It is perhaps unnecessary to mention the obvious fact that the child worker is in competition with the adult and drags down his wages. At the Child Labor Conference held in Washington in January, 1915, a manufacturer in the textile industry cited the wages paid to adults in certain operations in the mills as fourteen cents per hour where there were prohibitive child labor laws and eleven cents an hour where there were none. The National Child Labor Committee now asks Congress through a federal bill to outlaw interstate traffic in goods produced by the labor of children. Such a law would protect the public-spirited employer who is now obliged to compete in the market with men whose business methods he condemns. * * * * * Sammie and his brother sold papers in front of one of the large hotels every night. The more they shivered with cold, the greater the harvest of pennies. No wonder that the white-faced little boy stayed out long after his cold had become serious. He himself asked for admission to the hospital, and died there before his absence was noted. After his death relatives appeared, willing to aid according to their small means, and the relief society increased its stipend to his family. At any time during his life this aid might have been forthcoming, had not the public unthinkingly made his sacrifice possible by the purchase of his papers. [Illustration] Opposition to regulating and limiting the sale of papers by little boys on the streets is hard to overcome. A juvenile literature of more than thirty years ago glorified the newsboy and his improbable financial and social achievements, and interest in him was heightened by a series of pictures by a popular painter, wherein ragged youngsters of an extraordinary cleanliness of face were portrayed as newsboys and bootblacks. In opposition to the charm of this presentation, the practical reformer offers the photographs, taken at midnight, of tiny lads asleep on gratings in front of newspaper offices, waiting for the early editions. He finds in street work the most fruitful source of juvenile delinquency, with newsboys heading the list. I am aware that at this point numerous readers will recall instances of remarkable achievements by the barefoot boy, the wide-awake young news-seller. We too have known the exceptional lad who has accomplished marvels in the teeth of, sometimes because of, great disadvantages; but after twenty years I, for one, have no illusions as to the outcome for the ordinary child.