s views on the pending bills.
"The policy agreed to by both governments," he said, "aims at mutuality
of obligation and behavior. In accordance with it the purpose is that
the Japanese shall come here exactly as Americans go to Japan, which is
in effect that travellers, students, persons engaged in international
business, men who sojourn for pleasure or study, and the like, shall
have the freest access from one country to the other, and shall be sure
of the best treatment, but that there shall be no settlement in mass by
the people of either country in the other." While there is nothing in
the Constitution or laws to prevent the President from urging a State
legislature to vote for or against certain pending bills, such a course
is unusual. It had become a national question, however, and the
President's energy in handling the problem is worthy of praise.

According to the census of 1900, there were over 700,000 children under
sixteen years of age at work in the mills, mines, factories, and
sweat-shops of the United States. Nearly all of the States had
child-labor laws, but they were ordinarily poorly enforced and no State
was wholly free from the blight of this child slavery. While fourteen
years was the minimum in most of the States, a few permitted the
employment of children of ten years of age. In the majority of cases
there was no legal closing hour after which children might not be
employed.

[Illustration]
Cotton-mill operatives so small that in order to reach
their work they have to stand upon the machinery.

[Illustration: About thirty children, age 10 to 15.]
The spinning-room overseer and his flock in a Mississippi cotton-mill.

The subject was given national prominence through the Beveridge-Parsons
Bill introduced into the Senate, December, 1907, marking an epoch in the
history of federal legislation. This bill proposed to exclude from
interstate commerce all products of mines and factories which employ
children under the age of fourteen. The bill was not, however, brought
up for discussion. The leading arguments of its opponents were as
follows: (1) That the question was local only; (2) there was no reason
to believe that federal would be better than State administration; (3)
that it was limited in effect since it could not prevent children being
employed in the manufacture of goods to be sold within a State. A bill
passed both houses and was signed by the President, authorizing the
Secretary of C