enforcement of the labor law. The commissioner may appoint at least sixty deputy factory inspectors, divide the state into districts for factory inspection, and see that the factories are inspected as often as practicable for the purpose of enforcing the terms of the law. Through the bureau of labor statistics,1 the commissioner is ordered to collect, systematize, and present in annual reports to the legislature statistical details relative to the commercial, industrial, social, and sanitary condition of workingmen and to the productive industries of the state."

(6) Several states have made provision for free public employment offices, especially for the great cities, designed to help relieve the problem of unemployment. It can hardly be said that these employment offices have been very successful; and they have often been regarded with suspicion particularly by union workmen, because they may be used by employers in times of strikes to secure non-union workmen.

(7) In order to help in preventing strikes and in mitigating the bitterness of industrial disputes, more than one-half of the states have made either constitutional or statutory provision for mediation, arbitration, and conciliation. The Massachusetts board of arbitration and conciliation was established in 1886. During the first eleven years of its existence over three hundred industrial controversies were submitted to it for consideration and action and more than one-third of these controversies were settled in accordance with the recommendations of the board.

The law of New York provides for a bureau of mediation and arbitration in charge of the second deputy commissioner of labor as chief arbiter, under the supervision of the commissioner of labor. The law provides that whenever a strike or lockout occurs

1 It appears that Massachusetts was the first state to establish a bureau of labor statistics-in 1869; from 1870 to 1879 nine new bureaus were created, from 1880 to 1890 seventeen bureaus, and from 1890 to 1899 nine bureaus. Massachusetts Labor Bulletin (1908) No. 15, p. 116.

2 It is a general practice throughout the United States to appoint labor commissioners and factory inspectors from among the workers of the political party in power. An investigation made recently showed that practically every labor commissioner owed his office to party services. The result of this is great uncertainty in the tenure of office, with its inevitable results. In order to exchange opinions and help establish uniformity in the standards of labor legislation the chiefs and commissioners of labor bureaus have formed a national organization and hold annual conventions.

or is seriously threatened, a representative of this bureau shall, if practicable, proceed to the locality promptly, and endeavor to effect an amicable settlement by the way of mediation.

The state board of mediation and arbitration consists of a chief mediator as chairman and two other officers of the department of labor free at the time to act. Any grievance or dispute between an employer and his employees may be submitted to this board for determination and settlement. Such submission must be in writing and contain a detailed statement of the dispute and its causes, and also an agreement to abide by the determination of the board and to continue at business or work during the investigation. Upon such submission, it is the duty of the board to hear testimony and investigate the matter in controversy and, within ten days after the completion of the hearing, render a decision, a copy of which is to be served upon each party to the controversy.

In several states boards of mediation and arbitration may on their own initiative investigate the causes of industrial disputes, but in no state has arbitration been made obligatory upon employers and employees. It is difficult to estimate the services which may be rendered by these boards of arbitration and conciliation. Such a board, says Professor Seager, "with power to intervene on the instant it learns of a labor dispute may at times succeed in effecting a settlement by simply bringing the parties together and suggesting possible bases of agreement, at the same time that it removes misunderstandings and assuages wounded feelings. Failing in this, it may, by making public the findings in the case and indicating clearly the settlement which appears to it fair, bring such pressure to bear upon the less conciliatory disputants that a compromise will seem better than a fight and a prolonged strike or lockout will be avoided. Thus, although without power to enforce its award, a state board of conciliation and arbitration may often prevent strikes and lockouts." 1

In spite of all that has been done by our states to improve the condition of the working class, the United States lags far behind the advanced countries of Europe, such as Germany and Great Britain. Several reasons have been assigned for this backward state of American labor legislation.2 In the first place, the Am

1 Economics: Briefer Course, p. 318.

? See an excellent article by B. M. Herron, "Factory Inspection in the United States," American Journal of Sociology, January, 1907.

erican individualist doctrine that any man can rise out of the working class has blinded the American people to the fact that, however great may be the opportunities for individuals to rise, the working class must yet remain, and that upon its standards of life, its intelligence, and physical vitality the very fate of the nation depends. In the second place, while the United States has been transformed into an industrial nation, the notion of the older agricultural life that anybody has a right to work as long as he pleases, under any conditions he is willing to accept, has pervaded our legislatures.

In the third place, the distribution of powers in our federal system is such that practically all regulation of industry and labor is vested in the state governments, and each state government, in endeavoring to improve the conditions of labor within its borders, must take into account the fact that too strict rules will only result in driving industries out into the more backward states where they are not hampered by such regulations in behalf of the employees Finally, in the United States, there is no such opposition between the representatives of organized capital and the representatives of agricultural interests as existed in England and led the latter to champion with great zeal labor legislation which did not in any way affect them adversely. Inasmuch as the working class in the United States has not, up to this point, seen fit to elect its own special representatives in any large numbers to state legislatures, it has had to depend upon the sympathies or fears of the politicians, and the special laws which it has won have been largely concessions to the labor vote.

Public Health Standards

Government interference with private persons in the maintenance of general standards of public health and safety is a matter of comparatively recent development. It was not until well on toward the middle of the nineteenth century that the health laws of the various states went much farther than to regulate in a very ineffective manner the methods of controlling smallpox and other contagious diseases. The cholera epidemic of 1848 and 1849 marked the awakening of public interest in the whole question of sanitation and its relation to general welfare. In the latter year Massachusetts appointed a commission to investigate the sanitary

conditions of the entire state and the report of that commission with recommendations for public health boards lies at the basis of the sanitary regulation not only of Massachusetts but of many other important states in the Union. One after another the states began to create boards of health; and by the close of the century forty-two states and territories had such boards.1

The public health law of a fairly advanced commonwealth will provide for a state department of health with large powers and for county, city, town, and village boards of public health. In New York there is a department of public health headed by a commissioner, appointed by the governor and senate. He is charged with taking cognizance of the interests of health and life of the people of the state and all matters appertaining thereto; he makes inquiries into the causes of diseases; investigates the sources of mortality; studies the problem of the effect of localities, employments, and other conditions upon the health of the persons affected; he obtains and preserves information useful in the discharge of his duties or which may contribute to the promotion of health and security of life; he may compel the attendance of witnesses and force them to testify in matters before him; he may reverse the regulations and ordinances of local boards of health under certain circumstances.

The commissioner of health has the power to examine into nuisances and questions affecting the security of life and health in any locality. On order of the governor of the state, he must make examinations, and when the governor, on the report of the commissioner, discovers a public nuisance he may order it to be abated, or removed.

The health law of New York further provides for local boards of health and for health officers in the several cities, villages, and towns of the state and vests in them a large and arbitrary power over life and property whenever the maintenance of public health is at stake.

A complete public health code will also forbid the manufacture and sale of adulterated foods and drugs. Under any advanced law food is regarded as adulterated if any substance has been mixed with it so as to reduce, lower or injuriously affect its quality or strength; or if any inferior or cheaper substance or substances

1 Reference: S. W. Abbott, The Past and Present Conditions of Public Hygiene and Medicine in the United States, pp. 9 ff.

engineers, firemen, and other employees engaged in railway business. In Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Washington, Wisconsin, and a few other states the maximum number of hours for such employees was fixed at sixteen, and in the case of Oregon, at fourteen, per day. During the same year ten states fixed the hours of labor for telegraph and telephone operators and train despatchers, making the maximum in some instances eight hours and in others sixteen hours; and a federal statute was passed limiting the hours of labor of the railway employees to sixteen per day, so far as interstate commerce was involved, and subject to the provision that whenever the state laws establish a less number of hours as a maximum the federal law should not apply.1

In regulating the hours of adult labor state legislatures constantly have to take into account the principles applied by the federal Supreme Court in protecting private rights. For example, a law of New York fixing the hours of labor in bakeries at not more than sixty per week, or ten hours a day, was declared unconstitutional by that Court.2

(2) The women and children form a separate division of the working class and are safeguarded by special laws. About onehalf of the states, including Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, have limited the hours of labor for women in the important branches of industry. The precise number of hours vary from state to state, but at the present time the general tendency is to fix it at about sixty per week. The law of Tennessee, passed in 1907, provided for a gradual reduction of the hours for women to sixty-two per week after January 1, 1908; sixty-one per week after January 1, 1909; and sixty after January 1, 1910. The Massachusetts law not only fixes a maximum number of hours per week for women employed in certain industries, but also forbids the employment of women between 6 P.M. and 6 A.M. in textile manufacturing establishments.

With a few exceptions every state in the Union prohibits the employment of children under a certain age in factories, and furthermore limits the hours of those children (above the age

1In addition to regulating the hours of labor a number of states have provided pension funds for certain classes of public servants, such as firemen, teachers, policemen, and library employees.

2 See Readings, p. 617.