complete disability. The plan is a uniform one adopted by all of the Bell Telephone Companies. The employes are not required to make any contributions toward the expenses involved.

For the Chicago Telephone Company the operations of the plan are directed by a committee consisting of five members, who are the heads of various departments in which almost all of the workers of the company are employed. The provisions of the plan are fully described in a small booklet printed by the company.

Sickness disability benefits are paid only to employes who have had a record of two years continuous service with the company, and the length of the period for which full time or half time payments are continued depends upon the length of service. Benefits for disability caused by accidents happening in connection

The company physicians also make a physical examination of all applicants for employment in order to eliminate those physically unfit for the work or who suffer from afflictions that would make them a menace to others. However, the final authority for the acceptance or rejection of an applicant is vested in the man who is responsible for the work to be done. The doctor's function is simply to ascertain the facts and make recommendations.

In dealing with the other phase of the work of the Health Department-the giving of medical help and advice to employes-the greatest tact and judgment are required, as those in charge of this work are to a certain extent breaking into the private affairs of the employes. To many it might seem simpler and easier to order the man to the Health Department, and to follow its advice or give up his

with the work of the company are paid regardless of the length of service of the employe. To be entitled to an old age pension an employe must have had at least twenty years of continuous service, and the amount of the payments is based on the number of years of service and on the average salary for the last ten years of service.

Closely associated with the Benefit Fund Plan is the Health Department of the Chicago Telephone Company. It is directed by the same committee that administers the Benefit Plan. The function of the Health Department is the conservation of the bodies and physical force of employes, the minimizing of loss of working time through sickness, the saving of lives and working efficiency through the discovery of previously unrecognized sources of trouble and through advice as to possible means of cure or correction.

position, but if such methods were followed the Health Department would not be accepted by the force as a friendly, helpful agency. The Health Department is always ready to indicate the necessary treatment, but does not. however, undertake to provide that treatment except in the most simple cases. A man makes his own arrangement with his family physician or any physician that he may select, the company doctor giving him such advice as he requests.

The staff of doctors in the Health Department consists of a chief surgeon and assistant, who care for all the accident cases, and four physicians who care for the sickness cases and examination of applicants. One of the four is a woman, and deals only with woman applicants or employes. In addition, two other woman physicians are assigned exclusively to the examination of applicants for positions as telephone operators. When visits to sick em

ployes at their homes are necessary they are made by visiting nurses or special workers connected with the department in which the employe works. These visitors call on the company doctor to visit sick employes at home only when, in their judgment, it is necessary. In a good many cases it is found that em ployes cannot get well unless they have care and treatment which they are unable to pay for, even with the help of the sick benefits. Many of these cases are cared for through the generosity of outside physicians and surgeons, but in the main the help comes from two funds established, one called the Loan Fund and the other the Relief Fund. Both are administered by committees similar to the ones previously mentioned.

The Loan Fund is an attempt to beat the loan shark game. There were hundreds of cases where employes simply had to borrow money from some one, and personal friends or loan sharks were their only recourse. The Loan Fund was established on April 1, 1912, and the transactions were put on the basis of a loan between friends and not on a business basis, so no interest or other fees were charged. The idea was that repayments would be kept up better if the loan were classed as a debt of honor, and this plan has been more than justified by the results.

Loans of any reasonable amount are made to any employe who shows a real need. While each loan must be approved by the committee, the direction of each case is always entirely in the hands of the head of the borrower's department. The cases of financial entanglement that have been unkinked as much by the chief's advice and help as by the money loaned have been so numerous, and the sympathy and understanding engendered have been so great, that these effects are looked upon as the most valuable feature of the plan, and although the evil influence of the loan shark has been greatly reduced by recent legislation and the operation of the Morris Plan Bank, the Chicago Telephone Company still continues its Loan Fund.

Cases are frequently found where the usefulness of valuable employes is seriously affected or destroyed by conditions which can be met only by outright gifts of money. These are mostly serious cases of illness, such as major operations and tuberculosis, which bring the employe face to face with the fact that only a long and expensive course of sanitarium or hospital treatment can save his life. Frequently neither he nor his family can meet the expense. To care for this situation the Relief Fund was established, administered by a committee to whose attention cases are brought by the various department heads. the visiting nurses, or the doctors of the Health Department. Many employes are doing useful work to-day whose lives have been saved by this fund.

Five or six years ago physicians and visiting nurses of the Chicago Telephone Company began calling attention to the fact that many of the company's young girls, particularly, were unnecessarily slow in recovering from serious illnesses or operations because the conditions under which they had to pass through the convalescent period were unfavorable. One of the company's welfare workers requested that she be allowed to rent a house in a suburban town and undertake the care of a few girls during convalescence. This was done, and it was at once so evident that a real need was being met that the next year a larger house was rented, and two years ago the company purchased about forty acres of land in DuPage county and built an attractive and well equipped home which accommodates about thirty girls. Here there was good country food, largely grown on the place, and under a

routine not strict but requiring regular habits a great many emaciated girls have been transformed into healthy and happy ones.

Much has been written about the strain in industry, particularly as it affects woman workers, giving the idea that the more or less continuous use of body and mind is not the normal life of many women. The number of workers in the telephone business, or in almost all other modern industries, who are physically injured by the work they perform is so small as to be negligible. This applies of course to the strain of fatigue, or fatigue effects, and not to accidents, poisonings, etc., that occur in certain hazardous occupations. The Chicago Telephone Company's physicians have studied many cases of nervous breakdown, generally rundown conditions, and other superficially diagnosed conditions usually attributed to overwork, and invariably they come to the conclusion that there is some underlying cause, such as neglected infections, goiter, bad living conditions, home worries, etc. It is safe to say that most of the workers who have broken down would have done so all the earlier had they not been employed, and the hours devoted to their daily work had a better effect on their physical and mental condition than did any other of their waking hours. With some of them sleeping hours could be included.

There are certain features of welfare work of the Chicago Telephone Company which are indicative of the welfare spirit that may be passed over with a mere mention, not because they are unimportant but because they are So generally accepted, and there is so little difference in the practice of most employers. These features include such things as good workrooms, restrooms, lunchrooms, toilet room arrangements, drinking water supply, all things affecting the comfort and health of employes, and schools and courses of training new employes and increasing the value and earning capacity of old ones. In connection with lunchrooms, the Chicago Telephone Company follows a practice that differs from that of most employers, as it furnishes operators a simple lunch for which no charge is made. The Chicago Telephone Company pays careful attention to Safety First work and with the exception possibly of the work of its linemen, who are few in number, there are not many hazards in the conduct of its business. The company has no special safety organization, but is constantly bringing before its people the need of carefulness, and every foreman and man in authority has drilled into him the realization that he is responsible for the safety of his men, even more than for that of his tools and materials.

Activities which tend to promote acquaintance and friendliness among fellow employes are encouraged by the Chicago Telephone Company. The employes organize company and departmental baseball teams, bowling teams, tennis leagues, musical organizations, garden associations, etc. Many of these organizations are entirely independent of the company support. Others depend wholly or in part on the company for financial support, meeting places, etc. In some form or other, however, they generally desire official recognition by the company, which is accorded by another committee, in which all the departments concerned are represented. The committee does not encourage any club or association for which there does not seem to be a spontaneous demand among the employes.

The Chicago Telephone Company has found welfare work a paying investment in every sense of the word, and its experience has shown that in order to give efficient service to the public it must have a force of efficient, healthy and contented employes.