Welch, Chairman State Board of Health; Mr. Lee Bidgood, Miss Elizabeth Fonde, Mrs. W. L. Murdoch, Hon. S. D. Murphy, Hon. W. T. Murphree, Mr. Lawrence H. Lee.

The Act was approved September 25, 1919; the commission held its first meeting in the office of the Governor December 5, 1919. A director was elected. The Act establishing the department was read at length and rules for the government of the commission and the department were adopted. An executive committee of three members, of which the Governor is exofficio chairman, was appointed to have necessary general control of all work during the period between the meetings of the commission,-as for instance, the approval of staff members nominated by the director and the fixing of their salaries and other expenditures.

The duties of the State Child Welfare Department briefly are as follows: To devise plans for and have general supervision over all social work in the State for children;

To advise with the judges and probation officers of the juvenile courts of the State and to encourage and perfect the work of such courts;

To issue permits, or certificates of approval, to orphanages, maternity hospitals, lying-in homes, child-p'acing and home-finding agencies, and all other institutions receiving and caring or children, and to revoke such permits for cause;

To inspect and prescribe standards for all child-caring institutions and agencies, both public and private;

To require reports of all institutions and agencies and juvenile courts;
To enforce the State child labor law;

To make surveys and to hold conferences and conventions for the pur

pose of promoting an interest in welfare work for children;

To solicit and receive donations of money and other things of value to be used in the support of the work of dependent, neglected and delinquent children;

To place children in family homes or in institutions caring for children and to supervise such children however placed.

Adoption of Policies.

Careful study of the Act creating the department revealed the fact that a wide variety of duties relating to children would have to be undertaken. Substance of laws, methods of procedure, and policies of administration had to be worked out. Although many changes in program have been made from time to time, the same general policies adopted in the early weeks of its organization have been closely followed.

Plan of Work of Department and Staff.

At the beginning, the staff was limited to the director and a secretary, one field agent and one child labor inspector. A second child labor inspector was added early in 1920 and an institution inspector was taken on later in the year. Early in 1921, after the increased appropriation was received, there followed a general reorganization of the staff.

In discharging the duties prescribed by law, the members of the Child Welfare Department found themselves helpless in the matter of providing means for the care of children left destitute and homeless by reason of poverty, neglect, dependency and other causes, because there were no funds for child care. The provision of the Act relating to child care simply could not be undertaken. The Alabama Children's Aid Society, a State-wide homefinding society, raising its funds by private subscriptions, was found to be doing excellent work and among its directors were some of the members of the commission. It was agreed, therefore, by the commission that the field agent of the Child Welfare Department should be detailed to serve as financial secretary for the Children's Aid Society, raising funds for child care. The department thereupon assumed the responsibility of education and or

ganization, of promoting better standards in all agencies and institutions engaged in child care, of gathering statistics relating to needy, disadvantaged children, of advising with judges of juvenile courts, and of enforcing the State child labor law, but not undertaking children's aid work nor engaging in home-finding and child-placing. In turn, for the assistance received in the person of financial agent to raise funds from the public, the Children's Aid Society agreed to take over for the department all destitute cases, particularly placeable, homeless children, where the department should fail to find or develop local or State agencies to give the individual type of care needed.

This co-operative plan of work between the two agencies continued for almost three years. In the meantime, more and more financial assistance on the part of the department was extended the society because of the extreme and urgent needs throughout the State. In the spring of 1922, the directors of the Children's Aid Society proposed to the Alabama Child Welfare Commission that the department take over the work of the society, declaring they believed the system of child care built up by the two agencies working together had come to be recognized by the people as a sound and fundamental part of the State's conservation program. The directors said further:

"Our sole purpose in striving for the taking over of the State-wide work of the society by the State of Alabama, officially, is that the work which we have started and built up privately may be enlarged and made more efficient and permanent by its acceptance at the hands of the State as a fundamental function of the commonwealth."

On October 1, 1922, the headquarters of the Children's Aid Society was moved to Montgomery, sharing offices with the State Child Welfare Department. By agreement between its directors and the State Child Welfare Commission, all activities heretofore carried on by the agents of the society are now carried on by the field workers of the department. The funds raised from the public are expended in the finding of normal homes for orphaned and needy children in Alabama, and in extending individual care in many cases, as for instance, prisoners' destitute families, crippled children in families too poor to afford hospital treatment and in hundreds of other matters surroundnig abandoned, homeless, orphaned, neglected, cruelly treated and needy children in Alabama.

The present personnel of the department consists of: The director, one supervisor of children's cases brought into the courts and general supervisor of child-placing by the department, three case workers, one institution inspector, one extension secretary and an assistant, two child labor inspectors, four office assistants.

Administration.

For the purpose of administration and organization the work of the department is divided into four bureaus, namely, the Child Labor Division, the Institution Division, the Juvenile Court Division, the Children's Aid Division. In addition to these general lines of work, the department issues bulletins and promotes interest in child welfare work by means of public addresses before clubs, associations, schools and other public organizations.

Child Labor Division.

The work of the Child Labor Division consists of the enforcement of the State child labor law and, until the Federal child labor tax law was declared unconstitutional, its provisions were also enforced by this department. The duties involved are:

(1) To make inspections of all establishments in the State where children under 16 years of age are employed or are likely to be employed in order to see:

That employment certfiicates are filed for all children between the ages of 14 and 16 (thus indicating their legal qualifications for entering industry);

That children under 16 be not permitted to work more than eight hours a day, nor more than forty-eight hours a week, nor before the hour of 7 o'clock in the morning, nor after the hour of 7 o'clock in the evening;

That children under 16 be kept out of occupations where life, limb or morals might be endangered;

That sanitary conditions of establishments where children are employed are so regulated as to safeguard the health of the children;

That the law and hours of work are posted as provided in the statutes. (2) To supervise the issuance of employment certificates by superintendents of schools according to the procedure outlined by law and only to children who have met the age, educational and physical fitness requirements of the law.

The new law enacted in 1919 and the transfer of the administrative authority from the Prison Inspector to the Director of the Child Welfare Department, the lapse of three months from the time of this transfer to the organization of the department, the enactment of a new compulsory education act by the Legislature and the Federal child labor law by Congress, resulted in untold confusion. There was an immediate necessity for clearing up this confusion in the minds of school people, of employers, and of parents. A publicity campaign, explaining the three measures, was undertaken and followed up by the reorganization of the entire certificating system. There was a keen realization of the fact that heretofore hundreds of children under 14 years of age had qualified as 14 and left school, receiving no further education, and that if certificates to leave school and enter industry should be issued only to children actually 14 years of age, to children who had completed the 4th grade at least as prescribed by law, and to children who were physically fit for the jobs they would undertake, as also prescribed, that this would mark the greatest step ever taken by the State in protecting children and preventing their exploitation. With this end in view, the entire certificating system has been completely reorganized. It has involved not only close co-operation and supervision of the work of the issuing officers (the superintendents of schools), but further investigatory visits to homes of children in order to determine that the evidence of age submitted is in accordance with law. Documentary evidence of children's ages in Alabama is not readily found and some parents are unscrupulous in making affidavits concerning the ages of their children when they desire them to leave school to go to work.

Routine inspections of all establishments in the State employing children have been faithfully carried on. Corrections have been made and in cases of flagrant violations, prosecutions have been brought.

The section of the child labor law relating to street trades prohibits girls under 18 from engaging in any work on the streets. It provides that boys ten years of age and over may distribute papers in residential sections of cities, but only boys 12 years of age and over may sell on the streets down town. In either case, a boy must have a badge furnished by this department and issued by the superintendent of schools, which badge constitutes his license and indicates that he is a regular attendant at school and that his school record is satisfactory. The law prohibits his selling before 5 o'clock in the morning or after 8 o'clock in the evening or at all during school hours. The enforcement of this clause was at first one of the most difficult tasks of the division because the public has so long maintained an illogical and sentimental idea that some great men have started life as newsboys. Little does it realize that these men merely represent a very small survival of the fittest. It has lost sight of the thousands of boys who have played truant from school or stayed on the streets late at night where they have acquired knowledge and habits which have led to their destruction. Knowing that an aggressive method of enforcing the street trades clause should never be adopted until it is backed by public sentiment, a careul study of hours, earnings,

and of general effects of street trades on children engaged in selling and distributing newspapers was made in the three large cities and in some of the smaller towns. As a result of these studies, the department won a very splendid co-operation from the newspapers of the State. The members of the Child Labor Division. assisted by local attendance officers and probation officers and heartily supported by the circulation managers of the largest papers of the State, have been marvelously successful in enforcing this section of the child labor law. The department feels a very keen sense of appreciation for the manner in which the owners and publishers of newspapers throughout the State have accepted the measure as one of great worth, and for the assistance they have lent in its enforcement.

Likewise the attitude of all the textile industries, with one or two exceptions, and most other manufacturing establishments, has been one of friendly co-operation in observing the provisions of the law. The greatest trouble has been found in the establishments of small employers where children come and go willy-nilly, substituting as delivery boys or grocery clerks and in other ways for higher priced labor. These boys, while earning a small amount, contribute little or nothing to the family income, yet often fail, because of the job, to make their grades in school.

The following table shows the number of inspections made during the period covered by this report:

1919-20 1920-21

1921-22 Total

The total number of violations found and corrected are as follows:

1919-20 1920-21 1921-22 Total

The total number of children, 14 years to 16 years, inclusive, checked for the three years in all occupations are as follows:

1919-20 1920-21 1921-22 Total 1,224 2,097 1,873 5,194

During the first two years the educational requirement of the child labor law was only 120 days' school attendance during the previous year or the completion of the 4th grade. This provision of the law is so written that on and after Sept. 1, 1921, only the completion of the 4th grade can be accepted in issuing certificates. Duplicates of all certificates issued are required to be filed in the office of the Child Welfare Department. A study of these for the period covered shows the following facts regarding grades completed by children leaving school to enter industry:

The large percentage in the first table may or may not indicate that no grade really had been completed because if the child had attended school 120 days during the previous year, the issuing officer often failed to require further evidence of schooling. As the department encouraged the practice of requiring correct school records, the reports took on a different aspect. The reports of 1920-21 and 1921-22 cover certificates accurately issued. It is interesting to note that each year a large number of children complete the 5th, 6th and 7th grades. It would appear that Alabama might well afford to raise the educational requirement of children who leave school at 14. The number of children leaving and entering industry in 1920 is shown to be less than those leaving in 1920-21. This may be accounted for by the fact that the first year the department was in actual operation only nine months and records were necessarily incomplete. In 1921-22, however, the number of children employed is less than the number of 1920-21 by 224.

Institution Division.

The Act establishing the Department of Child Welfare provides that it shall be the duty of the department to issue permits or certificates of approval to orphanages, maternity hospitals, lying-in homes, child-placing and home-finding agencies and all other institutions receiving and caring for children and to revoke such license for cause; to inspect and prescribe standards for all child-caring institutions and agencies, both public and private; to require reports of all institutions and agencies.

An institution inspector was not employed until April 14, 1920. The fiscal year ended September 30th. The most that was done in connection with recognized institutions during this period was that of friendly visits, at which time, the law was carefully explained and the services of the division offered the institutions in the development of their programs.

There are in Alabama 12 institutions, receiving and caring for children, which are supported and controlled by churches and fraternal organizations; five detention homes for the juvenile courts of Jefferson, Montgomery and Mobile counties; 1 municipal home; 3 maternity homes which care for small children as well as for maternity patients and infants; and a number of socalled emergency homes receiving children. There was one child-placing and home-finding agency maintaining some 12 or 15 boarding homes for children, but this agency, the Alabama Children's Aid Society, is now a part of