cost and being under legal regulation and supervision, there seems to us no good reason why the State should continue to maintain the Bureau as an intelligence office for their convenience and that of their employers.

So far as obtaining work for men is concerned, the bureau has failed to be effective. The reasons for this, we believe, are not difficult to find. The labor unions are themselves great employment bureaus for their members. Private agencies for all kinds of help have increased in number and improved in efficiency. The cost of advertising in the daily papers, both for employer and employee is now very moderate, and advertising in the newspapers has become a commonly used method of getting both help and positions. Large bodies of unskilled labor are not difficult to obtain for any extensive work of improvement. The organization of occupations not classed as skilled trades into unions has taken place to a marked degree, and these organizations act as labor exchanges for their members. In view of these facts, it seems to us reasonable to believe that no serious result to any man or group of men would come if the free employment bureau were discontinued as a method for obtaining work for men.

It is possible that if a labor bureau were organized by the State on an extensive scale, with branches in all of the principal cities, it might be a factor in the labor situation of the State, but to maintain such a bureau would require a large sum of money annually and to determine its value would require several years of experiment, and as the State is face to face with immediate and pressing labor problems such as factory inspection and child labor, we would recommend that all the energies of your office be turned in that direction.

We believe, therefore, that we are justified in recommending to you that the Free Employment Bureau be discontinued on the ground that it has not become a reliance of or indispensable to any particular group of unemployed, that such discontinuance can be effected without detriment to the interests of any individual or group of individuals, and that the functions it now performs can be as well performed by private agencies. Respectfully submitted.

The statement of situations obtained, referred to in this report, did not differ much from that for the year ending September 30, 1905, contained in the report of the Free Employment Bureau, which is transmitted herewith. The following is the summary therein of all positions obtained:

STATISTICS FOR FISCAL YEAR OCTOBER 1, 1903-SEPTEMBER 30, 1904

I unqualifiedly endorse the above report, and at the same time acknowledge my obligations to the gentlemen who signed it. There is little doubt that this Bureau, as it is conducted or as it can be conducted on the scale allowed by present appropriations, is a local charity of doubtful expediency, and in practice foreign to the plan and scope of this Department.

At the time of this investigation, the New York City offices of the Department were located in a dwelling house at No. 107 East Thirty-first street, Manhattan, of which the Free Employment Bureau occupied the main floor, principally as waiting-rooms for applicants for positions, while the sub-offices of the other Bureaust were relegated to inconvenient and unsuitable quarters on the upper floors. In order to provide suitable offices for those other Bureaus, they have been moved to No. 120 East Eighteenth street, and the Free Employment Bureau has been provided with a single room adjoining. This has necessitated a change in methods, and now applicants no longer wait on the premises, but only register there, and thereafter meet prospective employers by appointment. It is believed that this change would have been advisable in any event, even had it not been necessitated by lack of space.

On October 1, 1905, Mr. John J. Bealin, for many years superintendent of this Bureau, was transferred to a new position of assistant superintendent, and Mr. Louis A. Havens, formerly a deputy factory inspector, was appointed superintendent in his place. The change was made solely because Mr. Bealin was in poor health, and it was desired to try the experiment of a younger and physically more active manager. I have, however, no faith that any material improvement can be made in the Bureau, and therefore, for the reasons set forth in the foregoing report, I recommend that it be abolished, and that its force, together with the appropriation for it, be diverted to aid the other Bureaus, and more particularly the Bureau of Factory Inspection.

It should be explained in this connection that while Article III of the Labor Law provides that Free Public Employment Bureaus should be established in all cities of the first class, yet no appropriation has ever been made for such a Bureau in any other city than New York.

A report of the operations of this Bureau for the twelve months ending September 30, 1905, is herewith transmitted (Appendix IV).

THE BUREAU OF FACTORY INSPECTION.

This Bureau is the storm center of the Department. Upon it is imposed the duty of enforcing the multitudinous provisions of

the Labor Law; and for its alleged failures it has been the target of many and severe criticisms. That it has failed at many points is confessedly true. That some of its deficiencies have been due to imperfect methods is also probably true. But it is my deliberate judgment, in which all who are familiar with the extent of its duties and its means of performing them concur, that with its present field force it is absolutely impossible for it to enforce the provisions of the law throughont the State, even to a reasonable extent, and that its office force and equipment are only to a degree less inadequate. In addition some of the provisions of the Labor Law are practically unenforceable or when enforced have not the effect of curing or abating the evils at which they were aimed. A number of suggestions as to amendments, principally of the remedial provisions of the statutes, to cure these defects, are made hereafter under the heads of the different subjects discussed.

I take pleasure in reporting that in my opinion the personnel of this Bureau is in general intelligent and willing, but regret to add my further opinion that it has been demoralized by unjust discrimination. The field force of this Bureau consists of 37 deputy factory inspectors (exclusive of one now temporarily employed), many of whom have served efficiently for years, and some of whom, at least, are of exceptional ability. Yet neither for merit nor for long service has a single deputy factory inspector been promoted or advanced in salary, while within the last five years their colleagues in the other Bureaus have received many promotions, and some of them over the heads of deputy factory inspectors of superior merit. It is not to criticise the advances in the other Bureaus that this comparison is made, but merely to point out that here is an exceptional class of public servants whose salaries are fixed by law at $1,200 a year, and upon whom the door for promotion is rigidly closed. This has had a tendency to drive the most efficient and ambitious out of the service, to discourage extra efforts and initiative, and it has undoubtedly in many instances produced demoralization of mind. if not of morals. This condition cries for immediate correction. The salaries of the deputy factory inspectors must be so graded as to permit advance for merit, if the best service is to be obtained.

A careful estimate has been made of the minimum number of deputy factory inspectors that would be necessary to reasonably perform the field duties of the Bureau, but that number is not

stated at present for the reason that the experience of the next few months, while this report is in press, may require it to be slightly modified. As above stated, there are at present 37 deputy factory inspectors, (exclusive of one temporarily employed), of whom one is assigned to mines and quarries and two necessarily to office work. This leaves 34 inspectors to inspect and enforce the law in over 35,000 factories, including bakeries, and approximately 15,000 tenements, besides investigating and prosecuting violations of the complicated provisions of Article I of the Labor Law. It is capable of mathematical demonstration that these 34 can not possibly do the work laid out for them. Five years ago there were 50, which number was then deliberately reduced while their work has since been multiplied.

Owing to this hopeless inadequacy of its field force, the Bureau of Factory Inspection has been confronted with a dilemma. If it completed its list of inspections annually, it could not stop to enforce its orders or to punish violations of the law, at least not to a proper extent. While on the other hand, if it did stop to enforce the law, it could not complete its annual inspections. The former Commissioner took the first horn of the dilemma. I have reversed the choice and have taken the latter. The State has recently been divided into districts, and the more important of these districts have been assigned each to one inspector, who is expected to inspect it thoroughly and as far as possible to enforce all the provisions of the law in it. Unfortunately it has been necessary to make these districts so large that some of them will undoubtedly prove to be too large for the capacity of any single inspector. The remaining districts will necessarily be neglected. It is confidently predicted that the results from this change of method will be a substantial improvement over those of the past. But that the Bureau should be forced to leave a large part of the field uncovered is a condition that demands immediate relief.

To add to the difficulties of stretching this small force of inspectors over the extensive territory of the State is the fact that they are liable to jury duty. I urge that these officials be placed upon the exempt list while in active service.

The office force and equipment of this Bureau were found only a little less inadequate than its field force. But its deficiencies in this respect have been partly remedied. The number of its stenographers has been doubled. Its unsuitable sub-office in New York City has been removed to convenient quarters on the second

floor of an office building at No. 120 East Eighteenth street; and its obsolete system of files and records has been replaced by a modern card system patterned after that of the Tenement House Department of New York City. For valuable advice and assistance in preparing this card system we are under obligations to Mr. Lawrence Veiller, late deputy commissioner of that department. These changes, although they involved considerable expense, were deemed of so vital importance that they were made in the face of a certain deficiency in the appropriation for office

expenses.

The offices of this Bureau in the Capitol at Albany are small and overcrowded, and its files are encumbered by masses of old and useless records, correspondence and reports which it is illegal to destroy. It is strongly urged that the Commissioner of Labor be authorized in his discretion to destroy such matter after a reasonable time after its receipt.

As before stated, the full report of this Bureau will probably be long delayed, and not be published until after it shall have lost much of its usefulness. A few summary tables of the statistics of the principal operations of the Bureau will be added hereto in the report of the First Deputy Commissioner in charge (Appendix II); but, as those statistics are not yet collated at the early date at which I am obliged to prepare the copy of this report for the printer, the following discussion of the principal, functions and duties of the Bureau of Factory Inspection must deal only with general results and round numbers without the possibility of citing many exact figures.

INSPECTION OF FACTORIES.

The primary and most important duty of the Bureau of Factory Inspection is the inspection of and the enforcement of the various provisions of the Labor Law in factories proper; that is, those manufacturing establishments operating machinery. But when I assumed office I found that this work had been almost entirely neglected during the then current year, in order to concentrate almost the entire force of deputy factory inspectors upon tenement-house work in New York City. That disposition was quickly reversed and factory inspection has been pushed for the remainder of the year with the result that nearly all important factories were once inspected. These annual inspections however do not suffice to accomplish what the law contemplates. Where