cerned. You can see the advantage in having some one who is pretty near the top to keep in touch with these labor problems. By these two means, the county farm agents and the Works' Correspondents, the local employment offices are given direct and prompt information as to both the agricultural and industrial labor conditions in its district.

Contact with the knowledge of those seeking employment is obtained by advertisement, by posters and by making known the existence of the employment offices by every convenient and effective channel of publicity. The system which I have briefly described operates as follows:

The needs for agricultural or industrial labor are made known in the local employment office by the agencies already described; the local employment office then endeavors to supply these needs from its lists of persons seeking employment; if it is unable to satisfy these. needs from its own local lists, it reports its shortage to the central office of the zone in which it is located. This zone office then examines the reports which it has received from the other local employment offices in its zone and endeavors to supply the shortage. Failing in this, the zone office reports to the central office for the entire State located at Harrisburg, to which each of the other five zone offices are continually reporting. Through this central office the entire State is put under requisition to supply the labor shortage which may exist in any particular locality within the State. One very important point which was kept in view continually in developing this system was to avoid any needless transfer of labor from one part of the State to another. That is uneconomical, wasteful and destroys the efficiency of labor, and we are trying in every possible way to fight that movement of labor or transfer of labor long distances and to make each district satisfy, as far as possible, its own demands for labor.

The foregoing gives in very brief outline the system and organization being developed under the direction of the Committee of Public Safety to meet the war conditions and to render the labor and industry of the State the utmost efficiency in the terrific struggle which is before us. As the development progresses many new and important problems arise. I can only in the time at my disposal mention a few. The high wages paid in industrial establishments is rapidly drawing labor away from the farms. How is this shortage to be made up, and the production of food not only maintained, but increased? The tremendous activity in shipbuilding affects Pennsylvania more than any other state. It is today the industry most essential to the winning of the war. Where are the skilled mechanics to be found to man the shipyards which are fast making the Delaware the greatest shipbuilding district on the globe? These and other most important questions are forcing themselves upon the attention of the Department of

Civilian Service and Labor. They are not simple or easy of solution. Another question, while not within the limits assigned to this paper, I feel I must call to your attention, as it transcends in importance all other questions which have presented themselves to the Department of Civilian Service and Labor. It is the question of how the labor and industry of Pennsylvania can best correlate and ally itself with the labor and industry of the nation so that the industrial resources of the entire country may be brought into harmonious action, and applied with overwhelming force to the tremendous war problem which confronts us. Pennsylvania is an empire in herself. She is industrially the queen of American Commonwealths. Let her industries stop and her mines close, and the fighting force of the British, French and Italian armies will shrivel and die. Gentlemen, this is a sober fact. The State of Pennsylvania itself produces more steel than the entire central empires of Europe; it produces vastly more coal than Germany and Austria combined. So you can see what the importance of this industrial State is to the solution of this war problem. But she is only one among many American sister states. Her industrial forces and every resource of money and men which she possesses must be placed absolutely at the disposal of the nation. This will mean that some of her less essential industries may be closed or that many of her sons may have to leave their homes and engage elsewhere in less congenial and perhaps in less lucrative employments. The situation must be met in a spirit of sacrifice. No single industry can be considered, no individual's advantage can be taken into account when the nation's interests are at stake. Pennsylvania is, I am sure, ready to meet the emergency, and to place herself without reserve at the disposal of the nation no matter what sacrifice may be involved, and her Safety Committee is organizing her man power and her industrial resources, so that they may be ready on the instant to answer this call of the nation whenever it comes.

CHAIRMAN PALMER: As another coincidence we have with us a new man of National reputation, who is particularly interested in the subject which Mr. Felton has outlined for us; a man who is giving his time and energy at Washington to help develop a national plan whereby the labor problem can be properly handled. I am going to take the liberty of calling upon Dr. Louis E. Reber to give us a word from Washington as to how this matter is being developed in a national way. It is perhaps rather an imposition to call upon him in this unexpected way but we will either I'select" him or "conscript" him, as you see fit to term it. We will "select" him. It gives me pleasure to introduce to you Dr. Louis E. Reber, Dean of the University of Wisconsin.

DR. REBER: Gentlemen of the Convention and Ladies, I happened in here this morning to meet a man whom I knew would be here in Harrisburg, not knowing at

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all that there was a convention here. I feel as though I were out of place really in attempting to talk to you men for a minute. I am interested tremendously in the labor problem, but my interest in that particular problem is really quite recent, so that I am not informed in the sense that most of you are. I have been at Washington for the last eight weeks, and have come in touch with what they are trying to do there to meet this problem that you are discussing today. I firmly believe, 'however, taking into account everything I have heard, that Pennsylvania has done more, and is better organized to do than any state in the Union; and, frankly, I am going west-I am from Wisconsin-I am going west, as Mr. Palmer has stated, to see if the western states won't copy after Pennsylvania and organize their labor work as it is being organized here.

The scheme which Mr. Felton has outlined so admirably is one that it seems to me must be effective. You are most fortunate, however, I must say in Pennsylvania in having the funds to move with. So many of the states over the Union have not the funds and have not made provision for this work. They are floundering about, not knowing how to begin and what to do. I think the Council of National Defense has not done what it might have done to stir these states into some sort of channel which would bring about results. I think they are beginning to see that something must be done and Pennsylvania has gone ahead and set an example which I think is going to be followed in the main, the idea of the zone and the district officers, local officers, etc.

I am going to touch on a point in which I am particularly interested and that is that part of the Labor Department which is known as the Public Service Reserve. It is making an effort to have on record the willingness of men over the nation to serve the nation. That record is made up in such a way that it is not merely what the man would like to do, but the record states what the man has done and what he is prepared to do. At the beginning of the war, when the offer for service came in from everybody, many men were placed and asked to do things for which they were entirely unfitted. That has now been thoroughly recognized, and I think that the men who are asked to do things today at Washington are being scanned to see whether they are really capable to do the things they want to do and are being placed where they can really be of service and, as Mr. Felton has so well said, every man must be ignored so far as his individual interests are concerned, he must take his place where he is able to do and everybody will expect him to do what he is asked to do.

I do not know, Mr. Chairman, that I have anything further to say. I am very glad to have had this opportunity and I shall listen with interest to the speakers at the Convention and carry the messages to the West.

CHAIRMAN PALMER: I am sure we appreciate the response that has come from Dean Reber, of Wisconsin.

Mention has been made here several times this morning of the importance of labor in this national crisis. It has been my pleasure and good fortune to have been at Washington on an average of one day a week since the first of April and I, too, have seen the splendid work being done there in a patriotic, self-sacrificing way. As an official of the National Safety Council I have been serving as the Chairman of the National Committee on Industry Safety of the Council of National Defense Labor Committee. You know the Council of National Defense is made up of Cabinet members and the Advisory Commission is headed by labor and industrial and public spirited men, and under that Advisory Commission are a number of committees, one of them the Labor Committee. I am also a member of the National Committee on Mediation and Conciliation. It became necessary for me,

with the approval of Commissioner Jackson, to go to the Pacific Coast to assist the Navy and War Departments in organizing the navy yards and arsenals for safety. While out there, the Washington State Council of Defense, knowing that I had been associated with some of the mediators in Washington, asked that I sit in at North Yakima during the investigation of the I. W. W. problem in that state, and it impressed me, as I believe nothing else has, with the importance that we must attribute to the labor side of our war problem.

Mr. Farquhar spoke of the situation in England; that there they are eliminating the classes. Now, that is just what Commissioner Jackson has been trying to do here. Through our department we are trying to correct faulty conditions where they exist and bring together the employe and the employer, and this meeting today is simply an expression of the Commissioner's desire to promote the work of the Department along that line. We must work as a unit.

We have as the next number on the program "The Relationship of the Workmen's Compensation Laws to the Safety Movement." And right there is a keynote of this Conference, the conservation of those workers in the mills and mines and industrial establishments that must supply our armies at the front. Mr. John A. Phillips, Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor, is now to present that side.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION LAWS TO THE SAFETY MOVEMENT.

By JOHN A. PHILLIPS, First Vice-President, Pennsylvania Federation of Labor, Philadelphia, Pa.

In its relationship to the safety movement the Compensation Act seems to be capable of two principal functions: First, to provide an effective system of compensation for the industrially injured; and second, to furnish incentive for all of the other activities which are directed toward solving the tremendously vital problem of accident elimination.

With reference to the function first noted, sufficient experience has already been gained to indicate that, with certain modifications, the compensation system can be so perfected as to care adequately for the injured employe; and when this has been accomplished a distinct contribution to the human relationship will have been made, for, beyond question, we know that the conditions which existed under the old liability system contributed directly to social unrest.

While it is true that statute law prohibited any limitation as to the amount of recovery by an injured employe, and, ostensibly, was a guarantee to the industrial worker, it is also true that the worker was without the right to exercise the power supposed to have been con

ferred because of the common law defenses which had been set up as part of the legal system applicable in such cases. Large employers sternly resisted such claims, and small employers could not pay them if awarded. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the workers at large regarded this legal system as tantamount to a denial of justice, and that they developed a sort of fatalistic attitude toward the risk of injury, and bore the consequent financial loss and physical suffering as inevitable concomitants of industrial employment.

In applying the compensation system to this difficiulty, the Legislature of 1915 demonstrated again that the solution of a great many of our social and industrial ills depends primarily upon the method of approach; for by a single enactment it took from the employer the ground for contention against damage claims-which contentions were usually based upon the uncertainty of accident and the absence of definitely placed responsibility-and at the same time conferred upon the injured worker, with a degree of certainty, the opportunity of securing some return for the loss and suffering which he endured. That broad principle of co-operation, to which the Chairman has referred, is the underlying basis of the compensation plan. There came about a general recognition, on the part of the State, the employer and the employe, that if human conservation was to become a reality, some means must be found to resolve the contentions which prevented the consummation of that desirable object; and it is a happy solution to the question of compensation payment where the cost, which seemed to be the principal bone of contention, through the application of the insurance system, was spread in such manner as to place the burden upon the community as a whole, where it properly belongs.

But, after all, even though we have taken care of the employe after injury, we have not solved the great problem, which is the elimination of accidents, not payment for accidents after they have occurred. In a sense the compensation system bears the same relationship to the community as does the hospital—it is very necessary when needed, but we would all like to do without it. The great responsibility which rests upon all of us is to devise the best methods toward constantly reducing the number of accidents; and while it would be extremely difficult to reduce the number of accidents to the vanishing point, anything that can be contributed to that end is of the very highest value.

We know that the Department of Labor and Industry has, up to the present time, put forth the most splendid efforts in every direction. We know that the personnel of the Department engaged in that work is such as to guarantee the very highest type of service. We know also that it is still necessary to advocate a closer and more continuous co-operation on the part of the other factors, the employers