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 Conference 
 
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 Welfare Work 
 
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 Waldorf-Astoria, New York City 
 
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No. Description. 
 
 56 — System of piping to throw fresh air in the faces of 
 men working over molten metal. Previous to its in- 
 stallation the men would frequently " keel over." It 
 has greatly increased the comfort of the men and its 
 cost has been met many times by the steady output 
 insured. 
 
 57 — System for exhausting the dust from emery wheels. 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
Conference 
 
 on 
 
 Welfare Work 
 
 Held at the 
 
 Waldorf-Astoria, New York City 
 March i6, 1904 
 
 Under the Auspices of 
 
 The Welfare Department of the National 
 Civic Federation 
 
 flew H^orlt 
 
 ptC88 Of Bndrew f). tRellogg Co. 
 
 1004 
 
■(.^^ 
 
 -VV- 
 
 .■^f 
 
 Copyright, 1904 
 
 BY 
 
 Gertrude Beeks 
 
 G^mHiS^c^^ 144 
 
OF THE 
 
 .UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 np HE report of the proceedings of the first conference 
 -'' held under the auspices of the Welfare Department 
 of the National Civic Federation forms the subject mat- 
 ter of this volume. The discussion at the conference illus- 
 trated the purpose and scope of welfare work and the 
 methods of its practical application in several totally dif- 
 ferent industries. Those who took part in this discussion 
 were employers and representatives of employers who 
 had been placed in personal direction of welfare work. 
 These addresses include descriptions of efforts to better 
 the conditions under which employees work or live; 
 their value may be increased by a general view of the sub- 
 ject embraced in the term welfare work, and a presenta- 
 tion of deductions drawn from the conference. 
 
 WELFARE WORK DEFINED. 
 
 Welfare work involves especial consideration for 
 physical comfort wherever labor is performed; oppor- 
 tunities for recreation ; educational advantages ; and the 
 providing of suitable sanitary homes : its application to 
 be measured by the exigencies of the case. 
 
 FIRST ESSENTIALS STEADY WORK_, FAIR WAGES_, AND 
 REASONABLE HOURS. 
 
 The first essentials to the welfare of the employee are 
 steady work, an equitable wage, and reasonable hours of 
 labor. It is an economic truth that employment without 
 
 V 
 
 175752 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 interruption is of the first importance to the prosperity 
 of the wage earner. The employer, however exacting, 
 whose foresight and good management make steady work 
 possible is a greater benefactor than can be the em- 
 ployer, however benevolent, whose business is of spas- 
 modic activity. Hunger is only a fortnight behind the 
 average worker thrown into idleness. 
 
 The payment of the market wage creates in the mind 
 of the worker confidence in the justice and fair dealing of 
 the employer. This confidence is absolutely essential to 
 the prosecution of welfare work, which must fail when- 
 ever the workers are led to suspect that its cost is taken 
 from their wages. It is difficult to explain to employees 
 that the total cost of welfare work in any establish- 
 ment, if distributed among them, would be individually 
 an infinitesimal amount. 
 
 The relation of the hours of labor to welfare work lies 
 in their effect upon the physical health of employees and 
 in the opportunity they leave, especially where there is 
 much "overtime," for recreation and education after the 
 close of the day's work. It is recognized that, where com- 
 petition is keen, a reduction in hours can only be brought 
 about by agreement involving practically all the com- 
 petitors in a given industry. 
 
 EACH INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENT A SEPARATE PROBLEM. 
 
 It is shown that, in the application of welfare work, 
 every industrial establishment presents in itself a sepa- 
 rate problem, requiring special study. Every beginning is 
 an experiment. Every general rule has its exceptions. 
 Nevertheless, while the welfare work in any single es- 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 tablishment can not as a whole be applied to another, it 
 is demonstrated that various features can be adapted to 
 the special conditions peculiar to a particular concern. It 
 is shown also that welfare work is of value in small as 
 well as in large establishments. 
 
 SPECIAL SUPERVISION OF WELFARE WORK NECESSARY. 
 
 A general rule for all welfare work in large concerns 
 is that its successful conduct requires the employment of 
 a welfare manager. This manager should not only pos- 
 sess tact, executive ability, common sense, acquaintance 
 with local jealousies and sometimes with racial prejudices, 
 but a knowledge of industrial subjects. He must recog- 
 nize and in no way interfere with the authority of the 
 superintendents, who are responsible for the successful 
 operation of their- departments, the administration of 
 labor, and the maintaining of discipline. He must gain 
 in advance their full approval of each effort, and use 
 every proper method to enlist their full cooperation. He 
 must have the patience to endure the slow realization of 
 his plans. In time it will become evident that they are 
 for the benefit of all, of the employer and of the executive 
 chiefs as well as for the mass of employees. 
 
 Many employers would introduce welfare work into 
 their establishments were it not for the time and trouble 
 needed for its organization. The employment of a wel- 
 fare manager removes this obstacle. Successful prose- 
 cution of welfare work requires concentration of respon- 
 sibility. All of its branches must be under the super- 
 vision of one person, or efforts in different directions may 
 conflict, or special and, perhaps, pressing needs may 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 escape attention. Pressure of daily business routine 
 usually relegates welfare work to the last consideration. 
 This is another reason why in large establishments it 
 should receive the entire time and attention of one person. 
 Welfare work has sometimes been started enthusiastically, 
 but has afterward failed because there was no one person 
 to keep its operation active and apace with daily needs. 
 
 THE WELFARE MANAGER. 
 
 Scientific welfare workers at this conference objected 
 to the use of the term " Social Secretary " as descriptive 
 of their duties. The term was regarded as misleading 
 and too narrow to include the scope and responsibilities 
 of the position. It was determined to substitute " Wel- 
 fare Manager." This seemed consistent with the use 
 of the term " Welfare Work " as embracing the efforts 
 in different establishments. It further accords with the 
 designation " Welfare Department " adopted by the Na- 
 tional Civic Federation. 
 
 ACTIVE PARTICIPATION OF THE EMPLOYER REQUISITE. 
 
 The part of the employer in welfare work invites 
 special comment. His active participation and that of 
 the executive heads of the business in the work is a prime 
 requisite to its success. The employer should not ex- 
 pect demonstrations of appreciation or expressions of 
 gratitude for his fulfilment of a moral obligation. Nor 
 should he expect welfare work to avert a strike against 
 unjust conditions. The question is often asked whether 
 the employer should take the initiative in welfare work or 
 await suggestions from employees. In practice, it is 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 found that whenever an initial step is tak^n by the em- 
 ployer to meet an urgent need, abundant suggestions for 
 his consideration of further betterments will follow from 
 employees. It is essential in taking this initial step, how- 
 ever, that confidence in the employer's motive should be 
 unquestioned by the employees. 
 
 CONFIDENCE IN THE EMPLOYER'S MOTIVE. 
 
 The employer must show that his interest in the welfare 
 of the employees is genuine. In securing confidence of 
 employees at the outset of welfare work, it is necessary 
 in unionized establishments to explain its purposes to the 
 union officers; and in non-union establishments it is im- 
 portant to obtain the cooperation of selected committees 
 of the- employees. This may sometimes be promoted by 
 the printing of placards in different languages. 
 
 SHOULD NOT BE USED FOR ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The employer, it has been shown, should not pervert 
 welfare work into an advertisement for his business. 
 This impugns his motive and discredits the plan. When 
 publicity is inevitable, there should be care that the sub- 
 ject is treated in a dignified manner. 
 
 PATERNALISM AND THE DEMOCRATIC PLAN. 
 
 The spirit of welfare work must not be that of con- 
 descension, nor have the appearance of thrusting benefits 
 upon subordinates, nor rob the worker of self-respect. 
 But any effort at welfare work may be regarded as more 
 or less paternalistic. A resort to direct paternalism, 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 however, is necessary or desirable only for recent immi- 
 grants who in their native lands have been accustomed 
 to the guardianship of superior authority. Going to the 
 other extreme, in the so-called democratic idea, is also to 
 be avoided. When their confidence has been gained, em- 
 ployees will generally prefer to entrust the direction of 
 welfare work to the employer. The need of relaxation 
 and the natural impulse homeward should not be denied 
 or checked during intermissions or at the close of the 
 working day by tgo much committee work. It must be 
 borne in mind that the chief purpose of committees of 
 employees is advisory and to enlist their interest, rather 
 than to initiate or execute welfare plans. Committee 
 work is also valuable in developing among the employees 
 a spirit of helping one another. 
 
 SOME CAUSES OF FAILURE. 
 
 Especial inquiry has been made into cases of failure 
 in welfare work, in order to ascertain its causes. One 
 cause of failure has been found in its too rapid intro- 
 duction. As a general rule improvements should be 
 adopted gradually, so that the workers may become ac- 
 customed to them. For example, if an employer were 
 suddenly to erect a fine club house at an impressive ex- 
 pense, the workers might conjecture that its cost was in 
 some way to be taken out of their own pockets. If a 
 library is not patronized by employees, its failure may be 
 caused by the absence of interesting catalogues for 
 leisurely inspection in the homes, or by lack of special 
 effort to overcome diffidence in frequenting the library 
 building. Prices charged for luncheons may be too high 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 for wages in a given industry. A lunch room may not 
 be patronized because it is untidy, or unattractive, or too 
 small, or because there is no place for men to smoke. 
 Elaborate toilet facilities with cold water only and no 
 soap may be scorned for the drilling compound, which re- 
 moves oil from the hands. In brief, failures are usually 
 traceable to insufficient preliminary study of the par- 
 ticular need to be met. This study may often be for- 
 warded by enlisting the cooperation of committees of the 
 employees. There have been some failures of welfare 
 work not justly chargeable to its conduct. These have 
 been brought about by a change of management in the 
 establishments concerned, the new management showing 
 opposition to what had been done before. 
 
 PHYSICAL WELFARE OF PRIMARY IMPORTANCE. 
 
 The beginning of all welfare work must be directed 
 toward meeting the pressing necessities for the physical 
 well being of the employees in their place of work. These 
 most pressing needs are provisions for cleanliness, pure 
 drinking water, adequate toilet rooms, ventilation, light, 
 separate lockers for outdoor clothing and dressing rooms. 
 In some industries, provisions for cleanliness should in- 
 clude especial attention to the relief of men whose toil 
 induces profuse perspiration. There should be free 
 laundries for washing their working clothing. Baths will 
 be of benefit and will be much used. Ventilation in fac- 
 tories should include devices for removing dust. Much 
 suffering in such superheated places of labor as rolling 
 mills, foundries, and forge shops can be relieved at com- 
 paratively small expense, while more attention should be 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 paid to damp substructures and unnecessarily cold and 
 drafty places. Abundant light is important to cheerful- 
 ness as well as to health. 
 
 All of the details that have been specified are primary. 
 They are literally the first letters of the alphabet of wel- 
 fare work. Yet these very things, simple as they seem, are 
 of the utmost practical value to the employer. The one pro- 
 vision for cleanliness alone, for example, improves the 
 spirit of every worker as well as the health, and raises 
 the entire moral tone of the force, even improving dis- 
 cipline. Taken together, all the separate provisions that 
 have been noted have the effect of attracting to any es- 
 tablishment a higher and more constant class of labor. 
 Workers everywhere enjoy and will seek improvements 
 in the surroundings in their hours of toil. 
 
 A further step toward physical welfare of employees 
 is the establishment of lunch rooms. The importance of 
 the midday meal to health and vigor is obvious. Any 
 establishment should at least provide a place to keep from 
 spoiling or drying the prepared food brought from home. 
 A still further step will be care for the sick and injured. 
 It is but humane to furnish a couch on which a prostrated 
 woman may be restored, instead of permitting her to lie 
 on the floor or on two chairs. Wherever serious accidents 
 in a factory are likely to occur, a doctor should be con- 
 tinually present. Under this head also would fall the 
 guarding of machinery. 
 
 PROTECTION FOR WOMEN WORKERS. 
 
 In applying these primary beginnings of any system of 
 welfare work, several moral questions are encountered. 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 In factories where both men and women are employed, 
 it is desirable, though unfortunately not always possible, 
 to separate by a period of three or five minutes their 
 times for beginning and quitting work. This simple pre- 
 caution for the protection of the feminine element among 
 the employees of any large establishment has the eifect of 
 preserving respect for womanhood. Experience shows that, 
 where this system prevails, the establishments soon acquire 
 a higher tone. An additional protection is the employ- 
 ment of a matron, who will also be a confidential adviser 
 and render temporary relief in cases of illness. When the 
 general morale of a factory is not in good repute, it is 
 difficult for the employer to induce desirable working- 
 women to accept employment. 
 
 RECREATION. 
 
 After providing for immediate physical needs, the 
 recreation of employees is the next step in welfare work. 
 Here again the peculiarities of individual establishments 
 must be considered. A gymnasium, for example, would 
 be desirable only in establishments where the work is 
 more or less sedentary, so that the employees are in need 
 of exercise, or for the young men and women employed 
 in factories. A gymnasium would be superfluous in a 
 place where the work itself involved severe bodily ex- 
 ertion. Athletics, both indoor and outdoor, are highly de- 
 sirable. They may involve organizations. In large es- 
 tablishments, the plan of recreation may include a club 
 house, with rooms for dancing, entertaining, and for 
 games. The entertainments may include music and, per- 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 haps, lectures, which approach a further development 
 of welfare work — that looking to the education of em- 
 ployees. 
 
 EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS. 
 
 The possibility of extending welfare work to the educa- 
 tion of employees is contingent upon the hours of labor. 
 A scheme of education may begin with technical classes 
 for the younger men, and may include instruction de- 
 signed to replace the loss of earlier schooling. Women 
 employees may be taught to help themselves in such 
 ways as in millinery, dressmaking, cooking, and all 
 household affairs; and in some pursuits they may also 
 profitably receive technical instruction. In a large set- 
 tlement a kindergarten may be provided. The instruc- 
 tion of children becomes a direct contribution to better 
 citizenship when the parents employed are largely immi- 
 grants. A company may publish with advantage a 
 periodical in the several tongues used by the workers. 
 Sometimes an establishment may be so large that its plan 
 of education may come into cooperation with the muni- 
 cipality, or may even assume all the functions ordinarily 
 performed through municipal agencies. This has been 
 the case in towns which have been created for the in- 
 dustry, where the company has been obliged to provide 
 public schools as well as churches and social halls. 
 
 HOMES OF EMPLOYEES. 
 
 Welfare work concerns itself also with the housing 
 of employees. The two purposes to be kept in mind in 
 this branch of the work are the health and the self-respect 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 of the employee. The reflex social and moral influence 
 upon the people of a community in encouraging attractive 
 home-making is of far-reaching consequence. A system 
 must command admiration and approval that began the 
 creation of an industrial center with a drainage system, 
 a supply of pure water, paving and curbing, and other 
 public works, not a lot being sold or a house built until 
 after these safeguards of health had been provided. The 
 same plan included a system for saving and lending money 
 that enabled a majority of the employees to own attractive 
 homes. 
 
 PLANS FOR SAVING AND LENDING MONEY. 
 
 Mutual plans for saving and lending money have 
 proved highly beneficial to employees, through protecting 
 them in times of stress against the extortions of the 
 " money-shark." 
 
 INSURANCE AND PENSIONS. 
 
 Beneficial societies are quite commonly included in wel- 
 fare work. Both compulsory and voluntary organiza- 
 tions of this character, as well as several pension plans, 
 are discussed. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The photographic views in this volume are intended to 
 illustrate not alone the topics discussed in the conference, 
 but also other efforts to better the conditions of employees. 
 They are but a limited selection from a large collection. 
 The photographs contributed by any one of several large 
 establishments would have sufficed to illustrate the most 
 important features of welfare work. 
 
 Gertrude Seeks, Secretary. 
 
No. Description. 
 
 60 — Men's Club House in a mining district. 
 
 61 — Sitting-room in men's club house, showing the bar. 
 In this mining district an experiment is being made 
 to combat evil outside influences. Club houses with 
 bars have been provided in three camps. In one soft 
 drinks only are sold. In another, the privileges of 
 the bar are leased to the man in charge, with the 
 understanding that he may be dismissed for breach 
 of contract. In the third, liquors of all kinds are 
 sold, the highest prices being charged for the strong 
 drinks and cheap rates for those containing less alco- 
 hol. No treating is permitted at this place. 
 
 xvi 
 
OF THE 
 
 or 
 .'UFORN^ 
 
Welfare Department 
 The 
 
 National Civic Federation 
 
 Headquarters 
 281 Fourth Avenue, New York 
 
 OFFICERS. 
 
 H. H. VREELAND, Chairman 
 CYRUS H. McCORMICK, ist Vice-Chairman 
 JOHN H. PATTERSON, 2d Vice-Chairman 
 EDWARD A. FILENE, 3d Vice-Chairman 
 CORNELIUS N. BLISS, Treasurer 
 
 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
 
 George W. Brown (Treasurer United Shoe Machinery Com- 
 pany), Boston, Mass. 
 
 G. E. Emmons (Manager Schenectady Works General Electric 
 Company), Schenectady, N. Y. 
 
 Edward A. Filene (Treasurer William Filene's Sons Company), 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 F. S. Fish (Chairman Executive Committee Studebaker Manu- 
 
 facturing Company), South Bend, Ind. 
 W. C Fish (Manager Lynn Works General Electric Company), 
 West Lynn, Mass. 
 
 G. Watson French (President Bettendorf Metal Wheel Com- 
 
 pany), Davenport, Iowa. 
 
 Orrin S. Goan (Manager National Biscuit Company), New York 
 City. 
 
 William C Greene (Treasurer Peace Dale Manufacturing Com- 
 pany), Peace Dale, R. I. 
 
 B. J. Greenhut (Treasurer Siegel-Cooper Company), New York 
 City. 
 
 xvii 
 
F. R. Hazard (President The Solvay Process Company), Syra- 
 cuse, N. Y. 
 
 H. J. Heinz (President H. J. Heinz Company), Pittsburg, Pa. 
 
 Edwin M. Herr (Vice-President Westinghouse Air Brake Co.), 
 Wilmerding, Pa. 
 
 Charles W. Hubbard (Treasurer Ludlow Manufacturing 
 Associates), Boston, Mass. 
 
 Charles H. Hulburd (President Elgin National Watch Com- 
 pany), Chicago, 111. 
 
 John S. Huyler (President Huyler's), New York City. 
 
 M. E. Ingalls (President C, C, C, & St. L. Ry. Co.), Cin- 
 cinnati, Ohio. 
 
 John F. P. Lawton (Assistant Treasurer and Secretary Gorham 
 Manufacturing Company of Rhode Island), Providence, 
 R. I. 
 
 Warner M. Leeds (Vice-President American Sheet and Tin 
 Plate Company), Pittsburg, Pa. 
 
 Arthur T. Lyman (Treasurer The Boston Manufacturing Com- 
 pany), Boston, Mass. 
 
 W. G. Mather (President Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company), 
 Qeveland, Ohio. 
 
 Cyrus H. McCormick (President International Harvester Com- 
 pany), Chicago. 111. 
 
 L. A. Osborne (Vice-President Westinghouse Electric and Manu- 
 facturing Company), East Pittsburg. Pa. 
 
 John H. Patterson (President National Cash Register Com- 
 pany), Dayton, Ohio. 
 
 H. D. Perky (President Natural Food Company), Niagara 
 Falls, N. Y. 
 
 A. J. Pitkin (President American Locomotive Company), New 
 York, N. Y. 
 
 Ellison A. Smyth (President Pelzer Manufacturing Company), 
 Pelzer, S. C. 
 
 Nathan Straus (R. H. Macy & Company), New York City. 
 
 H. H. Vreeland (President New York City Railway Company), 
 New York City. 
 
 Ralph M. Easley (Chairman Executive Council, National Civic 
 Federation), New York City. 
 
 xvm 
 
Members 
 
 of the 
 
 Welfare Department 
 
 Edgar E. Adams (The Cleveland Hardware Company), Cleve- 
 land, Ohio. 
 
 John J. Amory (President Gas Engine and Power Company 
 and Charles L. Seabury Company), New York City. 
 
 D. M. Anderson (General Manager St. Regis and Taggarts Paper 
 Companies), Watertown, N. Y. 
 
 R. D. Apperson (President Lynchburg Traction and Light Com- 
 pany), Lynchburg, Va. 
 
 Newton D. Arnold (Treasurer Rumford Chemical Works), 
 Providence, R. L 
 
 A. S. Baker (President Baker Manufacturing Company), Evans- 
 vUle, Wis. 
 
 L. K. Baker (Secretary and Treasurer J. S. Stearns Lumber 
 Company), Odanah, Wis. 
 
 F. C. Ball (President Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Com- 
 pany), Muncie, Ind. 
 
 S. Thurston Ballard (Secretary Ballard & Ballard Company), 
 Louisville, Ky.- 
 
 George H. Barbour (Vice-President and General Manager The 
 Michigan Stove Company), Detroit, Mich.. 
 
 George W. Brown (Treasurer United Shoe Machinery Com- 
 pany), Boston, Mass. 
 
 Wn^LiAM BuTTERWORTH (Treasurer Deere & Company), Mo- 
 line, 111. 
 
 C. A. Chase (President Syracuse Chilled Plow Company), 
 Syracuse, N. Y. 
 
 Frederic S. Clark (Treasurer Talbot Mills), North Billerica, 
 Mass. 
 
 W. L. Clause (President Columbia Chemical Company), Pitts- 
 burg, Pa. 
 
 J. H. Cummings (Vice-President John B. Stetson Company), 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 H. R. Dalton, Jr. (Treasurer and Manager Chapman Valve 
 Manufacturing Company), Indian Orchard, Mass. 
 
 xix 
 
H. J. Davies (Secretary The Cleveland Electric Railway Com- 
 pany), Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 Thomas Devlin (President Thomas Devlin Manufacturing 
 Company), Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 J. H. DoRT (President Durant-Dort Carriage Company), Flint, 
 Mich. 
 
 Ralph M. Easley (Chairman Executive Council, National Civic 
 Federation), New York City. 
 
 George R. Elder (Manager The Ingersoll-Sergeant Drill Com- 
 pany), Easton, Pa. 
 
 G. E. Emmons (Manager Schenectady Works General Electric 
 Company), Schenectady, N. Y. 
 
 Wn^LiAM R. Farrand (General Manager Farrand Organ Com- 
 pany), Detroit, Mich. 
 
 Maurice Eels (Eels & Company), Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Edward A. Filene (Treasurer William Filene's Sons Company), 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 F. S. Fish (Chairman Executive Committee Studebaker Bros. 
 
 Manufacturing Company), South Bend, Ind. 
 
 W. C. Fish (Manager Lynn Works, General Electric Company), 
 West Lynn, Mass. 
 
 Frederick C. Fletcher (Treasurer Pocasset Worsted Company), 
 Providence, R. I. 
 
 J. H. Ford (Secretary and General Manager The Alaska Re- 
 frigerator Company), Muskegon, Mich. 
 
 G. Watson French (President Bettendorf Metal Wheel Com- 
 
 pany), Davenport, Iowa. 
 
 Harry B. French (Vice-President Smith, Kline & French Com- 
 pany), Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Arthur A. Fuller (Superintendent Providence Engineering 
 Works), Providence, R. I. 
 
 Arthur E. Gilbert (General Manager Red Cliff Lumber Com- 
 pany), Superior, Wis. 
 
 Orrin S. C^an (Manager National Biscuit Company), New 
 York City. 
 
 H. B. Graves (H. B. Graves' Home Furnishing House), Ro- 
 chester, N. Y. 
 
 H. B. Graves (Secretary and Treasurer The Standard Optical 
 Company), Geneva, N. Y. 
 
 William C. Greene (Treasurer Peace Dale Manufacturing Com- 
 pany), Peace Dale, R. L 
 
 B. J. C^reenhut (Treasurer Siegel-Cooper Company), New York 
 City. 
 
 J. B. Green HUT (President Siegel-Cooper Co.), New York City. 
 
 George H. Harris (Vice-President Washington Railway and 
 Electric Company), Washington, D. C. 
 
 ^X 
 
H. Gilbert Hart (President Hart and Grouse Gompany), Utica, 
 N. Y. 
 
 F. R. Hazard (President The Solvay Process Gompany), Syra- 
 
 cuse, N. Y. 
 
 H. J. Heinz (President H. J. Heinz Gompany), Pittsburg, Pa. 
 
 Edwin M. Herr (Vice-President Westinghouse Air Brake Gom- 
 pany), Wilmerding, Pa. 
 
 Gharles W. Hubbard (Treasurer Ludlow Manufacturing 
 Associates), Boston, Mass. 
 
 Gharles H. Hulburd (President Elgin National Watch Gom- 
 pany), Ghicago, 111. 
 
 John S. Huyler (President Huyler's), New York Gity. 
 
 M. E. Ingalls (President G, G., G, & St. L. Ry. Co.), Gin- 
 cinnati, Ohio. 
 
 Dexter S. Kimball (Manager Stanley Electric Manufacturing 
 Gompany), Pittsfield, Mass. 
 
 John F. P. Lawton (Assistant Treasurer and Secretary, Gor- 
 ham Manufacturing Gompany of Rhode Island), Provi- 
 dence, R. I. 
 
 Thomas B. Laycock (Secretary and Treasurer The T. B. Lay- 
 cock Manufacturing Gompany), Indianapolis, Ind. 
 
 Warner M. Leeds (Vice-President American Sheet and Tin Plate 
 Gompany), Pittsburg, Pa. 
 
 William W. Lobdell (President Lobdell Gar Wheel Go.), Wil- 
 n^ngton, Del. 
 
 W. N. LocKwooD (Treasurer Davidson Rubber Gompany), Bos- 
 ton, Mass. 
 
 G. H. Ludington, Jr. (Secretary and Treasurer The Gurtis Pub- 
 
 lishing Gompany), Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Arthur T. Lyman (Treasurer The Boston Manufacturing Gom- 
 pany), Boston^ Mass. 
 
 V. Everit Macy (Capitalist), New York Gity. 
 
 Samuel Mather (Pickands, Mather & Gompany), Gleveland, 
 Ohio. 
 
 W. G. Mather (President Gleveland Gliflfs Iron Gompany), 
 Gleveland, Ohio. 
 
 Gyrus H. McGormick (President International Harvester Gom- 
 pany), Ghicago, 111. 
 
 T. H. Mc Innerney (Siegel-Gooper Gompany), New York Gity. 
 
 H. E. Miles (President Racine-Stattley Company), Racine, Wis. 
 
 Ira M. Miller (Secretary and Treasurer The Aultman & Miller 
 Buckeye Gompany), Akron, Ohio. 
 
 William Miller (Henry Disston & Sons), Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Stephen Morris (Secretary Merritt & Company), Philadelphia, 
 Pa. 
 
 Everitt Morss (President The Simplex Electrical Company), 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 XXI 
 
W. H. MouLTON (The Osborn Manufacturing Company), Cleve- 
 land, Ohio. 
 
 N. O. Nelson (N. O. Nelson Manufacturing Company), Ed- 
 wardsville, 111. 
 
 L. A. Osborne (Vice-President Westinghouse Electric and Manu- 
 facturing Company), East Pittsburg, Pa. 
 
 Charles T. Page (Treasurer Page Belting Company), Concord, 
 N. H. 
 
 Thomas F. Parker (President Monaghan Mills), Greenville, 
 S. C 
 
 H. B. Parsons (Vice-President Wells Fargo & Company), New 
 York City. 
 
 John H. •Patterson (President National Cash Register Com- 
 pany), Dayton, Ohio. 
 
 Ludington Patton (Secretary and Treasurer Patton Paint Com- 
 pany), Milwaukee, Wis. 
 
 H. D. Perky (President Natural Food Company), Niagara Falls, 
 N. Y. 
 
 A. J. Pitkin (President American Locomotive Company), New 
 York, N. Y. 
 
 Thomas G. Plant (President Thomas G. Plant Company), 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Albert L. Pope (Vice-President Pope Manufacturing Company), 
 New York. 
 
 M. A. Potter (Treasurer E. C. Atkins & Company), Indian- 
 apolis, Ind. 
 
 W. H. Pouch (Vice-President Orange County Traction Com- 
 pany), Newburgh, N. Y. 
 
 W. M. Pratt (Treasurer Goodell-Pratt Company), Greenfield, 
 Mass. 
 
 H. G. PROUT (Vice-President and General Manager The Union 
 Switch and Signal Company), Swissvale, Pa. 
 
 A. G. Renau (Superintendent B. F. Avery & Sons), Louis- 
 
 ville, Ky. 
 
 B. J. RiCKER (Morrison, Mcintosh & Company), Grinnell, Iowa. 
 J. D. Robinson (Secretary The Libbey Glass Company), Toledo, 
 
 Ohio. 
 
 Charles D. Rood (President Hamilton Watch Company), 
 Lancaster, Pa. 
 
 James T. Sargent (General Manager The American Washboard 
 Company), Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 Max Scheuer (S. Scheuer & Sons), New York City. 
 
 George D. Selby (President The Drew-Selby Company), Ports- 
 mouth, Ohio. 
 
 G. W. Slingerland (General Superintendent American Express 
 Compjiny), New York City. 
 
 xxii 
 
Irving Smith (President The Crescent Watch Case Company), 
 
 New York City: 
 Ellison A. Smyth (President Pelzer Manufacturing Company), 
 
 Pelzer, S. C 
 Frank C. Spinney (Faunce & Spinney), Lynn, Mass. 
 
 C. L. M. Stark (Secretary North American Watch Company), 
 
 Mansfield, Ohio. 
 
 E. C. Stearns (President E. C. Stearns & Company), Syracuse, 
 
 N. Y. 
 Nathan Straus (R. H. Macy & Company), New York City. 
 J. G. Taylor (Treasurer Hampshire Paper Company), South 
 
 Hadley Falls, Mass. 
 
 D. E. Titsworth (Secretary and Manager Potter Printing Press 
 
 Company), Plainfield, N. J. 
 
 F. G. TowNE (Treasurer National Blank Book Company), Holy- 
 
 oke, Mass. 
 
 Leonard Tufts (Manager American Soda Fountain Company), 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Charles J. Vopicka (Atlas Brewing Company), Chicago, 111. 
 
 H. H. Vreeland (President New York City Railway Company), 
 New York City. 
 
 A. W. Walker (President Walker & Pratt Manufacturing Com- 
 pany), Boston, Mass. 
 
 V. A. Wallin (Treasurer Wallin Leather Company), Grand 
 Rapids, Mich. 
 
 William C. Warren (Superintendent S. L. Allen & Company), 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 J. H. Whiting (President Whiting Foundry Equipment Com- 
 pany), Harvey, 111. 
 
 J. H. Williams (President J. H. WilHams & Company), Brook- 
 lyn, N. Y. 
 
 P. H. WiTHtNGTON (President Withington & Cooley Manufac- 
 turing Company), Jackson, Mich. 
 
 Frank F. Woods (Treasurer S. A. Woods Machine Company), 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 L. A. Woodward (Manager The William Todd Company), 
 Youngstown, Ohio. 
 
 XXlll 
 
No. Description. 
 
 43 — Gymnasium in a factory used alternately by men and 
 women in classes of sixty each. 
 
 44 — Sixty shower baths connected with factory gym- 
 nasium, one hundred twenty dressing-rooms being 
 adjacent. 
 
 XXIV 
 
-•- THE -^^ 
 
 tRsfry 
 
 or 
 i^(fPRNlA 
 
SCOPE AND PURPOSE. 
 
 THE PURPOSE OF THE WELFARE DEPARTMENT SHALL BE: 
 
 (i) To educate the public as to the real meaning and 
 value of welfare work, which is understood to be any 
 effort on the part of the employer, working with the em- 
 ployees, to better the conditions of the latter. 
 
 (2) To interest employers not engaged in welfare 
 work, by emphasizing their moral obligation to give con- 
 sideration to the general welfare of their employees. 
 
 (3) To maintain a central bureau, for the exchange of 
 experiences by employers actually engaged in welfare 
 work, a special feature being the report of failures and 
 their causes ; and for the collection of data, reading mat- 
 ter, and illustrations for the benefit of all inquiring em- 
 ployers. 
 
 PLAN OF WORK. 
 
 i. conferences. 
 
 Promote : 
 
 I. Conferences of employers for the discussion of the 
 following and kindred subjects : 
 
 General policy to be pursued in installing and main- 
 taining welfare work. 
 Sanitary Work Rooms. 
 Wash Rooms and Baths. 
 Hospital Service. 
 The Luncheon Room. 
 
 XXV 
 
Recreation. 
 
 Educational Efforts. 
 
 Housing of Labor (City and Country Mills). 
 
 2. Public Conferences. 
 
 3. Conferences of Welfare Managers. 
 
 II. DIRECT EFFORTS WITH EMPLOYERS. 
 
 Issue letters to employers enclosing plan of work and 
 announcing that, upon request, a consulting agent will be 
 furnished to study the especial needs of employees in a 
 given plant, advise the best methods of introducing such 
 features as may be deemed most essential, direct the in- 
 stalling of same, and, when required, recommend a per- 
 manent agent or welfare manager. 
 
 III. BUREAU OF EXCHANGE. 
 
 Issue requests to employers promoting welfare work, 
 for information relative to their especial successes and 
 failures, to be furnished upon application (without names, 
 if so stipulated) to those similarly situated who desire to 
 profit by their experience. 
 
 xxvi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 ADDRESSES MADE AT THE CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK, HELD 
 MARCH l6, 1904, AT THE WALDORF-ASTORIA, NEW YORK CITY 
 
 PAGE 
 
 H. H. Vreeland, Chairman Welfare Department, National 
 
 Civic Federation, Opening Address i 
 
 W. E. C. Nazro, the Plymouth Cordage Company 3 
 
 Miss Diana Hirschler, William Filene's Sons Company 26 
 
 W. G. Mather, Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company 40 
 
 E. M. Herr, Westinghouse Air Brake Company 47 
 
 O. F. Humphreys, Patton Paint Company 54 
 
 J. E. Stevens, Ludlow Manufacturing Associates 60 
 
 C. C. Michener, Industrial Department of the International 
 
 Committee, Young Men's Christian Association 'j'j 
 
 J. F. P. Lawton, Gorham Manufacturing Company 94 
 
 Louis Krumbhaar, Solvay Process Company 102 
 
 Mrs, Isabelle F. Nye, the Siegel-Cooper Company 105 
 
 Miss Elizabeth C. Wheeler, the Shepard Company 112 
 
 Dexter S. Kimball, Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company. 114 
 
 John H. Patterson, National Cash Register Company 118 
 
 D. E. Tits worth, Potter Printing Press Company 125 
 
 General Discussion 125 
 
 W. B. Albright, Sherwin Williams Company 131 
 
 E. A. Stedman, Wells Fargo Company 134 
 
 H. H. Vreeland, New York City Railway Company 138 
 
 E. F. Olmsted, Natural Food Company 150 
 
 Miss Anna B. Doughten, the Curtis Publishing Company 163 
 
 Mrs. M. Louise Hynson, John Wanamaker Philadelphia 
 
 Store 167 
 
 N. W. Cease, American Locomotive Company 167 
 
 H. H. Vreeland, Closing Address 173 
 
 xxvii 
 
xxviii CONTENTS. 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 L. A, Osborne, Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing 
 
 Company 175 
 
 Louis Krumbhaar, the Solvay Process Company 185 
 
 Partial List of Participants 197 
 
 Index 201 
 
Conference on Welfare Work 
 
 March i6, 1904 
 
 MORNING SESSION. 
 
 Mr. H. H. Vreeland, Chairman of the Welfare De- 
 partment of the National Civic Federation, in opening the 
 meeting, said : 
 
 Believing that its efforts to better the relations between 
 employers and employees would be materially aided by 
 the promotion of what is called *' Welfare Work," the 
 National Civic Federation recently authorized the organi- 
 zation of a department for that purpose. 
 
 The first meeting of the committee appointed to 
 organize the Welfare Department was held in January, 
 and largjely attended by the representative employers from 
 various sections of the country who compose the com- 
 mittee. It developed that it was the first time that em- 
 ployers who were giving especial consideration to the 
 welfare of their employees had been brought together, 
 and that each one had an idea that this welfare work 
 was an individual effort on his part in his particular 
 locality, and that he was rather like the mole groping in 
 a dark passage, and when he came to the light he found 
 that he was not '' it," but that there was a great deal of 
 this work being done throughout the United States, both 
 by corporations and individuals. An entire day was given 
 to an exchange of experiences and the discussion of 
 methods for installing welfare work, and such great in- 
 terest was taken in the discussion that no effort was made 
 to organize that day, an adjournment being taken for one 
 month. 
 
2 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 At the second meeting there was even a larger at- 
 tendance, and the different portions of the country were 
 more widely represented. The interest and enthusiasm 
 of the first meeting were duplicated at this time, and, as 
 these discussions developed invaluable information, it was 
 decided to incorporate in the plan of work the idea of 
 holding different kinds of conferences for the discussion 
 of this subject. The idea of holding such a conference 
 as this was to get the experience of those directly en- 
 gaged in the practical working out of these questions 
 throughout the United States, so that we could get a 
 concrete foundation for our work. Employers were, 
 therefore, invited to send their representatives (who 
 have, in a few instances, been called " Social Secre- 
 taries ") engaged in any effort to better the conditions of 
 their employees; and it is that, as well as the fact that 
 employers, who have direct supervision of their welfare 
 work, accepted the invitation, which has given us this 
 large and representative gathering. 
 
 As I have said, our Welfare Department is only a 
 recent organization, and the object of this conference, as 
 I understand it, is to have a sort of experience meeting, 
 which will form the basis for future work and help us 
 to determine what trend our efforts should take. 
 
 We know what we have done along this line indi- 
 vidually, but not collectively from the standpoint of the 
 employer and the corporation. I understand there are 
 those present who are prepared to give their experiences 
 and a general talk on this proposition, and the Chairman 
 will take no more of the time of the meeting, for the 
 greater part of the day would be required to describe 
 what has occurred in connection with this movement. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 3 
 
 . :Mr. W. E. C. Nazro, who has charge of the welfare 
 work of the Plymouth Cordage Company, at North Ply- 
 mouth, Mass., will address the meeting. 
 
 Mr. Nazro : While in making the opening speech I am 
 expected to limit my talk to a description of our welfare 
 work, there are several points in connection with the con- 
 duct of this work which I shall first call to your attention. 
 I feel that the work is yet young with the Company, as 
 we have only been carrying it on five years ; but one thing 
 that every person interested in establishing this work 
 should consider is that the methods employed by 
 one can not always be adopted by others. Each has a 
 different problem. That problem requires careful study. 
 One should look into the work that is being done by other 
 concerns^ and take those points which can be adapted to 
 the special problem. 
 
 Each mill also has its different class of workmen ; some 
 work requires skilled labor, while other work requires 
 unskilled labor. Some concerns employ people who are 
 educated, while others employ those who have - just 
 arrived in this country, and are unable to speak our lan- 
 guage, which makes them incompetent to enter the work 
 to any extent. It is well, however, in developing the 
 problem, to bring the people as much as possible into the 
 work; of course, how much depends entirely upon local 
 conditions. 
 
 I think that many have made a mistake by giving the 
 employees advantages too quickly in developing the 
 work. In my opinion, the work should be introduced 
 slowly, a little each year, and it should grow in magni- 
 tude as the business grows. It should not be launched 
 
4 . CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 in every detail at once, although it is always well, when 
 considering the problem one is developing, to bear in mind 
 the plan as it will be when it is completed, introducing 
 this step by step as the employees are ready to receive it. 
 
 In large business houses or manufacturing plants, it is 
 impossible for the officials to give the time necessary to 
 the management of welfare work. A study of the needs 
 of the employees and the plans to meet them can only be 
 successfully carried out by one who can give his entire 
 time to the work. Not only that, but it requires a person 
 of somewhat different temperament from that necessary 
 for other departments of the business. 
 
 The problem that we have to deal with is that of the 
 mill town. Naturally, when welfare work is introduced 
 by the manufacturer in a city mill, somewhat different 
 lines must be pursued. 
 
 The Plymouth Cordage Company, situated about 
 two miles from the historic town of Pilgrim fame, has 
 many natural advantages for the development of indus- 
 trial betterment. These advantages, however, unless care- 
 fully considered — as they have been — would never have 
 had that charming beauty and simplicity that they now 
 possess. 
 
 The officers of the Company saw these advantages 
 several years ago and determined to start upon a plan 
 for the development of the surroundings. Not only did 
 they consider the development of the property, but also 
 that of the twelve hundred employees. The advantages 
 which then existed for the development of their physical 
 and mental activity were few. There was a decided lack 
 of social life, there being nothing to create interest out- 
 side of the mill life, which is necessarily narrowing. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 5 
 
 It was our desire to change these conditions of the 
 employees: to educate them; to teach the boys and girls 
 to help themselves; to direct them, through a library, to 
 the higher education; to show them how to better their 
 surroundings and appreciate the higher ideals and beauties 
 of life. As many of the employees are foreigners, it is 
 our aim to educate them in American ways, with the hope 
 of making them better citizens and bettering their con- 
 dition at the same time. 
 
 THE MILL. 
 
 Naturally the first place that we looked into and 
 changed was the mill where the employees spent most 
 of their time. The surroundings were carefully con- 
 sidered 4n the erection of a new mill that was, at that 
 time, in process of construction. 
 
 TOILET FACILITIES. 
 
 First, the best sanitary appliances were put in, and all 
 toilet rooms were finished with asphalt floors, the side 
 walls were lined with white enamel brick, all plumbing 
 being exposed, which gave us a toilet room that was easily 
 kept clean. 
 
 VENTILATION. 
 
 With good sanitary conditions, the next point was that 
 of fresh air. A modern system of ventilation was in- 
 stalled. Through this system the air is taken from out- 
 doors by large fans, and, in winter, is forced over coils 
 of steam piping. When heated, the air is forced through 
 
6 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 ducts to the different floors above. The windows are 
 dropped at the top and the bad air has a chance to get 
 out, thus making a complete system of ventilation. 
 During the summer months the air is taken from out- 
 doors by the same system, but, of course, it does not pass 
 over steam pipes. The mill thus ventilated in summer is 
 from three to four degrees cooler than our No. i mill, 
 where the system is not installed. In rooms where dust 
 or fumes accrue, they are removed by a system of ex- 
 haust fans that helps materially to keep the air clean and 
 pure. 
 
 SEATS FOR WOMEN OPERATIVES. 
 
 The young women's work is made as comfortable as 
 possible for them, and they are allowed stools which they 
 may use when they are a little tired, or when the char- 
 acter of the work does not necessitate their standing. 
 
 DRINKING WATER. 
 
 The drinking water is obtained from springs situated 
 about the mills, and every precaution is taken to have it 
 free from any pollution, the water being tested at in- 
 terv^als to guard against any chances of sickness from this 
 source. 
 
 THE MILL ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 How many times, as one travels about, mills may be 
 seen whose surroundings are anything but attractive ! Old 
 tin cans strewed here and there, old rags, bottles and ma- 
 terial piled in a loose fashion. One could easily imagine 
 what the homes of the people would be after Hying amicj 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 7 
 
 such surroundings all day. After all, one's environment 
 has a great deal to do with one's, character. So the old 
 muddy roads that once surrounded the mills have been 
 macadamized, lawns created, shrubbery planted, vines 
 started around the mills, and the whole environment has 
 been changed until it is now attractive to the eye. 
 
 It was interesting to see, after the development had 
 started, the exact influence created. It was, however, 
 as we expected it would be. The employees took home 
 with them the lessons we were endeavoring to teach. 
 They started to fix up their own grounds ; walks that had 
 never seen the edging-knife were edged, and lawns were 
 carefully cut, which at once began to lend an entirely 
 different character to the homes of the employees. 
 
 HOUSING. 
 
 The Company at this time possessed several tenement 
 houses, which contained tenements in groups of four 
 and eight under one roof. These tenements con- 
 tain a living-room 9 ft. 11 in. x 12 ft. i in.; kitchen 13 
 ft. 8 in. X 14 ft. 5 in., with entry 5 ft. 7 in. x 9 ft. 6 in. ; 
 two rooms 12 ft. i in. x 15 ft. and 14 ft. 5 in. x 15 ft., 
 both with large closets. The houses set within five feet 
 from the road, allowing only a small front yard. Each 
 house is allotted a garden, where, during the summer, the 
 employees may raise their own vegetables. The only 
 plumbing in the house is that of one sink in the small 
 entry. These houses rent from $1.50 to $1.75 per week. 
 
 With the building of new houses the old type was dis- 
 carded, and the new tract of land which was bought was 
 
No. Description. 
 
 32 — Library building in a factory community. 
 
 33 — Interior view library building. 
 
 34 — Houses rented to employees. 
 
 35, 36, 37, 38 — Views of bathing beach in the same com- 
 munity. 
 
OF THE 
 
 iVERSITY 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 9 
 
 divided into lots about one hundred feet wide and one 
 hundred fifty feet deep. 
 
 Two-family houses were then built, along more modern 
 lines, the cottage effect being borne in mind as much 
 as possible. These are far more picturesque than the old 
 tenements, and lend themselves to more individual treat- 
 ment which may be made more expressive of the char- 
 acter of the dwellers. These houses contain on the first 
 floor, kitchen, 13 ft. 2 in. x 16 ft. 6 in. ; parlor, 10 ft. x 12 
 ft. 6 in.; dining-room, 11 ft. I in. x 12 ft. 3 in., and bath- 
 room 5 ft. X 7 ft. Upstairs one type has four bedrooms, 
 another three, and another two. These houses set about 
 thirty feet from the road, giving thefn sufficient lawn in 
 front which lends itself to adornment with flower beds or 
 shrubbery. In the rear of the house are the garden and 
 also henyards, with ample space next to the house for 
 the clothes-yard. The houses are built of wood, and 
 shingled. They range in price from $1.90 to $2.50 a 
 week. 
 
 We are at present building a few houses along these 
 lines which' we can rent at about the same price as the 
 old tenement blocks — $1.50 to $1.75 per week. 
 
 The Company does a certain amount toward fixing up 
 the surroundings, and attends to the removal of ashes and 
 garbage, but it believes in simply helping the tenants to 
 carry out their individual desires and tastes in regard to 
 flower beds and the distribution of shrubbery. The Com- 
 pany has only houses to rent. The employees who own 
 their own houses have either bought them from outside 
 parties or built them themselves. 
 
lo CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 LIBRARY. 
 
 Situated on a hill overlooking the houses and the mill 
 is the Loring Reading Room, which was presented to the 
 Company by Mr. Augustus P. Loring, our President, as 
 a memorial to his father, Caleb William Loring, who held 
 the office before him. 
 
 The Library has been of great benefit to the community. 
 The children were allowed during the first year, 1900- 
 1901, to come both afternoons and evenings. This plan 
 was changed the next year, the children being allowed 
 only afternoons. This resulted in an increase in adult 
 attendance and decrease in that of the children. The 
 Library contains about 4,000 volumes of fiction, history, 
 and travel. 
 
 It is in charge of a trained librarian and assistant. The 
 librarian spends part of the time visiting the people and 
 the schools to help and cooperate with them in their work. 
 Books are sent to the sick ; also books which are not con- 
 tained in the Library may be procured from the Ply- 
 mouth Library through the librarian. 
 
 LUNCHEON AND SOCIAL HALL. 
 
 As we leave the Library, a little further down the hill 
 is* situated Harris Hall, which bears the name of the 
 partial giver of the hall, Mr. Edward K. Harris, in 
 memory of Mr. James Harris, a director of the Com- 
 pany and its treasurer from 1834- 1837. 
 
 This is used for a dining-hall as well as for social 
 gatherings of different kinds. About three years ago 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. ii 
 
 there was a call for hot coffee and tea among the men, 
 and the Company refitted a small room for a dining-room, 
 with tea and coffee urns. After a while there came a call 
 for sandwiches and then for dinner, which evidenced the 
 need of larger quarters. The dining-room has been estab- 
 lished about a year, the main idea being to give a good, 
 cheap, substantial dinner for ten to twelve cents, with tea, 
 coffee, pies, and cake that could be bought extra. 
 
 Dinners taken from one week's menu are as follows : 
 
 Monday. 
 
 Pot Roast — Boiled Potato — Mashed Turnip $o lo 
 
 Apple Pie 02 
 
 Cottage Pudding — Lemon Sauce 63 
 
 Doughnuts 01 
 
 Rolls . . . : 01 
 
 Coffee 02 
 
 Tea 02 
 
 Milk 02 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 Meat Pie — Mashed Potato 10 
 
 Cranberry Pie 02 
 
 Apple Pie 02 
 
 Layer Cake 03 
 
 Doughnuts 01 
 
 Rolls 01 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 Boiled Lamb — Caper Sauce — Scalloped Potato 12 
 
 Cream Pie 03 
 
 Mince and Apple Pie 02 
 
 Doughnuts 01 
 
 Rolls 01 
 
 Chocolate 03 
 
No. Description. 
 
 29 — Men's lunch room in a manufacturing plant. After 
 providing luncheons in very simple quarters, the 
 foreign element has been gradually brought to the 
 use of this room. 
 
 30 — Lunch counter system for men in a factory. 
 
 31 — Men's lunch counter in the comer of a shop. This 
 system of lunch counters has been introduced 
 throughout the plant. Three meals a day are served. 
 Breakfasts and morning luncheons are especially ap- 
 preciated, as many, through force of circumstances 
 or lack of appetite on arising, pay insufficient at- 
 tention to the morning repast. 
 
iVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 13 
 
 Thursday. 
 
 Boiled Ham — Mashed Potato — Macaroni 10 
 
 Custard Pie 03 
 
 Apple Pie 02 
 
 Gingerbread 01 
 
 Doughnuts 01 
 
 Rolls 01 
 
 Friday. 
 
 Baked Haddock — Mashed Potato — Scalloped Onions 12 
 
 Squash Pie 03 
 
 Cocoanut Pie 02 
 
 Doughnuts 01 
 
 Rolls 01 
 
 Everything is made in our own kitchen, so that we are 
 perfectly sure that the material which goes into the food is 
 the best that we can procure. 
 
 There is no service; the men are obliged to wait upon 
 themselves. They buy their coffee at one place, move 
 on to the next; buy their dinner, and then take it to their 
 table. 
 
 The dining-hall contains the following rooms: On the 
 first floor is a serving-room, a large dining-room for 
 men that will hold about two hundred, and leading off 
 the main room is a smaller room for the office help. The 
 men's toilet rooms are also situated on this floor. The 
 lower part of the building is given up to a dining-room 
 for the girls, with rest and toilet rooms, the kitchen, cold 
 storage cellar, and manager's room. 
 
14 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 SOCIAL EFFORTS AND INDUSTRIAL CLASSES. 
 
 The hall, with its large verandas and spacious interior, 
 is used also for social functions, such as band concerts, 
 dances, and club meetings of different kinds. 
 
 The girls in our mill formed a social club seven or eight 
 years ago of some ten members. The girls started work 
 in sewing, and in courses in English, and Italian, and in 
 art. From year to year the club has grown so that now 
 there are enrolled in its membership some eighty girls, 
 most of whom work in the mill. There are a few young 
 women, having had the advantages of a higher education, 
 who have been induced to join. They have brought in 
 new ideas and have helped a great deal in raising the 
 standard of the club, for they bring to bear the influence 
 that tends to develop the character and stimulate higher 
 ideals in life. 
 
 THE KINDERGARTEN. 
 
 A small dwelling at the entrance to the factory was 
 turned into a school building. A kindergarten was 
 started under the direction of a trained kindergartner. 
 The first year the school contained about twenty-three 
 pupils, the second year about thirty, and the third year we 
 found it necessary to engage an assistant, the number 
 then reaching forty; this winter the school has fifty- 
 three enrolled. The kindergarten in many ways is a great 
 help, not only to the children, but also to their mothers, 
 for ■ it takes the children away from the house in the 
 busiest part of the day and gives the mother time to do 
 her work unmolested, while the children return with new 
 ideas and brighter faces. The teachers make visits and 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 15 
 
 interest the mothers in the children's work. They also 
 give them a little social life once a month by having 
 mothers' meetings at Harris Hall. 
 
 THE CHRISTMAS TREE. 
 
 The largest gathering of this kind occurs at Christmas 
 time, when a Christmas tree delights the children. The 
 proud mothers seated about the hall, seeing their little 
 tots marching around the tree singing and clapping their 
 hands, smile with the children, whose little faces beam 
 with delight at the sparkling stars and trimmings of the 
 tree. 
 
 CLASSES IN SLOYD. 
 
 The second step in the school was the addition of a 
 Sloyd Department. A room was fitted up with ten 
 benches. The school at first was only for the boys who 
 worked in the mill, the other boys of the family having 
 the advantage in the public schools. The school is carried 
 on four evenings a week, there being forty boys enrolled 
 in the course. Later, the girls became interested in the 
 work, so a girls' class of ten was added. In connection 
 with this work we have established classes in basketry 
 and the making of cane seats to chairs. 
 
 THE COOKING SCHOOL. 
 
 Another branch of the industrial work is the cooking 
 school. Probably there is no branch of the school that 
 does more real good than this. The children are al- 
 lowed to attend at the age of eleven years, and there are 
 about forty. These classes are held in the afternoon 
 
1 6 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 after the public school sessions, from four to six o'clock. 
 Good, plain cooking is taught: how to make a dinner 
 from cheap cuts of meat, the proper food to buy, and the 
 correct combinations to use to build up the tissues of the 
 body and brain. The making of bread, pastry, preserves, 
 jellies, and the preparation of cereals are also touched 
 upon. The course in cooking is three years. Some of 
 the girls that are employed in the dining-hall are gradu- 
 ates of the cooking school, but generally they go to work 
 in the mill. 
 
 On June 13, 1903, the Directors were entertained at 
 a dinner at Harris Hall, the menu being : 
 
 Little Neck Clams 
 
 Consomme 
 
 . 
 
 Olives Radishes 
 
 Salted Almonds 
 
 Fillet of Sole 
 
 Tartar Sauce 
 
 Cucumbers 
 
 
 Fillet of Beef 
 
 Mushroom Sauce 
 
 Potato Balls 
 
 Asparagus 
 
 Tomato Salad 
 
 
 Strawberry Ice Cream 
 
 Frozen Pudding 
 
 Sponge Cake 
 
 Almond Cake 
 
 Crackers 
 
 Cheese 
 
 Coffee 
 
 
 The cooking school girls prepared most of the food and 
 served it. 
 
 If there is any one in the community who is very ill, 
 the children in the cooking school are shown how to pre- 
 pare food for invalids, and how to present it attractively, 
 after which a few of the pupils carry it to those afflicted. 
 It not only teaches them how to prepare the food, but also 
 shows them the pleasure of doing for others. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 17 
 
 MECHANICAL DRAWING. 
 
 The men who work in our machine and carpenter 
 shops were desirous of studying mechanical drawing, 
 and courses were started for them ; also there are several 
 boys who have become interested in the work. The first 
 year is given up to the fundamental principles of draw- 
 ing; the second year work takes up descriptive geometry 
 and drawing of different parts of machinery; the third 
 year work more advanced machine work ; the fourth year 
 work elementary design. Several carpenters have taken 
 up the course, in which case we have altered it to corre- 
 spond more with their line of work. The men have 
 benefited very much by the course, and some of them, 
 who at the outset were unable to read a plan, can now 
 work intelligently from one. 
 
 The industrial classes are charged a small tuition fee, 
 but this plan is not extended to the kindergarten. 
 
 A band was organized about two years ago, consisting 
 of thirty-two pieces, the Company furnishing the rooms 
 to practise in, and advancing the money with which to 
 procure many of the instruments. The band plays at all 
 baseball games that are held on the grounds, and also 
 plays morning and afternoon at our Labor Day show. 
 
 During the winter the band gives concerts every two 
 weeks in Harris Hall, the proceeds of which are divided 
 among several benefit societies which have been organized 
 by the employees. 
 
 COOPERATIVE STORE. 
 
 As the mill is situated some distance from the town, 
 many small groceries sprang up. The Company, not 
 
1 8 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 satisfied with conditions, bought out some of the stores 
 and started a large one under the name of the Employees' 
 Cooperative Store. The Company furnished sufficient 
 capital to start the store along the following lines : 
 
 That the Company would not receive any interest on 
 the money invested; and that it should be a cooperative 
 business entirely for the employees' benefit, they to re- 
 ceive their share of the profits pro rata as their accounts 
 showed on the books. 
 
 Naturally, the taking over of old stock and the start- 
 ing of a new enterprise necessitates time to tell whether 
 or not it will prove to be a success in every way. While 
 we can not now say that it is as successful as we had 
 anticipated, there is one thing certain, and that is the 
 employees get far better material than formerly for the 
 same amount of money, from a clean and well kept store. 
 All groceries are delivered by three teams, which cover 
 the scattered territory. 
 
 RECREATIVE. 
 
 Some of the Company's property skirts the shore of 
 Plymouth Bay, and here we have established a bathing 
 beach. The slope of the land made it necessary to build 
 it out and retain it by a parapet wall. This, however, 
 has its advantages, as it makes a fine playground for the 
 children, where they can dig in the sand and enjoy the 
 fresh breezes of the ocean without whetting their feet and 
 dresses. It makes a pleasant park where the people may 
 gather; on Sunday afternoons, whole families may be 
 seen enjoying themselves, the father and mother taking a 
 dip in the sea, while the little ones are busy making sand 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 19 
 
 houses on the beach. On several Sunday afternoons 
 there were from six hundred to seven hundred people 
 watching the bathers. There are two large bath houses, 
 one for the men and boys and the other for the 
 women and girls. The Company furnishes suits for the 
 bathers at the low rental of one cent per suit ; also towels 
 at one cent each. (These were free at first, but, the privi- 
 lege being abused, this nominal charge was made, with 
 the result that we have had no trouble since.) Suits are 
 also on sale at wholesale prices. The bath houses are in 
 charge of an experienced man, who teaches the boys and 
 girls to swim, dive, and float. During the last two sum- 
 mers more than nine thousand baths were taken. One 
 generally finds the beach lined with young people every 
 afternoon, except Saturday. 
 
 ATHLETIC FIELD. 
 
 Saturday afternoons the interest of the crowd centers 
 around the ball field, which is situated back of the office 
 building, where, the weather permitting, a game is played 
 between our own club and a visiting team. Each year 
 they have played against stronger teams, and this re- 
 sulted last year in several games nearing the standard 
 of some of the leagues. The games are witnessed by 
 seven to eight hundred people, and have been free, with the 
 exception that a hat was passed around, the people giving 
 what they felt they could aflFord, to help defray the ex- 
 penses of the home and visiting teams. But this year 
 we have charged an admission of ten cents, which seems 
 to give much more satisfaction both financially and to 
 those who watch the games. The money collected is used 
 for the running expenses of the team. 
 
No. Description. 
 
 54 — Field Day of employees from a large manufacturing 
 plant, with view of ball game. 
 
 55 — A view of the Field Day sack race. 
 
 20 
 

 
 34 - . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 21 
 
 employees' periodical. 
 
 All of the baseball games and, in fact, most of the social 
 work is reported in a paper that we publish once a month, 
 called The Plymouth Cordage Chronicle. The paper 
 is published in three languages: English, German, and 
 Italian. Two years ago there were courses carried on in 
 agriculture, horticulture, and poultry raising. There were 
 so many unable to take advantage of the lectures that it 
 seemed advisable to issue them through a paper. They 
 could then be brought out to all the people at once. This 
 proved a success, and the whole social work was then 
 brought before them through this medium. 
 
 LABOR DAY FAIR. 
 
 All the work in the schools and that done about the 
 houses of the employees is in anticipation of a fair that 
 is held on Labor Day. Labor Day, in its true sense here, 
 brings out the work that the people have done all sum- 
 mer. As early as five in the morning the employees leave 
 their homes with wheelbarrows, little carts, and arms 
 filled with vegetables. It only needs a few donkeys with 
 packs on their backs to lend to the scene a true Italian set- 
 ting of the early morning market time in Verona or 
 Perugia. Boys and girls are running here and there to 
 put their handiwork on the proper table, while the quack- 
 ing of ducks or the crowing of a rooster announces the 
 arrival of a new poultry guest to show off his feathers in 
 competition with his neighbors. Children laden with 
 flowers, which almost hide their tiny faces behind their 
 blossoms as they sway back and forth in the breezes, give 
 a cheerful greeting as they enter the miniature fair. It 
 
22 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 requires a tent one hundred and sixty feet long and sixty- 
 feet wide to cover the exhibition of vegetables, fruit, fancy 
 work, flowers, school work, cooking, poultry, and handi- 
 work. 
 
 The Company also offers prizes for vegetables and 
 flower gardens that are kept in the best manner during 
 the summer; also one for the homes where trees and 
 vines are cultivated. The homes are visited by a com- 
 petent judge three times during the summer, and a com- 
 plete record is kept. The names of prize winners are 
 posted in the tent. 
 
 The fair is open on Labor Day from 12 to 6 o'clock, 
 and also on the following day from 7 A. M. to 6 P. M. 
 During the morning, while articles are being put to rights, 
 the people are gathering on the ball field, which has been 
 laid out for the athletic contests scheduled to begin at 
 9 o'clock. The Plymouth Cordage Band of forty-two 
 pieces starts the event, moving with a band concert from 
 9 to 9.30. Last September there were over five thousand 
 people to enjoy the following program: 
 
 9.00-BANb CONCERT. 
 
 9.30 — RUNNING RACE, 18 years old and over. Best two out of 
 three, 200 yards. 
 
 9.35— BASKET CONTEST. 
 
 9.45— FISH POND, FOR GIRLS. 
 
 9.55— STILT RACE, FOR BOYS, 
 lo.oo— THREE LEGGED RACE, 200 yards. 
 10.10— SECOND HEAT RUNNING RACE. 
 10.15— HALF MILE FOOT RACE. 
 10.30— SACK RACE, 60 yards. 
 10.35— THIRD HEAT RUNNING RACE. 
 10.40— HIGH JUMP. 
 10.45— BLINDFOLD WHEELBARROW RACE FOR BOYS, 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 23 
 
 10.55— HITTING THE DUMMY, FOR GIRLS. 
 
 11.05— RELAY RACE, WALK vs. MILL, 800 yards. 
 
 11.30— ONE MILE BICYCLE RACE. 
 
 11.35— OBSTACLE RACE. 
 
 11.50— GREASED POLE AND BARREL, FOR BOYS. 
 
 2.00— BAND CONCERT. 
 
 3.00— BASEBALL" GAME. 
 
 In the grouping of five thousand people the combina- 
 tion of colors was exceedingly varied, which gave the 
 scene a decidedly picturesque effect. After the people 
 had watched their friends lose or gain the coveted prizes, 
 they left their seats for an inspection of the tent. Many 
 returned in the afternoon to witness the final baseball 
 gartle of the season. Taking into account the people who 
 attended the different attractions during the day, this 
 fair was witnessed by nearly eight thousand people. It 
 shows quite a growth from the first fair that was held 
 five years ago in a small house, where one room 12 ft. 
 X 14 ft. was given up to vegetables, one room 14 ft. x 15 
 ft. to poultry, and one room 12 ft. x 12 ft. to flowers, 
 the attendance being about eight hundred. 
 
 CARE OF THE INJURED AND ^ SICK. 
 
 Often, during the sports on Labor Day and the ball 
 game, slight accidents happen ; also in a mill where 
 hundreds of people are working about moving machinery 
 the chances of accident are many. Accordingly, a room 
 was equipped to care for such cases. Trained nurses 
 were engaged to take charge of the hospital. Their work 
 at present lies not only in the small hospital, but much 
 of their time is given up to making visits to all of our 
 employees who are sick or in need of their services, ad- 
 
No. Description. 
 
 15 — A factory doctor's office and emergency hospital, wit>h 
 all facilities for care of accidents and minor opera- 
 tions. The ambulance is close by to convey victims 
 of serious accidents to the hospital. 
 
 16 — Convalescents' recreation hall in a mining district. 
 
 16^2 — Interior view convalescents' recreation hall. 
 
 24 
 
OF THE 
 
 =;n!VERS1t 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 25 
 
 ministering to them the proper care and bringing to our 
 attention conditions about the places and houses that 
 should be changed. In cases of extreme illness, one nurse 
 gives her attention during the day and the other at 
 night. The Company furnishes the nurses with a house 
 in close proximity to the homes and mill. During the 
 past six months there were about seven hundred and fifty 
 cases that required their attention. In many cases we 
 have had the sincere thanks of our employees, and they 
 all feel that it has filled a long needed want. 
 
 MUTUAL BENEFIT SOCIETIES. 
 
 Many times when acute diseases make it impossible to 
 stem the current, and when men who have worked among 
 us for m'any years are taken away, their wives and chil- 
 dren would be left in poverty but for the benefit societies 
 that have been formed among the workingmen and 
 women. There are three societies that carry on this 
 work : 
 
 The United Workers' Circle of King's Daughters, this 
 society raising money by fairs and distributing it among 
 those requiring assistance. 
 
 The German Brotherhood, orgariized the first day of 
 September, 1883, with a membership of twenty-eight men 
 and a capital stock of $224. The membership has increased 
 to seventy-two and, at date of writing, the Society has 
 $600 in the bank. The dues are $4 a year. The Society 
 has collected from the members during the existence of 
 the Society, $5,566.60; paid out for deaths of members, 
 eleven in number, $655 ; paid out for deaths of wives of 
 members, $272 ; paid out for sickness, $4,590. 
 
26 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 The Old Colony Mutual Benefit Association was or- 
 ganized June 27, 1878. The dues of the Association are 
 four dollars ($4) a year. This gives an accident or sick 
 benefit of four dollars ($4) a week for twenty (20; 
 weeks; also includes a death benefit of $150. The mem- 
 bership numbers about one hundred fifty. The Associa- 
 tion has received $8,863.78; paid out in sickness and 
 death benefits, $7,707.48; it has on deposit, $1,156.30. 
 
 Membership in these societies is voluntary. If the em- 
 ployees are not fortunate enough to belong to either, the 
 men are generally ready to start a paper through the mills 
 for their benefit. 
 
 The patients who are convalescent find pleasant recre- 
 ation in a park which the company is developing. This 
 park is near the houses, and comprises about thirty-five 
 acres. 
 
 The Chairman: Miss Diana Hirschler, of Wm. 
 Filene's Sons Co., of Boston, will now speak on the sub- 
 ject from the standpoint of the retail store. 
 
 Miss Hirschler: I shall take the keynote in what I 
 have to say this morning from our chairman's remark 
 that this was to be in the nature of an experience meet- 
 ing, so I trust you will pardon any personalities. 
 
 I started at Filene's as " Social Secretary " about three 
 and a half years ago. We had no definite plans, but the 
 members of the firm had two general ideas about this 
 work. They believed first, that some one should be placed 
 in the store, an impartial person, to see that just condi- 
 tions be established in order to enable the employees to 
 do their best work, and that with just and fair conditions 
 existing from every standpoint both sides would be bene- 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 27 
 
 fited. Secondly, they felt, as most employers do, that 
 there was a certain lack of efficiency, that employees were 
 not giving their best efforts to their work, and they be- 
 lieved there should be some one there to help direct and 
 train them, or stimulate others to do so, that a more in- 
 telligent and efficient working body might result. While 
 these two lines of thought merge into each other, they are 
 fairly distinct in their actual application. 
 
 PRELIMINARY PREPARATION. 
 
 With these general ideas we started in. I knew nothing 
 about a store, so I felt that the first thing to do was to 
 study conditions and learn the organization of the place, 
 the duties of each person, and everything connected with 
 the work'ing system. I went in, therefore, for three 
 months as floor manager, which with us is a position 
 somewhat larger than that of the ordinary " floor walker," 
 being more executive. In that position I came in contact 
 with every part of the store organization and system. I 
 was put upon the busiest floor, the one containing the 
 most people. It seemed the best floor from which to work, 
 in order to get control of conditions. 
 
 After three months of work and study on the floor, 
 I had a complete idea of store organization and an insight 
 into the special conditions and limitations of our own 
 store. I acquired a knowledge of the fundamental things 
 that really make the conditions of store life. I also be- 
 came acquainted with many people and gained their con- 
 fidence. Meanwhile nothing was said of my work in any 
 other capacity. 
 
 At the end of that time, I quietly went into an office. 
 
No. Description. 
 
 58 — Coke pullers' washroom. 
 
 59 — Bicycle shed in a manufacturing plant. 
 
 28 
 

 8^ &^<r 'S| 
 
 ^H^ ^ 
 
 
 
 sn 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^j 
 
 ^^H^^I^^^^^H 
 
 - 
 
£RSITY 
 
 OF 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 29 
 
 We said nothing about the work to be done. We did not 
 name the office. We simply decided to work the thing 
 out. One of the firm had up to that time the superintend- 
 ency of the employees, adjusting their grievances and 
 determining their promotions and positions. As the 
 people came to his office with their difficulties, he turned 
 them over to me, so that they gradually got into the habit 
 of coming to me for all sorts of things ; at the same time 
 I was given the opportunity to recommend transfers and 
 promotions in pay and position. 
 
 A JUDICIAL POSITION. 
 
 We have endeavored thus to work out these two lines 
 of thought, and I believe they are a good basis for Social 
 Secretary work elsewhere. Acting as intermediary in ad- 
 justing conditions, I came to realize that I was really in 
 a judicial position. One can not justly represent the em- 
 ployee's side only. This would not even be of large value 
 to the employee himself. The employee being the one 
 controlled and getting only a stated pecuniary interest, his 
 interests and conditions naturally have to be watched more 
 carefully than those of the employer, who is investing his 
 capital in his employee's labor for his own personal re- 
 turn. So it naturally follows that the Social Secretary 
 must watch more closely the needs and conditions of the 
 employee. But my experience as an intermediary con- 
 vinces me that the position is essentially a judicial one. 
 When a complaint comes up for adjustment, the facts on 
 both sides have to be marshaled fairly and squarely, and 
 the decision reached on the basis of what is fair and just, 
 regardless of which side it hits. This frequently necessi- 
 
30 CONFERENCE ON IV^LFARE WORK. 
 
 tates educating the employer himself and again the em- 
 ployee, who must be convinced that he has not looked on 
 all sides of the question. This gives the most valuable 
 opportunity for developing the broad business intelli- 
 gence needed by the employee, and the recognition of the 
 " human element " by the employer. 
 
 RANGE OF COMPLAINTS. 
 
 The complaints brought in have varied from unhygienic 
 conditions to what we consider fundamental things : 
 wages and hours. Wages have been thrown open to the 
 Social Secretary's office. In fact, the superintendent ex- 
 pects recommendations from the Social Secretary as to 
 increase of wages, transfers of position, opportunities for 
 the employee to do better work ; and there is no change in 
 wages, as a rule, without the signature of the Social 
 Secretary, or her recommendation. I am expected at 
 regular intervals to send in such recommendations and 
 statements that aflfect vitally the condition and position 
 of the employees. No question arises in the house that 
 I do not have the privilege of entering into. I work with 
 the superintendent, who fully expects my testimony shall 
 come to him on all questions. He realizes that he is the 
 one in power, but he is perfectly willing to hear facts pre- 
 sented to him of every kind and from every proper 
 source, and that attitude has grown bigger and bigger, 
 until it has come to be a perfectly natural thing that the 
 superintendent shall not represent a despotic authority, 
 but an intelligently informed one, ready for just action. 
 
I 
 
 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 31 
 
 SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS. 
 
 Along the line of benefiting employees, we have had 
 classes, lectures, and talks in salesmanship, and in de- 
 veloping the personality of our people, who come in con- 
 tact with the public. The aim of this work has been to 
 help them to become more efficient, and thus earn more 
 wages and hold better positions. 
 
 AN ASSOCIATION ORGANIZED. 
 
 At the time we began to develop this office there was 
 an organization already started that was instituted 
 originally by the firm in connection with the most progres- 
 sive people in the house, the idea being that the body of 
 the peop'le should organize together with the firm to 
 work out a plan by which they might improve their own 
 condition. The firm had in mind distinctly the fact that 
 there was no value in this movement unless it grew out 
 of the development of the people themselves. They had 
 already made several experiments of doing things indi- 
 vidually, and giving things to the employees, and they had 
 finally come to the conclusion that these efforts were 
 failures. They decided that the really vital thing was to 
 get the people to do things themselves, the firm simply 
 being individual members of the organization together 
 with their employees. They named this organization 
 " The Filene Cooperative Association." As Social Secre- 
 tary I have no connection with it, any more than the 
 superintendent has as superintendent. The officers are 
 elected by the Association, but it happened that I was 
 elected Secretary, and have held the position more or less 
 
32 
 
 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 ever since. By the way, there is an election which takes 
 place this coming week, and I told them I did not want 
 them to think the position of Secretary hereditary. 
 
 The Social Secretary has never in any way forced her- 
 self upon the Association, nor has any one else connected 
 with the store. I have simply been connected with the As- 
 sociation as an elected Secretary, and, of course, in that 
 position I have been expected to push the Committees 
 and to more or less plan and direct the work. 
 
 The Association began its work with an insurance 
 fund, which insures its members against illness, and has 
 a death benefit connected with it. I am not going into 
 details about it, but there have been several standing com- 
 mittees which are incorporated in their constitution, ap- 
 plying distinctly to the business of the store, and which I 
 shall enumerate; but before doing so, I wish to say that 
 the aim of this Association, as stated in the Constitution, 
 is to create a greater efficiency on the part of its mem- 
 bers, and give them greater social opportunities. 
 
 THE STORE RULES. 
 
 The scope of the Association — and that is what you are 
 particularly interested in — is the power to vote upon all 
 general rules governing the store that affect the efficiency 
 of the employees. I have here with me the new store 
 rules, issued by the house this spring. You will find 
 stamped in our store rules on the first page outside, a 
 little notice calling attention to the fact that the members 
 have the power to offer suggestions and criticisms, which 
 will be taken up by the Association. Inside you will find 
 a statement of the scope of the Association ; that it has 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 33 
 
 the power to initiate, enlarge, or amend the rules affect- 
 ing the efficiency of the employees. That word " effici- 
 ency " is a very large word. You note we" could take up 
 the question of advertising policy, which may materially 
 affect the efficiency of the employees, or the question of 
 window dressing, or any business policy actually affect- 
 ing the progress of the store. At the back of the book 
 you will find several little statements that will show you 
 that our Company (we are now a corporation) intend 
 that this Association shall be distinctly democratic. And 
 that they actually mean that the Association shall govern 
 the store as far as it can according to these rules. This 
 does not mean that any special officer or person may not 
 issue his own rules, but it does mean that if any of these 
 special people issue a rule which affects the general 
 efficiency of the employees, the people may act upon it. 
 A rule thus issued by an executive goes into immediate 
 effect, the Association in that instance being an appellate 
 body, within its scope. 
 
 Among the standing committees we have our " Sug- 
 gestion Committee," with which many of you are familiar, 
 offering prizes weekly for suggestions. These sugges- 
 tions are considered by a committee elected by the Asso- 
 ciation, so that the committee has power to accept or re- 
 ject suggestions. The prizes paid are fifty cents and one 
 dollar. 
 
 ARBITRATION AND DISCIPLINE. 
 
 The committee which fundamentally affects the store 
 jand its government is the Arbitration Committee. Our 
 store had never had any system of fines or charges for 
 loss, and people in authority throughout the house felt 
 
34 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 that we should have. The question came up before the 
 Association. Some one moved that a committee known 
 as the Arbitration Committee be chosen, a member to 
 be elected from each floor in the house by the people on 
 the floor. The superintendent could then charge persons 
 for any negligent loss or breakage, and such person could 
 then have the right of appeal to the Arbitration Com- 
 mittee. This committee was originated about three years 
 ago, and this general outline applies to-day as it did 
 then. It has broadened in its power, however, to take 
 in every sort of complaint between the employees and 
 the firm, between the employees and any one in authority, 
 or between one employee and another. 
 
 This power includes dismissals. One of the firm hap- 
 pened at one time to dismiss a man, and he appealed to the 
 other member and said he was unjustly dismissed, and 
 the two members decided to permit him to present his 
 case to the Arbitration Committee. Since then they have 
 thrown open to the Arbitration Committee the privilege 
 of appeal in all dismissals. Among the several dismissals 
 acted upon, they have reinstated two or three people. In 
 one case they recommended leniency on account of past 
 good work. In another case they reinstated the employee 
 on probation for one week. 
 
 This Arbitration Committee has not only exercised its 
 whole power, but has proved to be a body showing re- 
 markable common sense and impartiality. It is actually 
 elected by secret ballot from the people on the floors; 
 the house has left it entirely alone, and accepted its judg- 
 ments, and the result has been a body that, acting without 
 intimidation from the house or pressure from the em- 
 ployees, has rendered just decisions, so that it is in equally 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 35 
 
 good repute with the house and with the employees. The 
 decisions in favor of each side keep pretty close together 
 in point of number, the small majority being in favor of 
 the employees. The firm recommend Arbitration Com- 
 mittees, as I think Mr. Filene did at your previous gather- 
 ing here, because our Arbitration Committee has proved 
 to our people in authority that they can run the house 
 and adjust the uncomfortable things with less friction 
 through the Arbitration Committee than in any other way, 
 and have a more contented and happier set of people, be- 
 cause facts are sifted and weighed and adjudged by their 
 own representatives. 
 
 COMMITTEES. 
 
 There are other committees that affect the government 
 of the store. We have a Bank Committee, a Library Com- 
 mittee, a Lecture Committee. The distinguishing mark 
 in all these things is that they are governed by our 
 people themselves. Our doctors, dentist, etc., are chosen 
 by the people, who pay for their treatment themselves. 
 The firm pays nothing. 
 
 One committee that vitally affects us is the Club House 
 Committee. We have a house in the rear of our building 
 which is larger than the ordinary house usually provided 
 by firms for an employees' lunch room. Excepting the 
 rent, the Association pays the running expenses. The 
 Club House Committee manages the luncheon room and 
 the social room and everything else connected with our 
 club house. The superintendent of the store has nothing 
 to do with it except to provide for its protection, 
 
36 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 SOCIAL FEATURES. 
 
 The object of the luncheon room is to furnish whole- 
 some food at the lowest possible rates. We have little 
 social tables where the people may sit. Every one mingles 
 there in the most democratic manner: the sales force, 
 buyers, firm, apprentices, etc. 
 
 In our social room we have the library. The Boston 
 Public Library has thought sufficiently of the movement 
 to make a little center there, and we have a branch of the 
 Boston Public Library, but the work is under the charge 
 of the committee elected by our people. 
 
 In short, in all these things, we stand for the demo- 
 cratic idea that we are all working together through these 
 committees elected by us, and the members of the firm 
 have each one vote just the same as any one in the Asso- 
 ciation. This is the fundamental idea running through 
 the Association. This idea extends also through all the 
 Social Secretary work. When a complaint comes in, 
 there is this same democratic idea of how we can make 
 this person bigger and stronger and better able to take 
 a place in the store organization and earn bigger wages. 
 
 Last week we had the first dinner of the " Filene Co- 
 operative Association." This was our first attempt in 
 the way of a dinner, so we got the best person we knew, 
 who stood for character, intelligence, and power, and that 
 was President Eliot, of Harvard University, who thought 
 sufficiently of our Association to come as our guest, and 
 bring Mrs. Eliot with him. We had our own Associa- 
 tion President preside. At the head table sat the Chair- 
 men of our Committees. It was an affair of our own 
 people in our own club house, and by our own commit- 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 37 
 
 tees, carrying out the keynote of all our work, the idea of 
 doing the work ourselves. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I shall be glad to answer any questions. 
 
 Question: Has the Association made any changes in 
 the rules? Answer: Yes. 
 
 (At this point Mr. Vreeland, the Chairman, was obliged 
 to temporarily vacate the chair to meet another engage- 
 ment, and called on Mr. John H. Patterson, one of the 
 vice-chairmen, to preside in his absence.) 
 
 Mr. Patterson, upon taking the chair, said : 
 
 " I am pleased to see so many delegates from prominent 
 concerns, representing the varied industries in different 
 parts of the country, and I am more pleased to notice 
 the interest manifested in the work of this Federation. I 
 believe we will all be much benefited by the result of these 
 deliberations — as our varied experiences when made into 
 a composite statement will be of the greatest value. 
 
 " Miss Hirschler was asked a question." 
 
 EXAMPLES OF CHANGES IN RULES. 
 
 Miss Hirschler: The question was as to whether 
 our Association has ever changed any rules. They have 
 done so a number of times. One, for example, in re- 
 lation to the method of stamping time. Some of the 
 people objected to it, and it was brought up before the As- 
 sociation. A motion was made that the method in ques- 
 tion be abolished; the superintendent presented his side 
 of the case ; the vote went against him and the method was 
 abolished. 
 
 Another thing that was a little more fundamental was 
 the action to change the time of closing the store. In 
 
38 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 the early days of the Association several of the big stores 
 determined to change their time for opening and closing, 
 and the change in time was more of an inconvenience to 
 the employees than the previous method. The matter 
 was presented to the Association, and the argument at 
 first was in the direction of no change. But some one 
 got up and asked : Where would we be if the house across 
 the street was open when we were closed? As our sales- 
 people are paid the regular market salary, and in addition 
 to that a commission upon their sales over a certain 
 amount, they at once pictured shoppers passing by our 
 closed doors. So the current turned along the line of their 
 own interest, which was identically that of the firm, 
 and they voted to change the hours just the same as in 
 the other stores. Afterward the stores went back to the 
 old system, which we also did. 
 
 In another instance: Summer before last the fifth of 
 July fell on Saturday. Many of the New York stores 
 closed on Saturday, and many of our people wanted to 
 close the store on Saturday, but none of the other stores 
 in Boston intended to do so. The question came up be- 
 fore the Association. The firm refused to express an 
 opinion, and after a free discussion the Association voted 
 to close the store on Saturday, making a three days' 
 holiday. Our advertising manager at once issued cir- 
 culars to all the stores in Boston telling them we were 
 going to close on Saturday, giving them the same privi- 
 lege before we came out with our advertisement on 
 Sunday. They all refused ; the result was that we were 
 the only store that was closed on Saturday, and our people 
 had a three days' holiday, and it has been the universal 
 feeling, even with the people in authority, that it was a 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 39 
 
 very wise thing. In fact, the Association has never done 
 anything that we have not found in the long run to have 
 been the best thing. The consensus of opinion was better 
 than the action of a few people. 
 
 We have had a variety of instances where the Asso- 
 ciation has voted on some rule and it has been abolished. 
 Of course, in all I have told you to-day, the question 
 naturally arises how vitally and extensively these things 
 are being carried out. I can only say that at our din- 
 ner we had almost three-iourths of our people present, 
 and they were a happy family. We had on the tables, for 
 example, a number of vases, I think eighty-four, and 
 the next day they were all bought in a couple of 'hours 
 by people who wanted them as souvenirs of the dinner. 
 The response to the dinner, of course, showed a whole- 
 some spirit in the Association. 
 
 AN employees' periodical. 
 
 I have not mentioned our newspaper. We have a 
 monthly paper which is never seen by the firm until it 
 comes out, and they pay their little five cents for it just 
 as the rest of us do. That shows the confidence they have 
 that we will not disclose business matters, as well as 
 their willingness to allow freedom of expression. The 
 paper is a year and a half old, and no objections have ever 
 been made to anything printed in it. The editor and ad- 
 visory staff are elected by the people ; they edit the paper ; 
 it is not seen by any one in authority, or by any one out- 
 side of the committee, except by their own seeking, until 
 issued and sold. Our dinner the other evening was paid 
 for by the people, the firm paying their share just as 
 every one else did, and no more. 
 
40 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 Question: Do I understand that each member of the 
 firm votes the same as any employee? Do the firm have 
 any representation on any of these committees, and do 
 they always vote? 
 
 Answer : They do not have any representation as such ; 
 they vote with the floors on which their offices are located, 
 the same as any other individual; the Arbitration Com- 
 mittee has no representation from the firm. There are 
 naturally people in positions of responsibility who are 
 elected on our committees. We have had as President of 
 the Association our superintendent, our merchandise man- 
 ager, members of the firm, and we have had people from 
 the ranks. Our present President, who had charge of 
 the dinner the other evening, was elected from the book- 
 keeping office, and is now in charge of the receiving office ; 
 and we have on the dififerent committees others elected 
 from among the people, and also from the executives. 
 
 The Chairman : Mr. W. G. Mather, President of the 
 Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company, of Cleveland, Ohio, will 
 give a view of welfare work in a mining district. 
 
 Mr. .Mather: We have done very little in the line of 
 welfare w'ork, and I feel, therefore, as if I had no right to 
 talk before the people here, because we have done com- 
 paratively nothing, with the exception of trying to improve 
 the housing of our employees. 
 
 Our organization is a mining company in the mining 
 district of Lake Superior, at Ishpeming, Michigan, and 
 our miners are of all nationalities, such as Cornishmen, 
 Swedes, Frenchmen and Finlanders. As these men repre- 
 sent the great bulk of our employees, we have as yet at- 
 tempted little in the nature of club houses or social work 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 41 
 
 among them, because we have been afraid of the difficul- 
 ties of this nationaHty question, owing to the fact that they 
 do not associate with each other. The different nationali- 
 ties have their own churches and societies, and mingle with 
 each other to a very small degree. 
 
 Furthermore, our location affords opportunity for our 
 people to have outdoor recreations, such as going out into 
 the woods, picnicking, hunting and fishing, thus doing 
 away with the necessity of providing playgrounds and 
 breathing spaces, such as would be required in a city. 
 
 HOMES OF EMPLOYEES. 
 
 We encourage our employees to own their houses, 
 not by advancing money, but simply by selling or leasing 
 them the land, allowing long time payments, very cheap 
 land and cheap rents. We build as few houses as pos- 
 sible, as we find it much better for our people to own their 
 houses. 
 
 PRIZES FOR NEAT PREMISES. 
 
 We offer prizes for well-kept premises. That has been 
 done for nine or ten years, and the results have been ex- 
 tremely satisfactory. Competitors have been numerous 
 and the general improvement of the town has been very 
 marked. The reasons are apparent. One man has a nice 
 looking garden, and he gets recognition in the shape of a 
 prize, and his neighbor, who may not have thought before 
 of improving his place, is immediately stimulated to do 
 similar work, partly for the prize and partly through his 
 aroused desire to have his premises look as well as those 
 of his neighbor. This is true not only of vegetable 
 
42 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 gardens, planting of vines and flowers, but the men have 
 also recently been spending some money in painting their 
 houses and fixing their fences and outbuildings. 
 
 COMPULSORY BENEFIT FUND. 
 
 We have a benefit fund for our employees, that is 
 created by rather an arbitrary method. We take thirty 
 cents a month from each employee, to which amount the 
 company contributes a like amount, equaling in total the 
 amount contributed by all of the employees. This is dis- 
 tributed in the way of benefits to those who are sick, or 
 who have met with accidents while in the employ of the 
 company, the families or heirs receiving a fixed sum in 
 case of the employee's death. This fund was formerly 
 managed, and theoretically is still, by a committee of the 
 employees, but practically the management is in the hands 
 of the officers of the company, the employees taking little 
 interest in its management, being entirely satisfied to leave 
 it to the company, in conjunction with the doctors — all 
 payments being made on the doctor's certificate. 
 
 THE HOSPITAL AND DOCTORS. 
 
 The hospital building is owned by the company, and is 
 rented out to a firm of doctors, who are selected by the 
 company, with care to see that they are practitioners of 
 character, experience, and ability, and also of kindly 
 nature and imbued with the humanitarian spirit. We take 
 one dollar a month from each of our employees, and put 
 it in this hospital fund, which is paid to the doctors, and 
 for this all of our employees and their families receive 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 43 
 
 attendance, medicines, and treatment of all kinds without 
 further charge. 
 
 A ''changing house/' 
 
 The work of our miners is very dirty, and it is, there- 
 fore, impossible for them to wear their mining clothes on 
 the street in coming from and going to their homes. Until 
 recently very little attention has been given to the matter 
 of comfort and cleanliness in the buildings provided for 
 the miners to change their clothes. Our new " changing 
 house," as it is called, is a fireproof structure containing, 
 among other things, shower baths ; an adequate supply of 
 wash-troughs containing individual enameled iron wash- 
 basins, with hot and cold water ; drying racks for the mine 
 clothes ; lockers ; an office for the shift-bosses ; an emer- 
 gency hospital room with all appliances; and a room in 
 which the men may eat their luncheons. This building 
 was erected about three years ago. At that time it was 
 one of the most advanced in the point of comfort and 
 convenience of any in the Lake Superior mining region, 
 and improvements along this line have now become the 
 subject of careful consideration by other employers. 
 
 CLUB HOUSES. 
 
 At one of our furnace plants in Gladstone, Michigan, 
 where the works are some three miles from the village, we 
 were much troubled by the influence of certain saloons, 
 which were established just outside of our grounds, and 
 over which we had no control. In order to minimize the 
 evil result of these saloons, we decided two years ago to 
 put up a club house. In this house, ^he office employees 
 
No. Description. 
 
 I — Exterior of a *' changing-house " in a mining district, 
 where the men find it necessary to change their cloth- 
 ing before entering the mine. This fireproof struc- 
 ture is so arranged that it is easily kept clean. It 
 contains a wash-room, shower baths, a locker room, 
 an office for the shift bosses, an emergency hospital, 
 and a room where the men may eat their luncheons. 
 
 2 — The wash-room. It contains adequate wash-troughs 
 with individual enameled iron basins. Both hot and 
 cold water are supplied. Each man draws water 
 into his basin, and after washing empties it into the 
 trough, which immediately drains itself. This is a 
 great improvement over the trough system in general 
 use, where it is impossible for each employee to have 
 clean water. This room also contains, along one of 
 the walls, a fine system of shower baths. 
 
 3 — The locker room. It contains individual expanded 
 metal lockers and, in the center, drying racks for 
 the mine clothes. Over each of these racks is a large 
 ventilating hood. Between the racks and lockers are 
 stationary benches. 
 
 44 
 
»l. I ! i I II I I II 
 
OF 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 45 
 
 have their regular dining-room, where their lunches are 
 served at a moderate cost, and it is kept open all day and 
 until late at night for the use of the employees. Beer, 
 cigars, coifee, and light refreshments, such as sandwiches 
 and biscuits, are sold at practically cost. We have hoped 
 that this opportunity to buy beer and cigars ciieaper than 
 at the saloons, and with the opportunity to play cards, 
 billiards, and other games, might prove deterrent to the 
 patronage of the saloons. To a certain extent this has 
 been the case. 
 
 At Ishpeming we have a commodious office building, 
 the upper floor being used as a club and assembly room. 
 Attached to this is a kitchen and a billiard-room. This is 
 used by all the officers, clerks, and heads of the various 
 mining departments of the company, located at Ishpeming. 
 It is managed by a club of these employees called " The 
 Cleveland Cliffs Club," and each member wears a little 
 button as a badge of his membership. Sufficient dues are 
 collected from each to pay for several suppers and recep- 
 tions each year. 
 
 In addition to this, at the monthly meetings, topics con- 
 nected with the management of the mines are assigned, 
 upon which papers are written and discussions invited. 
 Sometimes outsiders come in and give talks upon similar 
 subjects. It is also used by the Mechanical Club, com- 
 posed of the machinists, firemen, and, in fact, by all the 
 employees connected with the Master Mechanic's Depart- 
 ment. A bowling alley is located in the basement of the 
 office building. This club and the facilities connected 
 therewith — ^there is a library and reading-room attached — 
 have been very well patronized by the people for whom 
 they were intended. 
 
46 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 The Secretary : Since Mr. Mather feels that his com- 
 pany does very little in this direction, and we have found 
 that frequently those who are doing the best welfare work 
 make no pretensions along that line, it seems apropos to 
 read a letter which we received this morning : 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio, March 14, 1904. 
 H. H. Vreeland, Esq., Chairman Welfare Department, The 
 National Civic Federation, 281 Fourth Avenue, New 
 York City. 
 Dear Sir : We have your favor of the loth instant. 
 We built our new factories here with the best sanitary condi- 
 tions we knew how to put in. We heat and ventilate the work- 
 rooms with a constant circulation of fresh air, heated or cooled 
 as the occasion requires. We have large, commodious dressing- 
 rooms, provided with separate lockers for each employee. We 
 built a large lunch-room, with the best kitchen equipment, where 
 we serve the best food at cost only. Music is furnished during the 
 lunch hour. 
 
 Our work-day is nine hours, with the beginning and closing time 
 arranged to give our people the best car service, to enable them 
 to get back and forth to their homes in the best possible manner. 
 In taking on new people we are careful to comply with all the 
 State labor laws, and employ people of good character only. 
 Aside from this, we have not engaged in welfare work. 
 Yours very truly, 
 (Signed) THE U. S. PLAYING CARD COMPANY, 
 
 John Omwake, President. 
 
 Permit me to remind you that we have had welfare 
 work in three typical industries presented this morning 
 — first, in a manufacturing institution, by Mr. Nazro ; sec- 
 ond, in a retail store, by Miss Hirschler ; and, third, in a 
 mining district, by Mr. Mather. 
 
 Our Executive Committee has arranged to issue a re- 
 quest to employers promoting welfare work for especial 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 47 
 
 information relative to their successes and failures for our 
 Bureau of Exchange. Some of the questions to be asked 
 are: 
 
 1. What is the first practical step? 
 
 2. Should the company take the initiative, or encourage 
 and await suggestions from the employees? 
 
 3. By whom shall welfare work be done — by the em- 
 ployer, by the employees, by both, or by an outside force? 
 
 4. Shall employees pay for all luncheon, educational 
 and recreative features ? 
 
 5. If you have had any failures, to what do you ascribe 
 their causes ? 
 
 It may be well to give these questions, with reference 
 to installing and maintaining welfare work, consideration 
 in the discussions to-day. 
 
 The Chairman: Mr. E. M. Herr, Vice-President of 
 the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, of Wilmerding, 
 Pa., will now give us the benefit of their experience. 
 
 Mr. Herr: Mr. Chairman, I have come here entirely 
 unprepared to present what little we have done in the 
 way of social betterment work, but will endeavor to give 
 you a general idea. What we have undertaken has not 
 been done in any direct way by the company. The present 
 plant of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, located 
 at Wilmerding, Pa., about fourteen miles east of Pitts- 
 burg, was built about eleven years ago. At the time it was 
 constructed there was nothing else there. Soon after its 
 erection a town sprang up about it. 
 
5© CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 room flats having the bathroom with enameled bath-tub 
 and open plumbing. Every attention has been given to 
 sanitation. We are in the region of natural gas, and in 
 erecting these flats the rooms are almost all fitted with an 
 open grate, and have natural gas, so that they can be 
 heated individually. They are all wired for electric light, 
 which the employees can use, or they may use gas, as they 
 choose. The gas is the cheaper and more generally used. 
 These houses are also built in groups of two, double 
 houses, containing about six rooms. 
 
 The three and four room flats rent for $13 and $14 a 
 month, the double houses rent for $18, and the single 
 houses, having seven rooms each, rent for %22. They are 
 all of brick and fitted up with open plumbing and bath- 
 rooms. The single houses each contain a furnace in the 
 cellar, a range in the kitchen, and the improvements in the 
 other houses. 
 
 Three years ago we started to offer prizes for the im- 
 provement of the grounds to encourage the interest of the 
 men in their homes. That has been continued ever since 
 with beneficial results, the prize list being increased every 
 year, and there. has been a very manifest improvement 
 in the appearance of the employees' grounds and houses. 
 
 BENEFIT ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Almost a year ago the matter of the relief of the men in 
 case of sickness or accident, and even of death, was care- 
 fully considered. At that time we had an employees' 
 benefit association, run by the employees, organized and 
 managed by them. It did not seem to be very successful. 
 Out of a maximum community of three thousand em- 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK, 51 
 
 ployees this association never succeeded in getting a mem- 
 bership of over five hundred. It was thought that the 
 plan the employees had adopted was not the best one, 
 and after a series of conferences between the officers of 
 this association and the officers of the company, it was 
 agreed that a plan for a beneficial association, outlined 
 by the company, based largely upon other beneficial asso- 
 ciations in railroad work, would be advantageous. 
 
 On a vote of the entire membership of the beneficial 
 association it was agreed that the association managed 
 by the men should be abandoned, and that the company 
 should undertake the management of a new association. 
 The new association was organized by the company and 
 managed by an advisory board so called. It is run, as far 
 as expenses of management are concerned, by the com- 
 pany, who pay all the expenses of its administration, and 
 it is controlled by a board of governors or advisory board, 
 on which are representatives of the company and repre- 
 sentatives of the employees, all of whom are members of 
 the beneficial association, and these each have the same 
 vote. 
 
 The employees have the right to elect four officers of 
 its advisory board, as it is called, and the company ap- 
 points four. The general manager of the company is ex- 
 officio chairman. This new organization started last June, 
 and by September had a membership of over fifteen hun- 
 dred. 
 
 Membership is entirely voluntary ; the employees are not 
 compelled to join, and not even urged to do so, although 
 the advantages of it are pretty clearly set forth. It has 
 sick and accident benefits, and a small death benefit 
 amounting to $150, which the company duplicates, so 
 
No. Description. 
 
 71, 72, 73 — Houses rented to employees in a large manu- 
 facturing community. These views show the result 
 of offering prizes for beautifying the surroundings. 
 
 52 
 
HE 
 
 £RS/Ty 
 
 OF 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 53 
 
 that the real death benefit to the beneficiary is three hun- 
 dred dollars. 
 
 The administration of the work is carried on by a super- 
 intendent and a medical director, who is, of course, a 
 doctor. The work of the association has been very suc- 
 cessful so far, and is, I have reason to believe, entirely 
 satisfactory to the men. 
 
 This is what has been done without undertaking any 
 direct work by a " social secretary." There have been 
 no especial improvements in the work, although the matter 
 of serving luncheon has been very carefully considered, 
 and has thus far been regarded as inexpedient. 
 
 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF WORK. 
 
 Of course, we have paid a great deal of attention to the 
 proper ventilation of the works and the sanitary condi- 
 tions under which the men work, have provided closets, 
 washrooms, etc., and a means of furnishing circulating 
 water cooled by artificial refrigeration in the summer. 
 The source of supply is an artesian well dug on the 
 premises. The water is put in a large tank, where the 
 refrigeration is caused by means of an artificial ice. plant, 
 and it is circulated by a force pump throughout the works. 
 The water is simply cooled by the pipes in the tank, there 
 being no ice in it, and this cool water can be drawn after 
 passing through a Pasteur filter. 
 
 Mr. Nazro: You spoke of mistakes made at the be- 
 ginning, and as I remember it, you didn't tell us about 
 them. How did the association secretary err? 
 
 Mr. Herr: He didn't err so much as he didn't know. 
 His experience was among the social settlements in Chi- 
 
54 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 cago, and, of course, there he came in contact with a class 
 of people very different from our employees, who are gen- 
 erally a pretty high class of men, and, of course, not by 
 any means paupers, in financial distress, or anything of 
 that sort; they are all pretty well to do. He didn't ex- 
 actly understand how to get hold of those men, and we 
 all realized very soon that the way he was going about it 
 was rather detrimental than beneficial. 
 
 I was very much interested indeed in Miss Hirschler's 
 talk, as it showed very clearly to me that the value of her 
 work is, I believe, very largely enhanced through her 
 intimate acquaintance with the problems entering into it, 
 as a worker herself and working through all the different 
 departments of the organization, so that she thoroughly 
 appreciated the whole problem, and knew the employees 
 and their needs. This man was a good man in an educa- 
 tional line, but he didn't understand the men or their 
 needs, didn't know just how to take them, and in that 
 part of the work he failed. 
 
 The Chairman : Mr. O. F. Humphreys, of the Patton 
 Paint Company, Milw^aukee, Wis., and Newark, N. J., 
 will be our next speaker. 
 
 Mr. Humphreys: The Patton Paint Company is* not 
 as old a representative of welfare work as some of the 
 firms whose efforts have been presented here to-day, but 
 it has carried out a number of betterment methods which 
 have proved of great value. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 55 
 
 VALUE OF CLEANLINESS. 
 
 The materials used in the manufacture of our products 
 being of such a nature, and the conditions of manufac- 
 ture such as to render it extremely hard to keep the plant 
 clean, and in addition to this the raw materials which go 
 into the work being so expensive and so easily wasted, 
 the amount of welfare work which has been done has not 
 only greatly improved the appearance of the plant, but 
 has actually shown a profit on the balance sheet. 
 
 This may be readily seen when it is realized that the 
 men are working with pigments costing up to $4.00 per 
 pound, and with liquids some of which cost fully as much 
 per gallon. 
 
 It will readily be seen that cleanliness is a vital feature 
 in the showing of profits. 
 
 FREE OVERALLS AND LAUNDRY. 
 
 At the start the company bought two suits of overalls 
 for every man. These were sent out to a laundry to be 
 washed, the company and men sharing equally the cost of 
 washing. But the benefit both to the men and to the work 
 was so quickly evident, that the company soon put in an 
 outfit of laundry machinery, and now does the washing as 
 well as buying the overalls for the men. 
 
 JOINT EFFORTS OF COMPANY AND EMPLOYEES. 
 
 The point which has been of the greatest value to us, 
 and is doubtless of the utmost interest to every firm 
 starting on this line, is the possibility of helpful coopera- 
 tion between the employees themselves as well as their co- 
 operation with the company in its interest. 
 
No. Description. 
 
 24 — Lunch room for women employees in a factory. 
 25 — ^Lunch room for women employees in a factory. 
 26 — Lunch room for women employees in a factory. 
 
 S6 
 
VERSITY 
 
 OF 
 •UFORNlfeg 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 57 
 
 LUNCH ROOM. 
 
 This was the reason for the next step of welfare work, 
 which was the establishment in our Milwaukee plant of 
 a lunch room, 50 by 90 feet in size, in which the men 
 and girls have separate divisions, where we furnish free 
 either coffee or tea, and on certain days of the week a 
 large bowl of soup. The lunch room was established as 
 the result of the initiative of the girls, who started in a 
 small way among themselves, clubbing together and pay- 
 ing share and share alike for the tea or coffee, which they 
 bought and made, up in their department, for their own 
 lunches. The idea thus suggested was taken up by the 
 firm, and carried out in connection with the employees. 
 
 employees' lunch club. 
 
 Thus at present we have not only the general lunch 
 room, in which are served the articles provided by the 
 company for all employees, but the employees themselves 
 have a mutual association in the form of a lunch club, 
 which is called the " Sun Proof Lunch Club." This club 
 is self-supporting, has money in the treasury, and fur- 
 nisheSj through its own steward and officers, a lunch 
 cooked in its own kitchen and served by its own em- 
 ployees, a very good dinner, for which I believe they 
 charge $1.00 a week. 
 
 application of self-help. 
 
 In these as well as other lines we have found that the 
 chief benefit both to the firm and to the employees is in 
 helping them to help themselves. It is a maxim that 
 what a man does for himself is worth four times as much 
 
58 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 as anything done for him, and that every man is of value 
 chiefly as he develops himself, and as he is allowed and 
 helped to make the most of himself. This is what we 
 have had in mind and have tried to carry out in all our 
 welfare work. 
 
 FORCES FOR EDUCATION. 
 
 The Query Club is composed of employees who meet 
 regularly on Tuesday evenings for what is entirely out 
 of the line of social amusement and recreation, which 
 takes so large a place in the interests of the average man 
 outside of his work. This club has its own officers and 
 committees, which appoint members to read papers of 
 their own composition and to get up topics that are helpful 
 in an educational way. 
 
 INSTRUCTION ABOUT MATERIALS. 
 
 The program is varied, in some cases the chemists of 
 the company having been asked to give an evening to 
 tests and experiments showing the properties and char- 
 acteristics as well as value of the materials with which the 
 men are working day by day. The Query Club has been 
 a great success, educationally, among the employees, 
 chiefly, we believe, because it was organized and is con- 
 trolled by their own membership for the betterment of 
 their capabilities as workers with a common interest. 
 
 A LIBRARY FOR WORKERS. 
 
 Another institution, equally successful along the same 
 line, is the library or rather the station of the Public 
 Library of Milwaukee, much the same as Miss Hirschler 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 59 
 
 has described to you in connection with the work in Bos- 
 ton. This is conducted by the employees as well. They 
 have their own librarian and keep about five hundred 
 books, which are renewed at intervals as required. The 
 books are taken out on an average of about thirty per cent, 
 of the total number. 
 
 We have come here rather to seek than to give informa- 
 tion, for we have not yet gone far enough to make a 
 distinct original contribution to the knowledge which you 
 all have of this sort of work, and I suppose at the proper 
 time we shall be given the privilege of asking the rest 
 of you questions about what you are doing. 
 
 VOLUNTEER FIRE BRIGADE. 
 
 Among the organizations of our employees which have 
 been of great value, commercially rather than in a social 
 or educational way, are those of protection against fire. 
 We have a large number of girls working in our color 
 card department and about the building, and owing to 
 the possible danger of fire and the difficulty of getting the 
 girls safely out of the buildings, a fire brigade has been 
 formed among the men. The officers are elected by the 
 employees, and the organization has formulated rules, giv- 
 ing fire signals for every department in the various build- 
 ings, so that now when at any time a fire alarm is given 
 or an accident occurs which might cause a panic the fire 
 brigade is on the spot within forty to fifty seconds, and 
 the entire force of girls is removed in a quiet and very 
 orderly way, reaching the street within one and a quarter 
 to one and a half minutes. 
 
6o CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 WHY WELFARE WORK IS VALUABLE. 
 
 We believe that welfare work, that betterment methods 
 pay, because cleanliness is a saving; the higher type of 
 laborer or employee is a saving; and just as far as the 
 employee can cooperate with the employer, so far the 
 employment is raised to a plane where, not only the in- 
 terest, but the desires and ambitions of both employer and 
 employed harmonize and work toward one common end, 
 which is their ultimate business success. 
 
 The Chairman : We have with us Mr. J. E. Stevens, 
 of the Ludlow Manufacturing Associates, and I will ask 
 Mr. Charles W. Hubbard, Treasurer of the same concern, 
 to tell us who he is. 
 
 Mr. Hubbard : Mr. Stevens is one of the nine trustees 
 of the Associates, and is managing trustee in charge at 
 the works. 
 
 Mr. Stevens : I did not come prepared to say a word, 
 and had not the slightest intimation that I should be ex- 
 pected to do so, but I did come with the expectation that 
 I should learn some things about the success of welfare 
 work. 
 
 character of factory communities. 
 
 It is an unfortunate fact that, since the establishment 
 of factory industries, a factory community has rarely 
 held other than a low place in the public mind, and there 
 is a sense in which from earlier times factory workers 
 have been, so to speak, disclassed. When the great fac- 
 tory period burst upon English people, there had been 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 6i 
 
 previous to that time only what we understand by do- 
 mestic labor, and when machinery was first brought into 
 use, and one discovery after another came into view 
 with amazing rapidity — first the spinning jenny, then 
 the loom, then the steam engine — the great difficulty 
 came to be the procuring of help to run the machinery, 
 and it was under the stress of necessity that people were 
 brought to work in the factories. 
 
 THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 
 
 It is practically the same to-day, and for that reason 
 one of the unfortunate sides of the factory industry is 
 this, that, except in our Southern States, Americans are 
 not, as a rule, found working in our factories. Mr. 
 Nazro, in speaking of the Plymouth Cordage Company, 
 told you about a paper published in three different lan- 
 guages, and I don't know but that if he investigated 
 further he would have to add to that number. We have 
 in our employ nearly 2,000 people; of these some six 
 to seven hundred are Poles, perhaps the same number 
 are French, the rest being Scotch, Irish, German, or other 
 nationalities. ^ 
 
 MOTIVE OF WELFARE WORK. 
 
 We became interested in welfare work some twenty 
 years ago. The expectation of profiting thereby was 
 never in our minds, and is not to-day. We have the 
 feeling that animates you all, and which was well ex- 
 pressed by a great statesman some years ago, that " As 
 we are passing through this world just once, and shall 
 never pass this way again, we should like to do what 
 good we can as we pass along." 
 
62 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION OF MILLS AND HOUSES. 
 
 When some thirty or more years ago we purchased 
 the property where our mills are located, we became the 
 possessors of many old houses and old-fashioned mill 
 buildings, unsanitary, b^dly ventilated, and undesirable 
 in every respect, and when a change became possible, I 
 think we realized that if we were to help our people and 
 encourage in them that most desirable instinct, that of 
 self-respect, • we ought to begin by showing that we re- 
 spected them, and the first thing we realized was that 
 in building houses which they would occupy as homes, 
 or mills in which they would work, we should provide 
 something more than a simple covering or roof that 
 would protect them from the weather. That was the 
 old-fashioned idea. It was followed in the old country, 
 and formerly also in our own land, when the mill was 
 the cheapest thing which could be put up to cover the 
 machinery and the people who worked there; and, oc- 
 casionally, you will find the same thing to-day. I have 
 met manufacturers who openly avowed that they put 
 into their buildings the smallest amount of money they 
 possibly could. 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF HOUSING. 
 
 Our first new work was the building of houses which 
 were to become the homes of the people we expected to 
 settle with us. We decided, as far as possible, to build 
 single cottages, and to make them such as we should 
 be willing to occupy ourselves. Some were built to plans 
 of outside architects, and some to our own plans, but 
 neither proved wholly satisfactory. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 63 
 
 It seemed best to find out just what sort of homes the 
 people wanted, and we resolved to make the attempt. 
 So we would go to the wife of some worker who lived in 
 a little cottage, and we would say, " What sort of a house 
 would you like? And if you could build one yourself, 
 how would you build it ? " She would explain that she 
 wanted her children around her where she could reach 
 them quickly without making too many steps; then she 
 had to cook, to wash, to iron, etc., and it would be a great 
 advantage to her if while she was doing these things she 
 could keep as near as possible to the stairs, so that if 
 the baby cried it was not too many steps to the cradle. 
 She would tell of the difficulties with the stove, and how 
 far it was downstairs to the cellar where supplies were 
 kept ; and so, keeping all these things in view, fresh plans 
 were made, and then we found we had got a cottage 
 that no one very much wanted to live in. Indeed, it be- 
 came increasingly clear, and it is true of most of us, 
 whether we work in a mill and live in a cottage or do 
 something different and live another way, we are not at 
 all sure what we want until we have got it, and then we 
 can usually show why we don't want it, and this is just 
 about what happened in regard to our first new cottages. 
 
 So we tried a different plan. We imagined ourselves 
 in the position of the mill worker's wife, and tried to 
 think out the sort of surrounding that would best suit 
 us if we had to wash and iron and cook and bake and 
 care for the children and^ receive the wives of all the 
 neighbors with the least possible inconvenience. We 
 knew already quite well that human nature is much the 
 same in every walk of life, and that those who work in 
 mills have just the same sentiments as the rest of us 
 
No. Description. 
 
 41 — Houses rented to employees by the company. 
 
 42 — Property outside the company's control. 
 
 64 
 
's:rs(ty 
 
 OF 
 
 >.'FORN\A. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 65 
 
 have. When they received their guests they did not want 
 to take them through the kitchen to reach the parlor; 
 they preferred a front room or reception-room accessible 
 from the front door, just as you and I do. Why not? 
 
 We had to consider all these sentiments and provide 
 all these things, and we began to plan houses on these 
 lines. Then we had to remember that if we worked in 
 the mill we should have to do all the things we spoke of, 
 to keep house and bring up a family, and keep the house 
 warm, and all that on a very small sum, say two or three 
 dollars a day, or in many cases less than that. If you 
 put yourselves in that position and imagine how it could 
 be done, you will have an interesting problem to keep 
 you occupied for quite a few hours. 
 
 I am glad to say that we finally succeeded in planning 
 'cottages that proved very satisfactory, and make very 
 attractive homes for those who occupy them. 
 
 In regard to the very interesting account of my friend 
 from Wilmerding, may I say just a word about the rents 
 for our cottages? These have been gradually improved 
 in the way I have indicated, and that without adding 
 much to the rent — a thing that we felt was not to be 
 thought of. Our favorite cottage has six rooms; three 
 rooms downstairs, with a large pantry and shed adjoin- 
 ing, in which can be kept bicycles, the perambulator, 
 wash tubs, or other essentials of family life, without 
 burdening the kitchen and without carrying them up and 
 downstairs. There is a reception-room opening from the 
 front hall and a dining-room next. It is gratifying to 
 see how attractive these little homes can be made. Up- 
 stairs there are three bedrooms, also a bathroom, which 
 is the same as you have heard described by others here 
 
66 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 to-day, with open plumbing, and just as good as any I 
 know of, with every sanitary essential, but, of course, 
 with an utter absence of anything palatial or ornamental. 
 Everything is quite plain. Our rent for such a cottage 
 is $7.50 per month, the water, which is a city service, 
 being extra. 
 
 We own in our town something more than a thousand 
 acres of land, and we own also nearly all the buildings 
 and even the church, but with all this room a little 
 economy in space is sometimes necessary. Accordingly, 
 on the leading street in our village, which is usually more 
 popular than the rest, because it is the leading street 
 (for in these matters factory people are just like all 
 other people, and have the same sentiments as you and I 
 have), we knew that the main avenue of the town would 
 be the most attractive to live on ; so we thought we must 
 use space there more closely than in the somewhat ex- 
 travagant manner of having large lots with small cot- 
 tages. We decided, therefore, to build some modern 
 blocks, containing small apartments — such as are found 
 in the best avenues of all cities, except that, of course, 
 ours would be more modest and simple in every way. 
 Strange to say, this venture has not been successful at 
 all so far, since no one apparently wants to live in a 
 block, no matter how modem or well contrived. Cot- 
 tages have had their educational value, and all prefer 
 to live in separate houses ; indeed, many express them- 
 selves as unwilling to live in any other way. Yet they 
 would occasionally leave us and pass on to villages near 
 by in which there were nothing but tenements of a more 
 or less sorry order, and they would live in those tene- 
 ments without complaint; but they were not willing to 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 67 
 
 live with us unless they could live in a separate cottage 
 home. You see they had in a way established a senti- 
 ment about what constitutes a desirable home, and there 
 is a vast deal of sentiment in the lives of all people which 
 we do not always discover until we get into their way 
 of thinking, that is, until we put ourselves in their places, 
 and it is only by doing this that we can learn how to 
 deal equitably and successfully with other people. 
 
 THE LIBRARY. 
 
 We have in our village for the use of our people a 
 most attractive library building (presented to the town 
 by the family of our late Treasurer) equipped with a 
 library of about 5,000 modern books, and having a most 
 comfortable reading-room well supplied with the popular 
 literature of the day. But this library and reading-room, 
 we are free to confess, have not met with such general 
 and widespread patronage from our people as we hoped 
 would be the case. Some of our philanthropists seem to 
 think that the whole race is going to be saved and re- 
 generated by books, but it would be easy to prove by the 
 mouths of as many thousands of factory workers as you 
 choose, and other people, too, that they don't want to be 
 regenerated that way, and that whatever they want they 
 don't want books, or if they do, they will gladly provide 
 their own. They all know quite well that in these days 
 books are cheaper than anything else on earth, except 
 advice, and that they can give quite as well as take. 
 While, therefore, our library is excellent in every way, 
 the number of people who make use of it is the one dis- 
 appointing feature. The reading-room, as I have stated. 
 
No. Description. 
 
 39 — A tenement house outside the company's control. 
 
 40 — A tenement house owned by the company. Apart- 
 ments are rented to employees. 
 
 68 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 69 
 
 is comfortable and attractive, the tables well supplied 
 with modern journals and magazines, yet out of some 
 2,000 workers, which means, perhaps, some 5,000 resi- 
 dents, it. is a rare thing to find more than twenty or 
 twenty-five people in the reading-room. The only reason 
 seems to be that reading is not the thing they most want, 
 and books have not in their eyes that attractiveness 
 which makes them want them much of the time. The 
 reasons for all this I have not discovered, but I hope 
 before I leave this room to-day some of you will tell 
 me how the love of books is to be inspired. 
 
 I realize that good books will help every one, but it 
 remains true that the popular taste seems to be more 
 in the line of cheap newspapers than good books. Of 
 these cheap newspapers we get an ample supply every 
 day from New York. They tell us daily, in glaring 
 print, of many wonderful things, most of which appa- 
 rently never happen. It is true, a good many people 
 use our library. It is a pleasure to see them there, yet 
 it is true they were not the people whom we thought 
 of when the library was built. It is just the same right 
 here in New York City. There is the Mills Hotel, a 
 most excellent hotel. It was built for the indigent and 
 impoverished, who needed just such accommodation, but 
 it was almost immediately taken possession of by people 
 who had been paying three and four times the prices 
 charged there. It has been used little or not at all by 
 the impecunious of the community for whom it was 
 originally built. That is a common experience in most 
 of the things that are done with the view of meeting the 
 needs of other people. I rarely take a good book out of our 
 library the leaves of which are cut, even though it may 
 
70 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 have been there six or seven years. We take news- 
 papers in the different languages, but apparently no one 
 reads them. The papers in the Polish language I cer- 
 tainly don't read, and I know the Polish people do not, 
 because they do not come there. We would not dispense 
 with the library for anything; undoubtedly it has done 
 great good. But we feel it ought to have done and would 
 do much more if those who would be most helped by it 
 could be interested. 
 
 EFFORTS FOR RECREATION. 
 
 Of the things we have undertaken, that which has 
 succeeded best is the men's gymnasium. This is entirely 
 self-supporting. We started this men's club in a small 
 way, simply furnishing the room, the light, and the heat. 
 We got the men to manage it themselves from the start. 
 They established their own working committees, and 
 have managed their own affairs ever since. It has been 
 a success financially also, and beyond what I have stated, 
 we have not been called on to contribute anything for 
 several years. Of course, certain members get dissatis- 
 fied with certain things part of the time ; they elect their 
 own committees, and occasionally will complain of what 
 their committees do. Sometimes this arises from the 
 fact that as there is administrative work to do, and 
 everybody can't do it, it ends in their electing committees 
 having executive positions in the mill. This leads some 
 of the men to think it is too much like " more mill." 
 Once, when this dissatisfaction came to our knowledge, 
 we offered to make the rule that no one holding an ex- 
 ecutive position in the mill should be permitted to work 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 71. 
 
 on any of the men's club committees. But that was not 
 wanted, because it was felt that it would hurt, and not 
 help, the club to rule out the men who had the best ability 
 for managing it. But these little matters are gradually 
 righting themselves, and I think the club was never more 
 successful than it is to-day. 
 
 AN ATHLETIC FIELD. 
 
 The company has quite recently laid out a large 
 athletic field. This contains a quarter-mile running track 
 and ample room for football, baseball, cricket, and all 
 other outdoor sports. The grounds are fenced in, so 
 that an admission fee can be charged when games are 
 played. We used these grounds for the first time last 
 fall. They' have been put under the management of the 
 men's athletic committee, and I think these grounds are 
 going to be very greatly appreciated, and will do very 
 much to help us to establish manly athletic sports with 
 all the vulgar features ruled out. 
 
 THE RESTAURANT. 
 
 Last year we opened a restaurant, and I imagine it 
 is much like the one Mr. Nazro described. It is fitted 
 in a simple but thoroughly comfortable manner, and to 
 insure satisfactory cooking a good chef and a profes- 
 sional baker were engaged. We knew the prices had to 
 be exceedingly low, and we started with the idea of run- 
 ning without waiters, and requiring every one to go to 
 the counter for what they might wish to eat, just as is 
 done in the popular cheap lunch rooms in all cities. 
 Strange to say, this did not seem to work. I don't quite 
 
72 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 understand why. Perhaps Mr. Nazro can tell us. A 
 couple of years ago I visited one of the immense work- 
 ing people's homes in the East End of London, and the 
 restaurant was run, and successfully, on those lines, but 
 it failed to work well with us. So we secured girls to 
 wait on table, and have kept this up ever since. .A sub- 
 stantial but plain dinner is prepared ever>^ day, consist- 
 ing of soups, roasts, side dishes, ample supplj^ of v^e- 
 tables, with pie or pudding, and tea, coflFee, or milk, the 
 whole dinner for fifteen cents. This seemed reasonable 
 enoogfa, and I think every one is ready to admit that it 
 is reasonable. Nevertheless we can hardly feel it is a suc- 
 cess, because the great masses of the people for whom 
 we intended it have never come there. We don't exactly 
 know why, but probably we shall some day. One day a 
 man came to me and asked to have a house in the village 
 (he was living a mile or two away). He said it was too 
 far to go home to dinner, and he was tired of eating 
 cold lunches. I asked him, just out of curiosity, " Why 
 don't you go to the restaurant and get a hot dinner for 
 fifteen cents ? " He said it was too much, as he had to 
 look at every cent. I doubt if he had really figured out 
 the gain or loss. Still, it certainly remains true that 
 most of our men who live at a distance will rather stay 
 in the mill and eat a cold lunch than go to the restaurant 
 for a hot dinner. 
 
 Conference Adjourned to 2.30 P. M. 
 
 AFTERNOON SESSION. 
 
 Mr. Ste\-ens: I was speaking of the restaurant and 
 those things which have been failures concerning it. To 
 prevent misapprehension, I ought to add that in addition 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 73 
 
 to a fixed dinner at a regular price, all sorts of other 
 things are served at all hours at equally low prices. Any 
 one who does not desire to spend fifteen cents for a full 
 dinner, may spend five or six cents or more, just as the 
 case may be. All the prices are reasonable, and it does 
 not seem possible that the lack of success can be because 
 of the cost. 
 
 Another thing that has been only partially successful in 
 connection with the restaurant has been the selling of 
 bread, cakes, and cooked food to the people. All these 
 are sold at very low rates, but the amount of patronage 
 has been small, and there again the patronage has not 
 come from those whom we most wanted to reach. Many 
 people find it is more economical to come there and get 
 things than to cook them in their own homes, but they, 
 of course, are amply able to take care of themselves. 
 It is often a great conveninece to the ladies of the vil- 
 lage to get things at the restaurant rather than bother 
 with them at their own homes. In my ,own home, for 
 instance, we have almost ceased to bake bread, because 
 the restaurant bread is better than we can bake, and 
 we save all the trouble. But the ones whom it was de- 
 signed to reach, the masses of the working people, many 
 of whom do not know what good, wholesome food is — 
 these people we do not seem to reach, and I don't quite 
 know why. I fancy, however, that one of the reasons 
 is that at the restaurant no credit is given, the reason 
 being that we want to emphasize the advantage of get- 
 ting things good at low cost, provided they are bought 
 for cash. But here we can hardly feel that we have suc- 
 ceeded. The people will still buy inferior bread and 
 cakes and things of that character at higher prices where 
 
74 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 they can be credited, and everything put down in a book, 
 instead of paying at the time purchases are made. 
 
 CREDIT SYSTEM A CURSE. 
 
 We should emphatically say, from all our experience 
 with factory life, that one of the greatest curses to the 
 working people is the continually extended system of 
 credits, which now go in certain stores and with certain 
 dealers, with almost everything. In addition to the 
 restaurant, we established a store, supplying furniture, 
 stoves, and such things at exceedingly low prices, and 
 also for cash, except to new comers without much money. 
 These we wanted to help establish their homes econom- 
 ically, without falling into the hands of the greedy in- 
 stalment houses. We have met just the same difficulty 
 as in the restaurant. Nearly every one w^ants to buy on 
 credit. Even some who have been with us many years 
 and earn good wages can not be led to see the advan- 
 tage of low prices and cash payments. They want the 
 low prices provided they can have the credit too, but a 
 combination of low prices and cash payments does not 
 commend itself. Of course, there "are some very pleas- 
 ing exceptions to this statement, and as time goes on 
 the lesson we want to teach may be ultimately learned. 
 If any one has succeeded on these lines, that is, the break- 
 ing up of credit systems and establishing cash payments, 
 we would like to know how to do it. 
 
 SPECIAL INSTRUCTION FOR GIRLS. 
 
 Just a word about the girls' institute. This was started 
 two years ago. We fitted a complete building, which 
 had been our old office, for the use of the girls ; furnished 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 75 
 
 it comfortably and attractively, engaged a secretary and 
 invited the girls to come in. We have had successful 
 classes in cooking, sewing, and dressmaking; but much 
 more successful than these have been the classes in 
 physical culture, leading to athletic sports for girls, such 
 as basket ball, etc. In this they have taken great in- 
 terest, and it is wonderful how proficient they have be- 
 come. The institute now numbers about seventy mem- 
 bers. They elect their own officers and manage their 
 own affairs on much the same pattern as the men's club, 
 only, being much more recent, it is not just as firmly 
 established; still we believe it is doing much good, and 
 we hope will do a great deal more. 
 
 In conclusion, I want to refer to one other subject, and 
 ask for information. My friend, Mr. Herr, spoke of it, 
 that is, he spoke of the work done under the auspices of 
 the Young Men's Christian Association, and then I under- 
 stood him to say that they had changed that. We all 
 recognize that in this welfare work we want managers 
 or secretaries. In our case we need two, one for the men 
 and one for the women. Now, has any one found it to 
 be the most successful way of attaining success to turn 
 the work over to the Young Men's Christian Association 
 and hire their trained secretaries to do the work, having 
 the whole work carried on under the system which 
 they have adopted? If that method has proved a general 
 success, I should like exceedingly to hear it. 
 
 The Chairman : We would be glad to hear from Mr. 
 C. C. Michener, Secretary of the Industrial Department 
 of the International Committee of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association, New York City, on that subject. 
 
No. Description. 
 
 64 — Men's library. 
 65 — Men's pool room. 
 
 76 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 77 
 
 Mr. Michener: It is impossible to make any state- 
 ment about the Young Men's Christian Association that 
 has been working with workingmen for fifty years and 
 do it in five minutes. This movement is well adapted 
 to the various classes of men throughout the country, 
 whether it be among men of commercial pursuits, col- 
 lege students, the army and navy, or of the railroad 
 centers. It has adapted itself to all the various 
 classes of men. It is not what I may say about it that 
 will decide here whether it is worthy, but its history is 
 open for the investigation and study of those who care 
 to look into it. It is the results which will decide any 
 kind of welfare work. It is facts and successes, not 
 theories, that we are looking for. 
 
 The statements made this morning about a variety of 
 experiences are very familiar to those of us in Asso- 
 ciation work. Take the work of the railroad depart- 
 ment: The railroad companies attempted all kinds of 
 clubs and all sorts of organizations. They have prac- 
 tically stopped this now, and these clubs have gone out 
 of existence. In the same buildings where this work 
 was attempted by the railroad companies it has been 
 taken up by the Associations. The railroad companies 
 have spent over five millions in the past few years on 
 this work. It is not confined now to railroad men, but is 
 being extended and carried on in manufacturing establish- 
 ments. 
 
 Reference was made to the Westinghouse Air Brake 
 Company this morning. I wish Mr. Herr were here, as I 
 would like to have him verify what I will say. He has told 
 me in his own office that he was surprised that so much 
 work could be done, because this work in Wilmerding 
 
78 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 is carried on in the office building constructed for the 
 company's use. The building was erected for offices and 
 not for association work. The work has grown so that 
 to its quarters in the office building there have been 
 added four rooms in the High School building near by. 
 This Association started a woman's club, which has de- 
 veloped into a Young Women's Christian Association. 
 Our method of work is to start with the man. It is often 
 said, start with the homes. That sounds well ; you get 
 the women and children. If you start with the man, you 
 get the home, and you get the women and -children also. 
 The first method leaves the man out almost entirely, and 
 does not touch the man in the factory. The situation at 
 Wilmerding, I think, is worth a comparison with the 
 Carnegie Club at Braddock, five miles away. The West- 
 inghouse Association has no building adapted to the 
 work. The company employs three thousand men, half 
 of whom are non-residents. The annual expenses of the 
 Westinghouse Association are $5,000. The Carnegie 
 Club, five miles away, in a community of 11,000 men, with 
 a building that cost $350,000, equipped for the special 
 work undertaken, has a maintenance fund of $6oo,ooo,- 
 bringing in an annual income, together with other re- 
 sources, of $30,000 with which to pay the expenses. There 
 has been only one feature in which the work is larger 
 than that of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, and 
 that is the number of books drawn from the librar}-. The 
 Association has almost twice as many in educational 
 classes. Every feature is larger on a $5,000 expenditure. 
 I know some of you will differ with me in the state- 
 ment I am now going to make. The secret of success 
 of the Young Men's Christian Association is its religious 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 79 
 
 work. Most people in their efforts in behalf of the work- 
 ingman take it for granted that the religious work is to 
 be left out. I am unable to understand why a man who 
 works with his hands is any less religious than a man 
 who works with his head. We find the religious side of 
 our work appeals to all denominations. We have been 
 trying to develop shop Bible classes, and on November 
 I last we had 175 manufacturing establishments in 115 
 cities in North America, with an average weekly attend- 
 ance of 25,000 workingmen at the noon and midnight 
 shop Bible classes. The easiest thing we are doing is to 
 get workingmen to respond to the religious appeal. 
 
 Mr. Patterson : Is it so much the religion, or is it 
 not the way you take the problem up with the men, and 
 that you do not have the company do these things for 
 them? Does the initiative come from the men? 
 
 Mr. Michener: The initiative of this work comes 
 from the men. What the company does is merely to 
 assist the men in carrying on certain work among them- 
 selves. But we have had a number of places where they 
 have had all that without the religious side. 
 
 Mr. Patterson : Doesn't the initiative in that case 
 come from the employer's side? 
 
 Mr. Michener : No ; from the men. In other words, 
 the merely attempting to do a few specific things for 
 the workingman does not give him a higher motive. 
 That is not enough to keep a man continuously a mem- 
 ber of any such organization. He must have a motive 
 that will help him to help some other man ; and on the 
 basis of self-sacrifice and of doing something for the 
 other fellow, which is the center of the religious motive, 
 it makes the work succeed. I don't believe it is possible. 
 
8o CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 regardless of plan, to succeed, and continue in that suc- 
 cess — I am speaking about workingmen only — without 
 having an unselfish ideal back of what is done. 
 
 Mr. Patterson : To what extent in your work does 
 the religious feature go? 
 
 Mr. Michener: All these questions I will refer to 
 Mr. Warburton, Secretary New York Central Depart- 
 ment, and Mr. Dudley, Secretary of the Brooklyn Rapid 
 Transit Department. They can answer that question in 
 a word. 
 
 Upon request from them, Mr. Charles R. Towson, Gen- 
 eral Secretary of the Pennsylvania Railroad Branch, 
 Young Men's Christian Association, Philadelphia, Pa., 
 replied to Mr. Patterson's question. 
 
 Mr. Towson: We recognize that there is no objective 
 higher than the whole man. Our Association work in 
 all of its departments has regard to the fact that a man 
 is a living soul — for this life and the life to come. We 
 do not project our religious methods into our work in 
 such a way as to repel any man. In the Young Men's 
 Christian Association which I represent we have hun- 
 dreds of Roman Catholics. The chairman of one of our 
 committees is a Roman Catholic. Last month we had 
 5, OCX) railroad men and their families in attendance upon 
 our religious work, including the meetings of our Bible 
 classes, there being between 700 and 1,000 in attendance 
 at the Bible classes. That is only part of the work, and 
 hundreds of the men never go near the religious meet- 
 ings. The point we recognize is that the force that 
 makes our Association work continuous and successful 
 is this underlying religious motive. 
 
 Q. What proportion of the employees do you reach? 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 8i 
 
 Mr. Towson : We are in Philadelphia — I can't say 
 definitely. I don't know how many employees are in 
 our immediate vicinity, but in the entire city we esti- 
 mate there are ten thousand employees. We have 2,500 
 on our membership rolls. There are seventeen Associa- 
 tions on the Pennsylvania lines east of Pittsburg. 
 
 Q. How do you reach the Poles and other people of 
 that class? 
 
 Mr. Towson : ** We count not ourselves to have ap- 
 prehended," but we have felt seriously our responsibility 
 for the Italians (of whom we have many on the road 
 who do not speak a word of the English language), and 
 we have now in our religious work department a com- 
 mittee whose business is to investigate and find out just 
 how we can get at the needs of these Italians and help 
 them. 
 
 Mr. Michener: Senator Proctor, of Proctor, Ver- 
 mont, has a large number of foreigners working in his 
 marble quarries, and one of the features introduced is 
 to provide these non-English speaking people with an 
 opportunity to study the English language, as soon as 
 they can read, to get them to study the rudiments of 
 American freedom and civil government, and thus at- 
 tempt to get these men to become intelligent American 
 citizens, instead of having nothing done for them. 
 
 Mr. Krumbhaar: This meeting was called to discuss 
 the question of the betterment of men in the factory, and 
 the improvement of the conditions surrounding, in the 
 factory itself and in their homes. Some little time ago 
 the Young Men's Christian Association made to the 
 Solvay Process Company the proposition that they (the 
 Young Men's Christian Association) should take over 
 
82 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 all our welfare work. But we decided that this would 
 not be a good thing to do, mainly because it would re- 
 lieve us of the entire responsibility of our workmen. 
 Would the ordinary manufacturer, if he handed over all 
 the welfare work to some one else, be inclined to follow 
 that other man's suggestions, and run his factory upon 
 the lines dictated by some outsider, rather than do it 
 himself, and would the result justify his relieving him- 
 self of all responsibility? I do not wish to find fault 
 with the Young Men's Christian Association, and I wish 
 to testify here to the value of their work. It is a great 
 work, and they have accomplished a vast amount of good. 
 Their plan may be very successful with a great railroad, 
 but in a compact plant like ours, for instance, I, for one, 
 do not think it would work well. 
 
 Mr. Michexer : I think the experience of the Proctor 
 Marble Company, the Westinghouse Air Brake Com- 
 pany, the Lorain Steel Company, the Pearl River Lum- 
 ber Company, and several equally important establish- 
 ments is evidence that it does not decrease the respon- 
 sibility of the employer, but rather increases it. It does 
 not take from him the interest which he has in his men, 
 but rather increases it, because of the more intelligent 
 development of things from the standpoint of a trained 
 secretary who knows his business. If you noticed Mr. 
 Herr this morning, you will remember that he said their 
 first secretary was a man from a social settlement who did 
 not understand the problem. He was not trained in As- 
 sociation work. That is the point of it — that he was not 
 trained. We have two training schools in which we have 
 from 100 to 200 men, many of them working men, who 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. ^^ 
 
 are studying the work for the purpose of taking up the 
 secretaryships in these factories. 
 
 I saw a place the other day where they were serving 
 coffee for nothing, and I found a man who Was not drink- 
 ing the coffee, and I said : "Why don't you drink it? Don't 
 you Hke it ? " He answered : " Of course I do." I said : 
 " Well, why don't you drink it ? " Said the man : " No ; 
 if I drink a cup or two of coffee my employer thinks I 
 will do seventeen cents' worth of work more than if I 
 didn't drink it, and the company gets the benefit, and I 
 don't propose that they will get ahead of me that way." 
 
 Q. How would you bring about a better understanding 
 by your methods, between employee and employer ? 
 
 Mr. Michener: By getting the men to want certain 
 things, and getting the employer to respond to the men's 
 appeal, and in helping them to provide the things they 
 want. 
 
 Q. It would be through the medium of a third party, 
 but it would not bring them closer together. 
 
 Mr. Michener: The secretary may be a third party 
 in starting the work, but the Association is composed of 
 the people of the community, both employer and em- 
 ployee. It is self-governing, and is entirely within the 
 plant, and not something outside. 
 
 Miss Beeks : One of the greatest difficulties is to pro- 
 cure the right persons to promote welfare work in the fac- 
 tories. Are the students in your training schools receiv- 
 ing any special training other than that required for your 
 regular Association secretaryships? 
 
 Mr. Michener : We are now planning a special course 
 where men are going to be trained in this particular work. 
 
84 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 Miss Beeks : Who are the instructors ? What training 
 and experience have they had? 
 
 Mr. Michener : We get the railroad secretaries to go 
 there; we get factory men themselves; employers; we 
 have to get secretaries who have had industrial problems, 
 who have had experience, in addition to other men who 
 have had a general experience. 
 
 Mr. Easley: And you know of no company that is 
 doing this work with other than Y. M. C. A. methods 
 which has been successful? Do you mean to imply that 
 welfare work can not be successfully promoted in any 
 other way? I infer this from what you said with refer- 
 ence to its being the religious motive which makes the 
 work succeed. 
 
 Mr. Michener: I think pretty generally that is true. 
 T have been studying this problem for a number of years, 
 and in places where this work has been done by the com- 
 pany I have yet to find one instance where the men them- 
 selves are satisfied with what the company is doing, and 
 in most of the places, in confidence, the management have 
 told me, in their private offices, that it was not working 
 the way they had hoped. I have been to some of the fac- 
 tories represented here this afternoon, and have talked 
 with the workingmen themselves, and know how they 
 feel. I would not be bigoted enough, I hope, to say that 
 the only method of doing this work is that of the Young 
 Men's Christian Association, nor so one-sided as to say 
 that we are saying the final word on this industrial work, 
 nor to say that the Association can do all of it. There is 
 a great deal of betterment work the Association can never 
 take hold of. 
 
 Mrs. Wheeler : Do vou think with the methods which 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 85 
 
 social secretaries employ that they can not do this work 
 just as well as it can be done through the medium of the 
 Young Men's Christian Association? 
 
 Mr. Michener: I can only answer that from my ex- 
 perience, and that is that the secretary that represents the 
 company as an employee of the company is put on a 
 wrong basis with the majority of the employees. They 
 look upon that secretary as an employee of the company, 
 rather than their own employee. Now, I know I am 
 saying some things which you, probably, do not agree 
 with, but I am speaking entirely from the standpoint of 
 our knowledge of the statements of individuals, individual 
 working people, as to what they think about this kind of 
 thing. 
 
 Miss Hirschler : Aren't all these Y. M. C. A. secre- 
 taries paid by the employers ? Are they not paid officials, 
 and do not the railways provide the rooms and the build- 
 ings? 
 
 Mr. Michener: I suppose if you take it from a tech- 
 nical standpoint, in some cases that is ,true, but what- 
 ever the railroad company does, is done as a contribution 
 to the Association, the association of employees, and 
 they spend it. Their board of directors distribute it for 
 the different expenses, and they decide what salary the 
 secretary shall receive, and secure him. The board of 
 directors of the Association controls that and not the 
 company. Whatever the company gives is simply a sub- 
 scription to the work which the men carry on and man- 
 age. 
 
 Q. Take the case of a small village, where there are 
 different denominations, don't you think the religious in- 
 struction you claim to give them would be given equally 
 
86 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 well by the Social Secretary of the corporation working 
 in harmony with the priests of the different sects, each 
 helping its own people? 
 
 Mr. Michener: Experience answers that. We have 
 found that it assists materially the priests and pastors in 
 this kind of work, because of what the Association secre- 
 tary does. Whether or not we might do certain things 
 I do not know. I only know what has been done. 
 
 Miss Beeks : Are there any manufacturing establish- 
 ments outside of the Westinghouse Company where you 
 have taken up the work? 
 
 Mr. Michener : Yes ; the Vermont Marble Company. 
 
 Miss Beeks: You have entire charge of the work for 
 the company? 
 
 Mr. Michener : At Proctor, Vt., yes ; the whole thing 
 except the hospital. 
 
 Miss Beeks: Not the entire work of the company — 
 just the outside club work? 
 
 Mr. Michener : We have the whole work for the men 
 in that establishment. There is also a library and a 
 hospital in the community. I don't know of any other 
 work. 
 
 Miss Beeks: I am only getting at the question which 
 Mr. Stevens asked some time ago. Is it better for the 
 Young Men's Christian Association to take entire charge 
 of the work or not ? and, as I understand it, you have not 
 quite developed that point. 
 
 Mr. Michener: If it comes to the matter of factory 
 construction, I am not sure that the Association wants to, 
 or ought to, go into it. 
 
 . Miss Beeks: It is, then, a question of what welfare 
 work is — what is involved in welfare work? 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 87 
 
 Mr. Michener : Yes ; I think so. 
 
 Mr. Warburton: Will you let me suggest from ex- 
 perience how the thing works? At the railroad branch, 
 where Mr. Vanderbilt was very much interested, the 
 officials and the men meet constantly in committee and at 
 social meetings, etc. The Association is made up of em- 
 ployees of the company from the president down, each 
 man paying his dues, so that Mr. Depew is treated just 
 like the brakeman who works under him in our organiza- 
 tion. I should be very sorry, and I am sure Mr. Michener 
 would be also, if any one should get the impression that 
 the Young Men's Christian Association imagines that it 
 has discovered the only way out of the difficulty. We 
 think in railroad work that we have been as successful as 
 anybody else, perhaps a little more. That is as far as I 
 should like to go. 
 
 Q. I wanted to ask the last speaker what proportion of 
 the total number of employees they get hold of ? 
 
 Mr. Warburton : We have a membership in New York 
 now, in the railroad branch, of 3,000 men. I suppose 
 there are in the neighborhood of 8,000 men working for 
 the companies that are affiliated with us. We do not 
 admit employees who are not connected with companies 
 that do not contribute toward our maintenance. 
 
 Mr. Michener : At Proctor they have about 900 men 
 employed, and about 600 are members of the Y. M. C. A. 
 That covers men of fifteen denominations and nineteen 
 nationalities ; the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, 
 Lorain Steel Company, now National Tube Works (where 
 they have a $40,000 building and are planning for a much 
 larger one), the Pearl River Lumber Company, and 
 several others, where there are associations. These are 
 
88 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 all doing work satisfactory to the employers and em- 
 ployees. 
 
 Another statement I would like to make is this : That 
 we have no bone to pick with any one. I think there is 
 danger of the two movements represented here crossing 
 tracks, and of saying things about each other which we do 
 not need to say. I think, so far as I am able to judge by 
 the statements made here this morning, that most of the 
 things that were talked about were not the things which 
 the Young Men's Christian Association has been attempt- 
 ing to do. You have, according to the statements made, 
 been dealing largely with factory construction, and sanita- 
 tion, and other things of that character, which take in the 
 whole community. Our work is directly for the man and 
 his needs, and the building up of the work for the man 
 himself, the working man as an individual, without at- 
 tempting to go into a lot of other things which belong to 
 the policy of the company itself in the way of construc- 
 tion, sanitation, arbitration, and other things. 
 
 Mr. W. a. Ryan (Head of the Welfare Department 
 of the National Cash Register Company) : You say your 
 work is different, but, nevertheless, you take jurisdiction 
 of libraries, dining-rooms, recreative clubs, and indus- 
 trial classes. Do you not ? Do you inaugurate and main- 
 tain those under your secretaries? 
 
 Mr. Michener : The Association takes the whole man — 
 the educational features, which include practical talks, 
 libraries, reading-rooms, night classes, etc. There is the 
 social side, which takes charge of social entertainments 
 and certain amusements — billiards, etc. There is another 
 side which takes the gymnasium, with the bowling alleys 
 and the baseball teams, and the one which takes the re- 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 89 
 
 ligious work, the Bible classes and men's meetings, and 
 other things in that line. 
 
 Mr. Ryan : Does it take into consideration the inaugu- 
 ration or institution of lunch systems ? 
 
 Mr. Michenee?: Sometimes it does, when the men de- 
 sire it. 
 
 Mr. Ryan : This contribution that these firms make to 
 this employees' Association (Y. M. C. A.), there is no 
 secrecy about that ? Every employee knows that the firm 
 he is working for, which firm has a representative of the 
 Y. M. C. A. doing the work, makes this contribution? 
 
 Mr. Michener : Yes. 
 
 Mr. Ryan : How, then, do you explain the non-antag- 
 onism which the employee has to the firm which con- 
 tributes to the Y. M. C. A., as compared with the antag- 
 onism with which he seems to be inspired when the com- 
 pany does it itself? 
 
 Mr. Michener : As a rule the employer concludes some 
 day to build something, such as a gymnasium or library, 
 which he thinks will meet the needs of the community. 
 That building is built, and thrown open to the employees, 
 usually without cost. As the scheme of the company, it 
 comes from the company^s offices, they build the build- 
 ing, they plan the work, they manage it and pay the bills. 
 That is one way. The other way the employees originate 
 it. They meet together and conclude that they would 
 like to have some of the same things, perhaps, that would 
 be in this building which the company would provide for 
 the employees; but in this case the employees ask the 
 company to help them build a place for their work, which 
 the company gives outright to this employees' organiza- 
 tion. In the first place, the title is held by the company ; 
 
9© CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 in the second place it is held entirely by the organization, 
 or is leased to them for a long term of years. 
 
 Mr. Ryan : These people make these requests at the 
 instigatiqn of the secretary ? 
 
 Mr. Michener: Sometimes they do; sometimes they 
 do not. 
 
 Mr. Ryan : In the majority of cases they do? 
 
 Mr. Michener: Yes. 
 
 Mr. Ryan : The secretary forms the association or club 
 in the first place, or is instrumental in it? 
 
 Mr. Michener : Yes ; certainly. 
 
 Mr. Ryan : He is instrumental, and it is through his 
 suggestion or his outlining the need of these things that 
 this organization comes to the employer and asks for 
 them? 
 
 Mr. Michener: It comes from the men to the em- 
 ployer. 
 
 Mr. Ryan- : From the organization formed by the men ? 
 
 Mr. Warburton : I think it would be fairer to say 
 that both are interested. Sometimes the men who want to 
 do this thing are talked with. I think Mr. Michener 
 would not say that any particular method was always fol- 
 lowed, but that by talking with representatives of one side 
 and then with representatives of the other, some ideas can 
 be collected. 
 
 Mr. Patterson : But, are the ideas principally given by 
 this third party? That is the question. 
 
 Mr. Warburton : I am not answering Mr. Michener's 
 question. That is the way we explain the doing away of 
 this antagonism. 
 
 Mr. Michener : All I can say is that it does it. 
 
 Mr. Patterson : Does it always do it ? 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 91 
 
 Mr. Michener : I don't know of any case where it has 
 not. 
 
 Mr. Ryan : I do not criticize the Young Men's Chris- 
 tion Association because I represent a firm which does not 
 employ that method, but I want to get at its method. If 
 the Association can get rid of this antagonism entirely, it 
 has the best method. 
 
 Mr. Michener : I do not think we can make any such 
 claim. It would be folly for us to take any such position, 
 regardless of the method. Our method, I think, as it has 
 worked, has had less difficulty in dealing with the problem, 
 that is all. 
 
 Mr. Easley: Mr. Chairman, there is danger of this 
 discussion becoming acrimonious and resolving itself into 
 a controversy over the work of the Y. M. C. A. Mr. 
 Michener should not be forced to defend that Association 
 against adverse criticism, and I would suggest that we 
 confine ourselves to subjects strictly germane to the pur- 
 pose for which we came together. 
 
 Mr. Warburton : I think the Association would merely 
 say this: It is a principle in such work that cooperation 
 should be employed, and the more general that cooperation 
 can be, the better the results will be. I think almost all 
 of us will agree to that. , 
 
 Mr. Michener: I was in a community the other day 
 where the company had just completed a beautiful $40,000 
 memorial library building, with a fine equipment, for the 
 use of the men. I was invited by the management of that 
 company to look into the situation that existed there. I 
 found a movement on foot among the employees for the 
 erection of an $8,000 building which would give these 
 same benefits and which they could run themselves. 
 
92 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 Mr. Patterson : We have had failures in this kind of 
 work, and among them we considered that of the Young 
 Men's Christian Association was one of the worst; 
 and we decided not to have any rehgious element enter 
 into our welfare work. From a conversation with Mr. 
 Michener some time ago, I learned a great deal that was 
 very valuable, indeed. The idea of the Y^ M. C. A. is 
 this : To put a man at the head who is well trained in that 
 kind of work and knows what to do and what not to do, 
 and who does not endeavor to force the men to do cer- 
 tain things, but to stimulate the desire for them and have 
 the men make the suggestion and do it from their own 
 standpoint. Instead of having a Y. M. C. A. secretary, 
 we have a man who came to us from Marshall Field's, in 
 Chicago, who is an employee and goes among the em- 
 ployees a great deal. We are here to find out what modi- 
 fications of our general plan we can find. But I doubt 
 very much whether it is the religious element that pro- 
 duces the effect. I think it is the organization of the 
 Y. M. C. A., the good men and the practical men at the 
 head of it. 
 
 Mr. Dudley : I want to say one word in regard to the 
 religious part of our work. There seems to be in some 
 minds the thought that it is detrimental, and is antag- 
 onized sometimes on the part of the men themselves. We 
 organized a Young Men's Christian Association a few 
 months ago among the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Railroad 
 men. We have had a number of entertainments there, 
 and the members were out in large numbers. It was with 
 a great deal of fear that we undertook religious work. 
 One of the largest audiences of railroad people that we 
 have had in our new building was at a religious meeting 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 93 
 
 on a Sunday afternoon, and I don't believe there was 
 heartier or more enthusiastic singing in any church in the 
 city of Brooklyn than came from those railroad men at 
 their first religious meeting ; and they have requested that 
 we repeat them. The demand is in the hearts and minds 
 of the working people to-day as much as it is in the hearts 
 and minds of those who are better ofif in the world. 
 
 Mr. Patterson : I admire the Y. M. C. A. All welfare 
 work is religion. We had a woman in charge of our wel- 
 fare work who started with a Sunday school of sixty and 
 reached six hundred, and ran it until the strike occurred. 
 But, whether you have a Y. M. C. A. man or have a 
 Methodist or some one else in charge of the work, I think 
 it all depends on the practical business management of the 
 person in charge, and his ability to get the men to do 
 things that are apparently initiated among the men them- 
 selves. 
 
 Mr. Krumbhaar : I think we are getting into too much 
 of a discussion of the Y. M. C. A. I think we ought to go 
 back to the subject with which we started. During the 
 luncheon hour some of us had a little talk, and we have 
 questions to ask each other with reference to welfare work. 
 I think it would be better to drop this discussion that we 
 have gotten into, and go back to our original purpose of 
 trying to find out the best thing to do and how to do it. 
 
 Mr. Humphreys : I will suggest that further discussion 
 be on the basis of something to be agreed upon, not nec- 
 essarily what I suggest here, but something like it; so 
 that each member shall be called upon to oflfer his ideas 
 about diflferent topics of welfare work, such as, for in- 
 stance, the following: Factory construction, sanitation, 
 consultation between employer and employee, methods of 
 
94 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 arbitration, initiative of all work, whether the initiative 
 comes through the employer or employe, and the matter 
 of recreation and other social interests. I would like to 
 limit our discussion to something that is tangible and in 
 which the employer is interested as well as the factory 
 operative. 
 
 (Mr. Vreeland takes the chair.) 
 
 Mr. \^reeland: Unfortunately, my absence for a few- 
 hours has placed me at a disadvantage. In fact, I am as 
 completely at sea as the gentlemen who have been speak- 
 ing. We do not seem to be talking about the objects for 
 which this meeting was called, and I think the sugges- 
 tion of Mr. Humphreys a very good one at this time. I 
 will ask Mr. John F. P. Lawton, of the Gorham Manufac- 
 turing Company, to speak along that line. 
 
 Mr. Lawton : The Gorham Manufacturing Company 
 is a comparatively old corporation, having been estab- 
 lished in 1 83 1. Until 1891 we were located in the very 
 heart of the city and had grown to occupy an entire block. 
 The location admitted of no further extension, and — for- 
 tunately, I may say — we were forced to choose a new site, 
 which afforded the space for our casino, which I shall 
 describe in the course of my remarks. 
 
 WHY THE CASINO WAS ERECTED. 
 
 The initiative for what you appropriately term " wel- 
 fare work " came from the president of our company, not 
 from the employees. Our employees are an exceptionally 
 high class of men and their wages run from $3 a week 
 for boys to $100 or more a week for the higher grades oi 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK, 95 
 
 skilled labor. They are an intelligent class of men, are 
 well to do, and many of them own homesteads. While a 
 large portion of them have time to go to their homes at 
 noon, there are many who can not do so, and have been 
 accustomed to either bring their lunches, or buy indigest- 
 ible food from lunch carts, which found it profitable to 
 come regularly to the works. These lunches the men 
 would eat in the workrooms. We insisted that mainly for 
 their own good they should get a change of air at noon. 
 This was the incentive for erecting a new building. Our 
 president offered to give the building if the company 
 would equip it. This was done at an expenditure of up- 
 ward of $20,000 — about equally divided between costs of 
 building and equipment.* 
 
 HOW SUSPICION WAS ALLAYED. 
 
 When we got pretty well along with the building, I 
 noticed that the men took very little interest in it. I asked 
 a number of them about it, and found they were a little 
 suspicious. We couldn't seem to convince them that the 
 company did not have some ulterior motive. We waited 
 until the structure was completed, then we appointed a 
 committee, part of it from the office, but the larger portion 
 from the employees, for the purpose of holding con- 
 ferences to determine how this work was to be carried 
 on and to bring out suggestions, etc. 
 
 * The casino, as we call it (for want of a more appropriate 
 name), has a frontage of 78 feet and a depth of 35 feet, while the 
 rear extension has a length of 43 feet and a width of 35 feet. At 
 the front of the building is a broad veranda which ex;tends the 
 entire length. At the rear of the building there are. two verandas. 
 The main entrance is at the front and leads direct into the main 
 dining-room. There is also an entrance on the side facing the 
 works, as well as entrances leading from the several verandas. 
 
96 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 AN OPENING ENTERTAINMENT. 
 
 That smoothed the way a great deal, and when the time 
 came to have a formal opening — May i, 1899 — the build- 
 ing, brilliantly lighted, was thrown open and the work- 
 men, who had been invited to bring their families, re- 
 sponded enthusiastically ; if they hadn't gone in one door 
 and come out the other, they couldn't all have gotten in, 
 the attendance was so large. I watched them intent!}- 
 and saw that good feeling was growing, and I said to one 
 or two : " We will have a dance, if you care to." They 
 said : " You don't allow dancing, do you ? " They were 
 well pleased with the idea, but one didn't want to start 
 unless another would. However, after a little while, as 
 we had an orchestra there, they did begin, and they had 
 quite a pleasant entertainment that lasted pretty well into 
 the evening. 
 
 SUCCESS OF THE LUNCHEON ROOM. 
 
 At first many of the employees brought their lunches, 
 but few, if any, do so now. While it was our original 
 intention to supplement these lunches by furnishing 
 coffee, milk, ot tea at the small charge of three cents, we 
 soon responded to the call for a variety of foods well 
 cooked, for such a reasonable charge as made the bring- 
 ing of lunches unnecessary. 
 
 I would like to speak of our plan of serving lunches. 
 One of the speakers said he couldn't get them to go to 
 the counter- for the lunch and take it to the tables. We 
 have no difficulty with that. The men are out of the 
 works before the bell finishes striking, and it is almost a 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 97 
 
 pell-mell rush to that counter and until they get to their 
 tables ; then they finish as quickly as possible, and smoke 
 and chat. 
 
 At first it was our idea to have two kinds of tickets, 
 one at three cents and one at five cents, but we finally con- 
 cluded to adopt only the three cent ticket ; and every article 
 served was either three cents or some multiple of three. 
 It often worked favorably for an employee in this way; 
 he couldn^t buy twenty-five cents' worth, but what he 
 could do was in reality to get twenty-five cents' worth for 
 twenty-four. This plan has thus far worked admirably. 
 The number of tickets sold last year was 200,941, and 
 6,010 additional were used by clerks. On the basis of 
 that record each three cent ticket sold actually cost the 
 company four cents. During the busy fall season, when 
 clerks work overtime, they do not use tickets, but a good 
 table d'hote meal is given them at an expense to the com- 
 pany of forty-five or fifty cents each. 
 
 The main dining (or lunch) room measures 59 feet by 
 32 feet, and is well lighted. A striking feature of the 
 room is its ample height, extending as it does to the ex- 
 treme height of the building. It is equipped with thirty - 
 five round tables seating six or seven persons at each. 
 
 Another dining-room opens out of the main room, and 
 this is for the use of the officers. Another use for it is 
 when the traveling salesmen are at the works for several 
 consecutive days. Table d'hote meals are served to them, 
 for which the company allows the casino account seventy- 
 five cents each. At such times they occupy the lodging 
 rooms at night, for which the company allows the casino 
 one dollar each per night. In addition to the large dining- 
 
98 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 hall and the officers' room, there is a dining-room for the 
 exclusive use of the women employees. 
 
 The company employs a caterer and his wife, not simply 
 to be there during certain hours of the day, but who live 
 there, and have their rent and food and heat and lighting 
 at the company's expense. In addition to these are four 
 assistants during the day ; and such other help as may be 
 needed is supplied from the works. The question is some- 
 times asked, Does it pay expenses ? We say, No, and we 
 don't expect it to; otherwise we should be contributing 
 nothing. 
 
 LODGING ROOMS. 
 
 The construction of the building is such that an interior 
 balcony extends across the front and along either side. 
 Leading from this balcony are four pleasant and well 
 equipped lodging rooms and two bathrooms with the most 
 approved open plumbing. 
 
 BICYCLE ROOMS. 
 
 The basement rooms are arranged for bicycles, of which 
 there are about four hundred. Each one has its specific 
 rack and is given a number, and a proper record of them 
 is kept. 
 
 LIBRARY. 
 
 On the same floor as the dining-room, leading off to the 
 right, is the library and reading-room, which is about 32 
 feet by 15 feet. The library at present comprises 840 
 volumes. A fair estimate of books taken out is ninety-five 
 per cent, fiction and five per cent, of history, biography. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 99 
 
 poetry, and the drama. A charge of two cents is made on 
 each book loaned. A catalogue of the library has been 
 printed, with additions as made from time to time, ^nd 
 enough printed to furnish a copy to each and every em- 
 ployee. 
 
 BENEFIT ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 There are two beneficial associations organized and 
 conducted exclusively by the employees. Their committee 
 meetings are held in the library, and their annual meeting 
 is held in the main hall or dining-room, for which occa- 
 sion the room is cleared of the tables. Each of these 
 associations employs a physician — who is also a surgeon 
 — and these physicians make daily visits to the works. 
 
 The employees are also given the free use of the casino, 
 lighted and heated, for evening entertainments as they 
 may desire. 
 
 AN ANNUAL DINNER. 
 
 Once a year we have a function, when the services of 
 an efficient caterer are enlisted. All the foremen are in- 
 vited, and there is a dinner, a conference, and an enter- 
 tainment that brings the managers and the foremen to- 
 gether ; and the result of that is very good. Then there is 
 a periodical gathering of the travelers from all the cities, 
 which is beneficial and interesting. 
 
 THE ORCHESTRA. 
 
 An excellent orchestra has been organized among the 
 
 employees since the casino was built, and they have the 
 
 free use of the library room one evening a week for 
 practice. 
 
No. Description. 
 
 52 — Recreation room for women employees in a factory. 
 Used at noon and when the piece workers have to 
 wait for material. 
 
 53 — Men's lunch room in a manufacturing plant, pre- 
 pared for the periodical dinner of the foremen. 
 
 1 00 
 
OF THE 
 
 .VERSITY 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. loi 
 
 MERIT AND THRIFT ENCOURAGED. 
 
 We have also adopted a plan of additional compensa- 
 tion to apprentices. Every month their work is inspected 
 by superintendent and foremen, and according to merit 
 a fair sum is set aside by the company and placed on 
 deposit in the Gorham Savings Bank at four per cent., 
 principal and interest payable at the expiration of their 
 term of apprenticeship. Thirty-six apprentices have thus 
 far become depositors and have now $1,178.00 to their 
 credit for such additional compensation. 
 
 A SAVINGS BANK. 
 
 The Gorham Savings Bank was incorporated in 1900, 
 and is for the benefit of the employees ; no part of the de- 
 posits is ever used by the company. It is a convenience 
 to the men, who would lose valuable time if they were 
 obliged to go to the center of the city to make deposits. 
 
 LOANS ON MORTGAGE. 
 
 To encourage the men to build homes for themselves, 
 the bank loans to them, to a prudent extent, on mortgage. 
 We have at the present time about $40,000 loaned to them 
 on mortgage. 
 
 A PENSION SYSTEM. 
 
 One other point I will mention in closing is our plan of 
 pensions adopted May i, 1903. Employees whose records 
 are satisfactory to the company will, if disqualified for 
 work on account of age or permanent ill health, be eligible 
 
I02 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 to pensions under the following age limits and terms of 
 service : 
 
 70 years of age, 25 years' continuous service 
 
 65 years of age, 35 years' continuous service 
 
 60 years of age, 40 years' continuous service 
 
 When the company shall have been satisfied that an 
 
 employee is entitled to a pension, they will cause the name 
 
 of such employee to be placed upon the pension roll, and 
 
 he will be paid monthly a sum equal to one per cent, for 
 
 each year's active service, computed at the wage paid at 
 
 the time of enrolment, provided that no pension shall 
 
 exceed one thousand dollars yearly. 
 
 The 'Chairman : We are fortunate in having with us 
 to-day Mr. Louis Krumbhaar, from the Solvay Process 
 Company, of Syracuse, N. Y., and I will now call upon 
 him. 
 
 Mr. Krumbhaar: I do not want to take up very much 
 of your time. I am not going to tell you about our restau- 
 rant or dining-room, our lunch roorh, our sanitary ar- 
 rangements, etc. For I will leave with the secretary an 
 account of our work, which is a compilation of extracts 
 from the Report of the Commissioner of Labor, with 
 changes to bring it up to date, and this may be incor- 
 porated in the report of the meeting, if it should be deemed 
 desirable. But there are one or two things I would like 
 to say in connection with this work. 
 
 BEGIN WELFARE WORK WITH CHILDREN OF EMPLOYEES. 
 
 We have found it has been very difficult to get at the 
 workmen. Our. welfare work started almost with our 
 business, and w^e have tried many different schemes, and 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 103 
 
 have found the most satisfactory one of all to be that of 
 taking the children of our working-men and training 
 them; and we have almost abandoned trying to draw in 
 the men themselves. Our experience has been that the 
 boys of our workmen grow up and take positions of 
 various kinds in our works, and the girls grow up, and 
 marry, and become the wives, in many cases, of these boys. 
 We, therefore, think that if we can train the children in 
 the way that they should go, we will improve our work- 
 men. Of course, in many cases, the boys have better posi- 
 tions than their fathers had before them, and I have in 
 mind now one young man who holds a confidential posi- 
 tion in our office, whose father started as a laborer and is 
 now a foreman. 
 
 We have a system of classes that begin at 3.30 in the 
 afternoon and extend into the evening. We have cooking 
 classes, a dancing class, and gymnasium classes; and we 
 have just completed a new gymnasium, which we feel 
 sure will be of great benefit to both the boys and the girls. 
 
 The greatest difficulty that I have encountered in trying 
 to get at the men is the beneficial lodge, to which so many 
 of them belong. I have tried to get men together in the 
 evening, but one would say, " I can't go on Monday night, 
 for I have to go to the Foresters " ; another would say, 
 " The Maccabees meet on Tuesday, and I can't come " ; 
 another man would say that he had to go to the " Odd 
 Fellows," and so on. These societies take the men's time, 
 and I believe it is better to let the men go to these lodges ; 
 but we must take their children and train them. As these 
 children grow up, I think they are benefited by our work, 
 and are much better men and women for the training they 
 get ; and some of them, in turn, have become interested 
 
I04 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 in the welfare work among their fellow workmen, and 
 are better citizens; and others take up their work in the 
 lodges and make those lodges better perhaps than they 
 have been in the past. 
 
 I have a suggestion to make to this meeting. I think it 
 would be a good plan to formulate the questions we would 
 like to ask each other as to the best methods to adopt in 
 carrying on our work, and send those questions in to our 
 secretary to be put in form, sent around to those best 
 fitted to answer them ; or else presented at some future 
 meeting similar to this one. I think that would be a bene- 
 fit to all of us. We have had a number of most interest- 
 ing and valuable descriptive talks, but I think it would re- 
 sult in greater progress if we would formulate a set of 
 questions, to be answered and distributed among the dif- 
 ferent concerns that we represent. 
 
 The Secretary : In addition to Mr. Krumbhaar^s sug- 
 gestion, that we may get the full benefit of this meeting, 
 which was intended to be an exchange of experience, it 
 seems to me that it would be desirable for Mr. Stevens, for 
 instance, and others who have problems to be solved, to 
 question the speakers, now and then, as to specific suc- 
 cesses and failures, and their causes. Of course, we all 
 recognize that conditions diflFer, and that no set rules can 
 be laid down for the work in any individual establishment, 
 as each is a special study; but human nature is pretty 
 much the same everywhere, and the experience of one in 
 a particular eflFort is bound to furnish helpful suggestions 
 to another working along the same line. 
 
 The Chairman : The audience will, I am sure, ap- 
 preciate the opportunity of listening to Mrs. Isabelle F. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 105 
 
 Nye, from the Siegel-Cooper Company, of New York 
 City. 
 
 Mrs. Nye: Miss Hirschler has given the basis of the 
 work of a Social Secretary ; so it is not necessary to men- 
 tion that. 
 
 In entering upon my duties as Social Secretary I was 
 entirely ignorant of anything in reference to business life. 
 So far as my personal experience was concerned I had had 
 a great deal in philanthropic work. At first Mr. Green- 
 hut presented me only to the buyers of the different de- 
 partments in the store, of which there are over sixty, in- 
 troducing me as his personal representative. He told 
 them my undertaking was to be simply a trial, and that 
 I was to prove whether it could be made a success. After 
 introducing me to the buyers, Mr. Greenhut said, " Now, 
 Mrs. Nye, go about the store, anywhere you please, and 
 get acquainted; the buyers will introduce you to their 
 associates. That is all I am going to say to you. Use 
 your own judgment and your own ideas; come to us for 
 advice if you want it." 
 
 I was very careful in becoming acquainted with the 
 people, with the girls especially. I found that I was re- 
 garded with suspicion and doubt in the beginning, and I 
 had to feel my way tactfully. It required a good deal of 
 judgment, tact, and patience, but I persevered, and finally 
 discovered this thing : I said to myself. What you want to 
 establish in this house is a spirit of reciprocity. Of course, 
 that was a big undertaking, but it was my basis of action. 
 I took it up and I have kept it up. I find that the people 
 — the girls especially — resent anything which savors in 
 the slightest degree of charity. Everything must be pre- 
 
ro6 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 sented to them in a light which calls out their self-respect 
 and their perfect independence. 
 
 A VACATION COTTAGE. 
 
 How well I have succeeded perhaps some one else 
 would better say ; but I want to give you one illustration 
 which Mr. Stevens has asked for. That is, he wanted to 
 know if there were anything which would show success 
 after failure. We have at Long Branch a beautiful cot- 
 tage, with magnificent grounds, furnished very hand- 
 somely — ^more handsomely than any hotel there, an<l 
 every room is perfect in every way. They had that cot- 
 tage for some time previous to my connection with the 
 firm, and the young women had been going there for their 
 vacations, but it was with great reluctance, because they 
 had an idea they were receiving charity, and that they 
 didn't want — they would rather do almost anything else, 
 even to the extent of going without a vacation, than pass 
 it there and receive charity. I had to convince them that 
 they were not right. I went at the problem in just as 
 diplomatic a manner as I could. I revised the cards in- 
 forming the recipients that they were eligible for a vaca- 
 tion at Long Branch after they had been one year in the 
 service of the house, and issued regular invitations, stat- 
 ing : " The, Siegel-Cooper Company requests the pleasure 
 of your company at their cottage at Long Branch for the 
 week beginning (so and so and ending so and so) as their 
 guest." They were made guests of the company. That 
 helped to do away with the failure caused by the feeling 
 that they were being treated as objects of charity. Last 
 year I had charge of the cottage for the first time. The 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 107 
 
 girls went down, fifty or sixty each week; and it was a 
 very great success. I tell this as showing how different it 
 is when the girls go on invitation, and have things con- 
 ducted in a way to indicate they were receiving nothing 
 but their dues. The spirit was very different. There is 
 success born of failure. 
 
 At the cottage they have all sorts of pleasures — trolley 
 rides, boating parties, coaching parties, everything to help 
 make life pleasant and happy. At the same time I had a 
 little series of object lessons for them. I didn't tell them 
 what I was going to do — they were simply unconscious 
 object lessons. These lessons began by my daughter and 
 myself, and one or two of the young women I could de- 
 pend upon, sitting down to or sewing, or knitting, or 
 mending, and teaching them the womanly things, how to 
 take care of things, how to mend, etc., etc., and I gave 
 them the object lesson of how to keep the house, by having 
 the cottage well ordered in every way. All those things 
 left a very great impression upon them and helped them a 
 great deal. 
 
 THE BENEFICIAL FUND. 
 
 At the Store we have a doctor in constant attendance. 
 The doctor is paid from the beneficial fund, which, of 
 course, is accrued from the small assessments of the em- 
 ployees. The doctor also visits them at their homes when 
 they are ill, if they wish it. We have a very large surplus 
 in the beneficial fund at the present time. The monthly 
 dues in our Employees' Benefit Association are from ten 
 to forty cents. In no individual case does this tax amount 
 to more than five dollars yearly. In case of death $100 is 
 
No. Description. ' 
 
 17 — Vacation cottage for the employees of a department 
 store. 
 
 18 — Some of the employees at the vacation house. 
 
 108 
 
OP THE "^ 
 OF 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 109 
 
 given ; half salaries are paid from this fund during the 
 illness ; and loans are made from this fund to help them 
 over straits or difficulties. 
 
 Miss Hirschler: In this benefit fund is membership 
 voluntary or compulsory? 
 
 Mrs. Nye : Compulsory. 
 
 Miss Hirschler : Is it the custom of your store, after 
 employees have been there a certain length of time, to 
 give them a vacation, with pay ? 
 
 Mrs. Nye : No ; only the cottage vacation, with all the 
 pleasures and benefits during that week. 
 
 Mr. Stevens : Does the work of your supervision con- 
 tinue beyond business hours ? Does it follow them to their 
 homes, outside of the hours when they are with the firm ? 
 
 Mrs. Nye : Yes ; I visit their homes very frequently — 
 under all circumstances of illness or distress always, and 
 get into their home lives. I know the home lives of a 
 great many of them. I visit them and help them, and it 
 is. never mentioned to any one and no one knows it except 
 the person or the family and myself. I have at my disposal 
 a sum of money placed in my hands the first day of each 
 month. That money is used at my own discretion for 
 the relief of the people in the store as I think they need it, 
 and no one knows it except myself when any of it is used 
 for this purpose. 
 
 Miss Hirschler : The people don't know that it comes 
 from the company? 
 
 Mrs. Nye : They don't know anything about it, except 
 that they are relieved and helped. 
 
 Miss Hirschler : Is anything done for the cash boys ? 
 
 Mrs. Nye : Not collectively. We have so few of them 
 it would be useless. 
 
no CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 There is a men's club that is called the " Squared 
 Circle." They say they are all men *' on the square," and 
 they belong to this circle. The club is very prosperous, 
 and they are a very happy set of men. They are now fur- 
 nishing a suite of rooms. 
 
 Miss Hirschler: How do all these things react upon 
 the business relations of the people ? 
 
 Mrs. Nye : It is told to me, the buyers tell me, and the 
 heads of the departments generally, that the tone of the 
 store is so vastly improved that they scarcely recognize it. 
 They say the efficiency of the employees is very greatly 
 increased, because, in the case of the women and girls, 
 they have felt, many of them, as they have expressed it to 
 me, that there is some one '' to whom we can come and 
 talk, who will encourage, help, and inspire us." That is 
 their spirit; that is the way they speak. And the com- 
 pensation in this work to me is that I am a help to these 
 people, that I can encourage, inspire, uplift and help them 
 over hard places, and help them with their work. The 
 result has been in a great many instances that they have 
 kept on and done better where they would have dropped 
 out. 
 
 Mr. Patterson : How many employees are involved in 
 this? 
 
 Mrs. Nye : There are between three and four thousand 
 employees in the store. 
 
 Mr. Patterson : And all have the benefits ? 
 
 Mrs. Nye: Yes; they can come to me with all their 
 matters — troubles at home, illness, etc. ; and they do come. 
 
 Mr. Patterson : Have you anything to do with the pay- 
 roll or recommendations with reference to salaries ? 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. iii 
 
 Mrs. Nye: I have nothing whatever to do with that, 
 and I am glad to be reheved of it. 
 
 Mr. Patterson : Has this work made itself apparent in 
 the profit account ? 
 
 Mrs. Nye : Very largely. 
 
 Mr. Patterson : What is the interest charged for the 
 loans from the beneficial fund ? 
 
 Mrs. Nye : None whatever. 
 
 In reference to salaries : In the beginning, when new 
 help is engaged, the women and girls all come to me ; they 
 are sent to my office. I talk with them, and the result of 
 that is that I find out about their home conditions, how 
 they are surrounded, whether they are in their own private 
 homes, with mothers or fathers, or if the girls are in 
 boarding houses. If they wish it, I recommend houses to 
 them, but I find out about their home surroundings when 
 they first enter the employment of the firm. 
 
 Mr. Ryan : Do you ascertain this fact before or after 
 engagement ? 
 
 Mrs. Nye : Just after. 
 
 Mr. Ryan : Does your application blank call for that 
 information ? 
 
 Mrs. Nye: Yes. 
 
 Mr. Ryan : Is the salary based on the fact as to whether 
 they are boarding or living at home? 
 
 Mrs. Nye : No ; the salary is based on the qualifications 
 of the person. 
 
 Mr. Ryan : In the case of a girl who is living at home 
 — her past experience being equal to a girl who is board- 
 ing — would she receive the same salary ? 
 
 Mrs. Nye : Yes. 
 
 Mr. Humphreys: I wanted to ask about profit shar- 
 
112 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 ing ; and a suggestion has been made about insurance for 
 employees as well. If any of the speakers here have any- 
 thing to say on these subjects I would like to hear it. 
 
 Miss Hirschler: Our insurance fund is voluntary. 
 The employees pay five cents a week to belong ; the bene- 
 fits are $5.00 a week, and we make up the difference by 
 social parties, etc., conducted by our entertainment and 
 insurance committees. 
 
 The Chairman : I hope that Mrs. Elizabeth C. 
 Wheeler, from the Shepard Company, of Providence, 
 R. L, will now permit us to hear from her. 
 
 Mrs. Wheeler: I didn't expect to say anything. My 
 work is practically identical with that which has just been 
 described, and I think there is nothing left for me to say. 
 It is almost the same as Mrs. Nye has just told us about. 
 
 vacations. 
 
 Instead of having a summer cottage, we recommend 
 certain places in the country to our employees. Living, 
 as they do, directly on the coast, we feel it is much better 
 to get the girls into the mountains. We give the girls 
 two weeks' vacation and full pay when they have been 
 with us a year, and we recommend these boarding places, 
 helping them if necessary. I personally know their situa- 
 tion at home, and if I think it is necessary to help them 
 pay their expenses in the country, owing to the fact that 
 their salary must go into the family while they are away, 
 we do that ; but in most cases they can pay it themselves. 
 We have found this effort very beneficial indeed. With my 
 four years' experience, it seems to me that in all this work 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 113 
 
 the individual, personal touch is the one thing to which 
 the people respond. There is a strong feeling against 
 charity. 
 
 INDIVIDUAL ADVICE. 
 
 In regard to the Young Men's Christian Association I 
 have never been able to interest but two young men in it, 
 although I have tried very hard, and as to the two I suc- 
 ceeded with, one merely went to a dinner and the other 
 took a course in calisthenics. There is one other feature, 
 and that is that women enter so largely into our industrial 
 work, and in our industrial establishments where there are 
 women employed I see very little indication that Young 
 Men^s Christian Association work reaches the women, and 
 it is through the women we must reach the home, and that 
 is where our personal work comes in. 
 
 In our establishment the girls come to me, and even the 
 men. There is scarcely a person in the house but will at 
 some time come to me for some sort of advice, or for 
 directions as to where they can get this thing or that, and 
 how it can be provided. I have often taken the matter 
 under investigation and shown them how to do it. It is 
 astonishing to see how many women do not know how to 
 sew. The girls are the same way. They marry and don't 
 know anything about housekeeping, and many of them do 
 not even know how to take a stitch. 
 
 READING AND LUNCH ROOM. 
 
 We have a reading room and a lunch room, but do not 
 pretend to serve any very great variety of food, because 
 we have a large restaurant in the house, and a grocery 
 
114 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 department and delicatessen. If the employees prefer, 
 therefore, they can get what they want, take it to the lunch 
 room and eat it there. We charge a price sufficient merely 
 to cover the cost of service. 
 
 The Chairman : Several questions have been asked, 
 but it is utterly impossible for your Chairman, not know- 
 ing the people in front of him, as individuals, or what 
 their work is, to select any one to answer them. I would 
 like to have a few moments given to those questions, and 
 hope some of you will volunteer something about insur- 
 ance funds, pensions, and profit sharing. 
 
 It gives me great pleasure to introduce Mr. Dexter 
 S. Kimball, manager of the Stanley Electric Manufactur- 
 ing Company, at Pittsfield, Mass. 
 
 Mr. Kimbai;.l: My object here has been rather to 
 listen, hoping I might hear something that would 
 throw light on my own troubles, and show me why the 
 movement with which I have been connected has been 
 more or less of a failure. 
 
 NEED OF SPECIAL SUPERVISION DEMONSTRATED. 
 
 When the Stanley Company, three years ago, started 
 to build a new factory, this matter was taken up at 
 length, the President being a man of considerable ex- 
 perience and quite a student, and it was his wish to do 
 something for the people in the new works to improve 
 their condition. Attention was paid to all the details 
 of sanitation, ventilation, and heating, and the best 
 plumbing was put in, and everything done to make the 
 works as habitable as possible. In addition to that, a 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 115 
 
 building was erected which included a social room or hall, 
 to be used for entertainments, and as a smoking-room, 
 or anything of that sort. 
 
 After the buildings were occupied, an effort was made to 
 organize a club among the men, to be a club of the men 
 themselves, and not under the wing of the company at 
 all. It was started by the men, the company only giving 
 it some financial support, and in this they succeeded very 
 well. They organized a good club, with all the various 
 committees that have been discussed here in connection 
 with other organizations, such as social committees. It 
 all started off so nicely that we talked of erecting a special 
 building under the auspices of this club. 
 
 We didn't have a regular " Social Secretary," and 
 there was our mistake, I think. The initiative didn't come 
 entirely from the company; it came from the men also, 
 but we didn't have this Social Secretary to aid us. 
 
 We had a grievance committee, and that was our un- 
 doing as far as this organization went. This grievance 
 committee was supposed to handle all differences be- 
 tween the employees and the company. We have only 
 1,000 employees, principally skilled labor, in fact almost 
 entirely. The shop is practically unionized. The very 
 first time we made an effort to use our grievance com- 
 mittee, we aroused the suspicion of the union, and those 
 of you who have been " up against " union labor troubles 
 know the difficulties we had to contend with right there. 
 Now, if we had had a good " Social Secretary " to study 
 that problem carefully in the first place, he could have 
 gone in there and brought those men to see the thing in 
 the right light,, but the union has been practically the 
 ruination of the organization. 
 
No. Description. 
 
 62 — Lunch room in a city factory where space is un- 
 usually valuable. 
 
 63 — Lunch room space in same city factory during work- 
 ing hours. 
 
 In the majority of the departments, tables and 
 benches are suspended from the ceilings by rope and 
 tackle and lowered into the aisles and other vacant 
 spaces during the luncheon time. Portable lunch 
 counters, with gas connections, contain coffee urns 
 and steam tables to supply warm food throughout the 
 factory. Sandwiches, cakes, pies, milk, and other 
 cold articles also find their places on these lunch 
 counters. While conditions prevent the restful 
 change of air and scene during luncheon, this em- 
 ployer, realizing that necessity for the physical wel- 
 fare, has endeavored to meet it with a roof garden. 
 
 116 
 
,.^, OF THE 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 117 
 
 About the only thing we have succeeded with has been 
 a good football team and a good baseball team. 
 
 We have decided to let the matter stand as it is until 
 the present antagonism dies away, and then we will look 
 for a man. Just what manner of man he will have to be, 
 I am unable to say, and I am afraid to give my opinion 
 on that subject in view of all that has been said this 
 afternoon, but I think my case is probably as hard a one 
 to settle as there is, and I shall be glad of any suggestions 
 in the matter or to answer any questions. 
 
 Mr. Nazro : Wasn't there some mistake made in trying 
 to give them too much all at once ? I think that is a great 
 mistake in welfare work. It should grow naturally and 
 slowly. It seems to me that where a concern decides to 
 install a gymnasium, or a dining-room, a library, and a 
 number of other things, and to do that all at once, it im- 
 mediately arouses antagonism. I think it should be 
 brought in so as to have it grow slowly at first, and 
 progress along with the works themselves. 
 
 Mr. Kimball: I think so myself. 
 
 Mr. Nazro: If you want to start a dining-room, of 
 course it is well to have those things come from the em- 
 ployees themselves. It is better if it can be brought about 
 in a diplomatic way, so that the employees themselves 
 suggest it. If the company does too much at once, I think 
 there is a tendency among the employees to feel that the 
 company is spending more money than it ought in this 
 direction, and that this money should be applied to 
 wages. 
 
 Mr. Kimball: I feel that we should have had a 
 " Social Secretary " in the beginning, because managers 
 
ii8 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 are busy men, and, as a rule, they have not the time or 
 inclination to do the thing thoroughly. 
 
 Mr. Patterson : Several people here have asked to 
 have this meeting extended to to-morrow afternoon or 
 to-morrow evening, as they would like to remain to- 
 morrow if that is done. It seems to me that we are just 
 getting at the facts now, and it will take another day to 
 bring out all the important features which we want. I 
 would like very much to have the meeting continued to- 
 morrow. 
 
 (After considerable discussion, it was decided to con- 
 tinue the meeting as late as necessary to conclude the 
 conference in one day, as many had not arranged to re- 
 main two days.) 
 
 The Secretary: In our plan of work we have pro- 
 vided for the consideration of the " Labor Bureau " in 
 connection with welfare work. We had expected to have 
 Mr. C. U. Carpenter with us to-day to especially present 
 the subject. I want to ask if Mr. Patterson would be 
 willing to explain, in view of what Mr. Kimball has said 
 relative to his difficulty, how they solved the problem, 
 which presented itself in their trouble with the unions at 
 the factory of the National Cash Register Company, 
 through a labor bureau. 
 
 The Chairman : Will Mr. Patterson kindly respond 
 to this request, and also describe the welfare work which 
 is promoted in connection with his factory? 
 
 Mr. Patterson: Had I known five years ago what I 
 have learned from Mr. Vreeland and others present here, 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 119 
 
 our company would have been saved much time and 
 trouble. 
 
 A great many persons have said to me : " Why did 
 you e^^er have a strike at your factory if wdfaie work 
 really pa3rs ? " 
 
 Welfare work had httle to do with the strike which 
 toc4c place in May, 1901, and lasted seven weeks. What 
 caused our strike was, ostensibly, our refusal to rq^ace 
 four men who had been discharged for incompetency 
 or lack of work, or like good causes. We had new nmoos 
 to deal with, and some of the Western unions were cmde. 
 
 A few of our forty-two foremen did not treat tlieir 
 men properly preceding the strike. 
 
 We had no labor bureau to settle di^Mttes. Some- 
 times they were attended to by one or more of the heads 
 of the various departments, and sometimes by tfie general 
 manager, or by the board of directors, or the factory 
 committee. 
 
 Previous to the strike we did not call meetings of die 
 rank and file of our employees to explain to them oar 
 side of the questions at issue, as we do now. We have a 
 labor bureau of two committees — one conqxjsed of the 
 head of the emplo\-ment department, the chairman of tfie 
 factor}' committee and his assistant, who consider com- 
 plaints. The higher committee to which final a|4)eal is 
 made is composed of the President, the General Manager, 
 and the Assistant General Manager. 
 
 Welfare woiic is an eflFort of the employer and em- 
 ployee to cooperate for the benefit of each other. It is 
 a waste unless it brings good will and cooperation on the 
 part of the employee. 
 
 Welfare woiic does not antagonize union organizations 
 
 > 
 
I20 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 nor attempt to supplant them. Welfare work has nothing 
 to do with union affairs. The chief aims of labor unions 
 are to secure shorter hours and increased wages. Labor 
 union interests do not extend beyond their own organi- 
 zations. Welfare work is much broader. It applies to 
 all departments in our factory. Our office departments, 
 which are not unionized, share equally in the benefits of 
 welfare work. Our idea of welfare work is to do every 
 employee good, no matter what he believes or belongs to. 
 It brings us together to talk over things, and, when 
 properly conducted, goes far toward bettering the con- 
 dition of all parties concerned. 
 
 Our welfare work is going on more than ever. 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE WELFARE WORK. 
 
 The company maintains a Welfare Department, with 
 a man in charge, whom it pays. He has three assistants, 
 who are also paid by the company. This department looks 
 after the mental, moral, and physical welfare of all our 
 men and women employees. 
 
 Attention is given to the hygiene of the factory. Large 
 windows admit plenty of light and sunshine. The venti- 
 lation and heat are properly looked after. Every fifteen 
 minutes the air in the factory and offices is changed by 
 means of a fan system. 
 
 High back chairs and foot rests are furnished the 
 women workers. 
 
 Free lectures by noted people are given from time to 
 time. 
 
 The surroundings of the factory are made as beautiful 
 as possible through landscape gardening, well kept 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 121 
 
 lawns, etc. The interior is kept clean and bright, is well 
 painted, and everything is made as cheerful as possible. 
 
 Free baths and free Hbraries are provided. Each em- 
 ployee is allowed two baths per week in summer and one 
 in winter on the company's tirne. The libraries are open 
 at all seasonable hours, and are stocked with good books, 
 magazines, and papers. 
 
 We furnish luncheon at the officers' club, which is 
 composed of the officers of the company, the heads and 
 assistant heads of departments; at the men's dining- 
 room, where all office employees take luncheon, and at 
 the women's dining-room, where all the young women 
 get their luncheon. All these meals are furnished at the 
 actual cost of the raw materials. 
 
 This feature has not been extended to our making 
 force as yet, but the matter is now being considered by 
 the men's welfare league. 
 
 We furnish supper to all our employees when they 
 work overtime. This is furnished at the company's ex- 
 pense. 
 
 I almost forgot to mention that the company furnishes 
 a plot of ground for boys' gardens, where the boys of 
 the neighborhood are taught how to raise vegetables, 
 and, at the same time, are also taught to work. The com- 
 pany furnishes the seed and an instructor. The boys do 
 all the work. Prizes are given by the company for the 
 best gardens. You have no idea how these boys' gardens 
 have improved the neighborhood around the factory. 
 
 The male employees, numbering about three thousand, 
 formed a men's welfare league last January and selected 
 their own officers. The President of this league gives 
 part of his time to this work, while the Secretary gives 
 
122 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 his entire time to it. This league was organized not 
 only to look after the conditions of the male employees 
 of our factory, but is extending its work to the families 
 of the members and to the city of Dayton, through com- 
 mittees that have been named for that purpose. Any sug- 
 gestions which employees have to make for the better- 
 ment of their conditions in the factory are given to the 
 head of our welfare department, and the attention of the 
 management is called to these suggestions through this 
 head. 
 
 Through the influence of this men's league the owners 
 of neighboring property have been induced to beautify 
 their homes with flowers, vines, and shrubs in keeping 
 with the factory grounds, which are laid out and main- 
 tained in accord with the most advanced ideas of landscape 
 gardening. 
 
 They are also making an effort for the betterment of 
 our public schools, and for this purpose have sent com- 
 mittees to various cities to look into this school question 
 and report to the league. They are trying to get manual 
 training schools for our city. 
 
 They also have a committee on parks and street im- 
 provements, and committees on public nuisances, health, 
 etc. 
 
 You will see that the work started by the men's league 
 is not limited to our factory, but is having its influence 
 on the whole city of Dayton. 
 
 The women's welfare league, composed of employees, 
 devotes its time to looking after the women of the fac- 
 tory. Cooking, sewing, and dancing classes are doing 
 much good in teaching young women the duties of the 
 home, as well as healthful enjoyment. A small fee is 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 123 
 
 required of each member of the classes, but the company 
 puts its rooms, with hght and heat, at their disposal. 
 
 A mother's club, composed of women in the vicinity 
 of the factory, has been organized for the purpose of 
 carrying this work into their homes. An N. C. R. house 
 has been established for the teaching of the children of 
 the neighborhood. The company provides a settlement 
 worker to take charge of this work and of the classes. 
 
 Our young women have what is called the women's 
 century club, which meets twice a month, when they read 
 papers and discuss things of mutual interest to young 
 women. They have well known people talk to them on 
 health, how to dress economically, and subjects that are 
 of practical benefit to girls. This club has recently es- 
 tablished a club house for young women who are em- 
 ployed at the factory and who have not homes in the 
 city. A matron is in charge of the club house. This is 
 all done by the young women themselves, the company 
 having contributed only a part toward the furnishing 
 of the house. 
 
 Lectures are given to our young women from time to 
 time. The women's welfare league is publishing a quar- 
 terly magazine called Women's Welfare. It has a large 
 subscription list. The young women are endeavoring, 
 through this publication, to extend welfare work as much 
 as possible into factories all over this country where 
 young women are employed. 
 
 The men's welfare league is now considering getting 
 up a similar publication for the purpose of extending 
 welfare work. 
 
 I consider that the welfare work as conducted at the 
 
No, Description. 
 
 66 — Garden for boys of employees' in a manufacturing 
 plant. 
 
 66y2 — Factory workers' dancing party. 
 
 124 
 
OP THE 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 125 
 
 present time at our factory is doing much to create the 
 proper feeHng between the company and its employees. 
 
 Mr. D. E. Titsworth (Manager Potter Printing 
 Press Company, Plainfield, N. J.) : If there is any one 
 present who can speak from the standpoint of the smaller 
 manufacturer, who does not and can not build casinos 
 and* promote welfare work on a large scale, but does want 
 to get a better understanding between employer and em- 
 ployee, I should be glad to hear something along that 
 line. 
 
 We employ only three hundred men, and the kind of 
 welfare work I want to get at is where every man feels 
 that his welfare depends upon his efficiency, that the 
 welfare of himself and of his employer is augmented by 
 each getting a view of the other's standpoint, and that 
 the welfare of the community will be determined by the 
 raising of the standard of skill of every individual man 
 in it. I am encouraged by what I have heard here about 
 getting our men together, and I think we can establish 
 an arbitration committee. If any one else is working on 
 that theory, I would be glad to hear from him. 
 
 Miss Hirschler: If there is no one ready to speak 
 on that subject I will say, with reference to the request 
 for something on profit-sharing, that we have started a 
 system of profit-sharing, but we have not proved it at 
 all. All of the people, all our sales people, are on a per- 
 centage system, and they are responsible for their in- 
 dividual sales. But I am not prepared to talk yet about 
 the success of the system. The first dividend will not 
 be declared until next September. 
 
 Mr. Krumbhaar: The Solvay Process Company has 
 
126 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 carried on profit-sharing to a limited extent in a system 
 embracing the officers of the company, clerks, chemists, 
 foremen, and subforemen, which has proved successful. 
 It has worked out so that the men have shown greater 
 care in their work, and have tried to improve it. We 
 have not yet carried the system to the workmen. That 
 may come, and it may not, but it certainly has worked 
 satisfactorily as far as it has gone. 
 
 Mr. Kimball: In our shop we adopted a system which 
 is a form of profit-sharing, and we have found it very 
 profitable. We get more product and the workman gets 
 more pay, and that is a very beneficial form of profit- 
 sharing. 
 
 Dr. Frank Parsons, of the Economic Club, Boston : 
 The proprietor of the Leclaire Paint Shop, in Paris, 
 started many years ago by giving his employees a pro- 
 portion of the profits, and finally gave them fifty per 
 cent., with the result that there was a tremendous in- 
 crease in the care and energy of his workmen, who felt 
 that the reputation of the house was their own, and the 
 profit of the house their own profits. The proprietor 
 of this shop died a very wealthy man, having made, ac- 
 cording to his own declaration, many times more profit 
 than he would have been able to make under the old 
 plan. Another concern in Switzerland has met with the 
 same success under this plan of cooperation. The same 
 thing has happened in England, where they have the 
 finest system of this sort in the world. The two funda- 
 mental principles which energize labor, namely, (i) a 
 share in the control, even if it be only a share in the dis- 
 cipline (which adds so greatly to the dignity of the em- 
 ployees, as they become, in a sense, partners, although 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 127 
 
 not full partners), and (2) a contingent share in the re- 
 sult of their labor — those two things add an energy and 
 life to employment that nothing else that I know of 
 can; and the difference in intelligence, activity, and hap- 
 piness among the employees, in cooperative institutions 
 and competitive concerns of the same class in the same 
 localities, according to my observation, runs all the way 
 from five to fifty per cent. 
 
 Mr. Humphreys: In England the great cooperative 
 society itself does not adopt profit-sharing, and I 
 would like to know if there is any particular reason why 
 the English Cooperative Society, whose very existence 
 is based upon cooperation, should not have the system. 
 
 Mr. Parsons : The English Wholesale makes that mis- 
 take; the Scottish Wholesale does not. They do give a 
 share of the profits, and my observation is that their re- 
 sults are better than in England, very much better. 
 
 Mr. Hubbard: I think the Leclaire case was the most 
 successful one on record. It was, of course, a place where 
 the work was a very large percentage of the cost of pro- 
 duction; it was largely in that and very little in the ma- 
 terial. I have read an article on the subject which states 
 ihat since Leclaire's death the success of the concern has 
 deteriorated, and that it is now really scarcely more suc- 
 cessful than the ordinary paint shop. The article laid the 
 success chiefly to Leclaire himself rather than to profit- 
 sharing. 
 
 Mr. Parsons: I was there less than two years ago, 
 and am glad to be able to give you the facts. The shop 
 is still very prosperous indeed, and the men are in the 
 concern on the same basis. The point the gentleman 
 has made about the large percentage of labor is true. John 
 
No. Description. 
 
 67 — Serving counters in lunch room in a large depart- 
 ment store. 
 
 68 — Recreation room in a large department store, with 
 open door showing view of emergency hospital room. 
 
 128 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 129 
 
 Wanamaker told me of the effort that he made in his 
 store, and that he was not satisfied with the results. He 
 only tried it for a couple of years, and said that the girls, 
 whjen they got their $100 in addition, or whatever it was, 
 could not be persuaded, in all cases, to save that money. 
 One girl spent her money for a silk dress, and another 
 for a piano, and he was not satisfied that they knew how 
 to handle the money, and that he would have to discon- 
 tinue the plan. 
 
 Mr. Hubbard: I am glad to have my statement cor- 
 rected. 
 
 The Chairman : The question as to how this work 
 can be taken up from the standpoint of the manufacturer 
 with a medium number of employees, where the welfare 
 work is more individual on account of the small body 
 of employees, has not yet received attention. 
 
 Mr. Michener: I think in conection with this ques- 
 tion that a good many of you are " sizing up " the Young 
 Men's Christian Association in your cities by what they 
 are able to do in the city associations for the men in the 
 factories. The theory of this organization has always 
 been to get the men to come to the building, and for that 
 reason nothing has been done with the small factories. 
 Tha,t is being done now, depending on what is needed. 
 There are educational classes, educational talks, and talks 
 by prominent men like Mr. Riis, and other well known 
 men, at the noon hour or in the evening, the bringing 
 together of these men depending upon the situation of 
 the factory and the men. 
 
 Mr. Titsworth : What I mean is that we have all 
 those things now. We pay the expenses of our appren- 
 
130 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 tices to the evening classes of the Young Men's Christian 
 Association. Having all that, we do not need to ask 
 for information along that line. But we do want to know 
 what are the best means for us to employ which will enable 
 our employees and ourselves to see each other's point 
 of view, and thus secure a clearer understanding of our 
 mutual relations. 
 
 Mr. Humphreys : I can speak from the standpoint of 
 the smaller manufacturer, as we started on a much 
 smaller scale than we are working on at the present 
 time. And, in starting, the main feature and the most 
 successful foundation of our work lay in a meeting of 
 all our foremen with the men who actively manage the 
 business. That was the foundation stone, the meeting 
 of the foremen and the management. They laid the 
 foundation for the lunch club, and, in fact, for the gen- 
 eral cooperation of all classes and all features of the in- 
 dustrial work; they laid the foundation for the complete 
 system of cooperation in all directions, and I believe that 
 is the best possible arrangement to be entered into — 
 starting with a comparatively small body of the men, and 
 having the foremen afterward work it out in their own 
 departments. 
 
 (Air. Vreeland was appealed to from the audience for 
 a talk on the welfare work of his company.) 
 
 The Chairman : I would prefer to wait a little longer 
 before I say anything, so as to give every one a chance to 
 talk on the various questions that are before us which 
 have been suggested by different ones and remain un- 
 answered. I see one familiar face in the room, a standby 
 of mine in a very large railroad organization, and I know 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 131 
 
 that he has had experience in this work. I will ask Mr. 
 W. B. Albright, of the Sherwin Williams Company, if 
 he will address us. 
 
 Mr. Albright: I was very much surprised to get a 
 note from our President, Mr. Sherwin, asking me to at- 
 tend this meeting. He, especially, has been very much 
 interested in this work for the past twenty years. 
 
 PHYSICAL AND MENTAL NEEDS SUPPLIED. 
 
 We have brought the work up gradually until to-day 
 we have not an institution where we do not have all that 
 you have told about here. We have our sanitary con- 
 ditions, good light, and our lunch rooms, our libraries, 
 and our club rooms. 
 
 EVENINGS WITH EMPLOYEES. 
 
 We do everything we can to get closer to our men; 
 and among other things, we have our evenings together. 
 The President, Vice-president, and all the members of 
 the company meet with our employees about once a 
 week, and they have their papers — these papers are read 
 by the different employees, some by the foremen, some 
 by the workmen. We have evenings spent that way. 
 
 ANNUAL BANQUET. 
 
 At the close of the year we give a banquet to all our em- 
 ployees. I think the attendance at the last banquet num- 
 bered over 700, at the Chamber of Commerce, in Cleve- 
 land. At that banquet we had short addresses, after the 
 address of welcome by our President, by different 
 
No. Description. 
 
 4 — ^A factory rest-room for women, where a young 
 woman temporarily incapacitated for work, who 
 would lose her wage and deprive the employer of the 
 output if obliged to go home, may recover; or an- 
 other may find relief there on reaching work half 
 frozen. Tt is used as a social room and for relaxation 
 at the noon time. 
 
 5 — A factory rest-room. 
 
 6 — A factory emergency hospital for the women em- 
 ployees. 
 
 '32 
 

 1 
 
 1 
 
 i.MH 
 
 ^3 
 
 
 Bp^^ 
 
 
 V ifciii^^l^^^ 
 
 n^^l»=fe 
 
 
 ^X-v^ 4^^ :^ 
 
 1^ 
 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 133 
 
 men in our factory; the traveling force (in which we 
 have about 140 men) was called on, the foremen, the 
 shipping clerks, and so on, clear down through the 
 ranks. When they were invited, they were notified that 
 they would be called upon for short talks on different sub- 
 jects, or they chose their own subjects; and we spent 
 an hour and a half after this banquet listening to these 
 short addresses. After that the place was turned over to 
 the young people for a dance. 
 
 THE "" TOP NOTCH " SYSTEM. . 
 
 We have what we call the '' top notch " system, some- 
 thing I haven't heard of here to-day. That system exists 
 in all the different departments of our institution. It is 
 made up by points, governing the different departments. 
 For instance, we have eight or nine managers for our 
 different houses. At the end of the year the manager who 
 has made the most points, or profit, from the office of 
 manager, is called the " top notch " manager, and with 
 that top notch he has a check of $500 added to his salary. 
 That system is followed right down to the boy who sweeps 
 out the rooms ; it goes through every department. They 
 have also presented to them a little gold badge with a 
 " T. N." on it, which they are supposed to wear for the 
 year. There is a competition from this that results not 
 only in good for the manager, but for the firm, and re- 
 sults in good with the managers of the different floors, 
 the foremen of our different departments, and we are con- 
 stantly trying to work up devices to bring us in closer 
 touch with the workmen in our shops. An Englishman 
 who spent a couple of days at our plant said : " I can 
 
134 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 thoroughly understand the success of your business. 
 From the office boy to your manager, the heart and soul 
 is in the work, and, therefore, you can't help but suc- 
 ceed." We feel that, and we believe it is true, that from 
 the " Buttons " to the general manager of the institution, 
 they are all heart and soul in the work, and on that we 
 think the continuance of our success depends. 
 
 Mr. Parsons: This great subject is not merely 
 humanitarian. Capital is quite as much interested in the 
 care and improvement of the human machinery, the 
 human element in production, as it is in the machinery 
 made of brass and steel. 
 
 The Chairman : We shall be glad to hear from Mr. 
 E. A. Stedman, Manager of the Atlantic Department of 
 Wells Fargo & Co. 
 
 Mr. Stedman : I am with a transportation company, 
 which has in its numerous offices all the way from " half 
 a man " in country railway offices, up to five or six hun- 
 dred employees, in places like New York and Chicago. 
 We deal almost entirely with the human element. 
 
 a pension system. 
 
 I don't know that I can say much that would be of 
 benefit to you, but I can answer the question that has been 
 asked with reference to pension schemes. We have one, 
 adopted two years ago, under which we allow a man for 
 each year of service one per cent, of his average salary 
 during the last ten years of his service with the company. 
 For instance, if a man has been with us twenty-five years, 
 he gets twenty-five per cent, of his average salary during 
 the last ten years, when he retires. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 135 
 
 VARIOUS WELFARE EFFORTS. 
 
 We also pay the surety bond premiums of our em- 
 ployees, which costs about $15,000 yearly. 
 
 Every Thanksgiving season we give each employee a 
 turkey. 
 
 We give annual vacations, with pay, ranging from three 
 days up to a month, depending upon the position occupied 
 by the employee. 
 
 • 
 
 LIBRARIES MANAGED BY EMPLOYEES. 
 
 We have libraries, such as have been described here, but 
 I believe that the most successful library is the one which 
 the employees manage. We have five or six of these, to 
 which we contributed as much as the employees paid in 
 themselves during the first three years. Since the first 
 three years they have been supported entirely by the small 
 fees paid by members. We have placed dictionaries and 
 encyclopedias at many terminal stations, but the em- 
 ployees do not use them generally. 
 
 LOCAL BENEFIT ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 With the employees scattered, as ours are, we, of course, 
 can have no clubs, but we encourage employees in cities 
 to have their local benefit organizations. 
 
 RECREATION. 
 
 In Jersey City they have an annual ball, for which we 
 provide the hall; but we do not volunteer much in that 
 line, preferring that employees should take the initiative. 
 
No. Description. 
 
 7 — ^A factory dressing-room for women employees, where 
 the work necessitates change of clothing. 
 
 8 — A factory wash-room for women employees. Good 
 ventilation is insured by outside windows. It is 
 large enough to accommodate the sixty women in 
 one of the departments who must " wash up " and 
 be out of the mill in the ten minutes prescribed by 
 the rules. Soap, towels, and hot water are provided. 
 The soap is used without removal from the 
 holders, which are designed to prevent waste and loss. 
 One roller towel for ten persons is supplied twice 
 each day. The nature of the industry is such that 
 hot water is essential. 
 
 136 
 
J-S 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 137 
 
 As to helping them to obtain gymnasium and club facili- 
 ties, we rely largely on the Young Men's Christian As- 
 sociation, and if an employee wants to join it we pay 
 half the fees. Many have availed themselves of this offer. 
 
 INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Somebody spoke of insurance. The employees of the 
 express companies have an insurance organization, which 
 nearly failed, because they organized it on the old- 
 fashioned plan of practically " passing around the hat " 
 when a member died, and taking a dollar from every 
 man, regardless of his age, and, as a result, many old and 
 unhealthy men got in because they received protection at 
 much less than it was worth. But the Association has 
 been reorganized on a plan similar to that of the New 
 York Life Insurance Company, and the other " old line " 
 companies, and now has the strongest proportionate re- 
 serve of any similar life insurance association; that 
 is, a "three per cent." reserve. In addition to that, we have 
 a surplus of $30,000, after operating two years under the 
 new plan. We intend to make the first distribution of 
 dividends next month, about $12,000. The express com- 
 panies collect the contributions, or premiums, without 
 charge, and assist the Association in many ways, so that 
 the operating expenses are only two or three per cent., 
 whereas the expenses in most insurance companies are 
 about twenty-seven per cent. The members get the bene- 
 fit of this saving. 
 
 (At the request of several delegates, who were obliged 
 to take early trains and particularly desired to hear him. 
 
138 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 Mr. H. H. Vreeland, President New York City Railway 
 Company, was prevailed upon to speak at this time.) 
 
 Mr. Vreeland: From an experience based upon 
 twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of active railroad 
 work, both steam and street railway, an experience de- 
 rived from membership in many labor organizations (hav- 
 ing been an active member — at times an officer — of the 
 Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, Order of Railway 
 Conductors, etc.), and from an active membership in 
 secret organizations such as the Odd Fellows, I am thor- 
 oughly familiar with the work these associations aim to 
 do and what they accomplish. My observation of the 
 various organizations that I have spoken of (and I should 
 include the Young Men's Christian Association) has been 
 that their work related entirely to the individual, the man 
 — that it did not go beyond that into the home life or fam- 
 ily life. This, it seems to me, is where the opportunity 
 and necessity for this welfare work, about which we have 
 been talking, comes in. 
 
 So far as general welfare work, so known, is concerned, 
 I have never paid any particular attention to it until the 
 last few months, outside of my own business ; and I was 
 very much astonished to find the amount going on around 
 the country in various ways. But my work has been 
 molded on a plan that would give the best results for our 
 company and our employees. We start with the man, 
 with the employee, and if he is progressive and skilful, he 
 has a standing which is gained by his work ; nobody can 
 discharge him, but he has his discharge entirely in his own 
 hands; no one can discharge him but himself. At the 
 time of his death there is a fund to bury him, and there is 
 a pension for him in his old age. I have found that the 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 139 
 
 wife of the average laboring man will always land on her 
 feet if given time. If her husband dies suddenly, and she 
 has something to tide her over for a few weeks, she will 
 get something to support herself. Now we both provide 
 a fund that will bury a man and something that will pro- 
 vide for his family until they can get their bearings and 
 start over again. 
 
 In talking of this kind of work I have had men say to 
 me, " That is all right. You can do it with three or four 
 hundred men, but you can't do it with a large number." 
 I say I can do it with fifteen to twenty-five thousand, and 
 am doing it to-day with fifteen thousand. I might say 
 right here that I have directly in my own system fifteen 
 thousand employees, and, indirectly, through an advisory 
 management, I have to do with about thirty thousand. 
 Twenty years ago I had five hundred ; so I can speak from 
 both sides of the question. 
 
 SUCCESS DEPENDENT UPON ACTIVE INTEREST OF THOSE IN 
 CONTROL OF BUSINESS. 
 
 Now, as to success or failure in this kind of work, it 
 depends almost entirely on the extent of the active interest 
 taken in it by the men in control of the business. I per- 
 fected the first organization in connection with the .street 
 railroad work in which I am now engaged. It was a 
 success from the start and has been ever since, while 
 many similar organizations have failed. A common cause 
 of failure I can best illustrate by relating the experience 
 of a railroad in the West employing about one thousand 
 men. They sent their representative to our office, got 
 our constitution, and by-laws, method of organization and 
 
No. Description. 
 
 47 — Cigar stand and pool room in boarding house for 
 factory employees. 
 
 48 — Bowling alley in a factory. 
 
 J 40 
 
VERS/T 
 
 OF 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 141 
 
 everything, and organized. The president of the road 
 came to me eight months afterward and said, " Mr. Vree- 
 land, I can't understand it. Our organization is a complete 
 failure." I said, *' Probably I can tell you why it is a 
 failure without an explanation from you. You started this 
 organization with a great hurrah ; you were present your- 
 self ; your other officers were there. Have you as Presi- 
 dent ever attended a meeting since ? " He said, " No ; I 
 am too busy." I said, " Has your Vice-President been 
 present, your general manager, your superintendent ? " 
 To all of which he answered, " No." 
 
 COOPERATION OF MANAGEMENT WITH SECRETARY 
 NECESSARY. 
 
 Now, they had a secretary, as I have a secretary, but 
 that secretary's work was not personally assisted by any 
 one in the management of the company. He asked me 
 why we had been so successful, and I told him that in 
 conjunction with the secretary's work, in nine years, since 
 the organization was formed, I had never missed a meet- 
 ing, or let a meeting pass without my being on the plat- 
 form to speak to the men, unless it was through illness — 
 in addition to which every vice-president and every head 
 of every department of our company was also present. I 
 was ill one night, and when I looked over the list of those 
 who were in attendance on that night (it was known I was 
 going to be away) , I found there was not a representative 
 man of our railroad company that attended that meeting. 
 Every one of them explained afterward that he had an 
 engagement. It never occurred again. We have a com- 
 petent secretary, but the secretary is only one of the spokes 
 
142 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 in the wheel. The whole management is interested in the 
 work and in the forwarding of the work ; and so far as 
 any antipathy of the employees is concerned, or any feel- 
 ing of that character, after the experience of the twenty 
 odd years that I have been in this work, I can say from a 
 personal knowledge of the feelings of the men (having 
 been in like positions with them) there is none. 
 
 You can go to our club room, and in that seat there 
 you will find five motormen and five conductors, one of 
 the vice-presidents; in this seat there are half a dozen 
 engineers and machinists ; and there is a superintendent 
 of transportation, here the head of the electrical depart- 
 ment, and there the head of the mechanical department; 
 every one of our people is in touch with the men. 
 
 CHARITY ELIMINATED. 
 
 Another factor in the success of our organization has 
 been the understanding that there is absolutely no charity 
 in connection with it. When it was formed the company 
 pledged itself to supply rooms, light, heat and all the 
 material features necessary for a club organization, pay 
 the salary of a secretary, and assume generally all expense 
 of operation, so that all moneys paid in by the employees 
 would be returned to them in sick benefits and death bene- 
 fits, or would remain in the reserve fund for that pur- 
 pose. We started out on that basis, but every additional 
 feature of the association's work has been provided by 
 the men themselves. This organization to which I refer 
 has over six thousand active members. It is officered by 
 the men. The only real representative of the company 
 on the board is the president of the company, who is ex- 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 143 
 
 officio president of the Association, but the vote on every- 
 thing is controlled by the representatives of the employees, 
 elected by themselves. 
 
 THE CLUB HOUSE. 
 
 There is one feature in connection with my work here 
 which may not be met with frequently in manufacturing 
 establishments. In the ten thousand of my men situated 
 on Manhattan Island I have a large percentage of men 
 who live in boarding houses. Many of them are from the 
 country ; others have no homes. Twenty-eight years ago 
 as a brakeman on a steam railroad I was in the same posi- 
 tion — away from home and forced to live in the boarding 
 houses that the railroad terminals and my wages afforded. 
 There was absolutely no place for me in the evening where 
 it was warm except the saloon and the pool room. I said 
 to myself : " Here is something our men need, based on 
 my own experience." For years railroad men scoffed at 
 this idea, but through the agency of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association, living, boarding, and club house 
 facilities have now been established at most of the large 
 railroad termiinals throughout the United States and 
 Canada. Our situation, while different, still required some 
 of the same facilities. We established the club house fea- 
 tures, and they were immediately used, and used ex- 
 tensively. You can find our club rooms full every night 
 in the week. We established a large and comprehensive 
 library, carrying first class literature, and equipped a room 
 with pool tables. The library idea was rather pooh-poohed 
 by our friends. They said to us : " Your employees do 
 an arduous day's work and go home, and you will hear 
 nothing more of them." 
 
No. Description. 
 
 45 — A factory roof garden. 
 
 46 — Operatic performance by factory employees. 
 
 144 
 
or 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 145 
 
 REACHING THE FAMILIES THROUGH THE LIBRARY. 
 
 . But I had the object of getting at the families, and when 
 I gave that library to the association I stated at a meet- 
 ing where there were some six thousand of our employees 
 with their wives and families, that it was the desire of the 
 management that the catalogues of the library should go 
 into the house of every employee who had a family — ^that 
 we wanted the wives and daughters and sons of our em- 
 ployees to use the books. I also said that if there were a 
 man who had a son or a daughter working for an educa- 
 tion — a technical education, perhaps — and it was necessary 
 to have special text books or books of reference, all that 
 was necessary was for our employee to apply to the 
 librarian and the books would be purchased and put in the 
 library. The library was, so to speak, a family affair, and 
 it was turned over at least twenty-five times the first win- 
 ter we had it. It was astonishing, too, to see the high 
 grade of literature that was taken out. The use of the 
 reading-room didn't amount to so much, but the use of 
 the books in the homes was very great. 
 
 Now, perhaps, it will be said : " What is the value of all 
 this in connection with the company's work ? " And the 
 answer is that all our efforts should be bent to getting the 
 best work out of our employees, and we believe that this 
 can best be promoted by enlisting not only the personal 
 interest of the individual employee, but the interest of his 
 family as well. 
 
 PROMPT ASSISTANCE IN CASES OF ILLNESS OR DISTRESS. 
 
 Now through the instrumentality of our association a 
 case of trouble or want in connection with the families of 
 
146 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 our employees could hardly occur to-night without be- 
 coming known to me. How could I get that through any 
 outside organization? How do I get it at all? By our 
 method, it is the duty of every foreman who has men 
 under him, whether ten or five hundred, to report to the 
 head of his department every case of illness that occurs 
 among those men. The department head reports it to the 
 secretary of the association, who in turn reports it to the 
 physician, and the physician detailed to that section at- 
 tends to it. 
 
 The doctor reports periodically to me as to the situation 
 of the families of the employees. If the doctor is called 
 to-night to the house of one of my employees and finds 
 that there is not sufficient nourishing food or fuel or any- 
 thing of that kind, and no money to buy it, he will im- 
 mediately call me up, or in my absence one of the executive 
 officers, and get authority to straighten the matter out. 
 
 A number of people in New York City who are very 
 active in the charitable organizations of the city have 
 commented to me on the fact that our employees have for 
 a number of years been totally missing from the lists of 
 beneficiaries of the various institutions. The reason is 
 that the matter is so systematized that the proper care and 
 attention are given. 
 
 Now all this, while accomplished through the agency 
 of our association, is no part of its work. The association 
 is a mutual benefit society for health and life insurance, 
 with some social features added. But my work as the 
 head of the company goes far beyond that. It reaches the 
 home life not only of the employee, but of his family as 
 well, and though it is entirely outside the province of the 
 Association, I could not possibly accomplish it without 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 147 
 
 the use of its machinery. I know more of my men by 
 name than the average railroad man that has a thousand. 
 I know the men themselves, know where they live and a 
 great deal about them, and I think this intimacy has been 
 mutually helpful in our work, which is amply demon- 
 strated by the cordial relations which have always pre- 
 vailed between the management and the men. 
 
 Again, through the agency of the association, if there 
 is a feeling of dissatisfaction among the employees in 
 any part of the city to-night, to-morrow morning we know 
 of it, or some one in active charge of the work does ; and 
 there is no better method of getting this kind of infor- 
 mation. 
 
 TALKS TO THE MEN. 
 
 A railroad man who has to do with a large number of 
 men, came to one of our meetings one night, where I 
 addressed our men, and he said to me afterward, " Mr. 
 Vreeland, if this organization had no other value what- 
 ever, I would give $50,000 if I could be placed in a posi- 
 tion, where, if I wanted to talk to my employees collect- 
 ively, I could do it." I said to him that I could call a 
 meeting to-night, stating that the president would speak 
 to-morrow night at the club rooms, and the club rooms 
 would hardly hold the men, whether the talk was to be on 
 labor questions or any other subject. I never hesitate to 
 bring up any question, and I have never had anything but 
 the most cordial reception. I have been asked if I allowed 
 outsiders to talk to my men. I have never allowed it ex- 
 cept on a technical subject connected with my business, 
 and then I knew what the man was going to say before 
 
No. Description. 
 
 22 — View of a factory where special attention has been 
 given to providing Hght work rooms. 
 
 23 — Another factory where the construction insures light 
 work rooms. 
 
 148 
 
'ERSITY 
 
 OF 
 ^/FORNlA 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 149 
 
 he got up and said it. I have seen a great deal of trouble 
 occasioned by that, by some one who didn't understand 
 just what you were trying to accomplish, and I have never 
 allowed any one to do it. What we frequently do is to 
 have the technical men of our company talk to the men 
 on important features of the business, illustrating with 
 stereopticon views. Of course, I am not going into the 
 question of entertainment, and, for that matter, I am only 
 trying to outline what we do for our men, and the value 
 which we think our organization has. 
 
 Of course, in talking over matters that have to do with 
 so many years of activity, there may be some points in 
 connection with those that Mr. Patterson referred to that 
 I have skipped. I think, however, that I have covered 
 the ground pretty thoroughly as to the original object. 
 
 (Upon request Mr. Vreeland described the company's 
 school for new employees.) 
 
 We have a school for the instruction of our men. There 
 are a great many roads around the country where a green 
 man is employed and is turned out on the public, witK.'an 
 older employee, to get his education. My idea of starting- 
 a school was to separate the eye and the brain and the 
 hand. Only a man who is trained to do it, for instance, 
 can get on a locomotive in the dark and do all the things 
 that are necessary to run that locomotive, and he sees in 
 the darkness because his hand is trained. 
 
 We take the green man into the room where we have 
 every working electric device that he will have to handle 
 in the operation of the cars, and he is instructed there. 
 I have noticed that the '* first day man " follows every: 
 movement with his eyes ; the " second day man " will ."fol- 
 low two movements; the man who has been there three 
 
I50 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 days will follow one movement ; and the man who has been 
 under instruction four days never takes his eyes from the 
 mark over his instructor's head. In this way the man 
 learns to use his hands to operate the apparatus without 
 taking his eyes from the street. We do not take any man 
 upon the street except to finish what is called his " street 
 education " — where to stop, etc. The same principle is 
 carried out with all classes of our employees which have 
 to deal with electric equipment. 
 
 Mr. Parsons : What would be your idea of giving em- 
 ployees a share in the profits? 
 
 Mr. Vreeland: That question has never come up in 
 railroad business, except in connection with stock, and 
 that has been done two or three times in this country, 
 generally with the same result that was had in the Steel 
 Corporation. You take an employee and give him stock 
 that pays 5 per cent, and sell it to him at 125, then you 
 must keep that stock at 125. 
 
 The Chairman: I will now ask Mr. E. F. Olmsted, 
 who has charge of the welfare work for the Natural Food 
 Company, at Niagara Falls, to give an outline of their 
 efforts. 
 
 Mr. Olmsted : The welfare work as conducted by the 
 Natural Food Company at their Niagara Falls plant is of 
 a most practical nature, there being no attempt whatever 
 to carry out experiments or to work out sociological prob- 
 lems — the idea being mainly to surround the employees 
 with ideal working conditions, thereby creating a desire 
 for better things in the home as well as factory. 
 
 The conservatory is located in the center of the resi- 
 dence part of the city, far removed from the smoke and 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 151 
 
 dirt of the manufacturing region, and, therefore, cleanly 
 conditions are easily maintained. 
 
 The building is of steel, with just enough brick to cover 
 the girders, the balance of the wall space being devoted 
 entirely to windows. Each window is double glazed in 
 order to exclude the dust and smoke. This building is 
 finished throughout in hardwood and white enamel, thus 
 giving the greatest possible advantages for light and airy 
 working rooms. 
 
 VENTILATION. 
 
 The building is ventilated throughout by the fan sys- 
 tem, the air being changed in the manufacturing section 
 automatically every fifteen minutes, in the offices every 
 seven and one-half minutes, and in the lecture room every 
 five minutes. 
 
 The air is brought in from the tower two hundred feet 
 above the ground and is conveyed to the first floor of the 
 building, where in the winter it is heated and then forced 
 throughout the building. Electric thermostats regulate 
 the temperature. 
 
 CLEANLINESS. 
 
 We have a force of twelve janitors continually at work 
 to keep the building in good condition. 
 
 The use of tobacco in any foim is prohibited in the 
 building. 
 
152 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 LUNCHEONS. 
 
 The employees of the company are provided with their 
 noon-day meal. The young women's dining-room, on 
 the fifth floor, is a large, airy room, overlooking the up|>er 
 Niagara River, and is equipped with tables seating eight 
 each. The tables are completely furnished with linen, 
 silver and china. The young women are given their 
 luncheons free of charge, and take turns alphabetically in 
 serving. It takes approximately fifteen minutes to one- 
 half hour to serve the luncheon. The following is a 
 sample menu: 
 
 Celery Broth with Rice 
 
 Triscuits 
 
 Braised Sirloin of Beef 
 
 Mashed Potatoes Sliced Tomatoes 
 
 Entire Wheat Bread Creamery Butter 
 
 Jellied Apple Sandwich with Cream 
 
 Tea 
 
 At the close of the luncheon, particularly in stormy 
 weather, the girls' dining-room is quite animated. A 
 grand piano is located at one end of the room, and there 
 are several players among the employees. Some one pre- 
 sides at the piano, and the remainder of the noon hour is 
 passed in singing and dancing. During the pleasant 
 weather we have practically the facilities of a park op- 
 posite the conservatory, where the employees stroll until" 
 it is time to resume work. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 153 
 
 men's dining-room. 
 
 For the men's dining-room there are lunch counters in 
 horse-shoe shape. The men eat apart from the girls, mainly 
 because their work is of somewhat different nature, and 
 would necessitate a change of clothing if they dined in the 
 same room. As it is, the men can feel at perfect liberty to 
 eat in the uniforms which they wear during working 
 hours. 
 
 The men, at their own request, pay ten cents for their 
 luncheons, and the menu is quite a substantial one. The 
 following may be taken as a fair sample : 
 
 Puree of Oyster Plant 
 
 Triscuits 
 
 Creamed Codfish 
 
 Escalloped Potatoes Vegetarian Baked Beans 
 
 Cold Meats 
 
 Sliced Tomatoes 
 
 Entire Wheat Bread and Butter 
 
 Vanilla Ice Cream 
 
 . Apple Pie 
 
 Tea 
 
 In case any of the men do not wish the regular lunch- 
 eon at ten cents, and prefer to bring part of their own 
 luncheon, they may purchase any desired articles from a 
 bill of extras. These articles are listed as follows : 
 
 Soup, Bread, Butter, and Tea , .$0 04 
 
 Mock Turtle Soup ( i pint) 09 
 
 Regular Menu Soup 01 
 
 Boiled Eggs (2) 04 
 
 Cold Boiled Ham (per order) 05 
 
 Baked Beans and Tomato Sauce (per order) 05 
 
154 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 Veal Loaf 12 
 
 Potted Ham ( i can) 05 
 
 Cheese (per order) 04 
 
 Salmon (i can) 13 
 
 Sardines (i can) 05 
 
 Pickles (per order) 02 
 
 Olives 04 
 
 Stewed Corn ( i can) 09 
 
 Stewed Peas ( i can) 09 
 
 Apples (per order) Oi 
 
 Maple Syrup (per order) 03 
 
 Peach Preserve (per order) 04 
 
 Cherry Preserve (per order) 04 
 
 Shredded Wheat with Cream (1-3 pint) 06 
 
 Milk (per glass) 01 
 
 The culinary department is under a competent chef, 
 who tests all supplies. The use of pork products, white 
 flour and yeast is dispensed with. We serve approximately 
 four hundred meals each noon. The milk used is Pas- 
 teurized, the water all doubly sterilized. 
 
 For serving the men we utilize the services of our col- 
 ored janitors during the noon hour, paying them for extra 
 time and also giving them their luncheons free for this 
 service. 
 
 READING-ROOM. 
 
 Adjoining the men's dining-room is a reading-room. 
 This is equipped entirely for the comfort and convenience 
 of the men. Tables and easy chairs are provided, and the 
 leading magazines and daily newspapers are on file. 
 Games, such as dominoes and checkers, may also be 
 played. Writing material is at hand. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 155 
 
 CIRCULATING LIBRARY. 
 
 The advertising department of the company receives 
 many periodicals and newspapers. These are accessible 
 any day between half-past twelve o'clock and one. This 
 privilege makes available to all employees the best period- 
 ical literature, and is much used. 
 
 The company has just established a branch of the 
 Tabard Inn Library. 
 
 BATHS. 
 
 The bathing facilities of the conservatory are probably 
 equaled by few hotels in the country. There are four- 
 teen rooms devoted to baths, each room being finished 
 in Italian marble and mosaic. The men's rooms are 
 equipped with shower and Qe'edle baths and the girls' 
 rooms with individual bathtubs and ring showers. (These 
 enable them to keep the hair dry.) 
 
 The employees are allowed ample time each week for 
 the use of these baths. Soap and towels are free. 
 
 This feature of our work has been very successful. 
 There is no inclination on the part of the company to 
 force it upon the employees. Its use is entirely at their 
 own discretion, and all that is necessary is for them to ask 
 permission of the forewoman or foreman, so that others 
 may be assigned to their places in order that the work 
 may not be interrupted. The time used for this purpose 
 averages about one hour per week per persoii. (Our em- 
 ployees are all paid by the day. We have no piece work.) 
 
 Necessary lavatory and toilet facilities are also provided. 
 
156 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 LOCKERS. 
 
 Every employee is provided with a locker for outdoor 
 garments. The lockers are of the familiar expanded 
 metal type, thus giving the maximum ventilation and 
 hygienic conditions. The locker rooms adjoin in all in- 
 stances the bath and toilet rooms. 
 
 7 'Each employee has his own key, for which a deposit 
 of 25 cents is made, this amount being refunded when key 
 is returned. 
 
 BICYCLE RACKS. 
 
 - On the first floor of the conservatory are racks for the 
 temporary storage of employees' bicycles, which are much 
 used during the summer months. 
 
 The men's racks are on one side of the entrance and 
 the girls' on the other. 
 
 The girls' wheels are taken care of by the janitors, who 
 bring the wheels in from out of doors after the girls reach 
 the building in the morning, and take them out for them 
 in the evening. 
 
 THE FACTORY ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 The lawns are kept in perfect condition, and the corners 
 of the conservatory are planted with shrubbery in order 
 to relieve the monotony and add a little touch of color. 
 
 The foyer is supplied with large palms, while the girls' 
 dining-room is brightened with large bay trees and win- 
 dow boxes, and in season flowers adorn the individual 
 tables. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 157 
 
 AUDITORIUM. 
 
 On the fourth floor of the administration building is 
 an auditorium with a seating capacity of 1080. The use 
 of this auditorium is given to the employees for any con- 
 certs, lectures, or entertainments they may arrange for 
 the benefit of their organizations. 
 
 REST PERIODS. 
 
 In the manufacturing section, the girls are allowed fif- 
 teen minutes every morning and afternoon for rest and 
 recreation. 
 
 The girls in the factory division also come to work five 
 minutes later than the men and stop five minutes earlier, 
 thus giving them in all forty minutes a day less than 
 schedule time, they receiving pay, however, for full time. 
 
 REST ROOM. 
 
 Just off the foyer there is a rest or lounging room for 
 the women. This is also available in case of sickness or 
 accident. 
 
 The company has a competent physician, so that prompt 
 attention can be given to cases of accident or illness. 
 
 SUGGESTION BOX. 
 
 There is a suggestion box in the offices of the company 
 .in which suggestions for the betterment of the company's 
 .work may be deposUed. Cash prizes are offered quarterly 
 for-jthe best suggestions made; 
 
158 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 COOKING SCHOOL. 
 
 One of the latest additions to our work is the estabHsh- 
 ment of a complete course in cookery, which is open not 
 only to the employees of the company, but also to the 
 citizens of Niagara Falls. The course is a very complete 
 one, and comprehends all phases of cookery. 
 
 CAPS AND APRONS. 
 
 The girls in the manufacturing section are furnished, 
 free, with caps, aprons, and sleeves. These are used dur- 
 ing the working hours, and are laundered by the company. 
 
 FOOT AND BACK RESTS ON CHAIRS. 
 
 The chairs used by the girls of the manufacturing sec- 
 tion are of as comfortable design as can be used in con- 
 nection with the work. They are all provided with backs 
 and foot rests. 
 
 DRINKING WATER. 
 
 The drinking water, which is supplied to all floors, is 
 first sterilized, then filtered, and again sterilized, so as to 
 render it as pure as possible. Drinking glasses are fur- 
 nished. 
 
 FIRE PROTECTION AND DRILLS. 
 
 The building is constructed as nearly fireproof as pos- 
 sible. In the manufacturing section it is of mill construc- 
 tion. The walls are all of brick covered with three coats 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 159 
 
 of plaster and two of cement and painted with white 
 enamel. 
 
 The floor consists of 4 inch Georgia pine covered with 
 y^ inch Salamander fireproofing and then ^ inch hard 
 maple. 
 
 The building is equipped with sprinkler system and has 
 a number of stand pipes with hose connections. The stand 
 pipes are kept supplied by a 1,000 gallon per minute 
 Worthington fire pump always under steam. 
 
 Fire drills are held the third Saturday of each month. 
 
 employees' organizations. 
 
 There are several organizations among the employees. 
 
 The International Sunshine Society is in quite a flour- 
 ishing condition. The work is maintained entirely by the 
 employees, the company exercising no voice in the man- 
 agement. 
 
 The company helps to maintain a relief association 
 among its employees for the payment of sickness, accident, 
 and funeral benefits. The entire administration of this 
 is in the hands of the employees, except that dues are col- 
 lected by the firm every second week by deduction from 
 the members' wages (membership being entirely volun- 
 tary), under an agreement therefor between the company 
 and the association, all such dues being turned over to the 
 latter's treasurer. The firm, however, contributes to the 
 fund every second week a sum equal to the aggregate 
 amount of deductions from the members' wages, in other 
 words, bears one-half the support of the fund. Dues of 
 members are five or ten cents every other week, those with 
 a wage of less than $6.50 a week paying five, the others, 
 
No. Description. 
 
 49 — One of the seats provided for the women packers in 
 a factory. 
 
 50 — Seat on rollers, fitted into grooved rail, enabling the 
 operative to pass readily from one machine to an- 
 other, thus operating seven machines. 
 
 51 — Women in a large plant, seated at work. 
 
 160 
 
or THE ^ 
 
 "cRSfTY 
 
 OF 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. i6i 
 
 ten cents. Special assessments may be levied by the board 
 of directors to meet contingencies of excessive sickness or 
 death, but such may not exceed twenty-five cents or fifty 
 cents per member, according to dues paid, and may not be 
 levied more than twice a year, except by two-thirds vote 
 of the members of the association. Sick and accident 
 benefits amounting to $3.00 or $6.00 per week, according 
 to class of dues paid, are allowed for a period not exceed- 
 ing thirteen weeks, beginning after one week's disability. 
 Funeral benefits amount to $37.50 or $75.00, according to 
 dues paid. 
 
 The baseball club is merely an athletic association in 
 effect during the spring and summer, and is composed en- 
 tirely of employees of the company, who manage the 
 finances and other details in their own way. They ar- 
 ranged entertainments last season for the purpose of rais- 
 ing funds for the purchasing of uniforms and outfit and 
 of covering the expenses in connection with the club. A 
 complete schedule of games was arranged, and they were 
 very successful in their efforts. 
 
 The band is a musical organization consisting of thirty 
 pieces. All employees of the company who can play any 
 band instrument are eligible to membership, and at the 
 same time a number of players in the city are included in 
 the organization. The band is under the charge of a com- 
 petent leader, who was formerly in charge of the regi- 
 mental band of this city. Rehearsals are held once a 
 week, and a number of engagements are secured. It is 
 really a very creditable organization. Uniforms are pro- 
 vided, and the company donates a certain sum each year 
 for the maintenance of this organization. 
 
 The Riverside Tennis Club is an organization composed 
 
ilSa CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 entirely of men in the employ of the company. Suitable 
 grounds are rented in close proximity to the building, and 
 are equipped with two double tennis courts. The expense 
 for maintenance is covered entirely by the members them- 
 selves, and the courts are available at any time to the 
 members or their guests. 
 
 The Foremen's Club is composed of the foremen of the 
 different departments. Subjects which pertain to the busi- 
 ness of the company are discussed at the meetings, and 
 entertainments are arranged by a committee for that pur- 
 pose. The management of the organization is entirely 
 under the employees, who are members. 
 
 ADDRESSES TO EMPLOYEES. 
 
 From time to time we are favored with the presence of 
 distinguished people at Niagara Falls, and wherever the 
 opportunity permits we have them make addresses to the 
 employees. These addresses usually take place during 
 the luncheon hour. 
 
 WAGES. 
 
 In all cases where welfare work is considered, one 
 question which arises in the mind of the visitor or in- 
 vestigator is, How is the wage question affected by the 
 welfare work which is being conducted? 
 
 We might state that in the case of the work done at the 
 Natural Food Conservatory the wage question does not 
 in any way enter into or affect the workings of the wel- 
 fare work. 
 
 The general rate of wage is somewhat in excess of the 
 fiverage wage in other plants of this city and vicinity. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 163 
 
 We have, approximately, five hundred employees on the 
 pay-roll, one hundred and fifty being women. The ma- 
 jority of the employees belong to the trades unions. 
 
 HOURS OF LABOR. 
 
 The regulation lo-hour day is in effect, one hour being 
 allowed for luncheon at noon. An exception to this is 
 made in the case of the girls, as stated previously. 
 
 The Chairman : Will Miss Anna B. Doughten speak 
 of her work as welfare manager for the Curtis Publish- 
 ing Company? 
 
 Miss Doughten : We have not long been engaged in 
 welfare work, considered as such. The employees have 
 always been treated with consideration, and for a good 
 many years the company provided a room where the 
 women employees could eat their cold lunches, and where 
 tea, coffee, and milk were served without charge. A few 
 years ago a Savings Fund was started, and last fall the 
 present lunch room for the women employees, a striking 
 contrast to the old unattractive one, was opened ; and an 
 attractive rest room and a reading room were provided. 
 
 Especial emphasis is being laid upon one aspect of this 
 work, and it is an aspect which, it seems, usually does 
 not receive enough attention, namely, luncheon or other 
 rooms provided for the use of the employees should not 
 only be comfortable, clean, and convenient, but, without 
 being elaborate, also as attractive, artistic, and home- 
 like as possible. This requires more thought, but not 
 more expense, and it is important for the indirect, quiet 
 
No. Description. 
 
 2y — Lunch room in foundry for the women core-workers. 
 Employees never tire of good music at noon. It 
 contributes materially to the success of a lunch room. 
 Adjacent to another lunch room in a section of this 
 manufacturing plant a ^arge recreation room, with 
 a good floor, has been provided for the women, who 
 always respond to the music by dancing, although 
 the work is very arduous. The men are not allowed 
 to share this pleasure, except at evening dancing 
 parties. 
 
 2!^ — Lunch room for women in a large publishing house. 
 Small tables are found to be advantageous, as they 
 allow congenial ones to group together. 
 
 164 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 165 
 
 influence of such surroundings often is stronger, farther 
 reaching, and more lasting than any attempt at direct in- 
 fluence. The lunch room, so far, has been the main 
 feature, and the future alone will show what more may 
 be done for the employees. A box for suggestions and 
 complaints has been placed in the lunch room, and once 
 a month an advisory committee meets with the welfare 
 manager, considers these suggestions and complaints, 
 hears the monthly statement of the lunch room expenses, 
 and recommends certain improvements and changes to the 
 welfare manager, or, through her, to the general manager 
 of the company. There are many possibilities in this ad- 
 visory committee, if its decisions shall show judgment 
 and reason. The subject of a Mutual Benefit Society is 
 receiving consideration, and, if a sufficient number of 
 employees signify their desire for such an organization, 
 it will probably be formed. It is considered important 
 that work along this line shall be gradual, and that nothing 
 shall be done for the employees until they are ready to 
 welcome it. 
 
 THE SAVINGS FUND SOCIETY. 
 
 As yet nothing has been done for the men employees 
 except to admit them to the Savings Fund Society. 
 
 The Savings Fund Society was organized several years 
 ago to encourage thrift and the habit of saving. The 
 sum of twenty-five cents per week is paid into the fund 
 for each share and no person can hold more than twenty 
 shares, making twenty-five cents the smallest amount 
 per week and five dollars the largest amount per week 
 that will be received. Each series begins on September i 
 
1 66 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 and ends on August 31, when a new series is immediately 
 opened. An opportunity for a permanent investment of 
 the money will then be offered by the firm. Six per cent, 
 is guaranteed on the savings, and last year the company 
 donated to the Savings Fund the fines for lateness during 
 the year, amounting to about $450, making the interest 
 that year eleven per cent. Withdrawal from the Society 
 before the end of the year forfeits all interest. At any 
 time loans will be made for a period of not less than a 
 month, and for a sum not exceeding nine-tenths of the 
 amount paid in, at the rate of six per cent, per annum. 
 A charge of ten cents is made for each loan. We con- 
 sider that this Savings Fund Society has been very suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 APPRECIATION ON PART OF EMPLOYEES. 
 
 We recognize that welfare work should not be done 
 with the idea of appreciation from the employees. It will 
 be appreciated, whether or not any outward sign is given, 
 but the main motive should be justice and common hu- 
 manity. So often employers will say that they have tried 
 such and such a thing, and that at first the employees 
 appreciated it, but after a little they began to take it as a 
 matter of course and their right, so it was discontinued. 
 Employees are but human, and that is the usual result 
 of habit. We do not stop to be thankful every day for the 
 air we breathe. 
 
 SHOULD NOT BE USED FOR ADVERTISING PURPOSES. 
 
 A point which we are careful to recognize is that this 
 welfare work should not be used as a mode of advertise- 
 ment. That willlower the work and interfere with its 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 167 
 
 true usefulness. In conferences and discussions to 
 further this kind of work, the subject should be considered 
 along broad and general lines, individual cases being cited 
 as illustrations, but no firm should seize the opportunity 
 presented to advertise its own philanthropy and liberality. 
 
 The Chairman : May we hear from Mrs. M. Louise 
 Hynson, another active worker in this field? 
 
 Mrs. Hynson : My special work for the John Wana- 
 maker Philadelphia store has been the supervision for 
 the past year of a luncheon room for the men and women, 
 where a fifteen cent dinner was served to the men and an 
 equally reasonable lunch to about fifteen hundred women 
 and girls daily. 
 
 A beautiful work is done by others who have charge 
 of educational classes for the boys and girls, and the mem- 
 bers of the woman's league. A member of the firm as- 
 sured me recently that the desire is keen to have the new 
 store now in process of erection equipped in the best 
 possible manner for the comfort and betterment of their 
 employees. I recommend that there be sent from the 
 welfare department of the National Civic Federation its 
 most able man or woman to meet the firm of Wana- 
 makers, th^t they may see the great field open to them 
 which would make them leaders in the work. 
 
 The Chairman : Mr. N. W. Cease will, I hope, speak 
 of his work in the different plants of the American Loco- 
 motive Company. 
 
 Mr. Cease: I deeply appreciate the privilege granted 
 me to-day to appear before this meeting of the great 
 Civic Federation known as " The Conference of Social 
 
No. Description. 
 
 II — Men's locker room in a large plant — the new way. 
 Throughout this plant the men's toilet and dressing-- 
 rooms are built as outside connected additions to the 
 workrooms. 
 
 12 — The old way of caring for the men's clothing in the 
 dust and dirt of a blacksmith shop. 
 
 68 
 
CONFERENVE ON WELFARE WORK. 169 
 
 Secretaries." What body of men and women could band 
 themselves together for a nobler and grander cause than 
 the elevation of the toiling masses? 
 
 The Civic Federation is a grand organization for the 
 advancement and elevation of the workingmen. Its in- 
 fluence is far reaching, and its motives will ever redound 
 to the credit of the kings of industry and be an everlasting 
 inheritance to the future generations of the army of toilers 
 in this country. 
 
 Truthfully and proudly can I say here to-day that the 
 great corporation I have the honor of representing has 
 spent, and is yet spending, thousands of dollars for the 
 comfort and benefit of its employees. This corporation 
 has within its plants lunch rooms that place before its 
 employees a meal at unheard of prices. For instance, 
 kindly follow me : The employee can get a bowl of good, 
 rich, nutritious soup, with bread included, for the small 
 sum of three cents. All vegetables in season are served 
 with bread for three cents. Among the different kinds of 
 meat that he can purchase for three cents are : roast beef, 
 roast pork, roast veal, lamb chops, Hamburg steak, cod- 
 fish cakes, sausages, etc. Sandwiches of all kinds are 
 served for three cents, such as ham, cheese, egg, and 
 chicken. Remember, bread is served with every order. 
 Pies, puddings, cakes, and custards are only three cents ; 
 coffee with whipped cream and sugar, three cents ; milk, 
 lemonade, and chocolate, three cents. Fruit is also sold 
 at very low prices. In fact, everything in the eating line 
 is to be had. 
 
 The employees are attentively waited on, and treated 
 with the utmost consideration. You can readily see that 
 these prices place before them a meal cheaper than they 
 
I70 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 could possibly purchase the raw material for, besides the 
 wholesome benefit it is to the men to be able to get some- 
 thing warm any time during the day that they feel the need 
 of food. Another one of its most striking and helpful fea- 
 tures is its direct benefit to the wives of these men, that 
 they are no longer required to prepare cold lunches and 
 baffle with a tin pail problem, a task, I assure you, they 
 most cheerfully surrender. 
 
 We opened the first lunch room in Richmond, Va., 
 in 1903, and to-day we have them in Schenectady, New 
 York, Dunkirk, N. Y., and Montreal, Canada, and will, 
 eventually install them in several more of the plants. 
 
 The company is sparing neither time nor money in 
 surrounding their men with homelike requirements, and 
 granting them privileges that would have seemed a few 
 years back an impossibility, and still maintain that dis- 
 cipline and system so essential and necessary in the con- 
 duct of large industries. 
 
 It has been my good fortune to be associated personally 
 with its benevolently-disposed and thoughtful officials. 
 Like one large heart beating for the welfare and ad- 
 vancement of the thousands of employees, they have es- 
 tablished a precedent worthy of emulation. 
 
 The three cent lunch system, which bears my name, is 
 self sustaining, and is growing year by year. I feel con- 
 fident that our success is based on attention, cleanliness, 
 quality, quantity, civility, and system. 
 
 Thanking you all for your kind attention, I will conclude 
 by saying that we are ready to help any one who is con- 
 sidering this good work, and that I have copies of a 
 sample bill of fare which I shall be glad to hand those who 
 may desire them. 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 171 
 
 Notice and sample menu issued in installing lunch 
 counters : 
 
 Cease^s Industral Lunch System 
 
 J Cents 
 
 Open at All Hours 
 
 From 6 to II A. M. and from 12 to 7 P. M. 
 
 American Locomotive Works Branch 
 
 Dunkirk, N. Y. 
 
 To the Employees of the American Locomotive Works. 
 
 Gentlemen : We are now ready to serve you, with neatness 
 and dispatch, a Lunch or Meal at unheard of prices. You can. 
 get a meal here cheaper than you could buy the raw material, and 
 at the same time get a variety to choose from which you could 
 not get outside of a hotel. 
 
 One of the good features of our system is that you only pay 
 for what you order — that is, if at the dinner time you only cared 
 for a plate of soup and a cup of coffee, it would only cost you 6 
 cents. You can order anything you wish and get the same atten- 
 tion should your order amount to two cents or twenty cents. 
 
 We issue Lunch Books containing one hundred (icx)) tickets 
 for one dollar, or you can get one of these books by bringing an 
 order from your Foreman or Contractor when it is not con- 
 venient to pay cash. These orders are gotten up for this special 
 purpose and will be distributed among the Foremen and Con- 
 tractors. 
 
 Everything we use is strictly first class and served with neatness 
 and dispatch. Our Chef and his assistants rank with the best. 
 Our waitresses are neat and courteous. 
 
 You are requested to treat the ladies with respect and conduct 
 yourselves as gentlemen. Any one guilty of disorderly conduct 
 will be reported. 
 
 Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanking you in advance 
 for patronage, we remain. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 AMERICAN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS LUNCH ROOM, 
 W. M. CEASE, Proprietor. 
 
172 
 
 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 FIGURE OUT WHAT A MEAL WOULD 
 COST YOU. 
 
 DINNER. 
 
 Chowders 3c 
 
 Vegetable Soup 3c 
 
 Vermicelli Soup 3c 
 
 Split Pea Soup 3c 
 
 Tomato Soup 3c 
 
 Queen Olives 3c 
 
 Lamb and Beef Stews 3c 
 
 Roast Pork and Apple 
 
 Sauce 3c 
 
 'Roast Prime Beef and Dish 
 
 Gravy 3c 
 
 Spring Lamb and Mint 
 
 Sauce 3c 
 
 Cold Ham : . 3c 
 
 Pickled Pigs' Feet 3c 
 
 Mutton 3c 
 
 Mashed Potatoes 3c 
 
 Sweet Potatoes 3c 
 
 Turnips 3c 
 
 Peas 3c 
 
 Corn 3c 
 
 Salads 3c 
 
 Tomatoes 3c 
 
 Boiled Onions 3c 
 
 Beets 3c 
 
 Boiled Cabbage 3c 
 
 Pies (all kinds) per Slice.. 3c 
 
 Custards 3c 
 
 Plum Pudding with Hard 
 
 Sauce 3c 
 
 Jellies 3c 
 
 Cakes 3c 
 
 Domestic Cheese 3c 
 
 Swiss Cheese 3c 
 
 Fruit I and 2c 
 
 Coffee 3c 
 
 Milk 3c 
 
 Horseradish \ 
 
 Pepper Sauce f 
 
 Worcestershire Sauce. . / Free 
 
 Table Sauce l 
 
 Catsup / 
 
 BREAKFAST AND SUPPER. 
 
 Fruit in Season 3c 
 
 Coffee 3c 
 
 Milk 3c 
 
 Tea 3c 
 
 Chocolate 3c 
 
 Oatmeal 3c 
 
 Force 3c 
 
 Shredded Wheat Biscuit ... 3c 
 
 Codfish Balls 3c 
 
 EGGS (one). 
 
 Boiled 3c 
 
 Scrambled 3c 
 
 Fried, 3c ; Poached on Toast 3c 
 
 Boston Baked Beans 3c 
 
 Potato Salad 3c 
 
 SANDWICHES. 
 
 Ham 3c 
 
 Chicken 3c 
 
 Domestic Cheese 3c 
 
 Swiss Cheese 3c 
 
 Egg 3c 
 
 Oyster 3c 
 
 Small Steak, Potatoes. 
 
 Bread and Butter loc 
 
 Sugar Cured Ham 3c 
 
 Chops 3c 
 
 Liver and Onions 36 
 
 Hamburg Steak 3c 
 
CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 173 
 
 BREAKFAST AND SUPPER. 
 
 (Continued.) 
 
 Bacon 3c bread. 
 
 Fried Oysters, two for ... 3c Pullman Loaf, Boston 
 Hot Frankfurters, two for. 3c Brown, Rye. 
 
 Porterhouse Steak 15c Corn Cakes 3c 
 
 Sirloin Steak 15c Buckwheat Cakes 3c 
 
 POTATOES Syrup and Butter 3c 
 
 French Fried 3c Buttered Toast 3c 
 
 Hashed Brown 3c Waffles 3c 
 
 Baked 3c ^ Bread or Rolls with Butter 3c 
 
 Soap, Pepsin Gum, Tobacco and Cigars at Low Prices. 
 
 The above bill of fare includes Bread with all Meats, Chowders, 
 Soups, and Stews; Whipped Cream and Loaf Sugar with Coflfee, 
 Tea, or Chocolate. 
 
 • A few things we use — The best Mocha and Java Coffee, Huyler's 
 Chocolate, highest grade of Tea, Loaf Sugar, the richest of Cream, 
 the choicest of Meats. 
 
 Any inattention or uncivil remarks of Waitresses reported to 
 Manager will be appreciated. 
 
 CLOSING REMARKS. 
 
 Mr. Vreeland: As I have said, this was intended to 
 be a sort of experience meeting for the mutual benefit 
 and instruction of those participating. The proceedings 
 will be printed, and copies sent to those present and the 
 interests they represent. We would ask that you formu- 
 late such questions as you care to ask of each other, in ac- 
 cordance with the suggestions of Mr. Krumbhaar, and 
 forward them to the secretary, who will have them tabu- 
 lated, secure replies for your benefit, and also utilize the 
 information in planning for our next meeting, when the 
 vi:al questions involved in maintaining and installing wel- 
 fare work will be discussed. ^ 
 
174 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 Miss Beeks ^yill be at her office, in the rooms of the 
 National Civic Federation, No. 281 Fourth Avenue, to- 
 morrow morning from ten to twelve, and she will be 
 glad to see any of the visiting or local secretaries 
 who may care to visit our headquarters. 
 
 On behalf of the Welfare Department of the National 
 Civic Federation, I desire to thank you for the coopera- 
 tion with us in this movement expressed by your presence 
 and participation here to-day. 
 
 Upon motion, the meeting adjourned. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 WELFARE WORK OF THE WESTINGHOUSE 
 ELECTRIC AND MANUFACTURING COM- 
 PANY, OUTLINED BY L. A. OSBORNE, VICE- 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 'npHE main works are located at East Pittsburg, a sta- 
 "■- tion on the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, 
 about thirteen miles east of Pitlsburg, Pa., and cover, ap- 
 proximately, forty acres. The buildings are two stories 
 high, constructed of brick and steel. The style of archi- 
 tecture is particularly well suited to the character of the 
 products manufactured, as well as for any future exten- 
 sions ; and considerable attention has been devoted to the 
 welfare and comfort of the employees. The location is 
 convenient and easily accessible to residents of Pittsburg 
 and vicinity. 
 
 A modern office building, six stories in height, is 
 located at the west end of the works. High speed hy- 
 draulic elevators are in service. The building is heated 
 by steam, lighted by Cooper-Hewitt and Nernst lamps, 
 and ventilated by an exhaust ventilating system. The 
 sixth floor contains a kitchen and dining-rooms for the 
 officials and heads of departments ; also a dining-room 
 for the women office employees, where they are served 
 with a substantial luncheon at a nominal cost. A com- 
 fortable rest room is also provided. 
 
 The floor area of the works used for manufacturing 
 
 175 
 
No. Description. 
 
 9 — One of the men*s wash-rooms in a large shop. The 
 individual bowls are an improvement on the trough 
 system, which does not enable the men to have clean 
 water. Hot water, soap, and towels are provided. 
 
 io — An individual wash-room especially adapted to the 
 needs of thfe men in a foundry. A complete bath may 
 be taken. Such wash-rooms are arranged along the 
 wall of the men's dressing-room, and the lockers are 
 in the center. 
 
 176 
 
APPENDIX. 177 
 
 purposes comprises, approximately, one million eight 
 hundred thousand square feet. Natural illumination for 
 this area is obtained by means of skylights and side win- 
 dows, the total area of the former being two hundred 
 and fifty thousand square feet and the latter two hundred 
 and twelve thousand square feet. 
 
 Artificial illumination in the works is obtained through 
 the use of the Bremer arc, incandescent and Nernst lamps, 
 which are sufficiently numerous and carefully placed to 
 give an even diffusion and a minimum of fatigue to the 
 eyes of the operatives. The interior of the buildings is 
 finished in white. The force of painters constantly em- 
 ployed upon this work is sufficient to give the surfaces 
 two coats of paint each year. 
 
 The buildings are heated by hot air, drawn from 
 apertures in the roof through coils of steam pipe. The 
 heated air circulated throughout the works maintains 
 a temperature of about 70° F. The fans are kept in ser- 
 vice during the hot days of summer for air circulation. 
 The general ventilation is further assisted by means of 
 adjustable side and roof windows, controlled from the 
 ground floor. 
 
 Fifty lavatories for use of the men are situated at con- 
 venient points on the mezzanine floor, suspended between 
 the ground and second floors, and easily accessible to 
 persons employed on either floor. These lavatories are 
 fitted with automatic flush closets and individual white 
 porcelain wash bowls, and are connected with the hot 
 and cold water system. There are one thousand of them 
 distributed among the various lavatories. Adjacent to 
 each lavatory is located a coat room; racks of expanded 
 metal with a sufficient number of hooks give a place to 
 
No. Description. 
 
 13 — System of shower baths in a foundry. Habitually 
 used by the men. The only trouble usually met is 
 the difficulty to provide a sufficient number of the 
 baths. The continued presence of an attendant in- 
 sures cleanliness, which experience has shown nec- 
 essary to secure the utilization of such conveniences. 
 
 14 — A shop drinking-fountain, easily accessible and fur- 
 nishing pure water at a healthful temperature. 
 
 178 
 
APPENDIX. 179 
 
 each man. This method affords a close and careful in- 
 spection at all times. Each lavatory and coat room is in 
 charge of a janitor, whose duties are confined to the at- 
 tention of the lavatory, and as the whole service is under 
 a corps of inspectors, it insures perfect sanitary condi- 
 tions. Soap and towels are furnished free by the com- 
 pany; the towels are changed daily. 
 
 Each lavatory for the women employees is in charge of 
 a matron. The apartments are supplied with gas stoves, 
 which are used by the matron in making tea and coffee 
 for the women. The materials are furnished by the em- 
 ployees. 
 
 Drinking water is obtained by means of twelve driven 
 wells. The water is pumped into felt covered feed pipes, 
 with outlets at founts fastened to the steel columns of the 
 buildings. These founts are about fifty feet apart, and are 
 distributed throughout the works. The water is delivered 
 from the wells at a temperature of about 55° F., and is 
 kept in constant circulation. The water is of extraor- 
 dinary purity, and is subjected to a monthly chemical 
 analysis in order to detect any change in its character. 
 
 Janitor service is maintained in each department of the 
 works, the entire floor area being sprinkled and swept 
 each evening; a general, thorough cleaning is given each 
 week on Saturday afternoons, at which time the works 
 are closed throughout the year. 
 
 A carefully organized Employment Department insures 
 the employment of a grade of men and women far above 
 the average from the standpoint of morality, as well as 
 efficiency. 
 
 In a plant of such magnitude it is natural that the 
 greatest precautions be taken to minimize the fire risk, 
 
No. Description. 
 
 yy — Firemen's Dormiton-, adjacent to a manufacturing 
 plant. It not only contains sleeping apartments, but 
 reading and smoking rooms, a gymnasium, and bath 
 rooms with showers. 
 
 78 — Assembly Hall in men's club, with seating capacity 
 of 250. The club membership is composed of em- 
 ployees in a manufacturing plant. The hall is used 
 for lectures, other educational features, and social 
 affairs. 
 
 180 
 
Vof THE 
 
 
 of 
 
APPENDIX. i8i 
 
 and these works are reputed among underwriters to be 
 in this respect the most thoroughly equipped in the world. 
 The company maintains a fire department made up of its 
 employees who are regularly and thoroughly drilled 
 under the direction of a foreman, himself an experienced 
 fireman. The desirability of keeping this force together 
 at all times has led the company to build a large and com- 
 fortable dormitory adjacent to the works, where the fire- 
 men are given free lodgment under especially favorable 
 and agreeable surroundings. The house contains, besides 
 dormitories for the accommodation of thirty men, a read- 
 ing-room, smoking-room, gymnasium, and bathrooms 
 with showers. One-half of the men are on duty all of 
 the time, so that the works are never left without an ex- 
 perienced force of fifteen men ready for any emergency. 
 Admission to the department is eagerly sought by the 
 men, owing to the comfortable quarters provided. Only 
 young single men of good physique, morals, and habits, 
 and who have been commended by their work in the de- 
 partments in which they are employed, are admitted. No 
 intoxicants are permitted in the building, which is under 
 the direct supervision of a works official, who occupies 
 an adjoining house, provided by the company. 
 
 Many men in the works realize that advancement is 
 dependent upon preparation, and the company has shown 
 a willingness to assist them in their endeavor to obtain 
 knowledge. With this end in view, a corps of instructors 
 was selected from among the regular draughting force 
 to teach mechanical drawing to any one who wished to 
 take such a course. Materials and class rooms are pro- 
 vided by the company free of charge. These classes have 
 been in operation for three years. The results have been 
 
1 82 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 very gratifying, and a number of the pupils have left 
 the shops and taken regular positions in the draughting 
 department. 
 
 The success of the drawing classes showed the need of 
 further educational facilities on somewhat broader Hues; 
 the company, therefore, provided and equipped a build- 
 ing with blackboards, desks, etc., and added a restaurant. 
 The institution was named the " Casino," and placed in 
 charge of nine employees of the Westinghouse Com- 
 pany, who have complete control of the organization. 
 This committee elects from among its number a President 
 and Secretary; also sub-committee on restaurant, amuse- 
 ment, library, school, property, and auditing, which meets 
 once a month. 
 
 After the first year the building was found inadequate 
 for the purpose, and another was erected immediately ad- 
 joining and connected, and the restaurant capacity was 
 more than doubled. The lunch rooms have a capacity 
 for feeding twelve hundred persons per hour. The quick 
 lunch plan is in force ; each person has access to whatever 
 he wishes from the supply maintained by the chefs. On 
 his way to a seat he passes a clerk from whom he re- 
 ceives a check, indicating the amount to be paid when 
 leaving. Perfect satisfaction has attended this method. 
 The tables used in the restaurant are easily removed and 
 stored, thus permitting the dining-room, which has a seat- 
 ing capacity of two hundred and fifty presons, to be used 
 as a lecture room. 
 
 Amusement features have been added as a source of 
 revenue, including nine pool and two billiard tables and 
 four bowling alleys, the income from which reduces to 
 a minimum the cost of an excellent quality of food, and 
 
APPENDIX. 183 
 
 also assists in defraying the expenses connected with the 
 educational classes, that afford instruction in mechanical 
 and electrical engineering and shop practice under the 
 guidance of an experienced corps of paid instructors in 
 charge of an educational director. The enrollment at the 
 beginning of the present school term numbered one hun- 
 dred and thirty-three. Applications received exceeded 
 the capacity over fifty per cent. Greater facilities will be 
 added to take care of all who apply for these courses in 
 the fall. 
 
 A branch library, cooperating with the Carnegie Li- 
 brary at Braddock, is in charge of the Casino librarian, 
 who attends to the distribution of books free to employees 
 and residents upon application. The privileges of the 
 Casino are extended to all residents of East Pittsburg and 
 vicinity, as well as employees of the Westinghouse Com- 
 panies. 
 
 The Electric Club is another institution organized for 
 social, engineering, and physical improvement, and is 
 governed by a Board of Directors, composed of nine mem- 
 bers, three of whom are appointed by the Westinghouse 
 Electric and Manufacturing Company and the remaining 
 six are elected by the club members, each retaining office 
 for one year. Its members include nearly all of the ap- 
 prentices, engineers, and officials of the company. 
 
 The assembly hall, or lecture room, will seat two hun- 
 dred and fifty people. The reading room is well ap- 
 pointed, and all of the weekly and monthly journals and 
 technical papers are on file and accessible at all times. 
 The remaining rooms, six in number, are used for class 
 and small club purposes. 
 
 The educational features are, of course, the most promi- 
 
1 84 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 nent. It is here that the young college graduate meets 
 the older engineers to discuss the latest engineering prob- 
 lems and receive answers to questions that arise during 
 the day in connection with the apprenticeship service. A 
 complete lecture course is carried out during the winter 
 months, and many prominent men have spoken to the 
 members on general as well as engineering subjects. 
 
 During the winter months alternate Saturday evenings 
 are used for some social affair, under the auspices of the 
 Ladies' Committee of the club, which is composed of the 
 wives of the officials and engineers of the Westinghouse 
 Companies. These entertainments have proven very suc- 
 cessful, and are well attended by the club members and 
 their friends. 
 
 A monthly journal, made up of the monthly trans- 
 actions of the club, was first issued February first, of this 
 year. The circulation is general, and the journal has met 
 with a decided success, purely on its own merits. The 
 subscription list at present contains over four thousand 
 names. 
 
ACCOUNT OF THE WELFARE WORK OF THE 
 SOLVAY PROCESS COMPANY, PRESENTED 
 BY LOUIS A. KRUMBHAAR, SECRETARY. 
 
 THE SOLVAY PROCESS COMPANY, LOCATED AT SOLVAY, 
 NEAR SYRACUSE, N. Y. 
 
 A BOUT 2,500 persons are employed in the works and 
 •^^ quarries of the Solvay Process Company. The in- 
 terests of company and town are identical, two-thirds of 
 the village taxes being paid by the corporation, and the 
 well-being of the inhabitants in general and of the em- 
 ployees in particular always has been a matter of thought- 
 ful consideration on the part of the management of this 
 large manufacturing establishment. The relations be- 
 tween employer and employed are, therefore, most cor- 
 dial, and the effort to promote the welfare of the work- 
 men and their families has met with a gratifying meas- 
 ure of success. 
 
 THE GUILD HALL FOR EDUCATIONAL AND RECREATIVE 
 FEATURES. 
 
 When in 1886 the company instituted a sewing school 
 for young girls, principally children of the workmen, in 
 a room of its office building, it was of the opinion that 
 this plan of beginning at the foundation would prove to 
 be a more effective way of establishing reciprocal rela- 
 tions with its employees, ultimately uplifting them so- 
 
 185 
 
i86 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 daily and ethically, than through any direct effort 
 among the men themselves. Experience has demonstrated 
 that this conclusion was correct, for considerable good 
 has been accomplished along these lines, a number of 
 those who were pupils in the early years now having 
 families and homes, in which is being put into daily prac- 
 tice the knowledge they acquired in the classes attended 
 by them in childhood. At the outset the attendance at 
 the sewing school was small, but in the course of time it 
 developed so rapidly in numbers that it outgrew its 
 original quarters, and the company, desiring to provide 
 sufficient space to properly conduct this work, besides 
 having in prospect the introduction of other industrial, 
 educational, and social features, constructed and furnished 
 at large expense a commodious Guild House, to which 
 is attached a Guild Hall, containing modern improve- 
 ments, including electric lighting, a stage equipped with 
 all the accessories for amateur theatricals, dressing-rooms, 
 a coat room for men and a cloak room for women. 
 
 The main floor of the assembly room in the Guild Hall 
 will seat 600 auditors, and a large gallery at one end of 
 the room will accommodate an additional number of 
 people. The hall is frequently used for concerts, enter- 
 tainments, and lectures, given under the auspices of the 
 company, which usually charges the villagers an entrance 
 fee of five cents, this nominal price of admission adding 
 to the value of and the interest in these events. 
 
 The basement of the Guild House, in which are bil- 
 liard and pool tables, is devoted to club purposes by men 
 employed in the clerical and other departments. 
 
 On the first floor are class rooms, a circulating library, 
 and a kitchen equipped with a range, culinary utensils. 
 
APPENDIX. 187 
 
 and two long tables, on each of which are installed five 
 small gas stoves for the use of cooking classes. 
 
 The company has also built a club house on the grounds, 
 where a number of the office employees, comprising 
 chemists, civil engineers, draughtsmen, etc., reside. Near 
 the latter building is a dormitory for women employed 
 in the restaurant and the Guild House. In summer 
 these structures are surrounded by artistically arranged 
 flower gardens and neatly trimmed grass lawns. 
 
 For the purpose of encouraging physical culture 
 through outdoor sports among its employees and their 
 children, the company has enclosed a five-acre plot close 
 to the office building. This model athletic field has a 
 tennis court and a running track, and a portion of the 
 space is used for the popular game of baseball. 
 
 In general the children's classes are conducted under 
 the direction of the King's Daughters. A certain amount 
 of money is set aside by the company for the partial sup- 
 port of this part of the work, and each member of a class 
 pays five cents per lesson. Teachers are employed, only 
 a minor portion of the service being voluntary. On 
 alternate Monday afternoons the Willing Circle of King's 
 Daughters, composed of the wives and sisters of clerks 
 in the employ of the company, convenes in the Guild 
 House, where its members outline the best methods of 
 developing and strengthening the work that comes within 
 their province. A cooking class, which has a membership 
 of twenty-six young women, whose ages range from 
 sixteen to twenty years, receives instruction on Monday 
 evenings. Plain and fancy dishes are prepared, and 
 at the end of the year there is an exhibition of the work 
 performed by the pupils. On the same evening the 
 
No. Description. 
 
 19 — Auditorium for use of the employees in a large plant, 
 where dancing parties, lectures and other entertain- 
 ments are held. 
 
 20 — Exterior of building containing auditorium, library, 
 educational class rooms and club rooms. 
 
 21 — A domestic science class in this factory community. 
 
 188 
 

 MhI 
 
 
 ;i 
 
APPENDIX. 189 
 
 Knights of St. John, consisting of thirty-two boys, have 
 a drill in the Guild Hall. Another cooking class of 
 twenty-two girls assembles on Tuesday evenings in the 
 Guild House kitchen, while at the same time the senior 
 gymnastic class devotes a few hours to calisthenic ex- 
 ercise in the assembly hall. The Solvay Circle of King's 
 Daughters meets on alternate Wednesday afternoons in 
 the Guild House, and on every Wednesday evening the 
 dancing class of 163 boys and girls occupies the floor of 
 the Guild Hall. The first class of this kind was organized 
 in 1890. Prior to that year dancing parties held in Sol- 
 vay and vicinity were boisterous affairs, but shortly 
 after the company added this feature to its program there 
 was a noticeable improvement in the manners of the 
 younger element in the community, and in the dancing 
 class of the present day a well-behaved set of youths is 
 invariably found. The sewing school, with an average 
 attendance of 275 girls, is divided into classes in the Guild 
 Hall every Friday afternoon, each class being under the 
 supervision of a competent teacher. Tuition is free. The 
 course is graded. Lessons in dressmaking are given to 
 a class of young women on Friday evenings. Once a 
 year the Solvay Willing and other Circles of King's 
 Daughters combine, and in December hold a bazaar in the 
 assembly hall, which is beautifully decorated for the oc- 
 casion. The proceeds are placed in the special fund that 
 supports the various projects. 
 
 Toward the support of the free library in the Guild 
 House the company contributes $25 a month. There are 
 also contributors from other sources. The very best class 
 of literature is found upon its shelves, which contain 
 books suitable for people of all ages. One thousand bor- 
 
I90 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 rowers are enrolled, and during the year ended on June 
 30, 1903, the circulation numbered 7,038 volumes. The 
 total number of books in the library is less than 1,600. 
 
 men's mutual benefit society. 
 
 While the company has done much toward advancing 
 the interests of the children of its employees, it likewise 
 has adopted and successfully executed important plans 
 for the direct welfare of the workmen. On November 
 12, 1888, the Solvay Mutual Benefit Society was formed 
 among the wage earners to render them financial relief 
 in case of sickness, accident, or death. None but em- 
 ployees of the company are eligible to membership in this 
 society. They are obliged to pass a medical examination 
 and to pay an initiation fee of ninety cents. For members 
 who receive at least $5 per week in wages the dues are 
 thirty cents a month, and those whose compensation is 
 less than $5 weekly are charged one-half of the regular 
 initiation fee and dues. For every thirty cents paid in 
 dues by its work people the company contributes fifteen 
 cents. The corporation's paymaster is authorized in 
 writing by members to retain initiation fees and dues 
 from their wages. These sums are collected by the treas- 
 urer of the society, who deposits them with the company's 
 treasurer, to whom are addressed all orders for the re- 
 quirements of the benefit association, the latter's treas- 
 urer keeping accounts of its financial condition and 
 making a monthly statement of the same, together with a 
 full report at the end of his term of office. Ninety days 
 after joining the organization members are entitled to 
 sick, accident, or death benefits. An employee disabled 
 
APPENDIX. 191 
 
 from work by illness or injury receives $6 per week for 
 not more than six months if his earnings be $5 weekly 
 or over. One-half benefit is paid to those receiving less 
 than $5 a week. (This is for the purpose of including 
 the errand boys.) Provision is also made for the pay- 
 ment of a funeral benefit of $100 and a half benefit of 
 $50, and upon the death of the wife of a member he re- 
 ceives $50. In addition the company defrays all expenses 
 incurred in the treatment of injured workmen who are 
 taken to hospitals, and it also engages and compensates 
 medical specialists when occasion demands their services. 
 
 The beneficial results that have been achieved in this 
 particular branch of the company's welfare efforts are 
 fully reflected in the monthly statement of the associa- 
 tion's treasurer on June 15, 1903. This report reveals 
 the interesting fact that since its formation in 1888 the 
 receipts of the society aggregated $201,557.57, while the 
 disbursements for that period reached the large sum of 
 $196,347.24, leaving a balance in the treasury of 
 $5,210.33. 
 
 Skilled physicians and surgeons are appointed by the 
 company to attend the sick and injured. Their remu- 
 neration is fixed by the board of trustees. The physicians 
 notify the society's secretary of all sick and accident 
 cases, and make a weekly report of the condition of dis- 
 abled members, always holding themselves in readiness 
 to immediately respond to calls in the event of necessity. 
 Members on the sick list must be at home by sundown 
 to entitle them to benefit. Those who meet with acci- 
 dents are required to be in their residences at the set- 
 ting of the sun, unless the society physicians or a ma- 
 jority of the trustees grant them written permission to 
 
No. Description. 
 
 69 — Dormitory in a manufacturing community provided 
 for superintendent of welfare work and her lieu- 
 tenants, showing view of adjacent boarding house, 
 . where every comfort has been provided for the office 
 men. Even the mending woman cares for the 
 clothes at a small charge, and the tailor calls twice a 
 week to press their garments. 
 
 70 — Sitting-room of " The Inn," patronized mostly by 
 the men employees in a mining district. 
 
 192 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
APPENDIX. 193 
 
 be out. In the way of penalties, any member whose dis- 
 abiUty is occasioned by the use of intoxicating Hquors 
 waives his right to benefits, and one who feigns sick- 
 ness in order to obtain pecuniary rehef, or who becomes 
 intoxicated while on the sick list, is liable to suspension 
 from the society for a period determined by the trustees. 
 
 The last annual report of the treasurer of the mutual 
 benefit society, for 1902, sets forth that out of 2,429 men 
 employed in the works, 2,120 were members of the as- 
 sociation. During the year the total number of patients 
 treated was 2,489, comprising 2,209 cases of sickness, 
 230 injuries to members while on duty, and 50 injuries 
 while oflf duty. 
 
 Within the year the chief physician appointed for the 
 works had 3,990 office calls, and he visited the homes of 
 employees 1,918 times. The amount paid for office calls 
 was $1,327.69 (an average rate of 33-f- cents), and for 
 house calls, $1,276.44 (average 66-1- cents) — a total of 
 $2,604.13, or an average of $1.23 per member. 
 
 LECTURES FOR THE MEN ON FIRST AID TO THE INJURED. 
 
 The company has pursued a novel course in the matter 
 of affording speedy relief to persons in its employ who are 
 injured while in the discharge of their duties. Recently it 
 inaugurated a series of lectures on " First aid to the in- 
 jured.^' These lectures were delivered by eminent phy- 
 sicians to such workmen as cared to attend, but the twenty- 
 six special policemen detailed to patrol the works — men 
 who come directly in contact with all accident cases — 
 were required to be present. Considerable information 
 on the subject of quick treatment was imparted to those 
 
194 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 who took advantage of these talks. To further enHghten 
 the employees who had signified their intention to con- 
 tinue the pursuit of knowledge of this character, with a 
 view to putting it to effective use in the event of emer- 
 gency, a small first-aid treatise was placed in their hands 
 by the company. After they had studied this treatise for 
 two weeks the men were subjected to an examination in 
 order to ascertain whether they were proficient enough to 
 be called upon to perform simple operations in surgery. 
 Those who passed were given appropriate badges to wear, 
 thus indicating that they were suitable persons to be sum- 
 moned in instances where quick aid might be necessary. 
 It is proposed to further examine these employees at 
 stated intervals to note the progress they are making, and 
 to have further classes of the same character. 
 
 In the patrol room the company has a well-stocked 
 medicine locker and a complete set of operating instru- 
 ments, and about the works it has established fifteen 
 auxiliary stations equipped with such medical supplies as 
 may be needed quickly in accident cases. 
 
 DINING AND LUNCH-ROOMS. 
 
 On the second floor of the patrol building there is a 
 well-appointed dining-room for the officers and employees 
 of the company. Here a regular dinner is served for fif- 
 teen cents.- In a large and scrupulously clean kitchen ad- 
 joining the restaurant all the cooking is performed. The 
 company furnishes the service and food, which latter is 
 most excellent in quality, the vegetables, milk and butter 
 being supplied from its farms at Tully. One hundred and 
 
APPENDIX. 195 
 
 eighty people are served daily in and from the dining- 
 room. 
 
 A large lunch counter for the factory help is kept open 
 twenty-four hours every day, excepting Sunday, when it 
 is closed from 3 P. M. to 6 P. M. Luncheon, consisting 
 of griddle cakes, cookies or fried cakes, with coffee, is 
 served from 6 A. M. to 10 A. M. for five cents. For 
 dinner, from 11 A. M. to i P. M., and for supper, from 
 5 P. M. to 7 P. M., the charge is ten cents, the fare com- 
 prising meat and potatoes, one helping of vegetables, bread 
 and butter, two cups of coffee or a glass of milk. Many 
 take their luncheons between the hours set apart for reg- 
 ular meals, when they may obtain cold sandwiches, bread 
 and milk, baked beans and hot coffee at a moderate price. 
 At the lunch house each day six hundred workmen take 
 their meals. 
 
 The company has just completed a gyrqnasium for its 
 employees and their children, a perfect system of baths 
 being included. 
 
 A SHARING OF PROFITS. 
 
 What has proved to be a successful plan of profit shar- 
 ing was inaugurated by the board of directors in 1887. At 
 first only the chief employees and general officers of the 
 company were admitted to participation, it being con- 
 sidered that these men were in a position to make the busi- 
 ness of the concern more prosperous through special care 
 and attention, and as an appreciation of this extra effort 
 each participant was allowed a certain sum, depending 
 upon the amount of salary he received and the rate of 
 dividends allotted to stockholders ; thus, if dividends were 
 
No. Description. 
 
 74 — View of kitchen and serving counter in a large mill. 
 
 75, 76 — Views of kitchen and bake shop in a large manu- 
 facturing plant. 
 
 196 
 
APPENDIX. 197 
 
 high, the participation was correspondingly high, and vice 
 versa. In 1890 the system was enlarged so as to include 
 foremen and assistant foremen, whose participation was 
 based upon the foregoing method, the payments, however, 
 being proportionately smaller. Since the latter year the 
 plan has been somewhat extended annually among older 
 employees of the classes named. The company reports 
 that it has reason to believe the system is an excellent one 
 and attains the desired end, for it has incited greater in- 
 terest in the affairs of the establishment, inducing sugges- 
 tions for improvements, little economies, and the exercise 
 of more care in consuming supplies and materials. It has 
 not been extended to the workmen. 
 
 Among those present were : 
 
 H. H. Vreeland (President New York City Railway Company 
 and Chairman Welfare Department National Civic Federa- 
 tion), New York City. 
 
 E. M. Herr (Vice-President Westinghouse Air Brake Company), 
 Wilmerding, Pa. 
 
 W. G. Mather (President Qeveland Cliffs Iron Company), 
 Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 O. F. Humphreys (Patton Paint Company), Milwaukee, Wis. 
 
 J. F. P. Lawton (Assistant Treasurer and Secretary Gorham 
 Manufacturing Company) Providence, R. I. 
 
 Charles W. Hubbard (Treasurer Ludlow Manufacturing Asso- 
 ciates), Boston, Mass. 
 
 Dexter S. Kimball (Works Manager Stanley Electrical Manu- 
 facturing Company), Pittsfield, Mass. 
 
 E..F. Olmsted (Natural Food Company), Niagara Falls, N. Y. 
 
 W. M. Pratt (Treasurer Goodell-Pratt Company), Greenfield, 
 Mass. 
 
 Robert Leach (Superintendent R. H. Macy & Company), New 
 York City. 
 
 Louis Krumbhaar (Solvay Process Company), Syracuse, N. Y. 
 
 E. A. Stedman (Manager Atlantic Department Wells Fargo 
 Company), New York, N. Y. 
 
198 CONFERENCE ON WELFARE WORK. 
 
 John J. Amory (President Gas Engine and Power Company and 
 Charles L. Seabury Company), Morris Heights, New York. 
 
 J. G, Taylor (Treasurer Hampshire Paper Company) South 
 Hadley Falls, Mass. 
 
 George B. Muldaur (Merritt & Company), Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 A. R. Taft (Assistant Secretary Morgan Construction Com- 
 pany), Worcester, Mass. 
 
 W. E. C. Nazro (Plymouth Cordage Company), North Ply- 
 mouth. Mass. 
 
 Elmer Redelle (Secretary Men's Welfare Work League National 
 Cash Register Company), Dayton, Ohio. 
 
 Miss Diana Hirschler (William Filene's Sons Company), Bos- 
 ton, Mass. 
 
 Mrs. Charles W. Wheeler (The Shepard Company) Provi- 
 dence, R. I. 
 
 G. A. Warburton (Y. M. C. A., New York Central Club), New 
 York, N. Y. 
 
 Miss Anna B. Doughton (Curtis Publishing Company), Phila- 
 delohia. Pa. 
 
 N. W. Cease (American Locomotive Company) Schenectady, 
 N. Y. 
 
 Mrs. Isabelle F. Nye (Siegel-Cooper Company). New York City. 
 
 Mrs. M. Louise Hynson (John Wanamaker Company), Phila- 
 delphia, Pa. 
 
 W. J. Eraser (Secretarv Industrial Department. Y. M. C. A.), 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 T. W. Bacchus (Repauna Manufacturing Company), Wilming- 
 ton, Del. 
 
 ATrs. Anna Garlin Spencer, New York. 
 
 Miss Brooke, London. England. 
 
 D. E. Tits worth (Manager Potter Printing Press Company). 
 Plainfield, N. J. 
 
 W. B. Albright (Sherwin-Williams Company), Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 J. E. Stevens (Agent Ludlow Manufacturing Associates), Lud- 
 low. Mass. 
 
 H. G. Prout (Vice-President Union Switch & Signal Company), 
 Swissdale, Pa. 
 
 Charles R. Towson (General Secretary Pennsylvania Railroad 
 Branch Y. M. C. A.), Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 C. C. MiCHENER (Secretary Industrial Department Y. M. C. A.), 
 New York City. 
 
 H. D. Perky (President Natural Food Company), Niagara Falls, 
 N. Y. 
 
 Miss Frances Kellor, New York. 
 
 Miss Marion Houston, New York. 
 
 John H. Patterson (President National Cash Register Com- 
 pany), Dayton, Ohio. 
 
APPENDIX. 199 
 
 Ralph H. Easley (Chairman Executive Council National Civic 
 Federation), New York City. 
 
 Miss Gertrude Beeks (Secretary Welfare Department National 
 Civic Federation), New York City. 
 
 Miss Josephine Coleman (National Biscuit Company), New 
 York City. 
 
 Miss C. E. Swift, New York City. 
 
 Juan M. Ceballos (India Wharf Brewing Company), New York. 
 
 S. T. Stewart, New York City. 
 
 W. L. Lewis (Norfolk and Western Railroad), Roanoke, Va. 
 
 Miss G. R. Brigham (William Filene's Sons Company), Bos- 
 ton, Mass. 
 
 J. M. Dudley (Secretary Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company 
 Branch Y. M. C. A.), Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 Dr. Frank Parsons (Economic Club), Boston, Mass. 
 
 George W. Slingerland (General Superintendent American Ex- 
 press Company), New York City. 
 
 T. H. McInnerney (Siegel-Cooper Company), New York City. 
 
 Miss Lillie Hamilton French, New York City. 
 
 Miss Harding, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Miss Helen M. Kelsey, New York City. 
 
 Richard C. Morse (General Secretary International Committee 
 Y. M. C. A.), New York City. 
 
 R. W. Hawthorne, New York City. 
 
 W. A. Ryan (National Cash Register Company), Dayton, Ohio. 
 
 Miss Mary Ireland, New York City. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Accidents: Care of Injured, ! 
 xii., 23, 42, 99, 157, 190-194- 
 
 Albright, W. B., 131.. 
 
 American Locomotive Com- 
 pany, 167. 
 
 Apprentices, loi, 129, 183, 184. 
 
 Aprons, 158. 
 
 Athletics: Baseball, 19-23, Ii7, 
 161; basket ball, 75; calis- 
 thenics, 189 ; contests — field 
 day, 22, 23; field, 71, 187; 
 football, 117; gymnasiums, 
 xxiv., 70, 103; ping pong, 
 100; tennis, 161. 
 
 Arbitration, 33, 35, 125. 
 
 Auditoriums, 157, 188. 
 
 Bands: Concerts, 14, 22, 23, 161. 
 Banks, 35, loi, 163, 165. 
 Baseball, 19-23, 20, 71, 117, 161, 
 
 187. 
 Basket ball, 75- 
 Bathing beach, 18. 
 Baths, xi. : shower, xxiv. ; 
 
 bathing beach, 18; shower, 
 
 43, 44; in houses, 50, 65; 
 
 factory, 121, 155; foundry, 
 
 176; shower, 178. 
 Bazaar, 189. 
 Beeks, Gertrude (Miss), xv., 
 
 83, 84, 86. 
 Benefit Societies: Compulsory, 
 
 42, 107, 190; voluntary, 25, 
 
 26, 50-53, 99, 112, 135, 146, 
 
 159-162. 
 Bicycle sheds, 28, 98, 156. 
 Billiards, 182, 186. 
 Boarding houses, 98, 11 1, 123, 
 
 140, 143, 187, 192. 
 
 Bowling, 45, 140. 
 Boys' Gardens, 124. 
 
 Caps, 158. 
 Calisthenics, 189. 
 Cease, N. W., 167. 
 Changing house, 44. 
 Christmas entertainment 
 
 (Tree), 15. 
 Classes, miscellaneous, 49, 74, 
 
 75, 167, 185-189. 
 Cleveland Cliffs Iron Co., 40. 
 Clubs :. Miscellaneous, 14, 45, 49, 
 
 57, 58. 70, 77-93, 121-123, 130, 
 
 131, 159-162, 180, 185-190; 
 
 men's, no, 115, 142, 143, 183. 
 Club houses, xvi., 10-14, 35, 43- 
 
 45, 17, 78, 94-99, ii5, 123, 
 
 142, 143, 180, 183, 185-190. 
 Concerts, 14-23, 157, 161, 186. 
 Contests, athletic, 22, 23. 
 Cooking classes, 15, 16, 75, 103, 
 
 122, 158, 187, 188. 
 Cooperative association, 31, 38, 
 
 40. 
 Cooperative store, 17. 
 Credit systern, 74. 
 Curtis Publishing Company, 
 
 163. 
 
 Dancing: Classes, 122, 124; 
 classes and parties, 189; 
 parties, 14, 96, 103, I33, 135- 
 
 Dinners : Employees', 37 ; fore- 
 men's, 99, 100; travelers* 
 gatherings, 99 ; employees* 
 and company, 131. 
 
 Dormitories, 187, 192. 
 
202 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Doughten, Anna B. (Miss), 
 
 163. 
 Dressing rooms, xi., 44, 46, 136. 
 Dressmaking classes, 75, 189. 
 Drinking water, xi., 6. 53, 158, 
 
 178, 179- 
 Dudley, J. M., 80, 92. 
 Easley, Ralph M., 84, 91. 
 
 Education, xiv. : Apprentices 
 classes, loi ; classes, miscel- 
 laneous, 49, 74, 75, 167, 185- 
 189; cooking classes, 15, 16, 
 75, 103, 122, 158, 187; dress- 
 making classes, 75, 189; edu- 
 cational clubs, 58, 183; 
 "first aid" lectures, 193; 
 gardening, boys', 121, 124; in- 
 dustrial classes, 15, 17 ; kinder- 
 garten, 14; lectures, 120, 133, 
 149, 180, 193; libraries, 8, 10, 
 35, 36, 45, 58, 67, 76, 98, 113, 
 121, 131, 135, 143, 145, 154, 
 155, 163, 183, 186, 189; 
 periodicals, 21, 39, 123, 183, 
 184; sewing classes, 75, 122, 
 185, 189; talks: by em- 
 ployees, 133 ; by foremen, 
 162 ; technical instruction, 15, 
 17, 31, 45, 58, 149, 181-183. 
 
 Fairs, 21, 2Z, 189. 
 Field day, 20, 21-23. 
 Filene's Sons Co., Wm., 26. 
 Firemen's dormitory, 180. 
 Fire protection: Brigade, 59; 
 
 drills, 159, 180, 181. 
 " First aid " lectures, 193. 
 Football, 71, 117. 
 Foremen's club, 159-162. 
 
 Gardening, boys', 121, 124. 
 Girls' club. 14. 
 
 Gorham Manufacturing Com- 
 pany, 94. 
 Gymnasiums, xxiv., 70, 103, 195. 
 
 I Herr, E. M., 47, 53. 
 Hirschler, Diana (Miss), 26, 
 
 2>7, 85, 109, no, 112, 125. 
 Hospitals, 23, 24, 42, 43, 132. 
 Housing, xiv., 7, 8, 41, 49, 50, 
 j 52, 62-68, loi, 122. 
 I Hubbard, Charles W., 60, 127, 
 I 129. 
 
 j Humphreys, O. F., 54, 93, in, 
 127, 130. 
 Hynson, M. Louise (Mrs.), 
 167. 
 
 Indoor games and entertain- 
 ments, 45, 149. 
 Industrial classes, 15, 17. 
 Insurance, 137, 146. 
 
 Kindergarten, 14. 
 Kimball, Dexter, S., 114, 126. 
 Kitchens, 175, 186, 194, 196. 
 Krumbhaar, Louis, 81, 82, 93. 
 102, 125, 185. 
 
 Labor bureau, 118, 119. 
 
 Laundries, xi., 55, 158. 
 
 Lawton, J. F. P., 94. 
 
 Lectures, 120, 133, 149, 180, 193. 
 
 Libraries, 8, 10, 35, 36, 45, 58, 
 67, 76, 98, 113, 121, 131, 135, 
 143, 145, 154. 155, 163, 183. 
 186, 189. 
 
 Light work rooms, 148, 177. 
 
 Lockers, xi., 43, 44, 46, 156, 168, 
 177. 
 
 Ludlow Manufacturing Asso- 
 ciates, 60. 
 
 Lunch club, 57. 
 
 Lunch rooms, xii.. 10, 12, 35, 
 Z6, 43, 45, 46, 56, 57, 71-74. 
 95-98, 100. 113, 116, 121, 128, 
 131, 152-154. 163, 164, 167, 
 169-173, 175, 182, 194, 195. 
 
 Mather, W. G., 40. 
 
 Men's club, 45. 
 
 Menus: Sample menus. 11-13: 
 prices. 97, 152-154, 172, 173- 
 195- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 203 
 
 Men's Welfare League, 121. I 
 Michener. C. C, 75-91, 129. 
 Music, 46. 
 
 National Civic Federation, v., 
 viii., I, 37, 167, 169, 174. 
 
 Natural Food Company, 150. 
 
 Nazro, W. E. C, 3. 53, ii7- 
 
 New York City Railway Com- 
 pany, 138. 
 
 Nurses, 25, 132. 
 
 Nye, Isabelle F. (Mrs.), 104. 
 
 Olmsted, E. F., 150. 
 Omwake, John, 46. 
 Operatic performance, 144. 
 Orchestra, 99. 
 Osborne, L. A., 175. 
 Overalls, 55. 
 
 Parks, 26, 122. 
 
 Parsons, Frank, 126. 
 
 Patterson. John H., 37, 79, 80, 
 90, 92, 93, no, III, 118. 
 
 Patton Paint Company, 54. 130. 
 
 Periodicals, 21. 39, 123, 183, 
 184. 
 
 Pensions, loi, 134, 138. 
 
 Ping pong, 100. 
 
 Play ground, 18. 
 
 Plymouth Cordage Company, 
 3, 4. 
 
 Pool rooms, 76, 143. 182, 186. 
 
 Potter Printing Press Com- 
 pany, 125. 
 
 Prizes, 22, 33, 41, 50, 121, 157. 
 
 Profit sharing, 125, 126-129, 
 150, 195. 
 
 Ryan, W. A., 88, 91, iii. 
 
 Recreation. xiii. : Athletics, 
 xxiv, 19-23. 70, 71, 75. 100, 
 103, 117, 161, 187, 189; ath- 
 letic field, 71, 187; audi- 
 torium — concerts, lectures, en- 
 tertainment, 158, 188; bands 
 — concerts, 14, 22, 23, 161 ; 
 baseball, 19-23, 71, 117, 161. 
 
 187; basket ball, 75; bathing 
 beach, 18; bazaar, 189; bi- 
 cycle sheds, 28, 98, 156; bil- 
 liards, 182, 186; bowling, 45, 
 140; calisthenics, 189; clubs: 
 miscellaneous, 14, 45, 49, 57, 
 58, 70, 77' 93, 121 -123, 
 130, 131, 159-162, 180, 
 185-190; men's, no, 115, 
 142, 143, 183; club houses, 
 xvi., 10-14, 35, 43-45, 77, 78, 
 94-99, 115, 123, 142, 143. 180, 
 183, 185-190; Christmas en- 
 tainment (tree), 15; con- 
 certs, 14-23, 157, 161, 186; 
 contests : athletic, 22, 23 ; 
 dancing: parties, 14, 96, 103, 
 ^33, 135; classes, 122, 124; 
 classes and parties, 189; din- 
 ners: employees', 37; fore- 
 men's, 99, 100 ; travelers' 
 gatherings, 99 ; employees' 
 and company, 131 ; fairs, 21, 
 23, 189; field day, 21-23; foot- 
 ball. 71, 117; gymnasiums, 
 xxiv., 70, 103, 195; indoor 
 games and entertainments, 45, 
 149; music. 46; opening en- 
 tertainment of club house, 
 96 ; operatic performance, 
 144; orchestra, 99; outings, 
 41 ; parks, 26, 122 ; ping pong, 
 100; playground, 18; pool 
 rooms, 76, 143, 182, 186; rest 
 rooms, 128, 132, 157, 163, 
 175; roof garden, 144; social 
 hall, 10: tennis, 161, 187; 
 theatricals, 144, 186; vaca- 
 tions, 106, 112, 135. 
 
 Rest rooms, 128, 132, 157, 163, 
 175. 
 
 Roof garden, 144. 
 
 Savings society, 165, 
 Seats, 6, 120, 158. 
 Sewing classes, 75, 122. 185. 
 189. 
 
204 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sherwin Williams Company, 
 
 131. 
 Shepard Company, 112. 
 Sick, care of, xii., 16, 23-26, 
 35, 42, 99, 107, 112, 145, 157, 
 159. 190-194. 
 Siegel-Cooper Company, 105. 
 Social clubs, 159, 162, 183. 
 Social hall. 10. 
 
 Social secretary, viii., 2, 26, 29, 
 30, 32. 36, 53, 85, 86, 105, 112, 
 115, 117, 167. 
 Societies — Benefit : Compul- 
 pulsory. 42, 107, 190; volun- 
 tary, 25, 26, 50-53, 99, 112, 
 135, 146, 159-162; coopera- 
 tive association, 31, 38, 40; 
 educational clubs, 58, 183; 
 fire brigade, 59; foremen's 
 club, 159-162; girls club, 14; 
 insurance, 137; lunch club, 
 57; men's club, 45; Men's 
 Welfare League, 121 ; phil- 
 anthropic society, 187; sav- 
 ings' society, 165; secret 
 orders, 103; social clubs, 
 159-162, 183; women's clubs, 
 123. 
 Solvay Process Company, 81, 
 
 102, 185. 
 Stanley Electric Manufactur- 
 ing Company, 114. 
 Stedman, E. A.. 134. 
 Stevens, J. E.. 60, 109. 
 Suggestions. ZZ, 122. 157, 165. 
 Surroundings : Mill environ- 
 ment, 6; homes, 41, 50, 52, 
 122; factory, 120, 156; lunch 
 room, 163; dormitories, 187. 
 
 Talks: By employees, 133; by 
 
 foremen, 162. 
 Technical instruction, 15, 17, 
 
 31, 45, 58, 149, 181-183. 
 
 Tennis, i6i, 187. 
 Theatricals, 144, 186. 
 Titsworth, D. E., 125-129. 
 Toilet rooms, xi., 5, 28. 43. 44, 
 
 53, 136, 155, 177. 
 Towson, Charles R., 80. 
 Transportation, 46. 
 
 U. S. Playing Card Co.. The, 
 46. 
 
 Vacations, 106, 108, 112, 135. 
 Ventilation, ii., xi., 5, 44, 46, 
 
 53, 114, 120, 131, 148, 151, 
 
 175, 177- 
 Vreeland, H. H., i, 138, 173. 
 
 Wanamaker, John, 167, 
 Warburton, G. A., 80. 87. 90, 
 
 91. 
 Wash rooms, 28. 43, 44. 53. 136. 
 
 155, 176, 177, 179- 
 Welfare Department National 
 
 Civic Federation, v., viii. : 
 
 membership, xvii., xxiii. ; 
 
 scope and purpose, xxv.. 
 
 xxvi., I, 2; its organization 
 
 and meetings. 
 Welfare manager, vii., viii. : 
 
 need of, 4. 163-165. 
 Wells Fargo & Co., 134. 
 Westinghouse Air Brake Com- 
 pany, 47. 
 Westinghouse Electcic and 
 
 Manufacturing Company, 175. 
 Wheeler, Elizabeth C. (Mrs.), 
 
 84, 112. 
 Women's clubs, 123. 
 
 Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciation, 48, 75, 113, 138, 143. 
 
 Young Women's Christian As- 
 sociation, 49, 78. 
 
INDEX. 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 ^05 
 
 An " Inn," 192. 
 Auditorium, 188. 
 
 Baths : Shower, xxiv. ; bathing 
 beach, 8; shower, 44; foun- 
 dry individual wash rooms, 
 176; shower, 178. 
 
 Bicycle shed, 28. 
 
 Bowling alley, 140. 
 
 Boys' gardens, 124, 
 
 Changing house, 44. 
 
 Cigar stand, 140. 
 
 Club houses, xvi., 76, 180, 188. 
 
 Cooking school class, 188. 
 
 Dancing party, 124. 
 
 Dormitory for Superintendent 
 of Welfare Work and As- 
 sistants, 192. 
 
 Dressing rooms, 44, 136. 
 
 Drinking water fountain in a 
 shop, 178. 
 
 Field day, 20. 
 
 Firemen's dormitory, 180. 
 
 Gymnasium, xxiv. 
 
 Hospitals, 24, 132. 
 
 Houses : Rented to employees, 
 8 ; surroundings beautified, 
 52; rented to employees, 64; 
 property outside company's 
 control occupied by em- 
 
 ployees, 64; tenements rented 
 to employees, 68; tenements 
 outside company's control 
 occupied by employees, 68. 
 
 Kitchens, 196. 
 
 Libraries, 8, 76, 188. 
 
 Locker room, 168. 
 
 Lunch rooms : For men, 12 ; 
 for women, 56; prepared for 
 foremen's dinner, 100; in a 
 city factory, i\6; department 
 store, 128; for women, 164, 
 
 Operatic performance, 144. 
 
 Pool room, y6. 
 
 Recreation rooms, 100, 128. 
 Rest rooms, 128, 132. 
 Roof garden, 144. 
 
 Seats for women, 160. 
 
 Vacation cottage, 108. 
 
 Ventilation: Rolling mill, es- 
 pecial provision for relief of 
 the men, ii. ; Grinding room, 
 ii. 
 
 Wash rooms, 28, 44, 136, 176. 
 Window space of two factory 
 buildings, 148. 
 
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