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.

2 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. 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.

have been substituted wholly or in part for the article; or if any valuable constituent of the article has been wholly or partly abstracted; or if the article be an imitation or sold under the name of some other substances; or if it contains wholly or in part diseased or decomposed animal or vegetable substances, whether manufactured or not, or, in the case of milk foods, is a product of diseased animals. Most bealth laws further provide for maintaining certain standards in drugs and for a certain degree of purity in liquors and confectionery.

The department of health frequently takes cognizance of the interests of public health as affected by the sale or use of food and drugs and adulterations thereof and makes all necessary inquiries and investigations relating thereto.

The health law of New Yo k also regulates and provides for the inspection of all the potable waters in the state so as to prevent contamination from sewage and other sources; it creates a quarantine and a health officer at the port of New York; it regulates the practice of medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and surgery; it provides for the registration and regulation of pharmacies and drug stores; the supervision of the practice of chiropody, undertaking and embalming, and optometry; the vaccination of school children; and the visitation of institutions for orphans, destitute, or vagrant children or juvenile delinquents.

Closely connected with the health law of the state are the provisions controlling the construction and maintenance of tenements. A well-developed tenement-house law will require certain precautions against fire through regulations relative to the construction of halls, stairways, and fire-escapes; it will define the percentage of a lot which may be occupied by buildings and define the minimum of light and ventilation. The law of New York, for example, prescribes the minimum of window area for each room in new tenement-houses and also the minimum size of rooms; regulates minutely the sanitary accommodations to be provided for tenements; endeavors to maintain certain standards of cleanliness by penalizing landlords who neglect their property. The right to commence new buildings and to alter the structure of old buildings in the large cities is always subjected to some control by the tenement-house or health department.

Public Charities

All the states in the Union make more or less provision for central and local institutions for the public care of the insane, deaf and dumb, blind, and other defectives who are without private means. The constitution of Oklahoma provides that educational, reformatory, and penal institutions and those for the benefit of the insane, blind, deaf and mute, and such other institutions as the public good may require, shall be established and supported by the state in such manner as the legislature may prescribe; and it furthermore requires the several counties of the state to make provisions under general state laws, "for those inhabitants who by reason of age, infirmity, or misfortune may have claims upon the sympathies and aid of the county." The state of New York also maintains special institutions for feebleminded children, feeble-minded women, idiots, epileptics, inebriate women, crippled and deformed children, persons afflicted with incipient pulmonary tuberculosis, decrepit and mentally enfeebled persons, juvenile delinquents, unfortunate women, unprotected girls, and Indians.1

Within recent years there has been a tendency toward the reorganization and consolidation of state charitable institutions and the introduction of more scientific and humane treatment of the unfortunate. Every advanced commonwealth now has a state board of charities. In New York this board consists of twelve members appointed by the governor and the senate one from each judicial district and three from the city of New York. This board of charities is required to visit, inspect, and maintain a general supervision over all institutions, state and municipal, which are of a charitable, correctional, or reformatory character; it is furthermore required to aid in securing a just, humane, and economic administration of the institutions subject to its control, to advise the officers, to aid in securing the provision of suitable accommodations for inmates, to control the organization and incorporation of new charitable and reformatory institutions in short, to assist in maintaining high standards of efficient and humane service in the charities of the state.

1 The care of the poor, that is, persons unable to maintain themselves, is generally vested under state laws in county or town authorities. The local body usually provides poorhouses and institutions of various kinds under the care of the superintendent or overseer of the poor.