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all payments of compensation to be made directly by the employer, instead of by the Commission. It was expected that these amendments to the law would result in decreasing to a considerable extent the volume of work which the Compensation Commission had to do.

It was recognized by the Legislature that the work of enforcing the Compensation Law and the provisions of the Labor Law might properly be entrusted to a single organization, and that greater efficiency and a more economical administration of all the laws relating to labor and industry might be effected by the establishment of a single department to deal with all of these laws.

Accordingly the Legislature enacted chapter 674 of the Laws of 1915 which placed in the hands of a single Commission the responsibility for the enforcement of the Labor Law and the Workmen's Compensation Law and the administration of the State Insurance Fund.

There were thus abolished the following positions occupied by the following incumbents:

Commissioner of Labor, James M. Lynch.

Members of the Industrial Board:

Richard J. Cullen,

Miss Pauline Goldmark,

Charles G. Flaesch,

John G. Walsh.

Secretary of the Industrial Board, John Williams.

Workmen's Compensation Commissioners:

Robert E. Dowling, Chairman;

John Mitchell,

Thomas Darlington,

Howard T. Mosher,

J. Mayhew Wainwright.

Secretary of the Workmen's Compensation Commission, Frank A. Spencer.

It should be noted that Mr. Wainwright had resigned as a member of the Workmen's Compensation Commission some time prior to the passage of the act abolishing that Commission and the

vacancy caused by his resignation had not been filled at the time the Commission was abolished.

To take the place of the bodies thus abolished, there was created an enlarged Department of Labor, at the head of which was the Industrial Commission, composed of five members appointed by the Governor.

REORGANIZATION

On June 1st, 1915, the Industrial Commission assumed charge of the Department of Labor.

The Commission was composed of the following members:

John Mitchell, Chairman, Mt. Vernon.

Edward P. Lyon, Commissioner, Brooklyn.
James M. Lynch, Commissioner, Syracuse.

Louis Wiard, Commissioner, Batavia.

William H. H. Rogers, Commissioner, Rochester.

At the first meeting of the Commission, held in the Capitol at Albany, the Commission appointed Henry D. Sayer of New York as secretary.

The positions of First and Second Deputy Commissioner of Labor, General Manager of the Workmen's Compensation Commission and Deputy Commissioners of the Compensation Commission having been abolished, the Commission was obliged to make temporary appointments of deputies to keep going the various bureaus of the Department. Accordingly the Commission appointed as First Deputy Commissioner, in charge of the Bureau of Inspection, Frank J. Prial of Brooklyn; as the Second Deputy Commissioner, in charge of the Bureau of Workmen's Compensation, William C. Archer of Mt. Vernon, and as Third Deputy Commissioner, in charge of the Bureau of Mediation and Arbitration, William C. Rogers of Rochester. Messrs. Prial and Rogers had been respectively First and Second Deputy Commissioners of Labor, and Mr. Archer had been the General Manager of the Workmen's Compensation Commission. The Commission also appointed Jeremiah F. Connor of Oneida, Counsel to the Commission, Mr. Connor having been Chief Counsel of the Workmen's Compensation Commission.

Mr. Prial was succeeded on July 16th, 1915, by James L. Gernon of Brooklyn as First Deputy Commissioner in charge of the Bureau of Inspection, Mr. Gernon having been the Chief Mer cantile Inspector of the Department of Labor. Mr. Rogers was succeeded by Frank B. Thorn as Third Deputy Commissioner in charge of the Bureau of Mediation and Arbitration. The appointment of Mr. Archer as Second Deputy Commissioner in charge of the Bureau of Workmen's Compensation was made permanent. Subsequently Mr. Connor resigned as Counsel to the Commission and Robert W. Bonynge was selected to succeed Mr. Connor on January 1, 1916.

The Industrial Commission, upon its organization, was confronted with the seriously pressing need of expediting the examination and hearing of claims for compensation by injured workmen and their dependents. Delay in this work for only a few days would have resulted in the accumulation of a vast number of cases with the consequent clogging of the machinery of the Department and would have brought distress and suffering to persons whose very means of livelihood depended upon the small sums of compensation to which they were entitled.

With all the vast amount of detail to be mastered by the new Commission, it would have been impossible for them to have given the requisite amount of attention to these cases and indeed had they been able to do so, the equally important work of other bureaus of the Department would have suffered. The Commission therefore decided at once to re-employ as Deputy Commissioners for the hearing of compensation cases, a number of the former Deputy Commissioners. Instead of the ten Deputy Commissioners employed by the Workmen's Compensation Commission to do this work, the Industrial Commission appointed six deputies, as follows, and assigned them to the work in the cities set after their names: Thomas J. Curtis, New York; Thomas J. Drennan, Brooklyn; Frank A. Tierney, Albany; Willard C. Richards, Syracuse; Cyrus W. Phillips, Rochester; George W. Batten, Buffalo. These six Deputy Commissioners were, under the consolidation law, placed in the classified Civil Service. There being no existing eligible list for the position, the appointments were allowed by the Civil Service Commission for a pro

visional term until the establishment of an appropriate Civil Service list. Mr. Drennan in Brooklyn was subsequently superseded by David M. Stone. Mr. Tierney in Albany was superseded by William A. Abbott.

Mr. Batten in Buffalo
The present incumbents

was superseded by James McLusky. having successfully passed the Civil Service examination, the appointments have become permanent.

The Industrial Commission, immediately after its organization, undertook a survey of the work of the Bureau of Workmen's Compensation, with the result that it was found possible to close three of the branch offices established by the former Compensation Commission. These offices were at 29 Broadway in lower Manhattan, 14th street and Courtlandt avenue in the Bronx, and Poughkeepsie, N. Y. The business of the lower Broadway and Bronx offices was transferred to the district office maintained at 171 Madison avenue, while the business of the Poughkeepsie office was transferred to the Albany office. Each of these offices had been in charge of a Deputy Commissioner at a salary of $4,000 per annum and with a necessary complement of office force. Arrangements were promptly made to close the offices and to terminate the leases at the earliest dates practicable and with the least expense.

On July 15th, in order to carry out the provisions of the law relative to making the rules and regulations known as the Industrial Code and considering amendments and modifications thereof, and to assist the Commission in the performance of the duties that formerly devolved upon the Industrial Board, the Commission, with the approval of the State Civil Service Commission, appointed Richard J. Cullen of New York and Thomas C. Eipper of Brooklyn as Deputy Commissioners in the Bureau of Industrial Code.

DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONSIBILITY

The law creating the Industrial Commission provides (section 45 of the Labor Law) that, at the first or organization meeting of the Commission and annually thereafter, the Commission shall, by resolution, apportion among the Commissioners the administrative work involved in the performance of its duties. In accordance with this provision of the law, the Commission made the

following distribution of its responsibilities and apportionment of its duties:

Chairman Mitchell:

Bureau of Compensation, Agreements, Awards, Payments.

Commissioner Lyon:

State Insurance Fund, Self-insurance, Legal Bureau. Commissioner Wiard:

Bureau of Industrial Code, Bureau of Statistics and Information, Bureau of Mediation and Arbitration.

Commissioner Lynch:

Bureau of Inspection, Bureau of Printing, Bureau of Fire
Hazards, Boilers and Explosives.

Commissioner Rogers:

Bureau of Industries and Immigration, Bureau of Employment, Investments of the surplus and reserves of the State Insurance Fund.

Under this scheme of distribution of responsibility, while the individual Commissioners are not relieved in any way from their responsibility for the general management of the Department and the efficient administration of the law through all its various bureaus, the immediate responsibility for each bureau and the conduct of business in that bureau, is directly centered in the Commissioner supervising such bureau. All matters arising in such bureau that require the action of the entire Commission, or that should be reported to the Commission, are brought before it by the supervising Commissioner.

MEETINGS

The law creating the Industrial Commission provides that the Commission shall hold stated meetings "at least once a month at the office of the Department in Albany or in New York City, and shall hold other meetings when and where called by the Chairman or two members of the Commission." This is the minimum requirement of the law. As a matter of fact, however, the Com

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