A few years ago a state factory inspector was regarded by factory owners and industrial superintendents as a person who might be meddlesome and annoying and who would sometimes make requirements possibly expensive and usually held to be unnecessary. By most employers and managers he was not regarded as one whose service could be helpful and valuable to the operators of manufacturing plants or to their material interests. Fortunately for all related to this service, as inspector, employer or employe, the old view of factory inspection has undergone a great change. The owners and superintendents of plants now recognize the fact that an efficient and competent factory inspector can perform for them a very valuable service. They believe it to be true that economy in operation and success in business management are in harmony with the reasonable and humane requirements of the state as sought to be enforced through official factory inspection. The adoption and use of safety devices on machinery, the providing of proper workshop and factory surroundings and conditions, and the observance of other requirements made by factory inspectors have come to be generally recognized by manufacturers and operators as necessary accompaniments of our present enlarged and more intense industrial system.

The records of the Michigan Department of Labor will show that a large proportion of the accidents that have occurred in this state through recent years, in plants related to state inspection, were anticipated by factory inspectors through orders given to make changes, or to adopt devices, or to prevent practices on the part of the workmen which in the opinion of the inspectors would lead to serious or minor injuries to the employes or to property. That this is true not only provides undeniable testimony as to the value of the factory inspection service in the way of locating and calling attention to the danger points in manufacturing and industrial plants, but it also serves to show that a large proportion of the injuries received by employes at these plants could have been and should have been prevented.

It may be surprising information to those who have not been observing in that direction to learn that in a single year of peaceful industry in our country as a whole we kill and wound without intent more people than were killed and wounded in several great military campaigns where disablement was deliberately pursued with all the eagerness that war and science could devise. It has been estimated by a recognized authority on industrial mortality in the United States that not less than thirty-five thousand male wage earners lose their lives each year as the result of industrial injuries, and that the fatal injuries of occupation cannot be less than two million additional. Reference is made to injuries rather than to accidents because of the desire that the public mind shall become accustomed to distinguishing between injuries, a very large proportion of which are preventable and should not be called accidents, and true accidents which could not reasonably have been anticipated and which we have not yet learned to prevent.

It is of course a very reasonable expectation that the prospective application of the provisions of the recently enacted employer's liability legislation in this state will have prompt and effective influence in the way of creating larger interests and aggressive desire on the part of employers of labor and industrial managers to do all that can be done

in the way of preventing injuries to employes and of guarding against accidents. The result of this larger interest and greater desire in such directions will necessarily add to the importance of state factory inspection and to the requirement that such inspection shall be as thorough and as efficient as possible. Hereafter in Michigan the interests and desire of the operators of factories and foundries and mills and of the employers of labor in other lines of industrial activity will be in full harmony with the wishes and purposes of the state in the line of reducing industrial injuries and accidents to the lowest possible limit.

NEED OF MUSEUM OF SAFETY.

Through investigation as to the value of such provision elsewhere it is believed that the establishment of a Museum of Safety and Sanitation would prove of great value to the industrial operators of Michigan as well as to their employes and to the state factory inspection service. An exhibition of safety devices in connection with the operation of machinery or so presented as to make its use and purpose and value clear to visitors and observers has been experimented with and found to be attractive to those interested in such directions and possessed of great practical value. Indeed, safety museums are now in operation in most of the larger cities of Germany and France and Italy and Sweden, and in other European countries that have given especial attention to safeguarding against injuries to industrial employes, and in our country the state of Minnesota has established such a museum and is finding it of larger value than anticipated.

State factory inspectors hesitate to recommend a patented safety device to an employer even though the circumstances are such that the latter would probably welcome the information. A safety museum with all such safety devices on display obviates the difficulties of such a situation and makes for a much needed cooperation between the Labor Department and the manufacturer as to constructive work in accident prevention. Under present conditions it is quite certain that the Michigan manufacturer and industrial operator would cordially welcome the opportunity such a museum would provide and would make good use of the privilege thus given him as to information in the way of selecting and utilizing well tested and standard machinery safeguarding.

The National Civic Federation has recommended to Congress the establishment of at least three federal museums to exhibit safety devices and it has been suggested that the location of such museums should be selected with the purpose in mind of making them most available to serve the purposes for which they were designed-one on the east, another in the central portion of our country and a third in the west. No better location for such a federal museum of safety could be found for the territory referred to as the central portion of our country than here in Michigan and in the city of Detroit, one of the best known and most important manufacturing cities of the central states.

FIRE ESCAPES AND SAFETY PROVISIONS.

One of the most important duties required of factory inspectors is the examination of factories, school houses, public buildings and apartment houses with reference to their provision for escape of the occu

pants in case of fire and of alarm and stampede due from any cause. The measure of success that should attend this line of work is greatly hindered through the failure of owners and managers of buildings to recognize the need of fire escapes and safety provisions and of requirements with reference to entrances and exits to workrooms and school buildings and places of public gatherings.

It is known to be true that the insistent investigation and condemnation which follow deplorable happenings, loss of life, or serious injury always includes peremptory public demand why the requirements of the law were not exacted to the last possible limit. But it is only under the stress of greatly aroused public opinion and widespread demand that such an enforcement can be secured. During several recent years effort has been made by representatives of the Labor Department to secure fire escape equipment on some of the school buildings of the city of Detroit. It is quite probable that the Board of Education of that city has regarded the requests that have been made of them by the state factory inspectors with reference to the erection of fire escapes on school buildings as reasonable and necessary. But they utilized the usual privilege assumed in such cases of waiting and postponing, and through so doing have weakened and destroyed the force of the department requirements of other owners and managers in that city of factory buildings and public buildings that should be so equipped.

Failure to comply with the order of a state factory inspector in Grand Rapids was followed recently by a complaint before a justice of the peace and the appearance of the owner of the building in court. In response to the complaint of the factory inspector it was not denied by the attorney of the owner of the building that the fire escape was needed or that the state requirement as to its construction had been properly made known to the building owner, but it was set forth that the title to the law creating the Department of Labor had not given proper notification as to the contents of the act and had not definitely set forth that any such requirement as was involved in that case relative to fire escapes was embodied in the act. This particular case has been referred to the Attorney General and in the meantime efforts in the direction of securing compliance with the law relative to fire escapes and to provisions which will as nearly as possible provide safety for buildings and to which the state law applies will be insisted upon without reference to technical objections or to unwillingness on the part of building owners or building representatives.

The sections of the law relating to requirements for safety are regarded as among the most important with which the Department of Labor has to do and some amendments to such sections will be asked for at the next session of the legislature which it is greatly hoped will receive your approval and will meet with favorable consideration from the legislature.

TENEMENT HOUSE WORK.

One of the several features of Labor Department service that are increasing in importance and with reference to the time and attention that must be given to them is that relating to tenement house work and the conditions surrounding tenement house operation. While it

is true that almost all of such work that has thus far been taken note of and inspected is in the city of Detroit, it is known that home work on articles intended for merchandise and within the application of the section of the Labor Department law referring to that subject is being carried on in a number of other of the larger and smaller cities of the state.

Our experience shows that there is very little patience on the part of those who do not understand its purpose and value with the efforts of factory inspectors to secure the information required by law from those who are carrying on such work. They resent the visits of inspectors to their homes even though they are found working on articles of wearing apparel intended for public merchandise. In many cases they deny the right of the inspector to dictate any conditions touching their homes or their living rooms and insist upon their privileges as citizens and homekeepers without regard to their very evident relation to the public health and public welfare through the use of their homes as workshops. The element of sympathy and pity is also necessarily related to tenement house investigation more than to any other line of Labor Department service. Most of those who work on clothing or roll cigars in their homes are persons not capable of doing full work or acceptable work in a regular shop or workroom. Advanced age, or physical weakness, or some unusual conditions requiring their presence at home, are usually found to relate to most dwelling house operations and in some cases conditions are so extreme as to make any attempt to regulate or better them seem quite heartless and cruel. It should be recognized, however, as the duty of society or the state to provide some better means of securing subsistence for those who in such extreme cases find tenement house work necessary. The heavy toll through loss of health on the part of those doing such work under such conditions, and the further risk to those who make use of the articles handled and worked upon in such places, constitute a burden and a danger which should not be continued.

Actual experience has shown that under present conditions home work is a serious menace both to the workers and to the public. It has been well stated by one who has given careful thought to investigation in such directions that to make the dwelling a factory annex is an invasion of the home which should not be tolerated. The home workshop is neither a home nor a factory. The fact that the labor law of Michigan contains no provision to prevent the employment of children nor to restrict the working hours of minors or women in tenements is a lack that aggravates all the other evils connected with such work. For the children and women utilized as workers in such places the homeworkshop is a factory without a closing hour. Home work and congestion, bad ventilation and dark rooms, go hand in hand. To permit women and little children to live and work in poorly lighted, badly ventilated rooms polluted by over crowding so that the air is contaminated furnishes new recruits to the ranks of tuberculosis victims. While fully recognizing the claim and the right to do the best they can on the part of those who are unable to carry on work by the side of ablebodied men and women in factories and workshops it would appear that this claim and this right could well be recognized and fully met in some way possessing less menace to home life and to the public health than

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through the continuance and larger growth in this state of tenement house work with its very undesirable accompanying conditions and surroundings.

LIMITED HOURS OF LABOR FOR WOMEN.

While it is true that there had been on the statute books of Michigan for nine years, previous to 1909, a law limiting the hours of labor for women in certain lines of employment, the limit permitted, sixty hours per week, was such as to make it practically worthless because of the fact that few employers in the lines of service named required of their women employes such extended hours of labor. Three years ago, however, at the legislative session of 1909, an amendment to the Michigan labor law was adopted further limiting the labor for women to fiftyfour hours per week and not to exceed ten hours on any one day.

This limit refers to women employed in any factory, mill, warehouse, workshop, clothing, dress-making or millinery establishment, or any place where the manufacture of any kind of goods is carried on, or where any goods are prepared for manufacturing, or in any laundry, store, shop or mercantile establishment. It is further provided in our present law that no women under 21 years shall be allowed to clean machinery while in motion, or be employed in or about any establishment where malt or alcoholic liquors are manufactured or bottled, nor in any hazardous employment where their health may be injured or their morals depraved, nor shall women or girls be required in any employment to remain standing constantly.

Owing to the fact that some of these requirements relating to the labor of women, especially that reducing the limit of their hours of labor to fifty-four per week, was a long step in advance for Michigan efforts to enforce it met with insistent objection from some employers. To the credit of many others, however, it should be said that as soon as they learned of its enactment many employers of women and girls prepared at once to enter upon full compliance with its provisions. Information as to the law and its requirements was incidentally given by factory inspectors in the course of their annual and semi-annual visits and a more systematic effort to direct attention to the law and to secure compliance with it was made by the two women inspectors connected with the Department of Labor.

Commencing with the first of July, 1911, however, enforcement of the law limiting the hours of labor for women and the other requirements relating to the employment of women have been as vigorously enforced as the limitations of Labor Department funds would permit. An addition was made to the number of women inspectors, and visits were made by the women inspectors and by factory inspectors to the stores and mercantile establishments and factories and mills in the larger and smaller cities where women were employed, and letters and circulars calling attention to the terms of the law and urging compliance therewith were sent to the merchants and employers in the villages and more remote country districts of the state. With the completion of this work and in view of the fact that the law as now existing had been on the statute books almost three years, it was assumed that Michigan employers should be informed as to the requirements of the "fifty-four