should be given to the legislature to grant powers which may be beyond the mere making of rules or filling in of details.

While it is true that "the executive, legislative and supreme judicial powers of the government ought to be forever separate and distinct," it is also true that the science of government is a practical one. Therefore, while each branch of government should firmly maintain the essential powers belonging to it, it cannot be forgotten that the three coördinate parts constitute one brotherhood, that they have a common trust requiring mutual toleration of the occupancy of what seems to be a "common because of vicinage" bordering the domains of each.

One whose rights are affected by governmental action is usually protected from an arbitrary exercise of power by one official or body because concurrent action of two or more departments is required. But is this necessary in all cases? Will not an administrative body, with limited general authority, protect and preserve such rights just as fairly-nay, even more so? Surely far less complaint will be had with a law so administered.

The third proposition relates to what is known as "home work." I do not know whether many of you know that in this state, not alone in the cities, but outside, the factories send a part of the work to people to be done in their homes. Now I have no doubt that originally that was beneficial. It helped many a woman to eke out her husband's scanty pay by doing some work in her spare hours. But an investigation showed that most of this work was carried on under conditions which were distressing from the public standpoint, especially from the standpoint of public health.

In many cases foodstuffs, things that we daily eat, were manufactured in conditions that were vile beyond expression, where there was sickness, sometimes of a contagious nature, where there was filth, and in rooms where people lived day and night; and were handled by people who were unclean. Wearing apparel and clothing of every description was, and is to-day, manufactured under these conditions.

The legislature, it was thought, had no power beyond certain limits to affect this business or industry. The legislature

did prohibit the manufacture of foodstuffs in homes because it was deemed that that was within the exercise of the police power. It also prohibited the manufacture of clothing for children, because it was found that clothing so manufactured had carried with it the germs of disease to the children who wore it, and that deaths resulted as a consequence. But beyond that, all that the legislature could safely do was in some way to endeavor to regulate, by tracing the ownership of these materials.

This question is one that should come before the convention as to whether or not the legislature should be authorized to deal with the subject of making goods in the homes of the workers, either to prohibit it or to place it under such strict regulation that no harm and no injury could come to the great body of the people who use unknowingly all of these things which are made under these conditions.

There is an economic side to that problem also. The manufacturer who carries on his business in his factory must necessarily pay rent and the other expenses of carrying on his business. By making the tenement house or the home an annex to the factory, the manufacturer who does that kind of work of course saves a proportionate amount of expense, and he has an unfair advantage in the competition of business over the manufacturer who does not.

The last question which I wish to discuss is what is known as the minimum-wage question. The commission during the past year has been engaged in gathering statistics, getting exact facts as to wages paid in various employments throughout the state, so that it will be able to present to the legislature which meets next year, and also to the convention, a multitude of facts and figures upon which both the legislature and the convention may base action.

New York has long been accustomed to legal protection of its workers as to conditions under which labor is carried on. Regulation, by law, of wages in private employment is comparatively new in any state of the Union. Massachusetts began with the provisions for a wage commission in 1912, and since then eight other states have enacted some kind of wage legislation.

That the legislature should be authorized to enact such legislation is far better than to have such legislation enacted and then go through the agonies of testing its constitutionality. The constitution need not commit itself to the principle of the minimum wage, if its framers are either undecided or adverse, but no harm, and only good, can come if power be given to the legislature to provide for a minimum wage if it deems it advisable. Despite the fact that authority may be found for sustaining a minimum-wage law under our present constitution, it would be far better to enact some suitable provision authorizing the legislature to do what it wishes in this matter.

It is true that law is a progressive science, and it has been well said that while the principles of justice are immutable, changing conditions of society and the evolution of employment make a change in the application of principles absolutely necessary to an intelligent administration of government.

The state uses all its power to conserve its great natural resources and assets-its rivers and streams, its trees and forests, its land, its animals, fish, fowl and mineral wealth-and the constitution should give every power to the legislature to enable it to conserve its greatest asset-human life. To regulate labor fairly and properly means that our hospitals will not have so many inmates, sick and maimed; our people will not grow old or die before their time, or be sick when they should be well-an economic gain not alone to those who work but to all the people of the state.

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LABOR LEGISLATION AND THE CONSTITUTION 1

TH

OWEN R. LOVEJOY

Secretary, National Child Labor Committee

HE time is so brief I will confine myself to one point, the third, which Mr. Elkus mentioned in his outline the possibility of incorporating in the constitution a provision which shall give the legislature power to regulate absolutely the nature and condition of places in which manufacturing is carried on.

The regulation of employment in tenement houses was one of the important questions before the factory investigating commission during the past two years, and some of the most striking evidence of bad industrial conditions was regarding child labor and unsanitary surroundings in tenement homes in this city.

When we presented some of the evidence gathered before the commission was created, and further evidence gathered in coöperation with it, we urged upon the commission the possibility of introducing a bill in the legislature which should absolutely prohibit the manufacture or preparation of any goods for commercial purposes in tenement rooms, and unless I am mistaken there was a very strong conviction on the part of the commission that this would be in the interest of social conservation as well as in the interest of good business. But the commission faced the problem which Mr. Elkus has been discussing, of having such a bill meet the test of the courts.

It was believed that if a broad provision covering everything should become law, the courts would hold it unconstitutional; therefore, as he has explained, the new law provides against the manufacture of foodstuffs and of infants' wear, and it further provides that no child under fourteen years of age

1 Discussion at the meeting of the Academy of Political Science, November 20, 1914.

consumer.

shall be employed in tenement rooms to work either for outside parties or for its own parents. The point we urged against this bill, while pending, was that in its very nature it is unenforcible. No matter how imperative it is from the standpoint of good law to see that a law is so constructed that it will pass the test of the courts, we, as laymen, as citizens of the state, are concerned to see that conditions shall not continue to jeopardize the health both of the producer and of the We contended that whereas a small force of factory inspectors might inspect our factories, or mercantile inspectors might inspect our stores, because everything is open, and one man going on the floor of an establishment will be able to see practically all that is going on, tenement-house inspection is of an entirely different nature. If we were to adhere to the state's policy of an eight-hour day for its employes it would require thirty-nine thousand inspectors in order to inspect thoroughly the thirteen thousand licensed tenements in this city, in which goods might be manufactured for the market. We should need one inspector for each tenement for each eight-hour shift in the twenty-four; because the hour before the inspector comes or the hour after he is gone, no one can tell whether child labor is being employed or not, or whether conditions prevail that could not pass the test of the state's rules.

We contended that it is impossible for one inspector to go about from place to place and be sure that his inspection is thorough; that tenement-house inspection, in a way, is like meat inspection, where the government inspector goes into a packing house, and stays in one place from the time it opens until it closes, inspecting every particle of product that passes through the establishment.

We are not sure what the result of the new law has been because we have been unable to make any investigation, and I think the commission has been unable to make any investigation since the new law went into effect.

We have the impression from various sources interested only in public welfare, that while the inspectors have been vigilant and faithful in the performance of their duties, they have