Thomas Jefferson and the Child Labor Controversy
Letter To the Editor of Ithaca Times
Dear Sir or Madam:
My name is Michael Porterfield and I am a
member of the Twelve Tribes community in Ithaca. During the past seven
years I have lived in a number of our communities in the Northeast and the
South. I am well acquainted with our culture and beliefs, so I felt that
it would be good for me to write a letter, responding to the two articles
that focused on us in the recent issues of the Ithaca Times (September 26
? October 2, 2001 and October 10 ? 16, 2001).
First, I would like to say that our homes
are open in any town or city in which we live. We do not live isolated
lives but in most cases we are on "Main Street USA." This is what we
desire to do because we want our neighbors to observe the way we interact
with each other and raise our children. In fact, this is what we are
commanded to do in the New Testament.
"Keep your behavior excellent among the nations,
so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may on
account of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day
of visitation"
So if anyone chooses to come to our house, they will not see
a minister swathed in rich Geneva robes, preaching to some formal
flock, but rather a humble, little people going about their daily
lives trying to please their Creator and raise their children
the way the Patriarch Abraham was instructed to. Which leads us to the issue
of concern ? Child Labor.
What the Ithaca Times (as well as several
other newspapers) reported ? namely that two of our communities were fined
$1,000 for violation of a child labor law ? is true. We did receive a fine
and will be appealing the citation. However, I would like to raise a few
issues to give the public better understanding as to what we were actually
fined for and why we do not believe it is just.
First of all, what happened at the Common
Sense Candle shop was this: Some community members were making natural
beeswax candles at our cottage industry in Palenville, NY (Located in the
foothills of the breathtaking Catskill Mountains, with the beautiful
Catskill Creek running behind the property, Common Sense Candles is hardly
a "sweat shop" for which child labor laws were originally enacted.). A
resident's teenage son was seen wheeling cardboard boxes across the
property with a dolly. For this we were fined $1,000.
Likewise, when inspectors from the NYSDL
showed up at our farm in Oak Hill, NY they found a teenage boy working
with his mentor who was showing him how to install light fixtures. Again,
we received a $1,000 fine for this. Both of these happened during the
summer, when all other children who are not home-schooled are out for
summer break.
To some these fines may seem absurd;
others may feel that it is good to fine parents that have their children
"work." However, we feel that it is not just to fine a father (or his
community) thousands of dollars for teaching youth respect, care,
responsibility and the benefits of good hard work. These things will only
benefit them in later years.
Surely in a day when teen violence,
adolescent pregnancy, and psychological disorders among youth have become
part of a major societal dilemma, there should be more caution in
discriminating against those who choose to train their children to do
good deeds. And with today's generation which has been labeled
simply "X" due to their lack of identity, we must not scrutinize those who
are teaching their children the age-old virtues of industry and frugality.
What would the Founders of the Republic in which we live say about this?
Would they approve? Let's hear what the author of the Declaration of
Independence, Thomas Jefferson, had to say about "child labor" to his
fourteen-year-old daughter:
"It is your future happiness which interests me,
and nothing can contribute more to it (moral rectitude always
excepted) than the contracting a habit of industry and activity.
Of all the cankers of human happiness, none corrodes it with
so silent, yet so baneful a tooth, as indolence [inclination
to laziness]. Body and mind both unemployed, our being becomes
a burthen, and every object about us loathsome, even the dearest.
Idleness begets ennui [dissatisfaction], ennui the hypochondria
[depression of mind and spirits], and that a diseased body.
No laborious person was ever yet hysterical. Exercise and application
produce order in our affairs, health of body, cheerfulness of
mind, and these make us precious to our friends. It
is while we are young that the habit of industry is formed.
If not then, it never is afterwards. The fortune of our lives
therefore depends on employing well the short period of youth."
What would Mr. Jefferson and the other
Founders say of the American moral landscape today, only 225 years after
they declared their independence from Great Britain? Could these men who
mutually pledged their "lives? fortunes, and? sacred honor" have imagined
fining a father $1,000 for teaching his child "the habit of industry"?
In one of the same issues of the Ithaca
Times that had a story about us, I noticed an article entitled "Disorderly
Conduct" subtitled "At Two Colleges, Drinking Grows Out of Control." I
wondered if others thought it strange that a small religious group was
being accused for "child labor" while in the same town, a three-page
article was written on the very real problem of alcoholism among young
people, in which Sheriff Meskill said:
"We're at a constant stress level. It's not correct,
it's not fair, it's not safe, and it doesn't provide the level
of safety county residents should have".
The same article stated that
seventy-six percent of Ithaca students reported that the social
atmosphere of college promotes alcohol use, and ninety percent said
they saw drinking as part of the school's social life.
We could understand if the authorities of
the state of New York fined us for allowing our children to get drunk
while underage, vandalize property, use and sell illegal drugs, or shoot
up their classmates and teachers, but we can not agree with fining parents
for teaching their child the opposite of such negative behavior. For such
has been the legacy of decent people for thousands of years.
We welcome questions and visitors at our
home in Ithaca. We do not live isolated lives in some "compound" but right
downtown with everyone else. Our doors are always open. We look forward to
being an asset to the broader Ithaca community and we hope that we will be
judged by our conduct and not hearsay and rumors. We would love to meet
you.
Sincerely,
Michael Porterfield
413 South Albany
Street
Ithaca, NY 14850
(607) 256-9410
1 Peter 2:12
Genesis 18:19
Letter from Thomas
Jefferson to Martha Jefferson, March 28, 1787 in William J. Bennett,
Our Sacred Honor (Simon & Schuster, 1997) p. 285
Disorderly Conduct:
At the two colleges, drinking grows out of control, Ithaca Times
September 26-October 2, 2001, p. 8-11
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