Dbq Child Labor Reform

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In 1933, in response to the economic chaos of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced a series of programs focused on the three “Rs”: Relief, Recovery, and Reform. He came to the aid of the American people, to calm the financial panic previous President Herbert Hoover failed to fix himself. Although labor organizers sought child labor reform in the early 1900s, many believed child labor was economically necessary, up until the Great Depression, which swayed public opinion, on adults working versus children. After the crash, President Franklin Roosevelt drafted the New Deal which, the Supreme Court impeded in its first years. As a result, a determined FDR confronted the Court for its neglect, leading to it overturning rulings …show more content…
Dagenhart, the Court struck down the Keating-Owen Act of 1916 as unconstitutional, setting back the progress the NCLC had made. This case was the most powerful due to the fact that it established the Supreme Court as an opponent to FDR. They ruled that “a federal child labor ban was repugnant to the Constitution” and as “means of a prohibition against the movement in interstate commerce of ordinary commercial commodities, to regulate the hours of labor of children in factories and mines within the States, a purely state authority.” Further claiming that the tenth amendment prevented them, federal government from intervening in labor …show more content…
Under the law “companies employing children under fourteen years of age would be assessed ten percent of their annual profits” thus limiting the opportunity for children to work in certain industries because if an employer did not comply, they would be fined. And once again, the Court declared it unconstitutional in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. (1922) because according to Chief Justice Taft, “ a court must be blind not to see that the so-called tax is imposed to stop the employment of children within the age limits prescribed. Its prohibitory and regulatory effect and purpose are palpable.” When FDR, a democrat, took office in 1933, the majority of the nine Supreme Court judges were appointed by Republican presidents, so already they were not in his favor. He feared “much of his New Deal would be declared unconstitutional by the Conservative Supreme Court,” but he knew “Something [had] to be done about the elimination of child labor and long hours and starvation wages.” He knew “child labor [was] an abuse of their fundamental rights” and was going to do what he could to stop it. He needed to raise more awareness to grab the Court’s
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