somewhat unsteady, in Pennsylvania as elsewhere, yet withal, thanks to the intelligent foresight of the working people in banding themselves together in trade unions, and through this means maintaining the standard of wages, the same degree of impoverishment has not resulted in this panic as has been the case heretofore during industrial depressions.

"Authentic reports from thirty industrial centres in Pennsylvania show conclusively that conditions have materially improved for thousands of our working peope during the year 1907, and that the improvement noted has been due largely to the potent agency of trade unionism.

"Some progress has also been made in the way of legislation. The most important of recent enactments being the Employers' Liability Law passed by the Legislature in 1907, which certainly was a wise and timely provision for the protection of those engaged in dangerous employments.

"And in this connection it may be said that organized labor of Pennsylvania is in hearty accord with the movement inaugurated to establish State Employment Agencies by the Bureau of Industrial Statistics, and will be found ready to urge upon the legislature the passage of a law authorizing such agencies. To have the Chief of the Bureau take the initiative in a movement of this kind is a commendable departure and should have the undivided support of all who are interested in up-to-date methods of administration."

The views of other members of organized labor and the opinion of officials connected with those industries are given in connection with the statistical matter of the several interests treated in this volume.

THE UNEMPLOYED.

During the past decade our State has enjoyed a prosperity which has been so varied and far-reaching that it was but little short of being marvelous. Every occupation was fully carried on and some were taxed to their extreme limit in the production of goods which found ready sale at home and abroad. Consequently every kind of labor found steady and, in most cases, profitable employment. No agencies of any nature whatever were needed to assist even the most timid or inexperienced working people. Natives and aliens alike found the means of livelihood in almost every community of the State. In many instances large numbers of the latter were urged to come from foreign shores to fill the demand for help and help swell the daily product. Under such conditions the unem

ployed were so few that no especial attention was needed by them. Every community had within itself the means to give them proper care, and the State as a whole had a more contented mass of people than is usually found in such a large cosmopolitan population.

Within the current year new conditions have arisen which seem to impose new and greater obigations. Indeed they are so impressively urgent that they cannot be ignored or be lightly put aside. Universal trade depression, affecting especially the mining and the manufacturing interests of the State, have halted production, lessened the employment of labor and caused want and distress where before there was plenty and happiness. Partial adjustment of these unexpected conditions have been made, although slowly and even painfully. Thousands of the more thrifty aliens have returned to their nativity, somewhat relieving the over-supplied and congested centers to which these hosts had been attracted, but enough unemployed labor remains to give a most serious aspect to the situation. From many quarters come pitiful appeals, not for the offerings of charity, but for opportunity to earn a livelihood in which honor and self-respect can be maintained.

It is the belief of many economists that idleness is a crime, but when idleness arises from enforced conditions those suffering from those causes should have our sincere commiseration and all the possible aid within our power to give. But, worst of all, protracted idleness, no matter what the cause, readily leads to viciousness, which is the gateway to crime and its attendant evils. Many a wellintentioned man has been debased by idleness and his value as a citizen has been forever lost; others of less noble purposes, in consequence of not being employed have sunk into depths of degredation, which may leave their future as hopeless as a moral death.

Clearly the State has a stern duty thrust upon it by these conditions, and the question at once arises whether it were not better to attempt to ameliorate them by helpful means of encouragement than to be compelled ultimately to assume charge after these unfor tunates have become pauperized or drifted into criminal life. It is not recommended that the State should provide labor, with its compensating features-although no poor purpose would be served if, in the stress of such times, the Commonwealth should employ as many as possible upon the building of great roadways, which would forever remain for the use and benefit of those who are able to pay for them and be the pride of the State as well, more glorious and beneficial than the grandest monuments which it could erect-but it may be very proper to consider other means which might bring with them some measure of relief. It might be well to adopt the plan of bringing together in official and trustworthy relations the unemployed and those needing the service of labor, thus helping

dependent citizenship to help itself, and many of our sister states have demonstrated most successfully the utility of such measures in connection with the work of bureaus already established. They find that every year many thousands are aided by these agencies and that the entire influence is wholesome and corrective of many evils. The work of these offices prevents debasement of self respect, leaves no taint upon any worthy attribute of manhood or womanhood, and is not a burdensome tax upon the State. In no instances have the undertakings been abandoned.

Our Bureau of Industrial Statistics, as at present constituted, is able to assume the direction of this work, and thoroughly believing in the need and practicability of such a measure, it respectfully asks for authority and enough means to be permitted to give the plan at least an experimental test. It is firmly convinced that the idea is a most worthy one, on the lines of modern thought and practice, and that, if judiciously carried out, it can be made to be most helpful to the unemployed of the State, and promotive of the best interests of the Commonwealth.

POPULATION-OFFICIAL AND ESTIMATED.

There has been a steady increase of population in the State since the last National Census of 1900, when the whole number of inhabitants was 6,302,115. Since that time no interdecennial census has been taken, but semi-official estimates by the same bureau seem to indicate that there were, in June, 1906, about 6,907,635 inhabitants, or an increase of nearly one hundred thousand per year since the last census.

In regard to sex, the population was quite evenly divided, there being about one hundred thousand more males than females, differing in that respect from the contiguous states of Maryland, New Jersey and New York, whose female population is greater than their male population.

Nearly one-sixth of the population was of foreign birth, and approximately 160,000 were negroes. That element in Pennsylvania was greater by more than 50,000 than in any other former free state; and there were here only about 80,000 less negroes than in Maryland. Other people of color were Japanese, less than fifty, and nearly 2,000 Chinese.

The population of the State, as reported in 1900, was housed in 1,236,238 dwellings, and constituted 1,320,025 families. Since the days of William Penn this has been pre-eminently a Commonwealth

of private homes. In 1900 there were 200,000 more such homes than in New York, whose families exceeded those of Pennsylvania to the number of 314,498. About two-thirds of the homes were owned free of debt and that proportion, too, was in handsome contrast with the showing of other large states.

The rural population of Pennsylvania was estimated at 2,349,000, and in point of number the State ranked second in the Union, Texas leading it in that respect. This population constituted 510,000 families, of which number 286,400 families actually lived on farms. The remaining 223,600 families, classed as rural, although not living on farms, did not have their abode in towns, but were scattered among rural surroundings. One-sixth of the farm population lived on tenant farms; the other five-sixths occupied their farms as proprietors.

In this State as in others of the eastern section of the Union the population of towns and cities increased in greater ratio than in rural sections. Reduced to percentages the increase in the entire State was at the rate of 8.3 per cent.; while the increase of urban population in places having more than 8,000 inhabitants each was about 13 per cent.

The appended table affords an interesting study of that fact and permits other comparisons. In the first column of the fifty-four places listed is given the official population in June, 1900; the next column gives an estimated population in June, 1906, and embraces nearly one-half the population of the State:

The population of some or these cities and boroughs has been materially increased since 1900 by the annexation of adjoining territory. About 12,000 acres were so added prior to 1907.

The cities which annexed about 1,000 acres each were Bradford, Chester, Easton, Johnstown, New Castle, Pittsburgh and York.

*Places marked "C" are cities "B" boroughs.