, chap, lxxii, sec. 68. 
 
 2 U. S. Knoxville Iron Co. vs. Harbiser, 183 U. S. 13. 
 
 3 Lazvs of 1878, chap, lxxiv, sec. 36. 
 
67] ATTEMPTS TOWARD REGULATION OF WAGES 67 
 
 and again in 1879 * the insolvent laws were revised to read 
 that " in making a dividend under the preceeding section 
 (Sec. 34, insolvent laws) the following claims shall first 
 be paid in full: 1.*** 2.*** 3. Wages due any operative, 
 clerk or house servant, not exceeding $50, for labor per- 
 formed within six months preceeding the filing of the 
 petition." 
 
 This " wages preferred " provision remained unchanged 
 during the revision of the insolvency laws in 1883 2 and 
 1897. 3 Complications have arisen under the provisions 
 and the courts have laid down certain rulings. After men 
 work on a building constructed with borrowed money, in 
 case of failure of the contractor to pay, the building can 
 be held by the workmen against the owner. (Johnson v. 
 Pike, 35 Me. 291). Stipulations against such a lien in the 
 contract between the contractor and owner are no bar to the 
 collection of this by the laborer, (Norton v. Clark, 85 Me. 
 357) but such a lien must be filed within thirty days of the 
 attachment (Cole v. Clark, 85 Me. 336) which must be 
 enforced within ninety days. (Johnson v. Pike, 35 Me. 
 291). 
 
 Such provisions protected the laborer from loss as well as 
 fraud and deception. The development of the mechanics 
 lien extended all employees control over the product, while 
 the limiting of the truck stores decreased the control of the 
 employee by the employer, the fortnightly payment tended 
 to decrease the need for either the lien or the truck act. So 
 in its passage the legislature of 1887 made a decided step 
 forward in the legislation designed to meet all problems 
 arising from the payment of wages. 
 
 1 Laws of 1879, chap, cliv, sec. 15. 
 
 2 Laws of 1883, chap, cccxiv, sec. 1. 
 
 3 Lazvs of 1897, chap, cccxxv, p. 6. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 General Factory Acts, 1887 
 
 § 1. The Progress of The Ten Hour Movement During 
 1886. — In the last two chapters we have seen something of 
 the labor movement, and we have seen certain results it 
 accomplished in regard to securing compulsory education 
 and the adjustment of wages, but it was in regard to the 
 hours of labor that it accomplished most. 
 
 Legislation must have public opinion to support it. All 
 legislation should be preceded by a period of education dur- 
 ing which the people of a state are brought to realize the 
 needs of such legislation. The year 1886 was such a 
 time in the struggle for shorter hours of labor. The Secre- 
 tary of State, Oramandal Smith, thus describes it : l 
 
 The ten-hour movement has made considerable progress 
 throughout the State during the year. No cotton manufac- 
 tories have yet made any change in the length of a day's work, 
 but a large number of woolen manufacturers have done so, 
 and from the present appearances there will hardly be a 
 woolen mill in the State a year from now that will require 
 more than ten hours for a day's work. This reduction of the 
 hours of labor has not been followed by any reduction in the 
 wages paid employees, so that the advantage gained by the 
 movement has been in favor of the laboring class. In some 
 cases, possibly, where employees work by the piece, a little less 
 money may be earned than previously, as it is quite imprac- 
 ticable to speed up the machinery of the woolen mills so as to 
 accomplish any more than the same proportion of work to the 
 
 1 Statistics of the Industries of Maine, vol. iv, 1886, pp. 7-8. 
 68 [68 
 
69] GENERAL FACTORY ACTS 69 
 
 length of a day's labor that has heretofore prevailed. The labor- 
 ing people are, however, gainers in the extra opportunity that 
 has thus been given them fcr rest and personal improvement. 
 Maine, with its few large cities and the scattered locations of 
 its manufacturing business, is better adapted for the adoption 
 of a short day's work without injury to the laboring people 
 than is the case in some States. The point to be gained, in 
 reducing a day's labor from eleven to ten or eight hours, is 
 two-fold : first, the limitation of production to the demands of 
 the markets, thereby ensuring more continuous work than 
 sometimes prevails; and second, securing to labor a better 
 opportunity for rest that there may be more progress made 
 in personal improvement. The tendency of the past quarter 
 of a century has been toward a reduction in the length of a 
 day's work, and the present condition of things is the result 
 of little, if any, legislation. It has thus far seemed to be a 
 question that has settled itself, and an amicable adjustment of 
 such matters is better for the State than if accomplished by 
 compulsory legislation. 
 
 That manufacturers are becoming more awake to the needs 
 of their employees is evidenced by the action of the York 
 Manufacturing Company of Saco and the Sanford Mills of 
 Sanford in establishing and supporting private schools for the 
 education of the children employed in their mills. The laws 
 of the State provide that children shall not be employed in 
 manufacturing establishments without they have attended 
 school a certain number of weeks during the year. The law is 
 difficult of enforcement and too often manufacturers are inno- 
 cent violators of its provisions. The method adopted by these 
 two corporations will enable them to retain their regular em- 
 ployees, and yet compel them to observe the law to their own 
 personal advantage and the general good of the State. 
 
 § 2. The Need of Legislation. — Oramandel Smith also 
 ably summarizes the conditions which made further legis- 
 lation desirable : x 
 1 Statistics of the Industries of Maine, vol. iv, 1886, pp. 120-121. 
 
yo FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [y 
 
 During the last session of the Legislature an attempt was 
 made to secure the enactment of more restrictive legis- 
 lation regarding the length of a day's work, and the em- 
 ployment of women and minors. Although considerable 
 time was spent by the Judiciary Committee in perfecting 
 the bill, and by the Legislature in a discussion of the 
 merits of the same, no changes were made in the present 
 statute. The present law is pretty comprehensive, and if 
 properly enforced will be found more restrictive than any legis- 
 lation now existing in the majority of the States. By chapter 
 82, section 43, page 700 of the Revised Statutes, ten hours of 
 actual labor is made a legal day's work, except in monthly 
 work, or when a longer time is stipulated, or in agricultural 
 employment. By chapter 48, sections 13, 14 and 15, page 439, 
 Revised Statutes, being acts of 1880, chapter 221, no child 
 can be employed in a cotton or woolen factory without attend- 
 ing a public or private school for four months during the 
 year preceding employment, if under 12 years of age, and for 
 three months if between 12 and 15 years of age, the necessary 
 evidence of such schooling being a teacher's certificate made 
 under oath and filed with the employer. Violation on part of 
 employer subjects him to a fine of $100, half to informer 
 and half to town school fund. No one under sixteen years of 
 age shall be employed over ten hours a day. Violation sub- 
 jects employer to a fine of $100, half to employee and half 
 to town. 
 
 This statute allows corporations to contract with their em- 
 ployees for any length of a day's work desired, and it is in 
 this way that various establishments are now operated more 
 than ten hours per day. By such arrangements the present 
 statute loses its force, because corporations or other employers 
 may refuse to employ any person refusing to labor as many 
 hours per day as may be desired, and by such discrimination 
 the laboring people may fail to obtain the benefit that the en- 
 actment of the law was intended to convey. In Massachusetts 
 the law is more restrictive than in almost any other State, 
 
7I ] GENERAL FACTORY ACTS yi 
 
 and the legislation sought in this State in 1885 was, to a cer- 
 tain extent, the enactment of the Massachusetts statute that 
 the laboring people of Maine might have the same advantages 
 as their Massachusetts brethren. It is urged by manufacturers 
 that to forbid them from contracting with their employees for 
 extra hours' work is to discriminate against the industries of 
 the State, and will prevent many of them from taking con- 
 tracts that might otherwise be secured. Very few mills can be 
 speeded higher than at present, and, therefore, not so much 
 work can be performed, however willing employees may be to 
 accomplish as much in ten hours as they now do in a day of 
 eleven hours. The enactment of a law that will prevent the 
 operation of manufactories more than ten hours per day will 
 thus prevent the laboring people from earning as much where 
 they work by the piece as they do now. As an offset to this 
 loss, those favoring the law claim that it is in the interest of 
 humanity because it will prevent the compulsion of laboring 
 people to work more than what constitutes a legal day's work, 
 and because it will enable the laboring people to devote more 
 time to their own improvement. 
 
 But the labor movement did not leave it to statisticians 
 to alone champion the cause. It entered into the field of 
 politics, and the platforms of both political parties told how 
 much power was brought to bear. The platform x adopted 
 at the Democratic State Convention at Bangor, June 2d, 
 after indorsing President Cleveland's administration, goes on 
 to say, "Resolved, that the Democratic party, as in the past, 
 so in the present, is the friend of labor and the laboring 
 man, and sympathizes with labor in the impending struggle 
 for its rights against aggressive capital and associated 
 wealth; that it is in favor of all legislation which will tend 
 to an equitable distribution of property, to the prevention 
 of monopoly and to strict enforcement of individual right 
 
 1 Eastern Argus (June 8, 1886). 
 
J2 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [y 2 
 
 against corporate abuses, and especially favor the enactment 
 by which labor associations may be organized for arbitra- 
 tion of all differences between employed and employer; for 
 establishment of co-operative institutions; for introduction 
 of a co-operative industrial system; for the establishing 
 of a national bureau of labor, for reserving what is left of 
 the public domain for actual settlers, that the land of the 
 people may be held by the many and not the few, for the 
 abolition of that relic of barbarism, imprisonment for debt, 
 for the repeal of the odious trustee process by which a heart- 
 less creditor may snatch the wages of a laborer from the 
 hands of his employer before it can be converted into bread 
 for his wife and children. Resolved, that we oppose the 
 system of long hours of labor in many factories of this 
 State and favor the enactment of a uniform ten-hour law." 
 The Republican Convention of June io, 1 at Lewiston, 
 among the planks of the platform, adopted the following : 
 
 Resolved, that labor and capital must be at harmony to in- 
 sure the prosperity of either. . . . Resolved, that in the judg- 
 ment of this Convention, no manufacturing establishment in 
 Maine should extend the length of a day's labor beyond ten 
 hours. Resolved, that the Convention recommend that the 
 next Legislature of this State shall enact a law prescribing fif- 
 teen years as the earliest age at which children may be regu- 
 larly employed in factories or some kindred law calculated to 
 guard and protect youth of tender years. Earlier employment 
 of that kind interferes with the growth and health and de- 
 prives the children of proper opportunity of acquiring an edu- 
 cation in the public schools. Resolved, that we recommend to 
 the next Legislature a careful revision of the labor systems 
 in the prisons, to the end that the labor of convicts be so ad- 
 justed as not to come in competition with the honest calling 
 of any citizen of the State. 
 
 1 Portland Daily Press (June io, 1886). 
 
73] GENERAL FACTORY ACTS 73 
 
 The Eastern Argus, 1 the Democratic paper, the next 
 morning speaks of the labor resolutions and says that dele- 
 gate " Peakes of Dover objects to the ' ten-hour foolish- 
 ness ' but was told that it was a compromise ' and did not 
 commit anybody to anything.' ' Whether this jibe was 
 true or false it is of note that at that convention Mr. Bod- 
 well was nominated for Governor by S. W. Matthews, who 
 was later appointed Commissioner of Industrial and Labor 
 Statistics after Mr. Bodwell was elected governor. 
 
 It is very evident that the two parties were trying to out- 
 do each other to secure the labor vote, and that it was the 
 intention of the Democratic party to hold the Republican 
 party responsible for the failure of earlier legislation. A 
 despatch from Bangor, published on June 2d, some days be- 
 fore the convention, says, " The labor movement will be 
 heartily endorsed and legislative action in its aid invoked. 
 The Republican party will be arraigned for importing 
 pauper labor from Europe to supplant laboring men. Mc- 
 Gillicuddy's labor bill will be reaffirmed and the Republi- 
 can legislature of 1885 censured for its rejection." 
 
 The election of Mr. Bodwell as Governor was followed 
 by a message to the legislature in which he speaks in no un- 
 certain way as to its duties toward the laboring people. 
 After speaking of the trustee process in the eloquent para- 
 graph quoted in the preceding chapter, he says : 2 
 
 There is reason to believe that abuses occur in permitting 
 children of too tender age to work in our factories. This 
 should be prohibited by law. I recommend that children shall 
 not be admitted to work in factories before the age of fifteen 
 years. This will give time for strength and growth, and also 
 for acquiring the rudiments of a good education. In this 
 
 1 Eastern Argus, June 12, 1886. 
 
 2 Governor's Annual Message, 1887, p. 17. 
 
74 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [74 
 
 matter, the parents who seek work for their children are as 
 often to blame as the employers in factories, and the penalty 
 adopted should be made to apply to whichever is the offend- 
 ing party. A special penalty should be attached to the offence 
 of misrepresenting the age of the child. 
 
 I recommend, further, that labor in all corporations in the 
 State be absolutely restricted by law to ten hours a day, and that 
 a day's labor outside of corporations shall always be left, as now 
 defined by statute, at ten hours. If a day's labor be less or more 
 than that, it must be by virtue of a special contract between the 
 parties, and be regulated by the hour. The multiplication of 
 machinery and the great addition to the power of manufactur- 
 ing, ought naturally to be followed by some amelioration in 
 the hours of labor. The length of a day's work might be, 
 even now, further reduced, if the wants of the people did not 
 multiply in equal ratio with the facilities for gratifying them. 
 If men with the earnings of to-day should live after the man- 
 ner of forty or fifty years ago, a large surplus would result 
 from daily wages ; but as wants multiply additional means are 
 required. It is, however, a satisfaction to believe that the 
 tendency is in the right direction, and that the average wages of 
 workingmen throughout the United States, reckoned in coin 
 and measured by their ability to purchase the necessaries and 
 luxuries of life, are larger than they have ever before been in 
 any period of our history, while at the same time the average 
 hours of labor are shorter. 
 
 § 3. The Legislature of 188/. — At this session a " Com- 
 mittee on Labor " was for the first time established in the 
 legislature of Maine. Charles E. Littlefield was then 
 speaker of the House and appointed the committee. The 
 first bill 1 introduced in the Senate was to regulate the work 
 of children, making a minimum age of twelve years and 
 providing for a commissioner and deputies to enforce the 
 
 1 Senate Bill no. i. Senate Journal, 1887. 
 
75] GENERAL FACTORY ACTS 75 
 
 act. The Lyons Bureau bill 1 was also introduced. H. M. 
 Heath on January 24th introduced a radical child-labor bill 2 
 by which no child under fifteen years of age could be em- 
 ployed in any factory or mechanical establishment in the 
 State, and a commissioner of labor was to be elected by 
 the people within thirty days of the enactment of the bill. 
 On February 17th the Committee on Labor, of which W. H. 
 Looney, of Portland, was House chairman, reported favor- 
 ably on a substitute bill to> regulate the hours of labor of 
 women and children which became known as the Looney 
 Bill. This bill provided for the ten-hour day for boys un- 
 der sixteen and girls under eighteen, and placed the mini- 
 mum £ge of employment at twelve. It provided for a 
 single commissioner, instead of two, for this bureau and the 
 bureau of statistics, giving him supervision over the en- 
 forcement of the law. This provision was finally amended 3 
 so as to appoint a deputy commissioner to work under the 
 commissioner appointed for the bureau of industrial and 
 labor statistics. A further radical amendment 4 was passed 
 in the Senate, but lost in the House. This amendment pro- 
 vided that no child under fifteen years of age could be em- 
 ployed in any factory or mechanical establishment except 
 when the public day schools in the city, town or school dis- 
 trict he resides in were not in session. If this amendment 
 could have been passed, it would have given a law equal in 
 its strictness in regard to factory children with the com- 
 pulsory education law of 1898. The amended law had the 
 active support of those who feared the more radical meas- 
 ures of the Heath Bill, and it is said that it was voted for 
 
 1 House Bill no. ix. House Journal, 1887. 
 
 2 Senate Bill no. xi. Senate Journal, 1887. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 296. 
 
 4 Leg. Documents, 1887, Bill no. clx, Amendment K. 
 
76 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [76 
 
 by all those members of the legislature who " always op- 
 posed labor legislation." It was passed by a vote of 20 to 
 8 on March 15th. The bill read as follows: x 
 
 Sec. 1. No female minor under eighteen years of age, no 
 male minor under sixteen years of age, and no woman shall 
 be employed in laboring in any manufacturing or mechanical 
 establishment in the state, more than ten hours in any one 
 day, except when it is necessary to make repairs to prevent 
 the interruption of the ordinary running of the machinery, or 
 when a different apportionment of the hours of labor is made 
 for the sole purpose of making a shorter day's work for one 
 day of the week; and in no case shall the hours of labor ex- 
 ceed sixty in a week; and no male person sixteen years and 
 over shall be so employed as above, more than ten hours a day 
 during minority, unless he voluntarily contracts to do so with 
 the consent of his parents, or one of them, if any, or guardian, 
 and in such case he shall receive extra compensation for his 
 services ; provided, however, any female of eighteen years of 
 age or over, may lawfully contract for such labor for any 
 number of hours in excess of ten hours a day, not exceed- 
 ing six hours in any one week or sixty hours in any one year, 
 receiving additional compensation therefor; but during her 
 minority, the consent of her parents, or one of them, or guar- 
 dian, shall first be obtained. 
 
 Sec. 2. Every employer shall post in a conspicuous place 
 in every room where such persons are employed, a notice 
 printed in plain, large type, stating the number of hours' 
 work required of them on each day of the week, the exact 
 time for commencing work in the morning, stopping at noon 
 for dinner, commencing after dinner and stopping at night; 
 the form of such printed notice shall be furnished by the 
 deputy commissioner of labor hereafter named, and shall be 
 approved by the attorney general ; and the employment of any 
 such person for a longer time in any day than that so stated, 
 shall be deemed a violation of section one, unless it appears 
 1 Lazus of 1887, chap, cxxxix. 
 
77] GENERAL FACTORY ACTS 77 
 
 that such employment is to make up for time lost on some 
 previous day of the same week, in consequence of the stop- 
 ping of machinery upon which such person was employed or 
 dependent for employment. 
 
 Sec. 3. Whoever, either for himself, or as superintendent, 
 overseer or agent for another, employs or has in his employ- 
 ment any person in violation of the provisions of section one, 
 and every parent or guardian who permits any minor to be 
 so employed, shall be punished by a fine of not less than 
 twenty-five dollars nor more than fifty dollars for each offense. 
 A certificate of the age of a minor made by him and by his 
 parent or guardian at the time of his employment, shall be 
 conclusive evidence of his age in behalf of the hirer, upon 
 any prosecution for a violation of the provisions of section 
 one. Whoever falsely makes and utters such a certificate with 
 an intention to evade the provisions of this act, shall be subject 
 to a fine of one hundred dollars. 
 
 Sec. 4. It shall be lawful for any person, firm or corpora- 
 tion engaged in any manufacturing or mechanical business, to 
 contract with adult or minor employees to give one week's 
 notice of intention on such employee's part, to quit such em- 
 ployment under a penalty of forfeiture of one week's wages. 
 In such case, the employer shall be required to give a like 
 notice of intention to discharge the employee; and on failure, 
 shall pay to such employee, a sum equal to one week's wages. 
 No such forfeiture shall be enforced when the leaving or dis- 
 charge of the employee is for a reasonable cause; provided, 
 however, the enforcement of the penalty aforesaid, shall not 
 prevent either party from recovering damages for a breach of 
 the contract of hire. 
 
 Sec. 5. No child under twelve years of age, shall be em- 
 ployed in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment in 
 this state. Whoever, either for himself, or as superintendent, 
 overseer or agent of another, employs or has in his employ- 
 ment any child in violation of the provisions of this section, 
 and every parent or guardian who permits any child to be so 
 
 UNIVERSITY, 
 
yS FA CTOR Y LEGISLA TION IN MAINE [ yg 
 
 employed, shall be punished by a fine of not less than twenty- 
 five nor more than fifty dollars for each offense. 
 
 Sec. 6. No child under fifteen years of age shall be em- 
 ployed in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment in 
 this state, except during vacations of the public schools in the 
 city or town in which he resides, unless during the year next 
 preceding the time of such employment, he has for at least six- 
 teen weeks attended some public or private school, eight weeks 
 of which shall be continuous; nor shall such employment con- 
 tinue unless such child in each and every year, attends some 
 public or private school for at least sixteen weeks, and no 
 child shall be so employed who does not present a certificate 
 made under or by the direction of the school committee, super- 
 intendent of the public schools, or the teacher of a private 
 school, that such child has so attended school. And it shall be 
 the duty of such committee, superintendent or teacher, to fur- 
 nish such a certificate in accordance with the fact upon re- 
 quest and without charge ; provided, that this section shall not 
 take effect until January one, eighteen hundred and eighty- 
 eight. 
 
 Sec. 7. Any parent or guardian who procures a child to be 
 employed contrary to section six, and any corporation, owner, 
 superintendent or agent of the owner, of such establishment 
 violating the provisions of said section, shall forfeit the sum 
 of one hundred dollars, one-half to the use of the county, and 
 one-half to the use of the city or town where the offense is 
 committed. Money so recovered to the use of the city or 
 town, shall be added to its school money. It shall be the duties 
 of the school committees and superintendent of public schools, 
 to inquire into violations of said section, and report the same 
 to the county attorney, who shall prosecute therefor. 
 
 Sec. 8. Every owner, superintendent or overseer of any 
 such manufacturing or mechanical establishment shall require 
 and keep on file, a certificate of the age and place of birth of 
 every child under sixteen years of age employed therein, so 
 long as such child is so employed, which certificate shall also 
 
79 ] GENERAL FACTORY ACTS 79 
 
 state in the case of a child under fifteen years of age, the 
 amount of his school attendance during the year next preced- 
 ing such employment. Said certificate shall be signed by a 
 member of the school committee of the place where such at- 
 tendance has been had, or by some one authorized by such 
 committee, and the form of said certificate shall be furnished 
 by the state superintendent of schools, and shall be approved 
 by the attorney general. The deputy commissioner of labor 
 hereinafter named or either of his assistants, may demand the 
 names of the children under sixteen years employed in such 
 establishment, in the several cities and towns of the state, and 
 may require that the certificates of age and school attendance 
 prescribed in this section, shall be produced for his inspection, 
 and a failure to produce the same shall be prima facie evi- 
 dence that the employment of such child is illegal. 
 
 Sec. 9. The governor, by and with the advice and consent 
 of the council, shall appoint a deputy commissioner of labor, 
 at a salary of one thousand dollars a year, who shall hold 
 office for two years, or until his successor is appointed, unless 
 sooner removed. It shall be the duty of the deputy commis- 
 sioner of labor to inquire into any violations of this act, and 
 also to assist in the collection of statistics and other informa- 
 tion which may be required, for the use of the bureau of in- 
 dustrial and labor statistics. And said deputy commissioner 
 shall, in addition to his salary provided by law, be allowed 
 his reasonable expenses. Whenever the governor of this state 
 shall be satisfied that the deputy commissioner of labor cannot 
 perform all the duties of his said office required by this section, 
 in person, he shall, with the advice and consent of the council, 
 appoint a sufficient number of assistant deputies to assist him 
 in so doing. Said assistants shall hold their office for the term 
 of two years, and act under the direction of said deputy com- 
 missioner of labor, and shall receive the sum of two dollars 
 per day and reasonable expenses while actually engaged in 
 duty. Said assistants may, at any time, be removed for cause 
 by the governor. All bills for the expenses of the deputy com- 
 
go FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [80 
 
 missioner of labor and for the services and expenses of such 
 assistant deputies, shall be audited by the council. For the 
 purpose of inquiring into any violation of the provisions of 
 this act, and enforcing the penalties thereof, such deputy com- 
 missioner and assistants may, at all reasonable times, enter 
 any manufacturing or mechanical establishment and make in- 
 vestigation concerning such violations. Such investigation shall 
 be conducted with as little interruption as possible to the 
 prosecution of the business of such establishment. Whoever 
 interferes with said deputy commissioner or his assistants, in 
 the performance of their duties as prescribed in this act, shall 
 be fined fifty dollars. 
 
 Sec. 10. Nothing in this act shall apply to any manufac- 
 turing establishment or business, the materials and product of 
 which are perishable, and require immediate labor thereon, to 
 prevent decay thereof or damage thereto. 
 
 This act of 1887 was a comprehensive act and provided 
 for inspection. By this act Maine put herself on record as 
 one of the most progressive states and was the sixth state 
 to pass such legislation. She was preceded by Massa- 
 chusetts in 1882, Wisconsin and Ohio in 1885, and New 
 York and New Jersey in 1886. The practical workings of 
 the bill we will leave for discussion in the following chapter. 
 
 § 4. Safety Appliances on Boilers. — The year 1887 added 
 one other act which had a direct bearing upon the safety 
 of the factories. It dealt with the question of boilers. As 
 early as 1850 an act had been passed to prevent the " ex- 
 plosion of steam boilers." This act dealt with the regula- 
 tion of safety plugs. In 1858 this act was amended with 
 more definite specifications as to the safety devices required 
 on the boilers. The act of 1887 made the directions still 
 more specific. The act 1 reads as follows : 
 
 1 Laws of 188?, chap. xlix. 
 
8!] GENERAL FACTORY ACTS 8l 
 
 No person or corporation shall manufacture, sell, use, or 
 cause to be used, except as hereinafter provided, any steam 
 boiler in this state unless it is provided with a fusible safety- 
 plug, made of lead for boilers carrying a steam pre'ssure above 
 fifty pounds per square inch, and of tin for boilers carrying 
 steam pressure of fifty pounds and less per square inch, and 
 said safety plug shall be not less than one-half inch in diam- 
 eter, and shall be placed in the roof of the fire-box when a fire- 
 box is used, and in all cases shall be placed in the part of the 
 boiler fully exposed to the action of the fire, and as near the 
 surface line of the water as good judgment shall dictate, ex- 
 cepting in cases of upright tubular boilers, when the upper 
 tube sheet is placed above the surface line of the. water, which 
 class of boilers shall be exempted from the provisions of this 
 section. 
 
 If any person without just and proper cause removes from 
 the boiler the safety plug, or substitutes any material more ' 
 capable of resisting the action of the fire, or if any person or 
 corporation uses or causes to be used, for six consecutive 
 days, or manufactures or sells a steam boiler of a class not 
 exempted from the provisions of the preceding section, un- 
 provided with such safety fusible plug, such offender shall be 
 fined not exceeding one thousand dollars. 
 
 The regulation of safety appliances on boilers was a mat- 
 ter of some litigation in the courts. A steam engine is 
 not per se a nuisance (Brightman v. Bristol, 65 Me., 426), 
 but a stationary steam engine without a license is a nuisance, 
 although damages from fire are not recoverable (Burbank 
 v. Bethel S. M. Co., 75 Me., 373). An engine in proper 
 place and properly constructed is not a nuisance as a matter 
 of law (75 Me., 373). The duty of enforcement has caused 
 much trouble to many of the factory inspectors. 
 
 § 5. Attendance Laws. — It is not unnatural that this la- 
 bor movement should be coincident with the establishment 
 of the educational movement for the first time on an ade- 
 
82 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [82 
 
 quate basis. In 1887 a strict compulsory attendance and 
 truant law x was enacted. The law required that children 
 between the ages of eight and fifteen should attend school 
 for fifteen weeks with a penalty for neglect, from ten to 
 fifty dollars, but the feature which had been omitted for so 
 long and had caused the failure in enforcement of so many 
 compulsory education acts was this time included. Truant 
 officers were required to be elected by the cities and towns. 
 It was thus for the first time that a broad preventive meas- 
 sure adequate to protect all the children of the community 
 found a permanent place on the statute books of the State. 
 
 A newspaper writer 2 of the time who complained that 
 " the tendency of the past twenty-five years has been to 
 place government further from the people," shows how hard 
 it is to read history aright from the signs of the times. 
 
 1 Laws of 1887. 
 
 2 Kennebec lournal (July 4, 1887), "Civics in Public Schools." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Expansion of Factory Legislation. (1887-1904) 
 
 § 1. The Bureau of Statistics and Inspection. — The act 
 of the legislature establishing a Bureau of Industrial and 
 Labor Statistics was approved March 7, 1887, and on May 
 17th S. W. Matthews was appointed commissioner. On 
 July 8th L. R. Campbell was appointed and qualified as 
 deputy commissioner. By some confusion the office of the 
 inspector who was to enforce the factory legislation was 
 only nominally incorporated as a part of the Bureau of 
 Statistics. This was in no wise the intention of the intro- 
 ducer of the bill, Mr. Lyons, and immediately upon its pas- 
 sage the fallacy of the situation presented itself. Commis- 
 sioner Matthews in his first annual report * complained 
 bitterly of the " misapprehension " as to the work of his 
 department, and tells how much trouble has been caused by 
 referring to him what was distinctly the work of Mr. 
 Campbell. This confusion was enhanced by the location 
 of the office of the Commissioner of Industrial and Labor 
 Statistics in the State House at Augusta, while the Deputy 
 Commissioner, not having been provided with any office or 
 headquarters, took up his official residence at Rockland. 
 Mr. Matthews wisely took upon himself to become ac- 
 quainted with the work' of other bureaus in the country and 
 attended the Fifth Annual Convention of Chiefs and Com- 
 missioners of the Bureaus of Statistics and Labor. Mr. 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1887, p. 2. 
 83] 83 
 
84 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [84 
 
 Campbell proceeded to organize his department by issuing 
 a form of printed notice to manufacturers which had been 
 approved by Attorney-General O. D. Baker. He spent 
 much time in familiarizing himself with the conditions in 
 regard to the ten-hour day and the twelve-year limit. 
 " With but few exceptions," the deputy commissioner 
 found * " a general observance of the act." " The ten- 
 hour law seems to be generally satisfactory to all con- 
 cerned. Occasionally a piece worker stated that he would 
 like to go back to the old state of things. Several man- 
 agers of cotton mills said that their production was as 
 large under the ten as under the eleven hour arrangement. 
 This of course implied that they had improved machinery, 
 the speed had been increased and that no waste of time was 
 allowed." In regard to child labor he says, " It is impos- 
 sible to obtain correct information as to the number of 
 children under twelve years of age employed in the mills 
 and workshops before July 1st, 1887, at which time the law 
 went into effect, but it is universally acknowledged by per- 
 sons well able to judge that the enforcement of the law 
 has done much to keep children under twelve years of age 
 out of the mills and shops." The regulations in regard to 
 school attendance did not take effect until January 1, 1888, 
 before which time Mr. Campbell had succeeded in notifying 
 the mills and workshops of the arrangement and having 
 them ready to comply with the law. 
 
 § 2. Labor Aids Enforcement. — In these early days of 
 enforcement the labor organizations were a great advantage 
 as auxiliaries to the officials of the department. " In carry- 
 ing on the work," says Labor Commissioner Matthews, " in 
 which I am engaged, I have found labor organizations of 
 great service in enabling me to reach the laborers as I could 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1887, p. 219. 
 
85] EXPANSION OF FACTORY LEGISLATION 85 
 
 not otherwise have done. In short I have come to believe 
 that the solution of the problem lies in evolution rather than 
 revolution." 
 
 § 3. Some Faults in The Laws. — The first investigation 
 of the labor conditions of the State was now possible, and 
 during the year 1888 the deputy commissioner was engaged 
 in this work. Unfortunately his report deals more with im- 
 pressions than with exact data, but considerable light is 
 thrown upon the difficulties of enforcing these laws. In 
 speaking of the ten-hour law, he says : * 
 
 After a year's trial and investigation, your deputy commis- 
 sioner is of the opinion that the extra sixty-hour clause should 
 be struck out of the law, as it furnishes to the piece-workers 
 and manufacturers a chance to violate the law, and when 
 caught at work longer than the time-table gives, will fall back 
 on the excuse, " I am working on my extra sixty hours." 
 That the law may be carried out more effectually, your deputy 
 would recommend that a law be passed whereby in every 
 manufacturing and mechanical establishment a certain number 
 of minutes be allowed to start their work before the time 
 designated in their time-table. 
 
 Speaking of the employment of children since the pas- 
 sage of the law, he tells us, 2 "the benefits resulting are seen 
 in every manufacturing city and village in our State. It 
 has given me a great deal of pleasure, in the enforcement 
 of this law, to find that the public are in full and hearty 
 accord with the law ; also agents and overseers in the mills 
 have told me that at first the law caused them a great deal 
 of trouble, but that when it got regulated it would work 
 well, and that they were in favor of its enforcement." In 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1888, p. 9. 
 
 2 Ibid . 
 
86 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [86 
 
 this report we see that the inspector first met with the prob- 
 lem of false certificates which has troubled every inspector 
 since his day. He says : x " No doubt there are children 
 working in our factories under age, whose certificates were 
 falsified by their parents. A great number of children em- 
 ployed in the State in factories and workshops are of for- 
 eign birth, and even when the children are born in the 
 State, it is extremely difficult to obtain any facts regarding 
 the date of their birth, excepting when they are baptized in 
 some church. It is hoped that our State will use more ef- 
 fective machinery for registering births." 
 
 Despite the defects in the laws many children were re- 
 turned to the public schools during 1888. Auburn reported 
 an increase of 5%, Lisbon 10%, Westbrook 5% and Lewis- 
 ton 10%. Portland had no mills, so shows no increase. 
 In Brunswick and Biddeford the parochials received the 
 children. There remained in the mills some 461 children 
 from twelve to fifteen, or 2^2% of the operatives. 2 
 
 § 4. Failure of School Authorities to Cooperate. — An- 
 other difficulty of the law met by the deputy commissioner 
 in his first year of inspection was the still difficult problem 
 of correlation of his work with that of the school depart- 
 ment. He complains most bitterly that the local school 
 authorities who have charge of the placing in school of chil- 
 dren he removes from the factories do not do the work re- 
 quired of them by law. The result is " when children, in 
 a great many cases are sent out of the mills to attend school 
 they play truant in the street, or apply at another factory 
 for work. To avoid this, the manufacturers in Lewiston 
 notify each other of any discharge of children who are un- 
 der the legal age and are required to attend school." 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1888, p. 10. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 162. 8 Ibid., pp. n- 12. 
 
Sy] EXPANSION OF FACTORY LEGISLATION gy 
 
 A careful investigation 1 of women's work was also made 
 that year by Mrs. Flora E. Haines, a special agent of the 
 Bureau. Her description of the condition of the women in 
 the cotton mills shows the sixty-hour law enforced and the 
 general conditions above the average. It is of interest to 
 note that the York Mills, which in early times (1841) had 
 taken an interest in its young help, boasted of " a school 
 for its youngest girls during two hours in the forenoon 
 and two hours in the afternoon." 2 
 
 § 5. Bureau vs. Factory Department. — The success of 
 the Bureau during the first year is shown by the annual 
 message of Governor Burleigh. He says : 3 " The Labor 
 Bureau, which was established at the last legislature has 
 done a valuable work for the State as the report of the 
 Commissioner well demonstrates. I suggest that the State 
 may with great profit give a wider scope for the operations 
 of the Bureau." The Governor's suggestion was followed 
 out by the next legislature which increased the appropria- 
 tions for the Bureau from five to six thousand and ordered 
 that ten thousand copies instead of six thousand of the re- 
 port be printed. This appropriation made it possible for 
 the Bureau to add a special agent, Mr. T. J. Lyons, to its 
 staff. The annual report of the Bureau 4 would suggest that 
 Deputy-Commissioner Campbell had also been put to work 
 on statistics, for during the year he complied with the legal 
 requirement imposed upon him, " to assist in the collection 
 of statistics and other information which may be required 
 for the use of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statis- 
 tics," but as he makes no report for this second year as to 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1888, pp. 
 1 14-148. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 117. 
 
 3 Annual Message of Governor, p. 15, Public Documents, 1889. 
 
 4 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1889, p. 5. 
 
88 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [88 
 
 factory inspection it is not to be wondered at that a bill was 
 introduced that year to abolish Mr. Campbell's office. The 
 appeal for the factory children made at the hearing defeated 
 the measure. 
 
 The same legislature passed three other bills affecting 
 labor. One of these was the conspiracy act. It is stated 
 that there was an agreement reached between the conserva- 
 tives and radicals which provided that the Looney labor bill, 
 the Lyons bureau bill, the Noble fortnightly bill and several 
 other lesser labor measures should be passed in 1887, if an 
 act of conspiracy was also allowed to pass. This act was 
 very strongly opposed by the labor men at whose organiza- 
 tion it was directed, but the compromise had to be made. 
 The act x reads as follows : 
 
 Whoever by threat, intimidation or iforce, alone or in com- 
 bination with others, prevents any person from entering into 
 or continuing in the employment of any person, firm or cor- 
 poration shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 
 two years or by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars. 
 
 This law caused a great falling-off in the ranks of the 
 Knights of Labor on account of the dangers of being in- 
 volved in a conspiracy. The whole power of the labor 
 forces was exerted to agitate for its repeal. 
 
 Another bill passed at this time 2 was an act to abolish 
 imprisonment for debt except in case of fraud. It pro- 
 vided the working man an opportunity to assign the bills 
 he had to a trustee and begin again without going to jail 
 while his family was left to the town to support. 
 
 The same year a bill 3 was introduced and passed to " pro- 
 
 1 Laws of 1889, chap, ccciii, p. 267. 
 
 2 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1889, p. 139. 
 
 3 Laws of 1889, chap, ccxiii. 
 
89] EXPANSION OF FACTORY LEGISLATION 89 
 
 vide against the danger of spread of smallpox in paper 
 mills." It was a general health regulation and provided 
 more for the safety of the general community than the 
 employees of the factory. 
 
 The commissioner assigned the deputy the special duty for 
 the year 1890 of inquiring into the violation of the regula- 
 tions of the hours of women and children. The investiga- 
 tion x showed that the ten-hour law was working well and 
 seemed to be satisfactory, but the increase in the number 
 of accidents made imperative their registration and the reg- 
 ulation by law of the age of those who were to engage in 
 the cleaning of machinery. The danger of fire was also 
 great. The investigation tended to show the need of hav- 
 ing the power of enforcement given to the factory inspec- 
 tor instead of being left in the hands of town officers and 
 " fire engineers." 
 
 The opening of the legislature in 1891 had the problem 
 of the extension of the factory department placed before 
 it by the Governor's message 2 and several bills were im- 
 mediately introduced to follow out some of the suggestions 
 of the deputy commissioner. A provision was made by 
 the "act 3 to give the right of action for injuries causing 
 death," by which the court might determine the liability for 
 an accident which resulted fatally. 
 
 Labor was further encouraged by the passage of a bill 4 
 making Labor Day a legal holiday. " The first Monday 
 of September of each year, being the day celebrated and 
 known as labor's holiday, is hereby made a legal public 
 holiday, to all intents and purposes in the same manner as 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1890, p. 169. 
 
 2 Annual Message of Governor, Public Documents, 1891, p. 13. 
 
 3 Laws of 189 1, chap, cxxiv, sees. 1-2. 
 
 4 Ibid., chap. xix. 
 
9 o FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [go 
 
 Thanksgiving, Fast and Christmas days, the twenty-second 
 day of February, the thirtieth day of May, and the fourth 
 day of July, are now by law made public holidays." 
 
 The conspiracy law passed in 1887 and which had caused 
 so much consternation among the unions was amended by 
 the following act : 1 " Any employer, employee, or other 
 person, who, by threats of injury, intimidation or force, 
 alone or in combination with others, prevents any person 
 from entering into, continuing in or leaving the employment 
 of any person, firm or corporation, shall be punished by 
 imprisonment for not more than two years, or by fine not 
 exceeding five hundred dollars." The amendment took out 
 the bitter sting in the former act and left a rather harmless 
 statute. It has never been used since it was so amended. 
 
 The legislature was liberal enough to again increase the 
 budget for the bureau, but the factory department was not 
 increased. 
 
 § 6. Changes in Factory Department. — A change in fac- 
 tory inspectors took place in 189 1. In the place of Mr. 
 Campbell, Mr. R. F. Chalk was appointed deputy com- 
 missioner. This gentleman was eminently fitted for the 
 position on account of his nineteen years experience in 
 cotton mills. The recommendation 2 of this deputy com- 
 missioner in 1892 was for the extension of a child-labor law 
 so as to cover messenger service, etc., the raising of the age 
 limit to fourteen years, and the giving the deputy com- 
 missioner power to refer unsanitary conditions to the local 
 health bureau. His investigation 3 shows that the percent- 
 age of women at work in the mills had greatly increased 
 and that they had been supplanting child labor. Commis- 
 
 1 Laws of 1891, chap, cxxvii, p. 139. 
 
 2 Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1892, p. 216. 
 » Ibid., p. 217. 
 
9I ] EXPANSION OF FACTORY LEGISLATION g 1 
 
 sioner Matthews in the same report * recommends that the 
 deputy commissioner of labor should be given a department 
 of his own separate from the Bureau of Industrial and 
 Labor Statistics, and that his title should be changed to 
 Chief Factory Inspector. The legislature of 1893 followed 
 the suggestion of Mr. Matthews and passed an act to 
 change the official title of the Deputy Commissioner of 
 Labor. This act was as follows : 2 
 
 Section 1. The official title of the officer now known as 
 deputy commissioner of labor is hereby changed to inspector 
 of factories, workshops, mines and quarries. 
 
 Section 2. Chapter one hundred and thirty-nine of the public 
 laws of 1887 is hereby amended by striking out the words, 
 "deputy commissioner of labor" wherever they occur in said 
 chapter and inserting in their places the words " inspector of 
 factories, workshops, mines and quarries/' 
 
 It also passed an act extending the powers of the in- 
 spector of factories as follows : 3 
 
 Section 1. It shall be the duty of the inspector of factories, 
 workshops, mines and quarries, upon complaint, to inquire 
 into, and prosecute for, any violations of chapter 134 of the 
 public laws of 1887. 
 
 Section 2. It shall be the duty of the inspector of factories, 
 workshops, mines and quarries to examine into the sanitary 
 condition of factories, workshops, mines and quarries, and 
 when. any condition or thing is found that, in his opinion en- 
 dangers the health or lives of the employees he shall notify the 
 local board of health, and it shall be the duty of said board 
 to investigate the matter. 
 
 Section 3. It shall be the duty of the inspector of factories, 
 
 1 Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1892, p. 8. 
 
 2 Lazvs of 1893, chap. ccxx. 3 Ibid., chap, ccxcii. 
 
92 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [g 2 
 
 workshops, mines and quarries to enforce the due observance 
 of sections twenty-five and twenty-six of chapter twenty-six of 
 the revised statutes, relating to the swinging of doors in all 
 factories and workshops. 
 
 Sec. 4. The inspector of factories, workshops, mines and 
 quarries shall, on or before the first day of December an- 
 nually submit his report to the commissioner of industrial and 
 labor statistics, which shall be incorporated in, and printed 
 with, the annual report from the bureau of industrial and 
 labor statistics. 
 
 Sec. 5. All acts and parts of acts inconsistent herewith are 
 hereby repealed. 
 
 Sec. 6. This act shall take effect when approved. 
 
 The proper enforcement of section 3 caused the factory 
 inspector some trouble through the inclusion of section 26 
 of chapter 26 of the Revised Statutes. The section re- 
 ferred to school buildings and was entirely outside of his 
 general jurisdiction. It was evident that its incorporation 
 in this statute was clearly one of those mistakes which result 
 from poor drafting of legislation during a busy session. 
 The opinion of the attorney-general became necessary, and 
 the following statement relieved the factory department of 
 responsibility in this matter: x "Section 3 is plainly a legis- 
 lative enactment or declaration that the provisions of Sec- 
 tion 26 shall apply to factories and workshops. I find no 
 reference to swinging doors in section 26 of chapter 26 of 
 the Revised Statutes and I fail to see ho-w you (the factory 
 inspector) have any official duties in regard to the enact- 
 ment of that section." 
 
 The same legislature passed an act 2 for the regulation 
 of labels for workingmen's unions, which assured to the 
 unions full protection in the use of their labels. 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1893, p. 212. 
 
 2 Laws of 1893, chap, cclxxvi, sees. 1-7. 
 
9 3] EXPANSION OF FACTORY LEGISLATION 93 
 
 § 7. Results from Child Labor Law Enforcement. — 
 Factory Inspector Chalk's report of 1893 §"i yes us the first 
 official tabulation of the employees under the age of fifteen 
 in the cotton mills of Maine. 1 He shows that in 1892, 446 
 children under the age of fifteen were employed, of whom 
 280 were boys and 166 girls. In 1893 the number of chil- 
 dren employed had been reduced to 325, a decrease of 121, 
 of whom 201 were boys and 124 girls. He estimates that 
 the number of children employed had been reduced by about 
 300 in the last six years, i. e., since the law of 1887 went 
 into effect, which was a reduction of nearly fifty per cent. 
 Inspector Chalk points out an increase of children working 
 in the woolen mills from 28 to 78 between the years of 
 1892 and 1893, and suggests that poverty has been the 
 cause. He shows the increase in welfare features to the 
 extent of $23,000 spent for improvements. He urges 
 further protective measures for the safety of children in 
 mercantile establishments, for better toilet conditions in 
 smaller industries and the more universal application of 
 safety appliances. 
 
 The year 1894 2 showed a decided decrease in the num- 
 ber of children employed under the age of fifteen in cotton 
 mills, the number having been reduced from 325 to 102. 
 The number of children between fifteen and sixteen in cot- 
 ton mills numbered 347, in woolen mills there were only 
 fourteen reported as employed. About $3,000 was spent 
 by employers during the year in sanitary improvements, a 
 large number of safety devices were suggested by the fac- 
 tory inspector as of great value. 
 
 § 8. Difficulties of Enforcement of Labor Laws during 
 Financial Depression. — The next year, 1895, was one m 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1893, p. 212. 
 
 2 Ibid., 1894. 
 
94 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [94 
 
 which the results of hard times were felt very much by the 
 people. " Feelings of unrest and discontent manifested 
 themselves in many parts of the State. Pay day was in 
 some cases deferred and children were illegally put into the 
 mills to make up the losses in the family budgets." 1 Child- 
 labor statistics gathered by the inspector show a total of 
 1,190 children employed, 547 of them being under the age 
 of fifteen. Of these 457 were in cotton mills, 67 in woolen 
 mills, 17 in shoe factories and 6 miscellaneous. Of these 
 there were illegally employed, 67 in the cotton mills, 24 in 
 the woolen mills and 2 in the shoe factories. During the 
 season $30,000 had been spent in improvements. The hard 
 times developed the difficulty in compelling the fortnightly 
 payment when goods were not sold. The inspector says, 2 
 " To enforce the payment to the letter of the law .... 
 would simply mean a suspension of business and a heavy 
 loss on the part of the manufacturer, and a loss of employ- 
 ment on the part of the working man." During 1896 3 the 
 business depression throughout the country continued and 
 the factory inspectors could only continue to urge upon the 
 employers the moral right in paying the fortnightly wage. 
 The retirement at the time of R. F. Chalk after five years of 
 service as inspector was a great loss to the department. 
 Even Governor Powers' message of 1897 showed the need 
 arising from the industrial conditions. He says : 4 
 
 Capital and labor have generally complemented and assisted 
 each other, and we reasonably hope that this state of things is 
 to continue in the future. Yet there are some labor problems 
 to be solved even in our State. Many wage earners are en- 
 gaged in very hazardous vocations on railroads, steamships, 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1895, p. 204. 
 
 2 Ibid., 1895, p. 231. 8 Ibid., 1896, p. 231. 
 ♦Governor's Annual Message, 1897; Pub. Docs., 1897, p. 23. 
 
95 ] EXPANSION OF FACTORY LEGISLATION 95 
 
 and in some factories and mills. Often they cannot and do 
 not know what dangers and perils surround them. 
 
 Every humane consideration demands that the best possible 
 safeguards should be thrown about them; and that employers 
 should exercise the highest degree of care in the selection of 
 everything to be used in and about their work. Questions of 
 this kind involving the liability of employers, and also ques- 
 tions relating to the number of hours of labor under certain 
 conditions and ages, are still being agitated. You should not 
 grant legislation in any case because it is demanded by the 
 wage earners on one side, or refuse it because it is opposed by 
 the employers on the other, but rather in the exercise of a 
 sound discretion, and your unbiased judgment, do what you 
 believe to be just and for the best interests of all concerned. 
 
 During 1897 business improved and the number of chil- 
 dren employed in cotton mills in the State greatly decreased, 
 according to the report of Charles E. Atwood, the new 
 factory inspector, 230 under the age of fifteen, a decrease of 
 over fifty per cent in two years. Children between fifteen 
 and sixteen working numbered 561. 
 
 § 9. Employment Bureau Law. — The legislature of 1899 
 passed an amendment 1 to the employment office law 
 of 1895. Employment offices were first regulated by the 
 act of 1854, chapter 105, 1, E, to which the amendment of 
 1855 added penalties. Licenses were required in 1899 
 and the manner of their registration was perfected by 
 Chapter 114 of the law of 1903. 
 
 § 10. Powers of the Factory Inspector Defined by Court. 
 — Maine legislation has followed that of other States so 
 closely that test cases have been almost unnecessary, but 
 during the year a test case was brought in the Supreme 
 Court to test the right of the factory inspector to demand 
 the certificates of age required by the act of 1887. The 
 1 Laws of 1899, chap. iii. 
 
96 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [gft 
 
 decision of the Supreme Court, 1897, State vs. Donaldson, 
 84 Maine 55, reads as follows: 
 
 The refusal and neglect of the employer of labor in a manu- 
 facturing or mechanical establishment to produce certificates 
 of the ages and places of birth of children under sixteen years 
 of age, employed, in such establishment, for the inspection of 
 the deputy commissioner of labor, is not an interference with 
 his duties within the meaning of this chapter. The term "in- 
 terfere " as therein used relates to some action directed to the 
 person, or some active personal obstruction or interference in 
 the performance of his duties, and not mere non-action. 
 
 The powers of the factory inspector were thus limited to 
 the right to> search for violations of the law in the factories 
 and the bringing of action against the parents of the chil- 
 dren. The employer was freed from liability even for fail- 
 ure to file certificates. This was a radical defect in the 
 law and made its efficient enforcement almost impossible. 
 
 § 11. Attempts to Improve Compulsory Education Laws. 
 — The year 1899 was marked by the holding in Augusta of 
 the convention x of the officials of Bureaus of Labor Statis- 
 tics, which should have given a great impetus to the factory 
 legislation of the State, but did not appear to have had any 
 results locally. The report - of the factory inspector for 
 1898 shows an increase in the total number of children em- 
 ployed under the age of sixteen to 788, but of these 554 
 were of the class between fifteen and sixteen, while 234 were 
 under fifteen. It was estimated by the factory department 
 that there were twenty thousand between five and seventeen 
 not attending school, and it was the complaint of the depart- 
 ment that there was no cooperation between the school au- 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1899, p. 102. 
 
 2 Ibid., 1898, p. 210. 
 
97 ] EXPANSION OF FACTORY LEGISLATION gy 
 
 thorities and the factory inspector in the enforcement of the 
 compulsory education laws. This was an old complaint. It 
 was further suggested that Section 8 of the act of 1887 to 
 regulate the hours of labor and the employment of women 
 and children, be amended so as to require a transcript of 
 the birth record to be filed with the mill agent. 
 
 The year 1899 shows an increase in the number of chil- 
 dren employed, but it is claimed by the factory inspector 
 that the percentage of increase in the number of children 
 was much smaller than the increase of adults employed. In 
 that year there were 349 children under fifteen and 573 
 between fifteen and sixteen. In this same year a strict 
 truant and compulsory education law 1 was passed requir- 
 ing children between seven and fifteen inclusive to attend 
 some public school during the time the school was in session, 
 unless excused by the school officers. All persons having 
 children under their control were required to cause them 
 to attend school as required by law under penalty of a fine 
 not exceeding twenty-five dollars for each offense, or im- 
 prisonment not exceeding thirty days. Any child who 
 shall be absent without sufficient excuse six or more times 
 during any term shall be deemed an habitual truant and if 
 after admonition the truancy is continued, the child, if a 
 boy, may be committed to the State Reform School, and if 
 a girl, to the State Industrial School for Girls, or to any 
 truant school that may hereafter be established. Any per- 
 son having control of a child who is an habitual truant and 
 who shall in any way be responsible for its truancy shall be 
 subject to a fine nor exceeding twenty dollars or to im- 
 prisonment not exceeding thirty days. Cities and towns 
 are required to elect truant officers under penalty of from 
 ten to fifty dollars. 
 
 1 Laws of 1899, chap. lxxx. 
 
98 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [98 
 
 The value of these provisions was enhanced by the fact 
 that they had the support of the court decision * in Omaha 
 v. Winthrop, 65 Maine 129, where the Supreme Court of 
 Maine held that a warrant for the arrest of a truant may be 
 served by a truant officer, and the truant sentenced to re- 
 form school or house of correction during minority. The 
 execution of the sentence might be suspended. 
 
 Unfortunately this law proved too strict for the time, 
 and the legislature of 1901 2 reduced the age from fifteen 
 to fourteen years, inclusive, with some interesting results, 
 as we shall see. 
 
 § 12. Effect of Compulsory Education Laws on Child 
 Labor (i8pp-ipoj). — In 1900, Mr. Atwood, the Factory 
 Inspector, makes a more favorable report 3 as to the num- 
 ber of children working, there being a decrease of 247 in 
 the number under sixteen, the totals for the year making 
 675 under sixteen, 425 between fifteen and sixteen, and 250 
 under fifteen. 
 
 In 1 90 1 we find the inspections are continuing as usual, 
 there has been a large increase in the number of children 
 employed. The reason for this as stated 4 by Mr. Atwood 
 is sugggestive. 
 
 It will be seen that the number of children under fifteen years 
 of age has decreased, while the number between fifteen and six- 
 teen has increased. This may be accounted for from the fact that 
 when business is prosperous the causes that prompt infractions 
 of the law are not so pressing. When labor is scarce and wages 
 are reasonably high, there is not the same incentive to send chil- 
 dren of tender years into factories to work as when the reverse 
 is the case. Business depression causes a lowering of the wages 
 
 1 Public Documents, 1889, School Laws, p. 6. 
 
 2 Laws of 1901, chap, clxxxv, sec. 1. 
 
 8 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1900. 
 4 Ibid., 1901, p. 184. 
 
99 ] EXPANSION OF FACTORY LEGISLATION 99 
 
 received by the father and hence induces him to resort to sub- 
 terfuges, if not to absolute violation of law, in order that 
 his under-age children may assist him to eke out the usual 
 family income. But the year 1901, in all branches of manufac- 
 turing enterprise, has been very prosperous, and for that reason 
 the number of children under fifteen years of age, employed in 
 industrial pursuits, has appreciably fallen off. In 1899 the 
 number of children under fifteen years of age employed in 
 manufacturing and mechanical establishments in the State was 
 349 ; in 1900, the number was 250 and in 1901 it was 219. The 
 falling off in the number of children employed under fifteen 
 years is partially accounted for by the change of the law of last 
 winter reducing the school limit from fifteen to fourteen years 
 inclusive. Children between fifteen and sixteen years of age, 
 being released from compulsory school attendance, increased in 
 the mills from 425 in 1900 to 725 in 1901, and to some extent 
 have displaced those under fifteen years. 
 
 The relation of the factory inspector and the school au- 
 thorities was still very confused. In 1902 1 both the com- 
 pulsory education law and the child-labor law required 
 school attendance of children under fifteen, but the labor 
 law stipulated only sixteen weeks, while the compulsory 
 education law required attendance during the full time the 
 school was in session. The query naturally arose, should 
 the school law annul the labor law ? Again there were the 
 two sets of officers to enforce the law, a single factory in- 
 spector on one side and some 500 truant officers on the 
 other, with little or nothing accomplished by either. Dur- 
 ing the year 1902 there was a slight increase in the num- 
 ber of children under fourteen working, from 221 to 234, 
 though the number under sixteen was reduced from 946 
 to 719. 
 
 An attempt was made in 1903 2 to abolish the office of 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1902, p. 194. 
 
 2 Ibid., 1903, p. 209. 
 
I oo FA CTORY LEGISLA TION IN MAINE [ T QO 
 
 factory inspector on account of the apparent conflict be- 
 tween his work and that of the educational authorities, 
 which called forth a reply from the factory inspector, ask- 
 ing that the compulsory education law and the labor law be 
 made identical in regard to age, and then give the factory 
 inspector assistants and authority to enforce both, or ap- 
 point a State Truant Officer to supervise. 
 
 § 13. Maine Mining Bureau. — The legislature of 1903, 
 instead of reorganizing the office of inspector of factories 
 and mines on some comprehensive scheme, simply added a 
 mining bureau without any appropriation. The statute 
 reads as follows : x 
 
 Sec. 1. The land agent, the commissioner of agriculture 
 and the commissioner of industrial and labor statistics are 
 constituted a mining board to be known as the Maine Mining 
 Bureau. They shall organize by electing from their number a 
 president and a secretary. 
 
 Sec. 2. Said bureau shall collect reliable information con- 
 cerning the deposits of all precious and useful minerals and 
 other valuable subterranean productions in the state that are 
 supposed to exist in quantities sufficient to justify the develop- 
 ment of such properties. 
 
 Sec. 3. It shall establish a metallurgical cabinet of exhibit 
 of the state in such room in the state house, as the superin- 
 tendent of public buildings may direct, and in such cabinet they 
 shall properly arrange samples and specimens of ores, valuable 
 rocks and metals of the state collected by them, for the safe 
 keeping and preservation of the same. 
 
 Sec. 4. It shall biennially issue a pamphlet containing such 
 reliable information concerning the mineral resources of the 
 state as it has collected, and shall distribute at least one thou- 
 sand copies of such pamphlet among the business men and 
 capitalists of other states. 
 
 1 Laws of 1903, chap, ccxxvii, sees. 1-4. 
 
IO i] EXPANSION OF FACTORY LEGISLATION IO i 
 
 § 14. Revival of the Labor Movement. — Nineteen hun- 
 dred and four finds the factory inspector * still calling for 
 the revision of the labor laws and especially recommending 
 that the section in regard to age should be changed to re- 
 quire a birth certificate countersigned by the school authori- 
 ties. He further submits a bill to provide guards for ma- 
 chinery, etc., similar to the law in Ohio, and urges the need 
 of an employers' liability law. While conditions of child- 
 labor according to the statistics show an increase, there 
 being 323 children under fifteen, as against 157 in 1903, 
 and 426 between fifteen and sixteen against 428. 
 
 The hopelessness of the situation resulted in the resig- 
 nation of Mr. Atwood and the threatened abolition of the 
 factory department itself. Fortunate it was that other 
 forces came to the aid of the situation just at that tirne. 
 The organization of the State Federation of Labor in June, 
 1904 2 began anew the agitation for labor legislation, while 
 an awakening of interest in child-labor among the Feder- 
 ation of Women's Clubs added another group of people 
 to the fight. With the advent of these organizations be- 
 gins a new chapter in the history of Maine labor legislation. 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1904, p. 233. 
 
 2 Labor Journal, 1904. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 Child Labor Campaign, 1905-1907 
 
 § 1. Agitation by the Federation of Women's Clubs. — 
 The labor legislation of 1887 was preceded by several years 
 of public agitation upon the subject conducted by the educa- 
 tional and labor agencies. Twenty years later history re- 
 peats itself. The growth of the State Federation of Labor 
 had been marked and its influence increasing. In the 
 Autumn of 1904 1 a labor candidate was urged upon the 
 Governor for the Commissioner of Industrial and Labor 
 Statistics and the legislative committees of the Federation 
 of Labor had a series of bills ready for the opening of the 
 seventy-second legislature. 
 
 In the same autumn the Federation of Women's Clubs 2 
 appointed an educational committee to interest itself in the 
 problem of child-labor. The committee was the result of 
 an address given during the previous spring by Mrs. Flor- 
 ence Kelley, Secretary of the National Consumers League, 
 and the investigation of some of the women into the con- 
 ditions existing in some of the mills during the summer. 
 In February the Women's Clubs appointed a legislative 
 committee to wait upon the Governor and urge the appoint- 
 ment of Mrs. E. J. Mason of Biddeford as factory in- 
 spector. Governor Cobb in turn asked the ladies to sug- 
 gest a suitable man for the position and through their in- 
 
 1 Boston Sunday Globe (Nov. 27, 1904). 
 
 2 Unprinted report by Mrs. E. J. Mason, of Biddeford. 
 
 102 [102 
 
I0 3] CHILD LABOR CAMPAIGN 10 ^ 
 
 fluence George E. Morrison of Saco was selected by the 
 Governor. His appointment was postponed for some time 
 on account of the pending bill for the abolition of the office. 
 
 § 2. The Legislature of 1905. — The legislature of 1905 
 saw the introduction of not only a bill to amend the child- 
 labor law, but a large number of other labor bills. A bill * 
 was introduced into the Senate to abolish the office of In- 
 spector of Factories, Workshops, Mines and Quarries. At 
 the hearing on March 9th a plea 2 was made for the re- 
 tention of the office by Commissioner Matthews and a 
 strong labor lobby. The Committee on Labor brought in a 
 recommendation against the bill. A bill 3 to make eight 
 hours the legal day's work was also killed in committee. 
 A strong bill 4 to create a State Board of Conciliation and 
 Arbitration, though well supported by petitions, died in the 
 same committee. Labor 5 was especially interested in the 
 fifty-eight hour bill applying to the manufacturing and mer- 
 cantile establishments, being the first attempt to regulate 
 the hours of labor in the mercantile establishments, but it 
 was reported unfavorably by the Committee on Legal Af- 
 fairs. Bills for employer's liability and the regulation of 
 assignment of wages 6 were lost in the same way. An ex- 
 ception to the rule was made in the case of the bill 7 to license 
 plumbers, which was passed. The bill 8 to provide for the 
 better enforcement of the law relating to the employment 
 of children was treated a little less harshly than the others, 
 
 1 Senate Documents, 1905, p. 488. 
 
 2 Kennebec Journal (Mar. 10, 1905). 
 
 3 Senate Documents, 1905, p. 4. 
 * Ibid., p. 5. 
 
 5 Official Journal, Maine Federation of Labor, 1905, p. 45. 
 
 6 House Documents, 1905, p. 480. 
 
 7 Laws of 1905, chap, lxxi, sees. 1-4. 
 s Senate Documents, 1905, no. 9. 
 
104 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ I04 
 
 being referred to the next legislature. This condescen- 
 sion on the part of the legislature was probably due to the 
 increasing agitation on the part of the Federation of Wo- 
 men's Clubs. Mrs. Kelley was again asked to speak before 
 a large and enthusiastic meeting at the State House in 
 February, and other meetings were held by the ladies in all 
 the larger cities and towns of the State. 
 
 The failure of all these bills in the legislature postponed 
 for two years consideration of distinctly labor legislation, 
 but during that session there passed a bill 1 relating to the 
 protection of children, amending the " cruelties act." This 
 bill vested in the Governor and Council the power to appoint 
 with sufficient compensation suitable persons to enforce the 
 laws for the protection of children with power to investi- 
 gate cases of cruelty. Besides providing for probation of 
 children, it gave powers of probation over deserting hus- 
 bands and fathers to these officers in the discretion of the 
 court. It regulated the employment of children in dis- 
 orderly houses, gambling places, where intoxicating liquors 
 were sold, or other places injurious to health and morals. 
 It also provided against the exhibition of children under 
 sixteen years of age in public performance or in begging 
 and providing penalties for the same. This law added a 
 new type of police power, available to regulate the work of 
 minors and indigent parents. 
 
 The result of the agitation for child-labor legislation 
 was the incorporation into the educational bill, 2 passed dur- 
 ing the session, of a strong section on compulsory education. 
 The revised law reads as follows : 
 
 Sec. 46. Towns may make such by-laws, not repugnant to 
 law, concerning habitual truants, and children between six and 
 
 1 Laws of 1905, chap, cxxiii, sec. 9. 2 Ibid., chap. lxii. 
 
I0 5] CHILD LABOR CAMPAIGN IO $ 
 
 seventeen years of age not attending school, without any- 
 regular and lawful occupation, and growing up in ignorance, 
 as are most conducive to their welfare and the good order of 
 society; and may annex a suitable penalty, not exceeding 
 twenty dollars, for any breach thereof; but such by-laws must 
 be first approved by a judge of the supreme judicial court. 
 
 Sec. 47. Truant officers elected as provided in section fifty- 
 one shall alone make complaints for violations of said by-laws, 
 and shall execute the judgments of the magistrate. 
 
 Sec. 48. Said magistrate, in place of fine, may order child- 
 ren proved to be growing up in truancy, and without the bene- 
 fit of the education provided for them by law, to be placed 
 for such periods as he thinks expedient, in the institution of 
 instruction, house of reformation, or other suitable situation 
 provided for the purpose under section forty-six. 
 
 Sec. 49. Every child between the seventh and fifteenth an- 
 niversaries of his birth shall attend some public day school 
 during the time such school is in session, and an absence 
 therefrom of one-half day or more shall be deemed a violation 
 of this requirement; provided that necessary absence may be 
 excused by the superintending school committee or superin- 
 tendent of schools or teachers acting by direction of either; 
 provided also, that such attendance shall not be required if 
 the child obtained equivalent instruction, for a like period 
 of time, in an approved private school or in any other manner 
 approved by the superintending school committee; provided, 
 further, that children shall not be credited with attendance at 
 a private school until a certificate showing their names, re- 
 sidences and attendance at such school signed by the person 
 or persons having such school in charge, shall be filed with the 
 school officials of the town in which said children reside ; and 
 provided, further, that the superintending school committee 
 may exclude from the public schools any child whose physical 
 or mental condition makes it inexpedient for him to attend. 
 All persons having children under their control shall cause 
 them to attend school as provided in this section, and for 
 
io 6 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ io 6 
 
 every neglect of such duty shall be punished by a fine not ex- 
 ceeding twenty-five dollars or shall be imprisoned not exceed- 
 ing thirty days. 
 
 Sec. 50. Children living remote from any public school in 
 the town in which they reside may be allowed to attend the 
 public schools, other than a high school approved as provided 
 in section sixty- three, in an adjoining town, under such regu- 
 lations and on such terms as the school committees of said 
 towns agree upon and prescribe, and the school committee of 
 the town in which such children reside shall pay the sum 
 agreed upon, out of the appropriations of money raised in said 
 town for school purposes. Except as above provided, a child 
 attending a public school, other than a high school approved 
 as provided in section sixty-three, in a town in which his 
 parent or legal guardian does not reside, after having obtained 
 the consent of the school committee of such town, shall pay, as 
 tuition, a sum equal to the average expense of each scholar in 
 such school. 
 
 Sec. 51. Cities and towns shall annually elect one or more 
 persons, to be designated truant officers, who shall inquire into 
 all cases of neglect of the duties prescribed in section forty-nine 
 and ascertain the reasons therefor and shall promptly report 
 the same to the superintending school committee, and such 
 truant officers or any of them shall, when so directed by the 
 school committee or superintendent in writing, prosecute in 
 the name of the city or town, any person neglecting to per- 
 form the duties prescribed in said section, by promptly entering 
 a complaint before a magistrate; and said officers shall, when 
 notified by any teacher that any pupil is irregular in attend- 
 ance, arrest and take such pupil to school when found truant; 
 and further such officers shall enforce the provisions of sections 
 one hundred and eighteen to one hundred and twenty, inclu- 
 sive, of this chapter. Every city or town neglecting to elect 
 truant officers, and truant officers neglecting any duty required 
 of them under the provisions of this chapter shall forfeit not 
 less than ten nor more than fifty dollars. The municipal offi- 
 
I0 7] CHILD LABOR CAMPAIGN 10 J 
 
 cers shall fix the compensation to the truant officers, elected as 
 prescribed in this section. Superintending school committees 
 may fill vacancies occurring during the year, and shall elect 
 truant officers at their first meeting after the annual meeting 
 of the town, in case the town neglects to do so, or the truant 
 officers elect, or any of them, fail to qualify. 
 
 Sec. 52. If a child without sufficient excuse, shall be absent 
 from school at six or more consecutive sessions during any 
 term, he shall be deemed an habitual truant, and the superin- 
 tending school committee shall notify him and any person 
 under whose control he may be that unless he conforms to 
 section forty-nine, the provisions of the two following sections 
 will be enforced against them; and if thereafter such child 
 continues irregular in attendance, the truant officers or any of 
 them shall, when so directed by the school committee or super- 
 intendent in writing, enforce said provisions by complaint. ' 
 
 Sec. 53. Any person having control of a child, who is an 
 habitual truant, as defined in the foregoing section, and being 
 in any way responsible for such truancy, and any person who 
 induces a child to absent himself from school, or harbors or 
 conceals such child when he is absent, shall be punished by a 
 fine not exceeding twenty dollars or shall be imprisoned not 
 exceeding thirty days. 
 
 Sec. 54. On complaint of the truant officer, an habitual 
 truant, if a boy, may be committed to the state school for boys, 
 or if a girl, to the state industrial school for girls, or to 
 any truant school that may hereafter be established. Police 
 or municipal courts and trial justices shall have jurisdiction of 
 such complaint and of the offences described in sections forty- 
 nine, fifty-one and fifty- three. All warrants issued by said 
 courts or trial justices upon such complaint, or for an offense 
 committed under said sections, and all legal processes issued by 
 said courts or trial justices for the purpose of carrying into 
 effect the provisions of this section and of the said sections 
 numbered forty-nine, fifty-one and fifty-three, may be directed 
 to and executed by the truant officer, or either of the truant 
 
io 8 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ I0 g 
 
 officers, of the town where the offense is committed. All 
 fines, collected under said two last named sections, shall be 
 paid to the treasurer of the city or town in which the offense 
 is committed, for the support of the public schools therein. 
 
 The first report of Factory Inspector Morrison x deals 
 very briefly with the welfare conditions, but points out the 
 good conditions existing in the larger mills and the need of 
 persistent work on the smaller to make them satisfactory. 
 He shows an increase in the number of children working 
 on certificates, i. e. under sixteen years of age, to 813, and 
 accounts for this by the scarcity of help, stating that hardly 
 a mill in the State was running to its full capacity on that 
 account. The bad conditions existing at the time are shown 
 by an article written by the President of the State Federa- 
 tion of Labor, in which he says, 2 "There are hundreds of 
 children today under the age of twelve years working from 
 ten to twelve hours per day, when the law says they shall be 
 in school. But as yet we have not been able to remedy this 
 terrible evil. . . . When the inspector visits and finds them 
 working in any factory he merely orders them home. As 
 soon as he leaves the factory or shop, they return to work 
 again, only losing a small amount of time. This is done 
 instead of prosecuting." A labor committee had been ap- 
 pointed at the 1905 meeting of the Federation of Labor to 
 investigate into the matter. Many cases had been reported, 
 and but few taken notice of. 
 
 There now appears upon the scenes for the first time in 
 Maine, the type of newspaper investigator, which is so 
 familiar elsewhere. Long articles appear in the Lewiston 
 Journal in the Spring of 1906 3 and in the labor papers,* 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1905, p. 188. 
 
 2 Maine Labor Journal, vol. i, no. 1 (June 1, 1906). 
 
 3 Ibid. (June 16th). 
 
 4 Ibid., no. 2 (Mar. 1, 1907), "Child Slavery in Maine." 
 
I0 9] CHILD LABOR CAMPAIGN IO g 
 
 written in catchy style, appealing to the emotions of the 
 reader. The cry of two thousand children at work in the 
 mills was raised and facts were stated which showed clearly 
 that better legislation was needed, but did not add any proof 
 of wholesale violation of the existing labor laws, but often 
 an exaggeration accomplishes more that is good for the 
 community than a clear statement of the truth. These 
 articles show that under the existing law the parents were 
 the only ones who could be held for the violation and that 
 they were without resources, so to hold them liable to fine 
 was simple cruelty, and in so far they pointed truly to the 
 weak point in the law. 
 
 The meeting 1 of the State Federation in 1906 demanded 
 rigid enforcement of the law and decided to render every 
 possible assistance by having committees appointed in the 
 important localities to make report and if the officials did 
 not do their work to have them removed. The attention 
 of the whole country was called to the situation by the ad- 
 dress of Samuel Gompers, 2 President of the National Feder- 
 ation of Labor, delivered in Lewiston that Spring, in which 
 he said, 
 
 I have read the reports of the legislative committees in the dif- 
 ferent states, and I find that in the great State of Maine, in 
 your factories and in your mills, the statement made that 
 children, young and innocent children, less than twelve years 
 of age, are working for these corporations. (A voice. Less 
 than eleven.) I said less than twelve, and that bears me out. 
 Less than eleven. Now who interests himself in affairs of this 
 character, our philanthropists, our churches? The members 
 of these corporations will go to church, and for about five 
 
 1 Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention, Maine State Federa- 
 tion of Labor (June, 1906), p. 14. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 28. 
 
i IO FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ I1Q 
 
 minutes in the week pray for the men and women and children 
 of labor, and for the balance of the week proceed to prey upon 
 them. The effort to save the children from the modern 
 traffic monger all devolves upon the organizations of labor. 
 Read the history of legislation of this character throughout 
 our entire country, aye, the world over, and you will find the 
 associations of labor have initiated the agitation, creating public 
 opinion, reaching and shocking the public conscience, and public 
 spirited men have grown up and have espoused and defended 
 the cause which labor proclaimed. But here you are in Maine, 
 with children less than eleven years of age working. In highly 
 civilized Maine, children less than eleven years of age. Tem- 
 perate Maine. If the people of this state had an opportunity 
 of deciding that question upon a referendum vote, how do you 
 suppose it would go? How would that thing go? Where is 
 there a man with a conscience so elastic, with a heart so hard,, 
 who would not vote to abolish the labor of young and innocent 
 children? Where is the man, if that be true, and I doubt that 
 there is anyone who will dispute it, who claims that the con- 
 science and the hearts and the minds of the people of Maine 
 are not against that sort of thing? How is it then, that you 
 haven't something more effective than what you have? 
 
 There was begun about the same time agitation for the 
 fifty-eight hour law and the Convention of Maine Textile 
 Workers voiced their opinions in the following resolution : * 
 
 Whereas, It is generally admitted by thinking men, who have 
 made a study of economic and industrial questions, that where 
 hours of labor are the least wages are the highest and civiliza- 
 tion has its standard advanced, while where hours of labor are 
 the longest wages are the lowest and the greatest human 
 misery is to be found. Therefore, we should spare no effort 
 to reduce the hours of labor of the women and minors of our 
 
 1 Kennebec Journal (Dec. 10, 1906). 
 
! ! ! J CHILD LABOR CAMPAIGN i 1 x 
 
 State, that it may elevate them socially, morally, physically and 
 mentally. Therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That we, the Textile Workers of Maine, do hereby 
 ask and demand that the Legislature of this State pass a law 
 making fifty-eight hours per week the limit of labor for women 
 and minors in factories and shops. 
 
 Speeches in favor of the fifty-eight hour law were made by 
 many of the delegates present, among them Mr. Carlin of 
 Brunswick, who advocated it strongly. Mr. Carlin said in 
 effect that he thought that it was time Maine had the law. 
 Many other states had it, and the fact that Maine still had the 
 sixty hour day [sic] acted as a deterrent to other states re- 
 ducing the hours of labor. Continuing, he said that the manu- 
 facturers of other states where the law was in force were not 
 suffering thereby, and in proof of his statement cited cities 
 in Massachusetts where, he said, new mills are being built 
 every year. He further said that with a shorter day the Maine 
 manufacturers would have less difficulty in getting help, as 
 those who come from places where the fifty-eight hour law is 
 in force and have to work sixty hours per week do not stay 
 but return to the places from whence they came. 
 
 Another point that he made was that the old-fashioned ma- 
 chinery was being replaced by that which was faster and more 
 improved and which called for quicker work on the part of the 
 operator and forced more of a strain upon him, making him 
 more tired at the close of the day's work and depriving him 
 of the desire to indulge in such recreation as he would other- 
 wise enjoy. He also claimed that shorter hours and the re- 
 sulting increase in the time to be devoted to rest and recreation 
 would render the operative more fit for duty and that thereby 
 he would produce a better quality of work. 
 
 The report * of Inspector Morrison, published January 
 i st, 1907, shows how unfair legal action against the parents 
 would be. Out of sixteen fraudulent certificates found in 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1906, p. 211. 
 
1 1 2 FACTOR Y LEG I SLA TION IN MAINE [ Il2 
 
 a mill, he found that only one parent who was required by 
 law to sign the certificate could read or write and in no case 
 could a hundred dollars fine be collected without great 
 hardship. The inspector suggests two amendments to the 
 child-labor law. He says, " We recommend that Sec. 53 of 
 Chapter 40 of the Revised Statutes be so amended that no 
 child under fourteen years of age, instead of fifteen as now 
 provided in said section, shall at any time, be employed in 
 any manufacturing or mechanical establishment in the 
 State. We believe that whether a child is, or is not, attend- 
 ing school a portion of the time, is not the criterion by 
 which we should try to control child labor, but for the 
 physical and moral benefits of the coming generation, it 
 should be an offence, prohibited by our laws, to employ any 
 child under fourteen years of age in our manufacturing or 
 mechanical establishments." The further suggestion was 
 that a certified copy of the city or town clerk's record of 
 birth, baptismal record or passport should be put on file by 
 the employer and a certificate issued by him, furnished by 
 the inspector and approved by the Attorney General. This 
 shall also be kept on file while a duplicate is sent to the in- 
 spector. At the same time the factory inspector recom- 
 mended that the term " corporation " as used in section 58 
 of the law relating to fortnightly payments should be 
 changed to read, " mining, quarrying, stonecutting, mer- 
 cantile, street railway, telegraph, telephone and municipal 
 corporations, every incorporated express and water com- 
 pany, and any person or firm engaged in any of the above 
 specified kinds of business." 
 
 Statistics of child-labor did not show any improvement. 1 
 November 1st, 1906, there were 877 children employed with 
 certificates in the mills and 119 under excuses. While 
 
 1 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1906, p. 213. 
 
z ! 3 ] CHILD LABOR CAMPAIGN 1 T 3 
 
 there seems to have been " hearty cooperation of the Super- 
 intendents of Schools in the various manufacturing cities 
 of the State," there still was little comprehensive work. 
 The parochial schools of Biddeford and Portland made no 
 report as to the children in attendance and in Lewiston the 
 parochial opposition to the surrendering of lists of pupils 
 to the School Board made adequate enforcement of the 
 truant laws in the big cities practically impossible. It was 
 believed by the factory inspector at the time that fifty per 
 cent of the certificates under which the children were work- 
 ing were false. 
 
 § 3. The Legislature of 1907. — Governor Cobb in his an- 
 nual message * to the legislature, January 3rd, 1907 recom- 
 mended as follows: 
 
 I especially urge you to change and improve the laws bear- 
 ing upon the question of child labor in this State. Maine is lag- 
 ging here and the children themselves are helpless. You must 
 be their champions, and neither the thoughtlessness of parents 
 nor the indifference of employers must be permitted to inter- 
 fere with the performance of the State's manifest duty to pro- 
 vide, as best she may, for the moral, physical and educational 
 welfare of these children to whom unfortunately so many of 
 the pleasures and opportunities of childhood are denied. 
 
 A bill was introduced into the House raising the mini- 
 mum age at which children may work from twelve to four- 
 teen, but was withdrawn in favor of a stronger bill proposed 
 by the factory inspector with the approval of the Governor. 
 
 The hearing before the labor committee on Mr. Morri- 
 son's bill was one of those that gathers together all the civic 
 forces of the community. I quote the labor version of the 
 meeting 2 which agrees with the statements of the Feder- 
 
 1 Public Documents, 1907 ; Annual Message of Governor. 
 
 2 Maine Labor Journal (Mar. 1907), p. 19. 
 
1 14 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ z I4 
 
 ation of Women's Clubs and best illustrates the bitterness 
 of labor toward capital. 
 
 The regular labor committee room was not large enough to 
 accommodate the people who wished to attend, so the meeting 
 was adjourned to the Senate Chamber and that was filled to the 
 doors. It was a very interesting hearing indeed to the specta- 
 tors and a very busy one to the factory owners, who were 
 there in large numbers and who also had an attorney to look 
 out for their interests at law. The owners did most of the 
 speech making themselves as the attorney seemed to feel em- 
 barrassed in his position. The bill was in charge of factory 
 inspector Mr. Morrison who spoke in favor of the measure. 
 There were many other speakers, among them Mrs. E. J. 
 Mason of Biddeford, Chairman of legislative committee of the 
 Maine Federation of Women's Clubs, Mrs. Frederick Marsh 
 of Waterville, President of the same. These women made 
 eloquent and touching speeches and they certainly helped the 
 boys and girls in this State, who are shut up in the prison 
 factories for long hours every day, for a mere pittance, while 
 by their work they add largely to the bank account of the 
 factory owners. 
 
 The bill was before the committee during more than two 
 weeks and during this time the mill owners brought all pos- 
 sible pressure to bear upon the committee. One point of 
 contention was the section 55 which made an exception in 
 regard to perishable product. This point was backed by a 
 strong lobby from the canning districts in the Eastern part 
 of the State, but as a compromise a clause was added to 
 the section providing for inspection by the factory in- 
 spector of the conditions and giving him a right to prohibit 
 the employment of children until the conditions had been 
 removed. The bill repealed sections 53, 54 and 55 of the 
 labor law of 1887, thus removing the educational restric- 
 
j ! s ] C7//LD LABOR CAMPAIGN j T 5 
 
 tions. This was done against the wish of the Federation 
 of Women's Clubs, who had drafted a bill providing for 
 an educational condition, but refrained from proposing it 
 fearing to injure Mr. Morrison's bill. On March 7th the 
 Governor signed the bill and it became a law September 1st, 
 1907. The act reads as follows : 
 
 Section 1. Section 52 of Chapter 40 of the Revised Statutes 
 is hereby amended by striking out the word " twelve " in the 
 first line of said section and substituting therefor the word 
 " fourteen," also by striking out the words " and every parent 
 or guardian who permits any child to be so employed," so that 
 the said section as amended, shall read : 
 
 " Section 52. No child under fourteen years of age shall be 
 employed in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment 
 in the state. Whoever, either for himself, or as superintendent, 
 overseer or agent of another, employs or has in his employment 
 any child in violation of the provisions of this section, shall 
 be punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five, nor more than 
 fifty dollars for each offense." 
 
 Section 2. Sections 53, 54 and 55 of said Chapter 40 are 
 hereby repealed. 
 
 Section 3. Chapter 40 of the Revised Statutes is hereby 
 amended by inserting as Section 53 of said chapter the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 " Section 53. Any child over fourteen years of age, and 
 under sixteen years of age, applying for employment in any 
 manufacturing or mechanical establishment in this state, or any 
 person applying in his behalf, shall produce and present to the 
 owner, superintendent or overseer of such establishment a 
 certified copy of the town clerk's record of the birth of such 
 child, or a certified copy of his baptismal record showing the 
 date of his birth, or his passport showing said date of birth, and 
 without the production and presentation of said town record, 
 baptismal record or passport, such child shall not receive the 
 employment applied for. The employer shall retain such town 
 
1 16 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ x x 6 
 
 record, baptismal record or passport and shall issue to such 
 child a certificate containing the name of the child, the names of 
 his parents, if living, or guardian, if any, with the residence of 
 said child, parent or guardian, and such other facts as may be 
 required by the inspector of factories, workshops, mines and 
 quarries, which certificate shall be furnished in blank by said 
 inspector and shall be approved as to form by the attorney 
 general. The employer shall furnish to said inspector a copy of 
 each certificate thus issued immediately after the issuance of the 
 original, which copy shall be retained by the inspector upon a 
 file prepared for that purpose. When such child leaves such 
 employment the employer shall return to such child the copy 
 of town record, baptismal record or passport furnished by him 
 as aforesaid and shall immediately notify said inspector that 
 such child has left his employment, and the date of such leav- 
 ing. The inspector of factories, workshops, mines, and quar- 
 ries, or either of his assistants, may demand the names of the 
 children under sixteen years of age employed in such establish- 
 ment, in the several cities and towns of the state, and may 
 require that the certificates of age prescribed in this section, 
 shall be produced for his inspection, and a failure to produce 
 the same, shall be prima facie evidence that the employment of 
 such child is illegal." 
 
 Section 4. Said Chapter 40 is further amended by the in- 
 sertion of Section 54 the following: 
 
 " Section 54. The penalties provided by Section 52 of this 
 chapter shall apply to all provisions of Section 53. It shall be 
 the duty of the inspector of factories, workshops, mines and 
 quarries, and of his assistants to investigate and prosecute all 
 violations of the provisions of the two preceding sections." 
 
 Section 5. Section 56 of said Chapter 40 is hereby amended 
 by renumbering the same as Section 55 and by striking out 
 the word " eight " in the first line thereof and inserting in 
 place thereof the word " seven " and by also adding to this 
 section the following : ' Provided, however, the employment 
 of children therein shall be under the supervision of said in- 
 
! ! 7 ] CHILD LABOR CAMPAIGN I T y 
 
 spector who shall on complaint investigate the sanitary condi- 
 tions, hours of labor and other conditions detrimental to child- 
 ren, and if he finds detrimental conditions to exist, he may 
 prohibit the employment of children therein until such condi- 
 tions are removed/ so that said section as amended shall read 
 as follows: 
 
 " Section 55. Nothing in the seven preceding sections shall 
 apply to any manufacturing establishment or business, the 
 materials and products of which are perishable and require 
 immediate labor thereon, to prevent decay thereof or damage 
 thereto. Provided, however, the employment of children 
 therein shall be under the supervision of said inspector who 
 shall on complaint investigate the sanitary conditions, hours 
 of labor and other conditions detrimental to children and if in 
 his judgment he finds detrimental conditions to exist, he may, 
 in conjunction with the municipal officers of the town or city 
 of which the complaint is made, prohibit the employment of 
 children therein until such conditions are removed." 
 
 Section 6. This act shall take effect September 1st, 1907. 
 
 The salary of the factory inspector was also increased 
 
 $200. 1 
 
 § 4. Other Labor Legislation Before The J 3d Legisla- 
 ture. — There were proposed a number of bills, which were 
 in the interest of the laboring classes. 2 An amendment to 
 Section 58 of Chapter 44 of the Revised Statutes relating 
 to the " fortnightly payment of wages " was drafted and 
 strenuous measures were made by the Federation of Labor 
 to secure its passage. The amendments were along the 
 line proposed by the Inspector of Factories, but the bill 
 was killed in the Judiciary Committee. An employment 
 agency bill 8 designed to prevent the fleecing of those who 
 applied to employment agencies for work was introduced 
 
 1 Laws of 1907, chap, lxxvii. 
 
 2 Maine Labor Journal, vol. i, no. 3, p. 16 (August, 1907). 
 8 Laws of 1907, chap, lxxxiv, sees. 1-7. 
 
I jS FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ r jg 
 
 by Representative G. Raymond Joy of Bar Harbor and be- 
 came a law. Under the old system the employment agencies 
 frequently took the money of parties applying for positions 
 and sent them after 'fake' jobs. Under the provisions of this 
 bill, if the applicant does not get the position for which he 
 applies his money must be returned. The agency is re- 
 quired to give a bond in the sum of five hundred dollars 
 not to violate any of the provisions of the act, and cannot 
 charge more than one dollar, and must give a receipt 
 for it. 1 
 
 § 5. The Fifty Eight Hour Bill. — The bill reducing the 
 hours of labor of women and children in factories from sixty 
 to fifty-eight hours was proposed by the textile workers, and 
 was opposed by the same forces which opposed the amend- 
 ments to the child-labor law. A strong delegation repre- 
 sented labor in the State, and some even coming from Mas- 
 sachusetts and Rhode Island. The bill was killed in com- 
 mittee. 
 
 The Employer's Liability Bill, which was drawn by Al- 
 fred R. Peakes of Foxcroft was ably defended by him be- 
 fore the committee on judiciary. The bill was as strongly 
 opposed by the best legal talent in the State and the com- 
 mittee did not report favorably upon it. The provisions 
 of the bill were to shift the financial loss from persons who 
 receive the injury in such a way that it would be added to 
 the cost of production of the goods in the manufacture of 
 which the accident occurred. This is simply an extension 
 of the principle of other insurance to the field of the em- 
 ployee. A foundry bill was also introduced to improve the 
 condition in the foundries but was killed because opposed 
 by the inspector of factories as unnecessary. 
 
 A bill 2 was passed that dealt with the regulation of the 
 
 1 Eastern Argus (June 15, 1907)- 2 Laws of 1907, chap. vii. 
 
ug] CHILD LABOR CAMPAIGN IIOy 
 
 lumbering men who work during the winter in the camps 
 of the interior. The subject is too far afield to do any- 
 more than mention its passage. The custodians of eleva- 
 tors 1 were also the subjects of regulations by this legislature. 
 § 6. Initiative and Referendum. — A bill 2 was introduced 
 and carried in this legislature which at first would seem 
 not to come under the head of factory legislation, but in the 
 discussion that will follow in the next chapter we will see 
 its direct bearing. This was the bill for initiative and refe- 
 rendum amending the Constitution and was passed to be 
 referred to the people at the election in September, 1908. 
 For it the labor unions had been working for some years 
 and it had the backing of the Grange and civic bodies. It 
 provided for the initiation of bills into the legislature by 
 petition and gives the right of veto to the people at a gen- 
 eral election if petitioned for within sixty days after the 
 passage of the bill. With its passage a new era of factory 
 legislation dawned upon the State and it is fitting that with 
 its passage this history of factory legislation should close. 
 
 1 Laws of 1907, chap. iv. 
 
 2 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1907; "Labor 
 Laws of 1908." 
 
PART II 
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND THE FACTORY LAW (1908) 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Introductory 
 
 § i. Meaning of Referendum. — The history of sixty years 
 of struggle for factory legislation closed with the passage 
 of the initiative and referendum act. The struggle for the 
 protection of the laboring people by the State has not ended, 
 in reality has only begun. The change that has been 
 wrought in the sixty years has been the gradual extension 
 of the police power of the State. A counter movement, re- 
 sulting from control of State legislation by a few individ- 
 uals, has resulted in the referendum, which has returned to 
 each individual, not the freedom from responsibility to gov- 
 ern his own acts of an industrial type as an individual, but 
 the responsibility to govern the actions of himself and his 
 fellow workmen as well, as a member of an industrial state. 
 No longer can the plea be made that capital can buy shrewd 
 lawyers who directly or indirectly can control the legisla- 
 ture. It is an old saying that you cannot fool all the people 
 all the time, and in a democracy there can be no complaint 
 if conditions adverse to the majority of the people in the 
 community are allowed to remain when the will of that ma- 
 jority is able to express itself. The future factory legisla- 
 tion of the State, whether for or against organized labor 
 or organized capital, must have the sanction of the majority 
 of the people in the State. When the warring factions in 
 the labor dispute of the Western Federation of Miners 
 wished a jury to try the Haywood case both sides agreed in 
 choice of farmers as the jury. Maine today has a popula- 
 123] 123 
 
I2 4 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ I24 
 
 tion made up largely of farmers, and this jury can be trusted 
 perfectly to bring in an honest decision in the case of dis- 
 agreement between capital and labor. Probably in no 
 other State can the referendum hope for such good results 
 and can there be expected for the future such sane, far- 
 sighted legislation. 
 
 § 2. Necessity for Period of Education. — When the case 
 of the western miners was presented to the Idaho jury, there 
 were weeks, even months, spent in the education and 
 informing of the farmer jury of the exact facts of the 
 case it was called upon to decide. In glancing back across 
 the history of the sixty years we find that a period 
 of education preceded each of the periods of legislative 
 enactment, short, maybe, in the period before 1847, but ex- 
 tending over several years previous to 1887, an d this again 
 is true in 1907. This period of education was limited sim- 
 ply to agitation in an educational group in the early time, 
 in a labor group in the middle period, and in labor combined 
 with the federated clubs in the last. In the future the edu- 
 cational campaign for labor legislation must extend to the 
 Canadian border and the mountain wilds of New Hamp- 
 shire. Even in the movement for the referendum the aid of 
 the Grange was sought and secured by their brethren of the 
 Unions. In the future the vote of the community in the 
 lumbering camps and of those who sail the little smacks 
 among the islands of the sea must be counted on. To bring 
 such to the realization of the justice in the legislation de- 
 manded by organized labor or the voluntary civic organiza- 
 tions that are interested in the amelioration of the con- 
 ditions of the people is no easy task, specially for 
 those who have some pet panacea to cure the evils that 
 affect a very limited number of people. There will be 
 need of careful reasoning and much forethought to accom- 
 plish such results, and no hasty steps looking to temporary 
 
12 $] INTRODUCTORY I2 $ 
 
 benefits and immediate ends would be successful. It is with 
 the realization of this need, that the next attempts in factory- 
 legislation in the State of Maine should be founded upon 
 the experience of the past which antedates the knowledge 
 of almost all the voters in the State, that the foregoing his- 
 tory has been written, and the concluding suggestions are 
 offered as to possible lines for legislation in the immediate 
 future. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 Agencies of Enforcement 
 
 § i. The Lack of Coordination among Agencies of En- 
 forcement. — The growth of police power in the different 
 parts of the country has tended to develop a number of 
 types of special police to administer laws enacted to regulate 
 certain growing evils in the community. In Maine there 
 has been provided a factory inspector to care for the con- 
 ditions in the manufacturing and mercantile lines, a group of 
 special county officers appointed by the governor to prevent 
 immorality and the abuse of children, and a third class of 
 truant officers operating in the respective towns and ap- 
 pointed and paid for by the school committees of those 
 towns. These three types of administrative officers each 
 has some power of inspection and control of the working 
 children of the State. Beyond this sphere of common ac- 
 tivity, the factory department has the problems of the better- 
 ing of the welfare conditions in the factories and the duty 
 of the adjustment of disputes, the protective agents having 
 the vice side, while the truant officers have the task of plac- 
 ing the children in the schools. Despite the common field 
 of activity, this machinery of State control has never been 
 properly adjusted to do efficient work. Contact between 
 these parts is absolutely lacking in most cases, and the ex- 
 ceptions have resulted in enough friction to produce the 
 only sparks of life visible in the reports of the factory in- 
 spectors these twenty years. 
 
 126 [126 
 
12 f] AGENCIES OF ENFORCEMENT I2 y 
 
 In the history of the factory department there have been 
 a number of attempts to abolish the department as useless. 
 Throughout the whole history of the attendance regulation, 
 whether in the hands of the school committee or the town 
 truant officers, its effectiveness has been nullified by the in- 
 fluence of the employers over these boards and the opposi- 
 tion of the parochial schools to being interfered with by 
 public school officials. Now, the county protective officers 
 being free from the town influence and close to the advice 
 and the autocratic power of the court, have been able to 
 exert in a limited field great ameliorative as well as cor- 
 rectional power. 
 
 We have seen that there exist town officers, county offi- 
 cers and a State officer attempting to deal with the same 
 problem, i. e., child labor. The school authorities admit 
 that there is need of centralized State control of truancy, 
 while the factory inspector has many times pleaded that a 
 State officer should be appointed to supervise the attend- 
 ance work, whether he be a member of the factory depart- 
 ment or the Board of Education. The position is still more 
 complicated by the location of the office of the factory in- 
 spector at Biddeford, two hours from the State capital. 
 In the meantime the protection officers have in several coun- 
 ties been proceeding to control the work of the lagging 
 truant officers, to inspect the factories and industrial estab- 
 lishments and even to enforce the registration of juvenile 
 employees in mercantile establishments. 
 
 The salary received by these officers is another complica- 
 tion. The $1200 received by the factory inspector is so 
 small that it is necessary for him to carry on a stone-cutting 
 establishment adjoining his office, which in the case of the in- 
 cumbency of a dishonest official would provide a way for 
 "honest graft." (Fortunately this is not the case at present.) 
 The protective officers are paid by the respective counties, 
 
128 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ I2 g 
 
 and the truant officers, $2 a day by the school committee. 
 These are the facts of the case. 
 
 § 2. The Organization of a Department of Labor and 
 Child Protection. — Out of this conflict of police power 
 must evolve a uniform, easily running system of control. 
 The State of Maine is too poor at present and may be for 
 some years to come, to stand any duplication in machinery 
 for the enforcement of these laws, and the present extent of 
 the evils these agencies are organized to eradicate is not of 
 enough magnitude to justify it. There is need of a central 
 bureau of investigation and record at the State capital, of 
 officers of the law who will see the cases of violation through 
 the court, and of the host of men scattered over the differ- 
 ent communities following up the individual children and 
 returning them to school. 
 
 The present machinery available in the State, it would 
 seem, is sufficient to accomplish this end provided there were 
 pressure enough brought to bear by the people of the State 
 to overcome the personal antagonism to such a scheme which 
 would result from the petty jealousies of the individuals in- 
 volved. Only a few changes would be necessary. The 
 Governor already, through his power of removal, can see 
 that the office of the factory inspector is removed to 
 Augusta, where his duties could be limited to the careful in- 
 vestigation of the workings of the many laws which are 
 now on the statute books and which are easily covered by 
 the act organizing the Bureau of Industrial and Labor 
 Statistics. For such work the amount paid by the Bureau 
 for extra investigation might be saved and a like amount 
 made available for the securing of assistance in regard to 
 enforcement. If this assistance were even in a very meagre 
 way paid to the county protective officers it would bring 
 them into line as agents of the department and secure their 
 permanence in every county. If, furthermore, the truant 
 
I2 g] AGENCIES OF ENFORCEMENT I2 o, 
 
 officers were required by law to report to the county pro- 
 tective officers, a system would be inaugurated favorable to 
 effective work. The parochial schools would not be able 
 to avoid the duty of reporting truancy to State officials, but 
 the present law would still require the school committee to 
 vote the salary of the truant officers, or show reason why 
 before the court. This scheme is not presented as a model 
 for any other State, but as suited to the conditions of today 
 in the State of Maine. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Child Labor 
 
 § i. Defects in The Law of 1907. — Unfortunately the 
 advance made in child-labor legislation in 1907 was not of 
 a kind that was intended to remain without revision for a 
 series of years. It was a compromise measure and was al- 
 lowed to pass in a form that directly conflicted with the edu- 
 cational laws of 1905. The present labor law, in raising 
 the minimum age to fourteen years, revoked Section 53 of 
 the former act, 1 which provided for school attendance for 
 sixteen weeks of all children between twelve and sixteen 
 years of age, but did not revoke the section of the school 
 law which required attendance for the whole time until 
 fifteen years of age. So it is that in 1908 children can be 
 employed under the factory act after they have proved that 
 they have passed their fourteenth birthday, while they are 
 open to arrest as truants if, during the year in which they are 
 fourteen, they are found, while school is in session, employed 
 in any factory. This condition allows for summer work 
 and work after school for children of fourteen. The com- 
 bined law (and legally it is combined, though at present the 
 divisions of enforcement make it appear otherwise) would 
 probably satisfy the physical and social needs of the chil- 
 dren. Before the legislature of 1909 there will probably 
 be introduced a bill to lower the compulsory attendance age 
 to fourteen years and another to provide an educational test 
 
 1 Act of 1887. 
 130 [130 
 
131] CHILD LABOR 1 ^ 1 
 
 for all children applying for certificates of labor. In the 
 present state of education in certain districts of Maine, the 
 practical value of requiring an educational test as given in 
 some more densely populated States is very questionable. 
 An ungraded school affords no criterion as to the grade 
 reached, while examination of children left to local school 
 officials would not be practical on account of the conflict of 
 authority between public and parochial schools. The edu- 
 cational test best suited to the Maine conditions would be 
 obtained by a rigid enforcement of the existing laws by a 
 reorganized Department of Labor and Child Protection. 
 The act of filing, by the child of fourteen, of a birth record 
 with an employer during the school term and its transmis- 
 sion as required by law to the office of the chief inspector 
 would place in the hands of the department sufficient evi- 
 dence to prosecute any case which might arise, even without 
 locating the school, for the defense would have to prove, in 
 the case of a private or parochial school child, that the 
 school was approved by the school committee, that a signed 
 certificate of his attendance, with address, was on file in 
 the office of the school officers of the town in which the 
 child resided, showing that the child was in attendance 
 when the school was in session. The proof of the child's 
 being employed would show any such certificate to be un- 
 true, and no such defense would be attempted. Excuse by 
 the school committee for " necessary absence " on account 
 of ill health would not be allowed in the case, on account of 
 poverty the charge of lack of support could be made under 
 the cruelty law and the child committed to a suitable in- 
 stitution. No change in the standards of the child-labor 
 laws should be made until the present laws are rigidly en- 
 forced. 
 
 § 2. Poverty of the Parents. — The poverty of the parents 
 of children illegally employed was the excuse for the non- 
 
I3 2 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [jjj 
 
 enforcement of the laws. The present law places the re- 
 sponsibility for certification upon the employer, but in the 
 first half-year of the operation of the law, no cases were 
 brought. It is stated by those familiar with charitable con- 
 ditions in the State that there is not a great deal of poverty, 
 and it is claimed by those who enforce the cruelties law that 
 fathers and mothers can in almost every instance take care of 
 their children. Still there exist a few children who are con- 
 fronted with the almshouse and it is to the disgrace of Maine 
 that children are at present to be found in the almshouses. 
 Many more would be sent to homes if they could be taken 
 care of under proper conditions. At present there are sev- 
 eral voluntary associations taking care of orphan children, 
 especially among the Roman Catholics, but it has been found 
 impossible to obtain room for all destitute children in these 
 homes. The State has at present an Industrial School for 
 Girls at Hallowell and a State School for Boys at Portland. 
 These Schools * are equipped on the cottage plan, located on 
 beautiful sites, are under the direction of a superior type of 
 official, and are provided with better educational facilities 
 than those existing in the other schools of the State. At 
 present boys are committed for petty larceny, i. e., theft un- 
 der a dollar, embezzlement, malicious mischief, malicious 
 trespass, riotous conduct, truancy, disturbance of the peace 
 and desecration of the Lord's day. It is felt by many that 
 these children in the poorhouse and in the factories cannot 
 be committed because they are not criminal, like the boys 
 and girls in these State schools, but if there exists in the 
 State of Maine one healthy boy of the age of fourteen who 
 has not committed at least one of these " crimes " at some 
 one time, he ought to be examined by a physician. Prin- 
 cipal Wentworth of the State School for Boys, in reply 
 to a query on the subject, states the following : 
 
 1 Annual Reports. Public Documents, 1871-1907. 
 
!33] CHILD LABOR I ^ 
 
 In regard to the problem of the dependent boy, that, of course, 
 is a separate problem from that of the delinquent boy, and yet, 
 the two problems coalesce to a considerable extent. I think 
 on the whole that it would be desirable in this state to have a 
 State Public School, to which dependent children could be 
 sent, the school being for dependent children only, so that 
 dependents would be cared for in an institution specially pre- 
 pared for them. While to me this would be the ideal way, 
 yet on the other hand by establishing more cottages here we 
 could easily take dependent children as well as delinquent child- 
 ren and by suitable classification in our cottages could practi- 
 cally do away with the evil results which sometimes follow 
 promiscuous intercourse of the two classes of children. Theo- 
 retically, there should be two institutions for these two classes 
 of children; but practically, we could take care of them very 
 nicely at this School by the addition of as many cottages as 
 might be needed for them. I am decidedly opposed to the 
 present practice which prevails to some slight extent of allow- 
 ing dependent children to live at our poor-houses. 
 
 It would seem that some action should be taken by the 
 legislature of 1909 to improve these conditions. 
 
 § 3. The Canning Industries. — Another compromise was 
 made in regard to the canning industry. This industry was 
 made an exception by the statement in the act of 1907 * that 
 " nothing in the seven preceding sections shall apply to any 
 manufacturing establishment or business, the materials and 
 products of which are perishable and require immediate 
 labor thereon, to prevent decay thereof or damage thereto. ,, 
 During the year, 1907, an official investigation 2 was made 
 of the canning industry by a special agent of the Bureau of 
 Industrial and Labor Statistics, Miss Eva L. Shorey, in- 
 
 1 Laws of 1907, chap, xlvi, sec. 5. 
 
 2 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1907, pp. 121- 
 137. 
 
I 3 4 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [T34 
 
 tended to answer the statements 1 of Mr. John Spargo as to 
 the conditions of that industry in the State of Maine. The 
 investigation was made under the provision which was added 
 to this section that " however, the employment of children 
 therein shall be under the supervision of said inspector who 
 shall on complaint investigate the sanitary conditions, hours 
 of labor and other conditions detrimental to children, and if 
 in his judgment he finds detrimental conditions to exist, he 
 may, in conjunction with the municipal officers of the town 
 or city of which the complaint is made, prohibit the employ- 
 ment of children therein until such conditions are removed." 
 The facts are indisputable as to the filth in these factories 
 and the length of the hours and the violation of the 
 school law. The problem of enforcement of the school 
 law and the general provisions of the factory act are not as 
 difficult as would at first appear. The report shows 2 that 
 the William Underwood Company at West Jonesport has, 
 by the investment in first-class machines to do the work, pro- 
 vided a model factory. The report says, speaking of the 
 Underwoods, " The floor in the flaking room is of concrete, 
 the interior is painted white and cleanliness pervades every 
 part. Machinery is used in nearly every part of the process 
 and thus many of the unpleasant features observed in the 
 usual method of packing are absent." If one manufactory 
 can make a profit with a model plant in competition with the 
 old wooden shacks that exist elsewhere, there is no argu- 
 ment left from a practical business standpoint for the owners 
 of the other type of factory. The power is in the hands of 
 the factory inspector and there is no need for change in the 
 law but simply the need of the moral backing of the commun- 
 ity. Furthermore it is extremely doubtful whether this is 
 
 1 John Spargo, Bitter Cry of the Children, pp. 170-171. 
 
 2 Report of Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1907, p. 136. 
 
135] CHILD LABOR ! 35 
 
 a business in which the materials and products are " perish- 
 able and require immediate labor thereon to prevent decay 
 thereon or damage." We did not hear the packers of 
 Chicago complain that their work was of a perishable type 
 and in danger of decay even when their hogs were found 
 by the inspectors to be rotting in the cars. Every business 
 man knows that if more material is brought to the sheds 
 than can be taken care of within the reasonable hours of 
 labor, it is likely to be damaged unless properly stored. It 
 is an old saying that " there are more fish in the sea than 
 have ever been caught," and every fisherman along the coast 
 has learned not to load his boats with more fish than he can 
 properly take care of when he reaches land. Why should 
 those great fishers who hire steam tugs that can go out in 
 any weather, that use seines which can be used to scoop 
 up myriads of fish in a few moments, not be asked to con- 
 form to the same laws of business which the Maine fisher- 
 men and their ancestors since the time of the Vikings have 
 found applicable ? The conditions described by Miss Shorey 
 are not those of the seasonal work 1 found in some other 
 canneries, for instance those in which beans are prepared 
 for the market. Where beans are rotting on the vines and 
 must be harvested and perpared within a limited time, and 
 where as with beans, though it does not apply to any other 
 type of canning, there are no machines as yet invented which 
 can successfully accomplish the work, the claim of " perish- 
 able " may hold with some justification before a court. On 
 this ground the exceptional clause in the law of 1907 may be 
 justifiable, but the proof remains with the canners of fish 
 to sustain their claim of inherent perishability of their goods, 
 which are different from all other goods of the meat variety. 
 
 1 E. S. Whitin, "Children in the Canning Industry," Outlook (Jan. 
 21, 1905). 
 
136 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ I3 6 
 
 Fish under the Pure Food Law l is meat, and the affi- 
 davit of a fish canner as to actual conditions under which 
 the canning is being done in these Maine establishments 
 would be enough to force the Chief of the Bureau of Ani- 
 mal Industry at Washington to place the whole work under 
 Government supervision. Under Government supervision 
 model conditions would be established and machinery intro- 
 duced which would do away with any justification of child- 
 labor. 
 
 §4. Mercantile Establishments. — The investigation 2 of 
 the mercantile establishments of Portland by Miss Shorey 
 in 1907 shows that there were uniformly good conditions. 
 This statement is verified by the Young Women's Christian 
 Association secretaries, who have an extensive welfare 
 work in connection with these establishments. These stores 
 are at present not covered by the labor law. " It has been 
 strongly urged," says Miss Shorey, " that the word ' mer- 
 cantile ' be placed in the law to include stores as well as 
 factories." Mrs. Burnham, the officer of the Children's 
 Protective League of Portland, is anxious for such an 
 amendment, but by means of the compulsory education law 
 has been able to demand of the department stores of Port- 
 land that they exclude young children and has secured from 
 them certificates showing the names and ages of all children 
 in their employ. This is a good illustration of the possi- 
 bility of supplementing weak places in one law by the use 
 of general powers given through another, and it probably 
 would not be impossible under the system of centralized en- 
 forcement suggested in a previous chapter to regulate these 
 
 1 Dr. Wiley, Foods and their Adulteration, U. S. Department of 
 Agriculture Circular no. 19, p. 503. 
 
 2 " Women Wage- Workers," Report of Bureau of Industrial and 
 Labor Statistics, 1907, p. 138. 
 
!37] CHILD LABOR 137 
 
 mercantile establishments even without a distinctive mer- 
 cantile law. Under the present system of enforcement 
 little would be accomplished by including the mercantile 
 establishments under factory law. 
 
 § 5. Street Trades. — Street trades for children outside of 
 the big cities cannot be classed as dangerous, with the prob- 
 able exception of the newsboy who jumps on and off the 
 rapidly moving cars. Portland has succeeded very well in 
 solving this problem by the passage of a city ordinance x in 
 1906, enforced by the police, requiring all newsboys to be 
 licensed. It serves the purpose as well as a State regulation 
 could and has proved entirely satisfactory. It might well 
 be adopted in Bangor and several other of the large cities. 
 The ordinance as approved June 27, 1906, reads as follows : 
 
 Sec. 1. No person shall sell or offer to sell any newspaper 
 or newspapers in any of the public streets, squares or grounds, 
 or in any public place in the city of Portland, unless he has 
 received a license for said purpose in the manner hereinafter 
 provided. 
 
 Sec. 2. The city marshal is hereby authorized and directed 
 to grant licenses to persons of good moral character. When 
 the applicant for such license is a minor under the age of ten 
 years, license shall be refused him, unless upon the written 
 request of his parents or guardian. Every licensee shall at 
 all times, while offering newspapers for sale upon the streets, 
 squares or grounds, or in any public place, wear a badge on 
 the outside of his outer garment, and so placed that it may 
 be distinctly seen and read. 
 
 Said badges shall be of uniform size and shall be furnished 
 by the city marshal at the expense of the licensee. All li- 
 censes granted as aforesaid shall expire on the first day of 
 May after said license has been granted, unless sooner re- 
 voked by the city marshal. No license shall be sold, assigned 
 
 1 City Ordinances, Portland, 1906. 
 
^8 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [138 
 
 or transferred. Every licensee shall, when required, exhibit 
 his license to any police or other officer of said city. 
 
 Sec. 3. This ordinance shall take effect when approved. 
 
 Closely associated with street trades is the work in the 
 bowling alleys and the telegraph offices which will soon 
 need careful regulation although at present perhaps the few 
 children employed in such establishments in Maine can all 
 be reached as has been done in Portland, by a committee 
 from the Central Federation of Labor, 1 who have been able 
 to eliminate during the winter of 1907-8 all such labor from 
 the City of Portland by influencing the parents. 
 
 iFrom information received from Mr. A. Eagles, chairman Central 
 Federation of Labor. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 Provisions Affecting all Employees 
 
 § i. Arbitration. — The administration and enforcement 
 of such laws as the fortnightly payment law, the ten-hour 
 law and the regulation of safety appliances and sanitary 
 conditions in the factories has been a matter of no very great 
 difficulty for many years, especially in those trades where 
 the unions have a strong organization. Most of the fac- 
 tories of the State are run by men who have the best inter- 
 ests of their employees at heart and take pride in having 
 good, up-to-date factories. The factory inspector seems 
 never to have used force in persuading compliance with these 
 regulations, probably because in most instances moral sua- 
 sion was sufficient, although in some cases frequent com- 
 plaint was necessary to bring about some kind of com- 
 pliance with the law. 
 
 The department seems to have been of considerable value 
 in the adjustment of dispute, and it would seem that a board 
 of conciliation and arbitration, to form which a bill was in- 
 troduced in 1905, would be the logical development of this 
 end of the work. It would come naturally into such a 
 scheme for the reorganization of the department as sug- 
 gested in a previous chapter. The further extension of the 
 fortnightly payment regulations to a larger number of trades 
 could not help but be beneficial to the employee. The en- 
 forcement of such regulations so as to cripple business enter- 
 prise and so deprive the laborer of his occupation would 
 139] 139 
 
l 4 o FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ I40 
 
 never be permissible as a use of police power or be sustained 
 by any court. 
 
 § 2. Fifty-Eight Hour Law. — The experience of other 
 states in the competition for labor has proved that the state 
 that has the best regulations in regard to the hours of labor 
 secures the best labor. The clamor of the unions for a 
 fifty-eight hour law is only the noisy side of a general feel- 
 ing which pervades the State that a reduction of the hours 
 of labor to fifty-eight per week is necessary to acquire or 
 even retain the right type of labor. In the seventy-second 
 legislature an eight-hour bill was introduced, but it is ques- 
 tionable whether at the present time, if such a bill were 
 passed, it would not be found unconstitutional. 
 
 § 3. Employers' Liability. — The failure of the employers' 
 liability bill to pass has left the laborer unprotected in the 
 dangerous trades, there being no regulation even in re- 
 gard to minors in those trades. The message of Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt to Congress in December, 1907 made clear 
 the principle that the employer's liability was simply the 
 distribution of the accident insurance over a larger number 
 of people, the burden being placed on the consumer where 
 there were fixed wages or upon all the employees where 
 there were variable wages. If this is so the employer will 
 only have the responsibility of seeing that it is given to 
 the proper recipient. 
 
 § 4. Conclusion. — Factory legislation in Maine, whether 
 we take it from its historical or its administrative side, can- 
 not help but seem to the reader of these pages a mass of 
 unconnected attempts to get at something in the way of 
 amelioration of the conditions of the laboring classes — a 
 something as yet undefined by court or legislature, yet a 
 something that flows steadily on toward a goal we know not 
 of. To the conservative man there comes a feeling of re- 
 action against the radical movements of the Knights of 
 
141 ] PROVISIONS AFFECTING ALL EMPLOYEES I4I 
 
 Labor and the more recent labor bodies, and the thought of 
 an initiative and a referendum, giving into the hands of the 
 masses the power of bringing about rapid changes, seems 
 revolutionary and dangerous. Rumor has it that this some- 
 thing is socialism come to destroy. But to the man who can 
 withdraw from the field of the contest between capital and 
 labor, and trace with care the evolution of our present laws 
 through those many periods which have seemed revolution- 
 ary, there comes a sense that this something toward which 
 these movements, and the laws which result from them, are 
 tending, is not anarchy but harmony, a harmony in the 
 process of ever projecting itself, a harmony in which capital 
 and labor are coming to realize, and to express in laws, 
 that they are one and inseparable. 
 
 The machinery of the law, in which our experimentation 
 and invention have gradually tended to decrease the friction, 
 has increased in efficiency. Every increase in efficiency 
 of the machinery in the State, as in the workshop, has 
 tended to displace and embarass those who are not able to 
 adjust themselves to the bettering conditions, but the in- 
 crease of efficiency has ever added to the total product which 
 it is possible to produce. The increase of profit makes pos- 
 sible enlarged opportunities, ever-increasing, whither we do 
 not know, yet our duty lies ever in the search for the new 
 which will aid toward the developing of a higher perfection, 
 a greater harmony. To thus seek, is the duty of all who are 
 engaged in the industrial life of our time, and surely the 
 men of Maine have no higher call. If a little light thrown 
 by these pages upon some dark and forgotten byways may 
 be a guide to some groping feet toward this harmony there 
 will have been accomplished what was intended. 
 
I4 2 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [142 
 
 Labor Laws of Maine, 1908 
 
 The following list contains all the laws relating to the 
 interests of the laboring people of Maine as collected by the 
 Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics and published in 
 the report of the Bureau for 1907. To the law as it ap- 
 pears in the Revised Statutes of 1903 is added a statement 
 of the original laws, any amendments thereto, and the most 
 important decisions. Page references to the mention of the 
 law or decision made in the foregoing history of the factory 
 legislation will be found. In the case of laws relative to 
 railway and seamen a line has been inserted to indicate that 
 they are not considered in this study. 
 
 PUBLIC HEALTH. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter 18, Sees. 83 to 87. (Small Pox in Mills). 
 
 Law of 1889, Chapter 213 89 
 
 Act to provide against the clanger of the spread of Small Pox 
 from Paper Mills. 
 
 NUISANCES. 
 
 Chap. 22, Sees. 22-23. (Explosion of Boilers). 
 
 Law of 1850, Chapter 189, Sees. 1, 2, 3 80 
 
 Act to prevent the explosion of boilers. 
 
 Amend. 1858, Chapter 49, Sees. 1, 2 80 
 
 Amend. 1887, Chapter 49 80 
 
 Decisions, 65 Me. 426; 75 Me. 373 81 
 
 FIRE PROTECTION. 
 
 Chapter 28, Sees. 37-44. (Inspection of Factories). 
 
 Law of 1821 25 
 
 Law of 1887, Chapter 139, Sec. 9 79 
 
 Amend. 1893, Chapter 220 91 
 
 Amend. 1893, Chapter 292, Sees. 1, 2, 3, 4 91 
 
 Decision, 84 Me. 55 96 
 
 REGULATION OF TRADE. 
 
 Chapter 37, Sec. 6. (Employment Offices). 
 
 Law of 1854, Chapter 105, Sees. 1,2 95 
 
 Law of 1855, Chapter 157, Sees. 2, 4, 5, 7 95 
 
 Amend. 1895, Chapter 156, Sec. 6 95 
 
I43 ] LABOR LAWS OF MAINE 1 43 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Amend. 1899, Chapter 3 95 
 
 Amend. 1903, Chapter 114 95 
 
 Law of 1907, Chapter 84, Sees. 1-7 117 
 
 Chapter 40, Sees. 30-36. (Trade-marks of Trade Unions). 
 
 Law of 1893, Chapter 276, Sees. 1-7 92 
 
 Chapter 40, Sees. 40-42 (Bureau of Labor). 
 
 Law of 1887, Chapter 69 ' • 56 
 
 Amend. 1891, Chapter 133 87 
 
 Amend. 1893, Chapter 297 90 
 
 Chapter 40, Sees. 43-47. (Appointment of Inspectors of Factories, 
 Workshops, Mines and Quarries). 
 
 Law of 1887, Chapter 139, Sec. 9 ■ 9 1 
 
 Amend. 1893, Chapter 220 9 1 
 
 Law of 1907, Chapter 77 H7 
 
 Decision, 84 Me. 55 96 
 
 Chapter 40, Sees. 48-55. (Labor of Women and Children). 
 
 Law of 1847 34 
 
 Law of 1887, Chapter 139, Sees. 1-10 76 
 
 Amend. 1907, Chapter 46 . . . 115 
 
 Chapter 40, Sec. 51. (Notice to Quit). 
 
 Law of 1887, Chapter 139, Sec. 4 77 
 
 Decisions, 139 Atl. Rep. 280; 58 Me. 217 62 
 
 Chapter 40, Sees. 57-58. (Fortnightly Payment of Wages). 
 
 Law of 1887, Chapter 134, Sees. 1-5 60 
 
 Decisions, 62 Me. 526; 52 Atl. Rep. 655 63 
 
 PROTECTION OF PROPERTY. 
 
 Chapter 51, Sec. 47. (Liability of R. R. Companies). 
 
 Law of 1881, Chapter 23. (An Act Requiring R. R. Corporations 
 
 to be Holden for Labor.) (Amendment to Law of 1877, Chap. 
 
 186) - 
 
 Amend. 1903. (Applied to Street R. R.) — 
 
 Decision, 44 Atl. Rep. Z77 — 
 
 Chapter 52, Sees. 70, 74, 75. (R. R. Employees— Intoxication). 
 Law of 1842, Chapter 9, Sees. 3-4. (Neglect of Duty — Act Con- 
 cerns R. R.) — 
 
 Law of 1853, Chapter 41, Sec. 2. (Intoxication) — 
 
 Decision, 43 Me. 269. 51 Me. 318 , — 
 
I 4 4 FACTORY LEGISLATION IN MAINE [ I44 
 
 PACK 
 
 Chapter 52, Sec. 82. (Safety Appliances on R. R.). 
 
 Law of 1889, Chapter 216, Sec. 1 
 
 Decision, 44 Atl. Rep. 361 — 
 
 Decision, 93 Me. 80 — 
 
 Chapter 54, Sec. 10. (Regulation of Steamboats). 
 
 Law of 1874, Chapter 172, Sec. 7 — 
 
 Chapter 54, Sec. 12. (Steamer Employee License). 
 
 Law of 1876, Chapter 148, Sec. 2 — 
 
 Chapter 63, Sec. 3. (Married Women). 
 
 Law of 1848, Chapter 73 58 
 
 Law of 1852, Chapter 227 58 
 
 Law of 1855, Chapter 120 58 
 
 Law of 1857, Chapter 59 58 
 
 Decision, 91 Me. 552 58 
 
 PROBATE. 
 
 Chapter 72, Sec. 42. (Wages Preferred). 
 
 Law of 1897, Chapter 325, Sec. 6 67 
 
 Chapter 72, Sec. 68. (Wages Exempt from Attachment), 
 
 Law of 1883, Chapter 214, Sec. 1 67 
 
 Act in Relation to the Insolvent Laws. 
 
 Amend. 1897, Chapter 325, Sec. 15 67 
 
 Decisions, 35 Me. 291; 85 Me. 336; 85 Me. 357 67 
 
 CIVIL RIGHTS AND REMEDIES. 
 
 Chapter 84, Sec. 57. (Hours of Labor). 
 
 Law of 1848, Chapter 83, Sec. 1 3 
 
 Chapter 88, Sec. 55-VI. (Trustee Process). 
 
 Law of 1821, Chapter 61, Sec. 15 24 
 
 Amend. 1854, Chapter 85 65 
 
 Amend. 1877, Chapter 210 65 
 
 Decisions, 76 Me. 413; 80 Me. 125; 76 Me. 435 66 
 
 Chapter 89, Sees. 9-10. (Injuries Causing Death). 
 
 Law of 1891, Chapter 124, Sees. 1-2 89 
 
 Act to Give a Right of Action for Injuries Causing Death. 
 Decision, 56 Atl. Rep. 913 89 
 
 Chapter 113, Sec. 6. (Assignment of Wages). 
 
 Law of 1876, Chapter 93, Sees. 1-2 64 
 
 Amend. 1897, Chapter 301 64 
 
 Amend. 1907, Chapter 306 64 
 
!45] LABOR LAWS OF MAINE 1 45 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Decisions, 68 Me. 428; 71 Me. 510; 74 Me. 496 64 
 
 Chapter 119, Sec. 6. (Negligence of Steamboat Employees). 
 
 Law of 1848, Chapter 70, Sec. 1 — 
 
 Chapter 124, Sees. 6-10. (R. R. Strikes). 
 
 Law of 1880, Chapter 200, Sees. 1-5 — 
 
 Act to Prevent the Obstruction of Business on Certain Public 
 Corporations. 
 
 Chapter 125, Sees. 25, 28. (Sunday Labor). 
 
 Law of 1821, Chapter 9, Sees. 1-6, 12, 13 21 
 
 Amend. 1864, Chapter 281, Sees. 20, 22, 24 64 
 
 Decision, 65 Me. 34 64 
 
 Chapter 127, Sec. 17. (Seamen Protection). 
 
 Law of 1899, Chapter 53 — 
 
 Act for Better Protection of Shipmasters and Seamen. 
 
 Chapter 127, Sec. 21. (Interference with Employment). 
 
 Law of 1887, Chapter 303 '. 88 
 
 Amend. 1891, Chapter 127 90 
 
 UNCODIFIED LAWS— IOO5-I907. 
 
 Law of 1905, Chapter 32, Sees. 1-4. (Protection of Employees on 
 
 Street R. R. Platforms) — 
 
 Law of 1905, Chapter 71, Sees. 1-4. (Licensing Plumbers) . . . 103 
 Law of 1905, Chapter 123, Sec. 9. (Employment of Children in 
 
 Certain Trades) ... 104 
 
 Law of 1907, Chapter 4, Sees. 1-2. (Custodian of Elevators) . . 119 
 
 Law of 1907, Chapter 7, Sees. 1-2. (Lumbering Operations) . . 118 
 
 HOLIDAYS. 
 
 Law of 1891, Chapter 19, Sec. 1. (Labor Day) 89 
 
 OFTHF 
 
VITA 
 
 The writer was born in 1881. His early education was 
 received at the Polytechnic Preparatory School of Brooklyn. 
 After several years spent under the care of tutors and in 
 foreign travel, he became a student in Columbia College, 
 (Class of 1904). While pursuing the required College 
 courses he took part in the literary activities, being an edi- 
 tor of the Columbia Spectator, of the Morningside, one of 
 the founders of the Columbia Monthly, and president of the 
 Philolexian Debating Society. Organizing social work in 
 Manhattanville (New York City), he became supervisor of 
 boys' clubs in the neighborhood work which developed 
 there at the Speyer School, which position he held for 
 four years. Having graduated from Columbia College, 
 he remained for two years a graduate student in Teach- 
 ers' College, taking courses under Professors McMurry, 
 Monroe, McVannel, Thorndike, Dutton, Dewey and Hodge. 
 He was a student in the winter session of 1905-6 of the 
 School of Philanthropy, and upon graduation became sec- 
 retary of the New York Welfare Committee of the National 
 Civic Federation, which position he resigned to devote him- 
 self to the study of social economy in the school of Political 
 Science, Columbia University, under Professors Lindsay 
 and Devine. He has contributed articles to Charities, and 
 the Commons,, the Outlook, etc. He is a member of the 
 Truant Committee of the Public Education Association, the 
 Children's Welfare Committee of the Federation of 
 Churches, and an officer in the Department of Social and 
 Fraternal Service of the Religious Education Association. 
 
 147 
 
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