The conference authorized Mrs. Robins to appoint a committee of three to attend the next convention of the American Federation of Labor and urge the appointment of a national organizer for A resolution was also passed advocating women's suffrage "as a necessary step toward insuring and raising the scale of wages for all." About 200 were present at the Boston meeting, held in Union Hall. Mrs. Mary Morton Kehew presided and among the speakers were Arthur Huddell, president of the Central Labor Union, Henry Sterling of the Typographical Union, and Mrs. Mary K. Sullivan. It was unanimously voted that a meeting be held every six months. The three conferences were the outcome of suggestions made by Miss Rose Schneiderman at the annual meeting of the National Women's Trade Union League held in New York in April.

300 per cent to 1,300 per cent; New Jersey is surprised to learn that it has been taxed to give away thousands of dollars worth of toilet articles to its legislators; San Francisco's mayor is in jail for extortion; the borough president of Manhattan is on trial for his office, some of his subordinates being in danger of losing their liberty as well as their patronage; Uncle Sam confesses tardily that violations of law prosecuted in 1907 were winked at in 1906 and earlier; Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, Delaware, Rhode Island, Ohio each deplores its misrepresentative government. We have actually come to expect that the wrong people will be represented most of the time, "wrong meaning a political or corporate minority that seeks its own financial profit.

Two paradoxical explanations are given of this condition: (1) Good motives are in the minority; (2) Good motives when in the majority are

ment

William H. Allen Secretary, Bureau Municipal Research

Ability to guess riddles is almost as rare as ability to be the good citizen of whom we hear so much. There are two riddles, however, that every "commencer" and every graduate can and should be taught to answer,-"Why does our representative government fail so often and in so many places? Why is good government like Professor Lowell's Professor Lowell's bird?"

Perhaps you never heard of Professor Lowell's bird. Think then of all the kinds and degrees of good government you have seen and of all you have in mind when you say good government. What you know of bad government will help you by contrast. Unfortunately we are not compelled to go to histories for proof that representative government is unrepresentative of most of us, that too frequently it does not represent the people it pretends to represent. Pennsylvania is now advertising what it denied last fall, that its capitol is a monument of graft, an honest governor having permitted profits to favored contractors of

ple remedies are offered: (1) Let more good men take active interest in politics; (2) Multiply the number of good men. But President Roosevelt was just as good ten years ago when he defended corporations against their detractors as to-day when he chastises them for their abuses, just as good when as governor of New York he failed to prevent insurance plunder as in 1906 when he applauded Mr. Hughes for exposing it. No "gooder" officials ever worked for the public welfare than Mayor Low and his principal assistants-yet millions were wasted and other millions "grafted" from the public their goodness failed to protect. For some reason or other good intention alone does not seem to be an antidote to political poison unless mixed with big sticks and vigilance and intelligence.

What then is good government? Here as with men "handsome is as handsome does." Good government ought to prevent fevers and crimes against person and property. It ought to insure safe water, clean milk, clean streets, a fair market, a serviceable education. It should supply parks, play spaces, libraries, educational opportunity for all.

Cruelty to children should be impossible. Exploitation of the weak by the strong, the many by the few should be prohibited. Taxes-neither too little nor too much should be equitably raised. None should be wasted or used to manufacture wretchedness, incapacity, crime, sickness. It is probably true that you have never expected government to do all these things at one time for your community. What it actually does and fails to do that it might do with taxes raised, probably few citizens in your community know. Is it not true that "good government" makes you think of particular times when you "drove the rascals out?" In the background of that same picture you undoubtedly see the subsidence of reform and the backsliding of your community to bad government.

That brings me to Professor Lowell's bird and to the answer to both my riddles.

Professor Lowell left his Cambridge home in charge of his brother, giving careful instructions about ventilation, care of furniture, watering plants, etc. While passing through New York the professor remembered with remorse that he had said nothing about the bird. So he telegraphed his brother"Feed the bird." Three days later when the owner of the bird reached Detroit he found a despatch from his brother, "Bird fed. Hungry again. Wire instructions."

Good government is like Professor Lowell's bird in the care it receives from its steward, the American citizen. Representative government naturally refuses to represent those who pay no attention to it except when it is starving. Our instructions have been incomplete. We have spent too much thought on the supposed goodness or badness of our caretaker and too little on the bird.

I want to suggest a recipe for good government that has not yet been consistently tried by American cities or states.

It can't possibly make things worse. It may make them very much better. A short trial in New York has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, and temporarily removed many obstructions to good, representative government. This recipe consists of a point of view and method, both explained by

zens.

the following ten propositions that any school boy can learn and that the active civic leaders of every community can. put to work if they will try: 1. Those desiring good government are in the majority. majority. 2. If the majority votes for bad government it is because of misunderstanding. 3. The most effective way to cure misunderstanding is to produce understanding. 4. Understanding is impossible to-day in most communities because we lack information as to the problems, the results and the needs of government. 5. For want of facts, catastrophe, scandal and sensationalism are teachers-in-chief to American citi6. Because catastrophe, scandal and sensationalism are sporadic, civic conscience is sporadically awakened. 7. The same vivid impression made upon the mind by occasional catastrophe, scandal and sensationalism may be produced by reiteration of fact. 8. Continuous vivid impressions will be possible only when a method is devised that will continuously tell the whole truth clearly to all citizens. 9. The cohesive power of legitimate benefits clearly seen by the many will prove greater than the cohesive power of illegitimate gains seen by the few. 10. An ounce of efficiency is worth a ton of blundering good intention; a ray of intelligence cast upon the source of evil is worth more than a moral explosion.

The encouraging thing about this recipe is that we can make our bad officers make and take the very medicine that will cure them of their power to do the public harm. Our officers all pretend now to tell us exactly how they spend our taxes and our authority and what they give us in return. There are ways of telling this story that either conceal or mis-state truth-that's the kind of story we generally get now. There are other ways that reveal the truth and lead to right conclusions and right actions. Which ways are used by your city and state officers? Do they tell the truth so that you understand what your taxes buy, or do they confuse or misrepresent truth? You can buy ready-made methods of describing truthfully all im

portant official acts and ready-made tests to tell whether these methods are properly used. Or if you want a tailor-made system you can hire a business tailor to devise your scheme of accounts, record and report and to keep it in repair. If you have neither expert accountants nor expert accounts CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS can send you information.

The only thing about this recipe that is too expensive for private citizens to get for themselves is the original record and report that tell the truth plainly. But this we are already paying for any way. Records that do not tell the truth almost invariably cost more than records that explain government acts and government needs. After paid officials tell what they do when they do it, and report monthly, quarterly or annually to the public, the private citizen who wants to be a good citizen can, with little expense, circulate the truth quickly to the good persons who are in the majority in desiring good government. When public officials know that the truth must be told,

and when citizens look to see what the

truth is, the first condition of corrupt and inefficient government will disappear, viz., ignorance on the part of the governed. Bribery and stumbling are at their lowest under a constant blazing light. Never in the world will good government exist in America until good men and women out of office make it possible and necessary for imperfect men in office to govern by methods that will benefit the governed. In how far the government of any community falls short is to be determined just as you learn about weights and measures of other purchases, by tests of the thing purchased. Every community has enough leaders to keep good government all the time, if these leaders will keep the public constantly informed as to what they are getting-what everybody can see, instead of splitting the ranks of those desiring good government by fighting over men and motives, about which few people can agree. Without tests of things done good men will govern badly. With them bad men must govern well.

New York Child Labor Legislation

George A. Hall,

Secretary New York Child Labor Committee.

Not since the important amendments to the child labor laws in 1903 has the New York Legislature placed itself on record so strongly in favor of greater protection for the child workers of the state as during the session just closed. With an impetus resulting from strong recommendations on the subject by Governlabor, from the session's opening to its or Hughes in his message, bills on child close, received a large share of the atbills the most notable was one amending tention of the legislators. Among these the labor law with respect to the hours of labor permitted for children under sixteen years of age. This bill provided that children of these ages could not be employed in factories more than eight hours in any one day, and not before 8 o'clock in the morning, nor after 5 o'clock in the afternoon. The old law allowed the employment of children for nine hours, any time between opening and closing limits, twelve hours apart. The new law (becoming effective October 1, 1907), for the first time gives to the state a statute practically automatic in its enforcement. Factory inspectors in the future will be able to obtain much more readily proof of overtime violations of the law-evidence, secured formerly only with great difficulty. difficulty. An eight hour day between limits exactly eight hours apart (one hour being allowed for lunch) marks a distinct advance, and gives to the state the foremost place in the Union with respect to this particular feature of child labor legislation. labor legislation. This bill was strongly opposed by certain manufacturers who made repeated attempts to have the bill amended, and its passage was finally accomplished as a result of the persistent efforts of Senator Page, who introduced the bill, actively supported by the New York Child Labor Committee, the Consumers' League of New York City, the Church Association for Advancement of Interests of Labor, and by similar organizations. For over a year it has been apparent to the most casual observer that

the so-called newsboy law, enacted in 1903, to regulate employment of children in street trades,-chiefly newspaper selling, has been a failure and its enforcement practically a "dead letter." The reason for this situation lies in the fact that the bill passed at that time was amended by the Legislature prior to its passage in a manner to make it inevitably unenforceable. The New York Child Labor Committee, believing the need of regulation at present to be just as urgent as it was four years ago, secured this year the passage of a bill to amend this law. Among the more important changes made by this measure (which if signed by the governor becomes operative on October 1) is one giving the school of ficials, who now issue the license and badge, authority along with the police to enforce the law by means of their attendance officers. Power to recommend the issuance or the withholding of the badge should be a valuable re-enforcement of the schools' control over newsboys, for the bill provides that the principal of the school where the applicant is attending shall recommend the granting, refusing or revoking of licenses, as the case may be. A marked advance over the old law appeared in the original bill, but was defeated in the Senate and subsequently stricken out. The change proposed was in the age limit, so that only boys twelve years of age and upwards, instead of ten, as at present, might legally engage in street trading. As an aid in the law's administration the bill requires the color of the badge to be changed annually. Selling before 6 o'clock in the morning is also prohibited. A bill of lesser importance, but which will afford considerable relief, and correct what has been considered by many persons to have been an injustice in the present law, was also introduced at the New York Child Labor Committee's request, and became a law without opposition. The object of this amendment is to make more definite the evidence of age requirements of the labor law for children, and to remove some of the rigidness of the old law by adding a new kind of evidence of age; namely: physicians' certificates. This evidence may be ac

cepted after ninety days as a last resort by the officer issuing employment certificates in cases where children are unable to produce any of the kinds of evidence of age specified in the former law.

By the passage of a bill (drafted by the New York Child Labor Committee) to amend the Compulsory Education Law it is believed that a serious defect in that law has been corrected. Under the present law children are required to attend school until sixteen years of age unless "regularly and lawfully employed in any useful occupation or service." Because of the ambiguity and lack of definiteness of this last clause, many children in New York city have been allowed to leave school as soon as the fourteenth birthday was reached, no matter how low in grade, on the mere statement that their parents wanted them to remain at home to do housework, to take care of the children, or to engage in peddling, etc. Once discharged from school, often in a few days, these children found illegal employment in stores or factories. The Agnew bill, if given the governor's approval, seeks to stop this leakage, by providing that after September 1 all children in cities of the first or second class between fourteen and sixteen years of age must secure employment certificates before being permitted to leave school. This law will require all children before leaving school to reach the same educational standard now necessary for those who leave to go to work in stores or factories. One child labor bill of considerable importance, which ought to have been passed, was defeated in the Senate largely as a result of the opposition of the retail merchants of New York city and Buffalo. This bill proposed to prohibit all females sixteen years of age and upwards in mercantile establishments from being compelled to work more than sixty hours in any one week-a limitation applied at present only to women under twenty-one years of age-and to cut down to a six day period prior to Christmas, the present fifteen day suspension of the law in December, to females sixteen years of age and upwards. most important feature of this bill from a child labor point of view, was a provis

The

ion to transfer the responsibility for the enforcement of the laws covering the employment of children in mercantile establishments, from the Departments of Health of New York city and Buffalo to the State Department of Labor. In the debates upon the bill in the Senate the chief ground of attack was the constitutionality of that portion re-enacting for women employed in mercantile establishments, the provisions as to hours of work appearing in the labor law covering the employment of women in factories. The passage of these measures together with others also making advances over existing laws such as the bill re-organizing the State Department of Labor, the bill providing for the appointment of a few more factory inspectors including a medical inspector, one specifically placing hotel laundries under the jurisdiction of the Department of Labor, one making possible the assignment of state inspectors of steam vessels for temporary periods to the Department of Labor, and a bill giving the Department of Labor better control over factories in respect to the hours of labor, all attest to the great interest and importance attached to labor legislation during the recent session of the Legislature.

The Waning of Liberty in Massachusetts

Joseph Le••

Vice-President Massachusetts Civic League People who are forever attacking the Massachusetts system of having annnal elections and annual sessions of the Legislature invariably assume that every law passed means so much additional restraint on human liberty. They assume that liberty comes to us in a certain lump sum and that everything which we are forbidden to do leaves us with a diminished stock on hand. The truth of this theory is illustrated this year by the enactment of laws curtailing human liberty in the following respects: A man may no longer, in Massachusetts, sell poison to his neighbors in the form of medicine, under professions of curing the various diseases which flesh is heir to (and a number of others that it is not), with

out stating legibly on the outside of the bottle just what poisons are included in the compound sold. Neither may a man any longer relieve his fellow citizens of their surplus funds (or those of their friends and employers) by means of the device known as the bucket shop; nor may he work women and children in a factory between the hours of 6 p. m. and 6 a. m. If in his factory or elsewhere he is so unfortunate as to kill one of his fellow-citizens by negligence he is liable now to have to pay not five thousand but ten thousand dollars for the privilege. If he runs a factory or anything else in a way to injure the public health, his enterprise in such direction will be hereafter watched not by the state police (composed almost exclusively of deserving veterans of the Civil War), but by the State Board of Health, which will take a much more direct and troublesome interest in his proceedings. If, on

The

the other hand, personal liberty should take the form of building tenement houses adapted rather for the cultivation of the tuberculosis microbe than of genus homo, the free-born citizen will again find himself thwarted by this troublesome Massachusetts Legislature, which has passed a tenement house law for Boston modeled largely on that which has so clogged the purposes of men and microbes in New York. entirely innocent citizen, moreover, will be mulcted of a certain portion of his hard-earned wealth in order to supply twenty-five school nurses for the Boston children, and will be separated from fifty thousand dollars more in order to enable the Boston School Committee to take charge of play and physical education in its own yards and buildings and on the twenty odd playgrounds and outdoor gymnasiums in charge of the Park Department. Some of his money will go to building more hospitals for consumptives, and he will have to pay a new insurance official, who will supervise the insurance feature in such savings banks as may take advantage of the new law permitting these banks, under various precautions, to provide life insurance in sums not exceeding five hundred dollars.