the neighborhood which attracted immigrant labor-the people had to live near their work. Therefore this garment-making industry and the conditions of work in the industry twentyfive or thirty years ago had a great deal to do with the development of the East Side itself. The people who lived there were mainly those who worked in the needle-working industries.

Have the conditions under which these people worked improved in your lifetime?

Very decidedly. And this has been brought about chiefly through the organization of the unions, which have improved standards through agreements with employers.

How have they done this?

Until 1910 they did it through constant guerrilla warfare or strikes. These industries, as I have said, are seasonal. During the busy season the workers have the upper hand, when the employer needs labor. During the slack season the employer has the upper hand. The workers therefore would strike during the busy season and get their concessions then. Not infrequently, when the employer had the upper hand, he would reduce the standards gained by the workers during the busy season. And so there was a constant fluctuation between progress and retrogression from year to year. But, in spite of that, there has been an upward tendency. What has been the nature of these improvements?

Since 1910 the guerrilla warfare has been growing less and less because a collective agreement was made between the union and the association of employers-not with an individual employer, but with a group of employers in an association. This is called collective bargaining. And in 1910 the union for the first time had a collective agreement with a responsible association of manufacturers. This agreement brought about a great many interesting changes. First, it actually decreased the number of working hours from fifty-hour, and, in some over fifty-four, to fifty hours a week. It reduced the amount of overtime to not over one and a half hours a day above the normal during the busy season; in the dress and waist industry not more than one hour a day. The employer cannot require the employee to work more than one hour above the usual working period of the day. This is an important change, because it not only checked the employer from overworking his worker, but checked the worker from exploiting himself

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in case he wanted to overwork. If any worker could work as long as he pleased, the working conditions established by the workers as an organized body would be undermined, and there would be brought about overwork for everybody and unscrupulous competition through the exploitation of greedy workers. It abolished the last remnant of home work in tenements. This agreement also brought about a very decided improvement in the sanitary conditions of the workers. For the first time in the history of American industry a board of sanitary control was organized. This board consisted of representatives of the union and the manufacturers in addition to representatives of the public. This board established standards, not alone of sanitation, but of fire safety, light and illumination, and cleanliness in general. The board has its own force of inspectors. It makes semiannual inspections. Through the association of manufacturers it brought about compliance with its orders in case any manufacturer violated the standards. And the union sometimes enforced its standards in one or two cases through a strike against employers who were not members of the association. There was thus a tendency to improve the standard in the smaller shops, which needed most improvement in this respect. This represents, not welfare work from above, but democratic co-operation in industrial improvement. The representatives of the public on this board are Dr. William J. Schieffelin, Chairman, Miss Lillian D. Wald, and the Secretary.1 We have served on this board since 1910, and it was working in two industries, the cloak and the waist industries. Since the abrogation of the agreement in the cloak industry it is working only in the waist industry, where the protocol still exists. This board is introducing health certification in industry. It will make periodic physical examinations, and will give to the workers in the union certificates which will indicate whether they are in good physical condition or not. Then, too, the board carries on a great deal of education through the newspapers and lectures on health subjects among the workers and the manufacturers.

How has the improvement been made since 1910?

Since 1910 there has been a marked improvement in the following respects: First, the improvement of sanitary conditions of

The Secretary is Dr. Moskowitz himself.-THE EDITORS.

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factories; second, the doing away with the making of garments in homes where there is contagious disease and in crowded quarters; third, the reduction in the hours of labor. remember a time when people worked sixty, and sometimes seventy, hours a week. I myself as a boy worked ten and twelve hours a day. I worked from eight o'clock in the morning until six or seven at night. During the busy season fifteen or twenty years ago people worked from very early in the morning until late at night. There was no regulation of hours, and seventy hours a week was not too long for many people. This was working in an overcrowded shop, with stifling air, with operators working like mad over machines which they had to drive with their own feet. Now the foot power has been completely eliminated. The sewing-machines are run by electricity, and even ironingmachines for the pressing of garments have been introduced which are being run by electricity. Through the efforts of the union and the improvement in methods of manufacture these standards have been raised.

Has this board succeeded in setting a standard not only of health but of wages?

No. A wages board has not yet been established in these industries. This is the next big step which must be made, and which has been made in the dress and waist industry through the creation of a board for the control of protocol standards.

What do you mean by protocol standards?

By protocol standards I mean those standards in wages, hours, labor, sanitary conditions, and other standards affecting the working conditions, established by the agreement between the organized workers and the employers, which has been called the protocol.

There are thus two boards-one that has to do with conditions of health, and the other that has to do with the wages or other payments for labor, hours of labor, and certain conditions and methods of manufacture.

Has this second board established any wage standards at all?

This second board has just been organized. Its purpose is to gather information concerning conditions of labor, wages, and hours, which will form the basis of recommendation to the manufacturers and the organized workers regarding increases or improvements in these directions. The second object of this board is to enforce the standards of wages agreed upon between the association and the union throughout the entire industry.

There is, then, a standard of wages agreed upon?

There is a standard of wages called for in the agreement. But the employers who pay the union standards are not guaranteed that their competitors are doing the same, and frequently the good employer is penalized because an unscrupulous employer, who is not controlled or is imperfectly controlled by the union, has cheap labor.

In connection with these waist and cloak makers, we hear a great deal about the minimum wage. What is meant by that?

In these industries there are minimum weekly wages and minimum rates for piecework—that is, wages below which the manufacturer is not allowed to go, although he is not limited in paying more if he wishes to; and, in fact, he does pay the skilled worker more than the minimum.

In the waist and cloak industries there has been a minimum wage, then, established by agreement?

Minimum prices for labor have been established by agreement.

Why should we need, then, a minimum wage law?

What we need in this industry, as well as in other industries, is information concerning the business conditions of the industry as well as the needs of the workers, so as to ascertain what a proper minimum is, under competitive conditions. For example: A manufacturer in New York who is forced to pay a minimum very much higher than his competitor in the Philadelphia or Chicago market will not be able to compete very long. The other day the workers in the shops surrounding The Outlook's office went out on strike. They got an increase in minimum wages. The Board of Arbitration, consisting of Judge Julian W. Mack, Chairman, Mr. Robert Bruère, and Mr. Hamilton Holt, gave increases to the industry. Young girls, for example, over fourteen, cannot receive less than six dollars a week. and when they reach sixteen they cannot receive less than eight dollars and fifty cents in certain kinds of work. Operators, examiners, cutters, and other workers were increased. If the increases which were given are very much higher than those given in Philadelphia and Chicago, for instance, then the manufacturers in these markets will make a cheaper product, and the industry may in part be driven out of the city of New York simply because the wages have been so increased here and not

in other parts of the country that the cost of manufacture is cheaper, and reflects itself in cheaper prices. Such conditions as this cannot be completely controlled by a voluntary arrangement, and therefore we need the authority of the State and the sovereignty of the State, first, in finding out what these conditions are, and upon the basis of that knowledge a fair minimum wage enforcing it equally.

How would such a minimum wage law operate?

First, it must establish machinery for getting the facts relevant to wages, cost of living, cost of manufacture, prices of manufacture, cost of material, and any other necessary factors.

How would it do this?

This it could do through its own investigating departments of the Bureau of Labor, or through special boards established for the consideration of certain specified industries; or, better still, by co-operating with the machinery which has been established by these voluntary agreements.

Having ascertained all these facts, what would be the next thing for the law to do?

Having ascertained the facts, then both parties to the agreement can, through the machinery established by this agreement, confer concerning the increases in wages which the workers may demand. The representatives of the public-either the arbitrators or the representatives of the Government, or the board established for the consideration of the increase in wages—will be in a better position to judge whether the demands of the workers are fair upon the basis of this study. The next thing would be to present those facts to any board of arbitration established by the agreement between the workers and the employers, or any other board established in any other way to settle any specific dispute. For instance, the board of arbitration which sat for five years in the cloak and suit industry, and for three years in the dress and waist industry, has frequently been forced to make its decisions upon very little basis in fact, but only upon the basis of advocates' contention. This has been in large measure a method of compromise between the demands of both sides. And sometimes it has been a process of benevolent guesswork. Very often boards. of arbitration take leaps in the dark. If they make a mistake in business judgment by granting increases which are unfair to em.

ployers in a competitive industry, they juggle with property in ignorance. On the other hand, they may be unfair to the workers by not awarding them enough. They cannot just by pure reasoning come to a sound conclusion concerning these important matters unless they have a sense of the reality of the industry. For example: The union asked, in the cloak and suit industry, a standard of seventy-five cents an hour for an operator of average skill. This demand was granted by the Council of Conciliation appointed by the Mayor recently. We are told by the manufacturers that many of them have been unable to pay this sum, and as a result their cloaks were made under conditions which the union could not control, or in outside markets where the price was lower. Whether seventyfive cents an hour is a fair price to pay in the light of competition can be discovered only by very careful study of the facts.

The law itself, then, would not set a minimum wage?

I do not believe in having an arbitrary minimum wage. I believe in having boards

to study the conditions of the various industries, and upon this study of special conditions work out a minimum.

The desirable law, then, is not so much a minimum wage law as a law for establishing boards to decide what is a fair minimum wage? Exactly.

But a moment ago you mentioned a strike of girls in the neighborhood of The Outlook's office which resulted in paying bigger wages than the concerns in Philadelphia or Chicago. How could a minimum wage board in New York deal with that?

It could not. Therefore the regulation must be wider than any State.

But does not what you say about wages apply to other things as well?

Absolutely. We are forced to take the position of National control in this as in many other industries.

How could such a control be brought about? I think chiefly at first by getting the cities and the States to co-operate with the voluntary arrangements already made between employers and employees. National manufacturing associations believing in collective agreements should deal with National unions. This would help bring about equalization of competition between various cities, and then, through co-operation with the various State Departments of Labor of the different States, bring about a basis for the development of a

Federal control, through the Federal Bureau of Labor or the Federal Industrial Commission or the Federal Trade Commission.

Would it be necessary, then, still to have trade unions?

Absolutely. In fact, it would help the trade union movement enormously, because it would give to the trade union movement information upon which it could base its demands, and at the same time prevent it from making demands which are unreasonable. In fact, where there are wage boardstrade boards as they call them in Englandthey have aided trade unions.

But would this not take the control of his own business out of the hands of the employer?

I think that it would stabilize his business, for under present conditions he is a victim of anarchy and chance. Outside of minima, he should have absolute discretion and freedom to negotiate with his employees and to arrange a scale of prices for labor that will meet the needs of his business. At present, when he is forced by a labor union to make increases in wages he is penalized, as I have pointed out, because his competitors do not meet the same conditions. From the manufacturer's point of view, if he has equal conditions of competition, he will object less to increases in standards. And if he is an honest and humane man, he will welcome the chance to get rid of unscrupulous competition.

Has this anything to do with Socialism?

It has as much to do with Socialism as the Inter-State Commerce Commission has to do with Socialism. It is a form of social regulation. There are so many forms of Socialism that I cannot answer your question. If you mean, Does it resemble State Socialism of a rigid character, I say no; for all that it does is to provide minimum standards below which the industrial game cannot be played. Between the minima and the maxima the employers and the workers should have absolute freedom of action.

Why doesn't this idea apply to other trades? It does. Machinery should be established by the State and the Nation by which the idea can be practically applied to as many industries as possible.

Should this be done purely for the protec tion of the helpless worker?

This is a much bigger thing than merely a minimum wage question. What I want is the application of fair intelligence to a very complicated question. It is not merely a question of wages. It may mean methods

of manufacture by which efficiency is brought about without exploiting the laborer; it may mean price adjustments; it may mean a method by which the seasonal character of the industry may be changed. It means the establishment of a machinery which will make a study of all the facts of industry, for the purpose of arriving at conclusions which are fair both to the workers and to the employers in a competitive industry.

Then it is even more than protecting the helpless worker?

It is more than taking care of the helpless worker, for it means that the Government will concern itself as much in improving the productivity of industry as it now concerns itself in the improvement of the productivity of agriculture. This extension of governmental machinery means intelligent regulation for the purpose of stimulating initiative among the manufacturers and workers between a minimum and a maximum. It would be the means of saving the waste of energy through strikes and other friction due to inefficient methods of production. It would also provide for industry such knowledge as will enable the industry to establish a system of apprenticeship, by which those who get the minimum wage will be enabled to earn it. All the factors of industry are so interrelated that you cannot discuss a minimum wage without discussing methods of manufacture and methods of arriving at efficiency. Therefore such a Government board would deal with all the facts of industry.

How would you sum up the whole matter? The primitive way of settling disputes between employers and employees is by some kind of struggle in which one side tries to enforce its will on the other. A great advance over that method is the method of arbitration, but in most cases arbitration is simply a compromise between the demands of the two sides. The arbitrators frequently know little or nothing of the real facts or conditions in these industries--of costs of production, of industrial processes, of the state of the competitive market, or business management. The next step will be the crea tion of machinery for ascertaining the facts in each industry. The machinery will be constantly at work collecting and recording the facts about the ever-changing conditions. Based on these facts, standards could be determined. The Government can then set a minimum, not only in wages, but also in other conditions, below which no one can venture