Family Divided

Slavery, the Immaculate Conception, States' Rights, the Divine Rights of Kings --all at one time or another have been great issues that set brother against brother and children against their parents. Last week Child Labor was added to the list. To Mrs. Roosevelt in the White House came her bevy of female newshawks one morning, demanding to know whether she was aware that her eldest son, James, had publicly said before a Sunday night meeting of young church people in a Boston suburb: "I am opposed to the Child Labor Amendment."

Mrs. Roosevelt replied that she had already written her son about it. "Of course," she added, "everybody is entitled to his own opinion. I am merely asking his. I would never dream of doing more. Jimmy must have reasons which seem sufficient to him. They wouldn't seem sufficient to me." She reiterated her credo to the newshawks: "I do not believe a civilization ought to be based on the labor of children."

In Boston Son James smiled when he learned that his mother had written to him about Child Labor, said he would answer her inquiry privately. Before the week was out he went to the White House for a visit. To newshawks there he admitted that soon after arriving he had discussed Child Labor with his mother, but had not changed his mind. "We had," he said, "a very nice discussion about it."

Many an observer wondered how Son James can believe in the New Deal if he opposes such a cardinal New Deal measure as the Child Labor Amendment; wondered further if the difference of opinion in the Roosevelt family itself might not indicate that the principles of the New Deal may sooner or later be the cause of similar division between factions and families throughout the land.

As if in answer to their doubts, one of the few potent Democrats now out of office, onetime Senator James A. Reed of Missouri, broadcasting a speech on the Child Labor Amendment, declared: "To my mind this un-American thing ought to be killed by every legislative body."

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