Investigation and Photographs by LEWIS W. HINE FOR THE NATIONAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE [_Mr. Hine’s photographs and the equally vivid impressions he sets down in the text, tell a story of child labor along the South Atlantic and the Gulf. In an especial sense these are conditions which public opinion can bring to the door of the Democratic Party to remedy. For in these states that party is dominant, as it is in the nation._ _First lies the channel of state action, which has thus far been laggard, and has been obstructed by the child employing interests of the South. At the present time, a child labor bill which would reach this shore work, is pending in Florida. In Mississippi shucking is prohibited but there is no enforcing agency and the work is going on as before._ _If the channel of state action fails, child labor reformers point to such national legislation as would prohibit interstate commerce in canned oysters and shrimps which are so humanly costly. The recent decision of the United Stores Supreme Court in the white slave case would seem to indicate that legislation could be drafted which would hold in the courts, and several bills along the lines of the much controverted Beveridge bill of 1907 are now before Congress._ _It is for the Democratic Party in state and nation to proceed through one channel or the other._—Ed.] When we speak of child labor in oyster canning, we refer to the cooked or “cove” oysters, not to the raw ones. Children are not used in opening raw oysters for the sole reason that their fingers are not strong enough. Occasionally one finds young boys at work on the boats dredging for the oysters, but not many children work on the boats, for that is a man’s job. The two chief sections engaged in the work of canning oysters and shrimps are the Gulf Coast, from New Orleans eastward to Florida, and the Atlantic Coast of Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Maryland was the pioneer state, but it has already been outstripped by Mississippi, and several other states follow close in amount of annual output. [Illustration: A TYPICAL OYSTER AND SHRIMP CANNERY ] [Illustration: WORKING UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYE OF THE BOSS ]