Miss Jane Addams analyzed the problem in this wise:
"It is not so strange that the number of children employed in Illinois factories is so large. These little [employees] are not the children of degenerates but of peasants who have settled among us from all over Europe. In their native homes the children go to work at an early age, generally in the fields, and the parents see no harm in it. Then they come to this country and settle in a great city like Chicago. They see factories all around them, and it seems most natural to them to place their children at work in them. They see no harm in it, and they do not understand the different conditions and the penalties.
"As a result of the vast numbers of such immigrants in Chicago the children have gone to work instead of to school, and the consequence is that in the percentages of children between 9 and 14 years of age who cannot read and write Illinois has moved from sixth to fifteenth place. Both Alaska and Hawaii are ahead of Illinois in this comparison."
Miss Addams, in reply to Dr. White's arraignment of the Manufacturers' Association, declared that she was convinced not over [2 percent] of the manufacturers are opposed to the reform of the child labor laws.
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