Gornell University Library
Ithaca, Nem York
. C.U. College of Law s
aiid
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Parts First and Second of this brief were pre-
pared under the direction of Mr. Louis D. Bran-
deis during the past six months, until his nomina-
tion by President Wilson as associate justice of
the Supreme Court of the United States obliged
him to withdraw from the case.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CVOTTUMIBS is 25 oes oe ene ees Pages 1- 470)
CVO LUNES Wie wx cis sastuette maatasawneaians Pages 471-1021)
PAGE
ARGUMENT ix
PART FIRST—Legislation Limiting the Hours of Labor for Men:..... 1
1. THE AMERICAN LEGISLATION....
2 THE FOREIGN LEGISULATION(Au ec cccccsssssssscsecnsecnessssencsennecceeee
PART SECOND—The World’s Experience upon which the Leg-
islation Limiting the Hours of Labor is Based 11
I. MENACES TO NATIONAL VITALITY 11
Il. THE DANGERS OF LONG HOURS Meececssessscssssscsescececcnteseesneeceseee 63
A. Bap EFFects OF LONG Hours ON HEALTH.h.w..essessssosssecsenesnecessessesesses 63
1, Relation of Fatigue to Disease... eesessesesssssssccsssseceeseeneeneneseceeeee 63
a. General Predisposition to Disease .u.........sssecsceseessseseeseee 63
b. Fatigue and Infectious Diseases... eeececesscscecccccecsceeececesesee 79
c. Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.........ssscsssssecscsssscseneeescccecceesee 88
(1) Nervous Diseases and Statistics of Foreign Sick-
Ness Insurance Societies .....cecsscsscsssscsssssseseceeneeesees 107
(2) Ages of Umcidernce.nnne ence ceeeceseessesseceessecesssesensenecceeees 121
(3) Nervous Diseases and Heredity... 123
(4) Nervous Diseases and Overstimulation.....000..... 127
d. General Injuries to Health 131
e. Injuries to Eyes and Ears....esnesssessseccssssseccsesneescsesonescesenses 165
(1) Eyes 165
(2) Ears 173
f. Injuries to Other Organs or Parts of the Body................ 185
B. HeayteH-Hazarps In Mopvern Inpbustry.
1. The New Strain of Manufacture...e.......essces-cescecssceseessseecsscsneneeee
a. Speed
b. Monotony
c. Piece-Work
2. Injurious Physical Surroundings... ececcceeceecccsneeceeeeeeeeecees
a. Bad Air, Humidity, Extremes of Temperature, Noise,
ate, 232
b. Exposure to Dust, Gases, Fumes, Poisons, etc................. 253
iv : TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
C. THe Nature AND EFFECTS OF FATIGUE ...c.cccccscecccsccsscccecceceeeseeeeee: 265
1. The Chemical Nature of Fatigue......tteccccecccccecesesesesseseeseeceeoes 265
2. The Toxin of Fatigue 285
3. Muscular Fatigue 293
4. The Greater Strain on Fatigued Muscles... .eccecceeseeeeceeeeee 310
5. Nervous Fatigue 317
6. The Physiological Function of ResSt.........s.escc:ssescesesssseeseceeceees 339
a. Rest Needed to Repair Expenditure of Energy........0....... 339
D. Bap Errect of LoNG Hours ON SAFETY........e:ceccccscsecessesesseseeeeesees 360
1. Incidence of Accidents 360
2. Fatigue of Attention 392
E. Bap Errect oF LonG Hours UPON MORALS....--secsesseccescesceseesseseecees 404
1. General Loss of Moral Restraints. scsscescsssecsscccsssesssssseesssseseene 404
2. Growth of Intemperance 414
F. Bap Errects or Lonc Hours oN GENERAL WELFARE......0-c:cc000---- 428
1. State’s Need of Preserving Health. eccceeeeees 428
2. Injuries to Family Life and the Community... 452
Ill. BENEFITS OF SHORT HOURS owe ccecccee ees eceeeeseeneenetceee 471
A. Goop Errect on Morats: GRowTH OF TEMPERANCE... 471
B. Goop Errect ON GENERAL WELFARE..-..:cs:cscceccseses eetereecieea sae
1. General Benefit to Society
2. Benefit to Leisure and Recreation... ...ce.eccececececeeecteececeeceneeeees
a. The Experience of Australasia...
°C. Benerrr to CrrizensHiP 532
1. Preparedness:
a. Political: The Citizen ag Voter .....ccseeecccceetcccssceeeeceees 532
b. Social: Americanization of the Foreign-born... 550
c. Military: The Citizen as Soldier... ieee cee 572
IV. SHORTER HOURS THE ONLY PROTECTION... 605
A. Overtonc Hours MaKe LicutEst Work INJURIOUS......00.000... 605
B. THE REMEDY: SHORTER HOURS... sccececcecceeseeeceeteeceeseeeneeneees 614
V. ECONOMIC ASPECT OF REDUCING HOURS... 621
A. GENERAL BENEFIT TO COMMERCIAL PROSPERITY..0....0.0.:cccecce eee 621
By sERRECT HON, | PRODUCTIONS ccctiiac ces ee ee 636
1. Superior Output in Shorter Hours.............. Aue aN 636
a, Some Recent Instances rain scsicn cen eencvenguranyitenen 636
b. Textile Trades: Cotton, Wool, Linen, Jute... 654
c. Metal Trades: Iron and Steel, Tin Plate... 669
d. Mines and Quarries: Coal, Slate, ete. O84
TABLE OF CONTENTS. Vv
PAGE
e. Granite and Stome Cutting ec sccsseensecseestesntecenesceeeee 690
f. Glass and Optical Instruments............sesescescesseceseseseseeceeseseeee 693
g. Chemicals 701
h. Cigars 715
i. Shoes Sawean TL
J. Miscellaneous Instances ...u....ssecccssccccceceeescesesecesecereceseseseeeecs 720
k. General Comments 725
2. Shorter Hours Increase Efficiency on the Part of the
Workers 737
3. Shorter Hours Lead to Improvement in Management............ 781
4. Relation of Short Hours to Cost of Production... 797
5. Long Hours Reduce Efficiency and Result in Inferior Output 819
C. RELATION To WacES 847
D. RELATION TO REGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT ........essssssssseeseceseeseeeeees 876
VI. UNIFORMITY OF RESTRICTION NEEDED FOR JUS-
TICE TO COMPETING EMPLOYERS ..u.ecesesccsccceseccesseetseteeceeteenees 893
VII. PROGRESS OF THE SHORTER DAY ueeccsecessscssccceescesnteecsoes 902
A. Sratistica, EvIpENCE 902
B. Tue ReEcorp or 1915 929
VIII. NEED OF LEGISLATION: INSTANCES OF EXCES-
SIVE HOURS OF LABOR 940
APPENDIX: Hours of Labor and Realism in Constitutional Law...... 961
APPENDIX II: Index of Authorities Quoted... eee eee 986
CASES CITED
Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366 .......ccceececceccesceccsseeeeeesoeeeeceneeeseeeseneeeeeees xi, xiii
Lochner av INeéw: 'Y ots, 198) Uh, Sb sccescccssectvccenceenasseccecnsetactetaeeenaenaeeeced xii, xiv
Miller v. Wilson, 236 U. 8. 373 xv
People v. Charles Schweinler Press, 214 N. Y. 395.20... xiv
People v. Klinck Packing Co., 214 N. Y. 121..........
Rast v. Van Beman & St. Louis Co., 240 U. S
State v. Bunting, 71 Or. 259
Tanner v. Little, 240 U. S x
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES,
Ocroser Term, 1915.
No. 228.
Frankuin O. Bunttna,
Plaintiff in Error,
vs.
Tue State oF OREGON.
BRIEF FOR DEFENDANT IN ERROR.
Statement of Case.
The plaintiff in error (defendant below) was con-
victed in the circuit court of Lake County, Oregon, for
violation of a statute colloquially known as ‘‘the Ten
Hour Law,’’ (Oregon Laws of 1913, Chap. 102). The
conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Oregon
(Opinion, R. 12; 71 Or. 259). In affirming the conviction
the Oregon Supreme Court sustained the constitutionality
of the statute against the claim of the defendant that it
offended the Fourteenth Amendment. This claim is the
foundation of the present writ of error.
Statute.
The pertinent provisions of the statute in question
are as follows:
‘‘Section 1.—It is the public policy of the State
of Oregon that no person shall be hired, nor per-
Vil
ten
the
mitted to work for wages, under any conditiens or
terms, for longer hours or days of service than 18
consistent with his health and physical well-being
and ability to promote the general welfare by his 1n-
creasing usefulness as a healthy and intelligent citi-
zen. It is hereby declared that the working of any
person more than ten hours in one day, in any mill,
factory, or manufacturing establishment is injuri-
ous to the physical health and well-being of such per-
son, and tends to prevent him from acquiring that
degree of intelligence that is necessary to make him
a useful and desirable citizen of the State.
‘‘Seetion 2.—No person shall be employed in any
mill, factory or manufacturing establishment in this
State more than ten hours in any one day, except
watchmen and employees when engaged in making
necessary repairs, or in case of emergency, where
life or property is in imminent danger; provided,
however, employees may work overtime not to exceed
three hours in any one day, conclitioned that payment
be made for said overtime at the rate of time and
one-half the regular wage.’’ (General Laws of Ore-
gon, 1913, chap. 102, p. 169.)
The Issue.
The sole question presented is whether this Oregon
hour law is unconstitutional, because in conflict with
Fourteenth Amendment. In other words, does the
Federal Constitution interpose a barrier to the policy of
Oregon as expressed by its legislature and sustained by
its
courts? The immediate issue is restricted to the fate
of this Oregon legislation. Necessarily, however, the de-
cision in this case gravely concerns every state in the
Union.
ix
Argument.
The issue presents the familiar case of application
and delimitation of accepted principles. The assertion
by a state of its police power is challenged by the claim
of ‘‘liberty’’ as safeguarded by the Fourteenth Amend-
ment. The Court had occasion recently to consider anew
the scope of the police power, and the boundaries which
the Fourteenth Amendment imposes. It again, as here-
tofore, defined the police power, as well as its limitations,
denotatively :
‘“‘It is the duty and function of the legislature to
discern and detect evils, and by evils we do not mean
some definite injury, but obstacles to a greater public
welfare. ; /
‘*But it may be said that judicial opinion cannot
be controlled by legislative opinion of what are fun-
damental rights. This is freely conceded; it is the
very essence of constitutional law, but its recognition
does not determine supremacy in any given instance’’
(Rast v. Van Beman & Louis Co., 240 U.S. ..., de-
cided March 6, 1916).
Therefore the field within which the police power may
be exercised must be ascertained by specific cases, and
not bounded by speculation.
“As to what extent legislation should interfere in
affairs political philosophers have disputed and al-
ways will dispute.* It is not in our province to
engage on either side, nor to pronounce anticipatory
* For the range and change of opinion in regard to the regulation of
hours of labor as a matter of economic and philosophic theory, see e. g.
Nassau Senior, Letters on the Factory Acts; Mill’s Principles of Political
Economy, (ed. Ashley), pp. 963-4; Hadley’s, Economics, pp. 404-410;
Jevon’s State in Relation to Labor, 65; 2 Walker’s Discussions in Economics
and Statistics, pp. 380-2; 3 T. H. Green’s Collected Works, pp. 370 et seq.;
2 Ely’s Property and Contract, part 2, p. 555, particularly Chap. IV, V, and
VI; Jethro Brown’s Underlying Principles of Modern Legislation, pp. 46
et seq.
judgments. We must wait for the instance. Our
present duty is to pass upon the statute before us,
and if it has been enacted upon a belief of evils that
is not arbitrary we cannot measure their extent
against the estimate of the legislature. McLean v.
Arkansas, 211 U. 8. 539. Such belief has many ex-
amples in state legislation and, we have seen, it has
persisted against adverse judicial opinion. If it
may be said to be a judgment from experience as
against a judgment from speculation, certainly, from
its generality, it cannot be declared to be made in
mere wantonness.’’ (Tanner v. Little, 240 U. S.....,
decided March 6, 1916.)
Experience, then, must be allowed to challenge the
assumptions of theory and disprove its prophecies. Ex-
perience constantly has undermined such assumptions
and dispelled dire prophecies. England furnishes the
most striking and familiar illustration. In 1844 during
the heated debates in the House of Commons on Lord
Shaftesbury’s Ten Hour Act, Charles Greville could note
in his diary that ‘‘all the political economists of course
are against him.’’ (2 Journal of Charles Greville, 236.)
Of the political opponents such noteworthy figures as
Gladstone, Sir James Graham, and J. A. Roebuck later
became enthusiastic converts to the measure. (2 Hod-
der’s Life of Shaftesbury, pp. 205-6.) When that Act
had been in operation seventeen years, Professor Wil-
liam Overmarch, President of the Economies Section of
the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
in his presidential address to that section, called the
Factory Acts ‘‘wholly successful,’’ spoke of the limita-
tion of hours as ‘‘a security against foreign competition,
a guarantee of power, and fund of undivided profits.’’
(2 Hodder, op. cit., p. 207.)
Experience has invalidated one assumption in regard
Xl
to industry that for long widely dominated thought. Lord
Morley, speaking of Richard Cobden’s opposition to
Shaftesbury’s Ten Hour Act thus puts it: ‘‘Can the re-
lations between labor and capital be safely left to the
unfettered play of individual competition? The answer
of modern statesmanship is, that unfettered individual
competition is not a principle to which the regulation of
industry may be entrusted.’?’ (Morley’s Cobden, pp.
297-298.) Moreover it is now manifest that it is not a
contest between capital and labor. The state as an or-
ganic whole is concerned,
The question, therefore, is no longer can the state
regulate the hours of labor in modern industry, but what
evils are manifest, what tendencies are disclosed, that
present a reasonable field for legislative repression;
what remedies are available that present a reasonable
field for legislative encouragement. This field of reason-
able action is the state’s police power; to this sphere of
statesmanship the Fourteenth Amendment offers no bar-
riers.
The scope of the field this Court has recognized in
specific cases. Holden v. Hardy (169 U. 8. 366) is the
great case.
‘“‘The enactment does not profess to limit the
hours of all workmen, but merely those who are
employed in underground mines, or in the smelting,
reduction or refining of ores or metals. These em-
ployments, when too long pursued, the legislature has
judged to be detrimental to the health of the em-
ployés, and, so long as there are reasonable grounds
for believing that this is so, its decision upon this
subject cannot be reviewed by the Federal courts’’
(p. 395).
“‘The legislature has also recognized the fact,
xii
which the experience of legislators in many States
has corroborated, that the proprietors of these es-
tablishments and their operatives do not stand upon
an equality, and that their interests are, to a certain
extent, conflicting. The former naturally desire to
obtain as much labor as possible from their em-
ployés, while the latter are often induced by the fear
of discharge to conform to regulations which their
judgment, fairly exercised, would pronounce to be
detrimental to their health or strength. In other
words, the proprietors lay down the rules and the
laborers are practically constrained to obey them.
In such cases self-interest is often an unsafe guide,
and the legislature may properly interpose its au-
thority’’ {p. 397).
‘‘The question in each case is whether the legisla-
ture has adopted the statute in exercise of a reason-
able discretion, or whether its action be a mere ex-
cuse for an unjust discrimination, or the oppression,
or spoliation of a particular class’’ (p. 398).
On the other hand, in Lochner v. New York (198 U.S.
45), the state authority in the specific instance was denied
because no reasonable relation was discernible to the
majority between a ten hours law for bakers and the
public welfare. This judgment was based upon a view
of the nature of the bakers employment beyond ten hours
as known ‘‘to the common understanding’? (198 U.S.
45, 59*).
It is now clear that ‘‘common understanding”’ is a
treacherous criterion both as to the assumptions on which
such understanding is based, and as to the evil conse-
quences, if they are allowed to govern. (See Pound’s
Liberty of Contract, 18 Yale L. J. 454, 480, note 123; 2
*The decisions dealing with limitations of hours of labor were con-
sidered, as a subject of academic interest, in a paper published before
present counsel had, or anticipated having, any participation in this case
(Hours of Labor and Realism in Constitutional Law, 29 Harv. L. Rev.
353). For convenience it is reprinted as an Appendix, p. 961. :
xill
Ely’s Property and Contract 662, 674-5.) The subject is
one for scientific scrutiny and critique, for authoritative
interpretation of accredited facts. To this end science
has been devoted all over the world. Particularly in the
last decade science has been giving us the basis for judg-
ment by experience to which, when furnished, judgment.
by speculation must yield.
And this is precisely what Holden v. Hardy, supra,
looked forward to.
‘*. . . In passing upon the validity of State legis-
lation under that [Fourteenth] Amendment, this
court has not failed to recognize the fact, that the
law is to-day to a certain extent a progressive sci-
ence’’ (p. 385). ‘*. . . They [statutory changes
passed in review] are mentioned only for the pur-
pose of calling attention to the probability that other
changes of no less importance may be made in the
future.”’ ‘
‘‘Of course it is impossible to forecast the charac-
ter or extent of these changes, but . . . it is im-
possible to suppose that they will not continue, and
the law be forced to adapt itself to new conditions of
society, and particularly to the new relations be-
tween employers and employees as they arise’’ (p.
oat +
The insight thus expressed has now been amply justi-
fied by experience. What in 1898 presented a specific,
and apparently, exceptional instance—the poisoning of
the human system through long hours of labor in mines,
and the implications of this evil to the general welfare—is
now disclosed to be of far wider and deeper application.
It is now demonstrable that the considerations that were
on the surface as to miners in 1898 are to-day operative,
to a greater or less degree, throughout the industrial sys-
tem.
Xiv
It is to this body of experience that the court’s at-
tention is invited. It is a mass of data that, partly, was
not presented in cases like Lochner v. New York, supra,
but mostly could not have been before the Court, because
it was not heretofore in existence. Inasmuch as the ap-
plication of the contending principles must vary with the
facts to which they are sought to be applied, of course
new facts are the indispensable basis to the determination
of the validity of specific new legislation. This attitude
was strikingly enforced by the New York Court of Ap-
peals, when called upon recently to pass on the validity -
of legislation which it had previously, for lack of ade-
quate data, failed to sustain. ‘‘There is no reason why
we should be reluctant to give effect to new and addi-
tional knowledge upon such a subject as this even if it
did lead us to take a different view of such a vastly im-
portant question as that of public health or disease than
formerly prevailed.’’ People v. Charles Schweinler
Press (214 N. Y. 395, 412).
The knowledge obtained by the increasing study of
industrial conditions is back of the state’s policy, as ex-
pressed by the legislature, and sustained by the courts of
Oregon. These are facts of common knowledge of which
this Court will take judicial notice.
These facts, we submit, conclusively establish that
Oregon was exercising a reasonable judgment as to the
public welfare in passing its Ten Hour Law; and
so exercising a reasonable judgment it acted within its
rightful and constitutional sphere. The place at which
it chose to draw the line was peculiarly for the discretion
of its legislature. It is sufficient for the present that the
XV
line as now drawn—ten hours a day—is not an unrea-
sonable line. (Miller v. Wilson, 236 U.S. 373, 382; Peo-
ple v. Klinck Packing Co. 214 N. Y. 121, 128; State v.
Bunting, 71 Or. 259, 273, R., 19.)
These facts of common knowledge will be considered
as follows:
Part First.—Legislation (American and foreign)
limiting the hours of labor for men.
Part Second.—The world’s experience on which the
limitation of hours of labor is based.
LAR Pike
LEGISLATION LIMITING THE HOURS OF LABOR
A.
I.
FOR MEN:
THE AMERICAN LEGISLATION.
I. In Certain Private Businesses.
Mines.
EIGHT HOUR LAWS.
Auaska, Acts 1913, C. 29, Sec. 2.
Arizona. Acts 1912, C. 28, Sec. 2, amended C. 26,
extra session 1912 and Rev. Stat.
1913, See. 3108.
Includes hoisting engineers.
Catrrornia. Acts 1113, C. 186, See. 1.
Cotorapo. Constit., Art. 5; Acts 1913, C. 95, Sec. 2.
Ipauo. Rev. Code 1909, Sec. 1463.
Missourr. Rev. Stat. 1909, Secs. 7813 and 7814a,
added by Acts 1913, p. 399.
Montana. Constit., Art. 18, Sec. 4, Rev. Code 1907,
Sec. 1734 and Sec. 1736, amended
C. 21, Acts 1911.
Includes hoisting engineers.
Nevapa. Rev. L. 1912, Sees. 1941, 6554, 6555, 6557.
Includes mechanics, engineers, black-
smiths, carpenters, topmen and all
surface employees.
OxuaHoma. Rev. L. 1910, Sec. 4005.
Orecon. Lord’s Ore. Laws 1910, Sec. 5058.
Pennsytvania. Acts 1911, p. 102, Sec. 1. Hoisting
engineers only.
Utag. Comp. L. 1907, Sec. 1337.
Wasuineton. Codes and Stats. 1910, Sec. 6583.
Wyomine. Constit., Art. XIX, Sec. 1; Comp. Stat.
1910, Sec. 3499.
Lo
TEN HOUR LAWS.
Maryianp. Pub. local laws, 1888, Art. 1, Sec. 194.
(Allegheny and Garrett Counties
only.)
. Smelters, Reduction Works, etc.
. EIGHT HOUR LAWS.
Ataska. Acts 1913, C. 29, Sec. 2.
Arizona. Acts 1912, C. 28, Sec. 2, amended C. 26,
extra session 1912 and Rev. Stat.
1913, Sec. 3108.
Caurrornia. Acts 1913, C. 186, Sec. 1.
Coxtorapo. Acts 1913, C. 95, Sec. 2.
TpaHo. Rev. Code 1909, Sec. 1464, amended Acts
1909, p. 4.
Missourr. Rev. Stat. 1909, Sec. 7813.
Montana. Constit. Art. 18, Sec. 4, Rev. Code 1907,
Sec. 1736, amended C. 21, Acts 1911.
Uran. Comp. L. 1907, Sec. 1337.
Wyvomine. Comp. Stat. 1910, Sec. 3500.
. Miscellaneous Private Businesses.
EIGHT HOUR LAWS.
. Electric Light and Power Plants:
Arizona. Rev. Stat. 1913, Sec. 3099.
. Coke Ovens:
Axaska. Acts 1913, C. 29, Sec. 2.
Arizona. Rev. Stat. 1913, Sec. 3108.
Cororapo. Acts 1913, C. 95, See. 2.
. Blast Furnaces:
Arizona. Rev. Stat. 1913, Sec. 3108.
Cotorapo. Acts 1913, Ch. 95, Sec. 2.
. Plaster and Cement Mills:
Nevapa. Rev. L., 1912, Sec. 6559.
Arizona. Cement mills only. Rev. Stat. 1913, See,
3108.
. Plate Glass Works:
Missouri. Rev. Stat. 1909, Sec. 7814a, added by act,
p. 399, Acts 1913.
Rolling Mills, Rod Mills, Stamp Mills:
Auaska. Acts 1913, C. 29, See. 2.
Arizona. Rev. Stat. 1913, Sec. 3108.
Cotorapo. Acts 1913, C. 95, See. 2. (Stamp mills.) .
Ivano. Rev. Code 1909, Sec. 1464, amended Acts
1909, p. 4. (Stamp mills.)
Wyromine. Comp. Stat. 1910, See. 3500. (Stamp
mills.)
. Tunnels:
Arizona. Rev. Stat. 1913, Sec. 3108.
Cauirornia. Acts 1913, C. 186, Sec. 1.
Montana. Rev. Code 1907, Sec. 1736.
. In High Air Pressure:
New Yorx. Consol. L. 1909, Sec. 134b, added by C.
291, Acts 1909, amended C. 528,
Acts 1913.
New Jersey. Acts 1914, C. 121.
(When air pressure does not exceed
21 lbs. to square inch.)
Irrigations Works:
Montana. Rev. Code 1907, Sec. 2250.
NINE HOUR LAWS.
. Telephone Operators:
Montana. Acts of 1909, Ch. 75, Sec. 1. (In cities of
3,000 or over.)
TEN HOUR LAWS.
a. Saw and Planing Mills:
ArKansas. Acts 1905, No. 49, Sec. 102.
. Bakeries:
New Jersey. Acts 1912, Ch. 127, Sec. 7. (Not more
than 60 hours in one week.)
. Brickyards:
New York. Cons. Laws 1909, Ch. 31, See. 5. (Owned
by corporations.)
. Drug Stores:
Catrrornia. Act. No. 2665 as amended by Ch. 224,
Acts of 1907, Sec. 2.
New Yorx. Consol. Laws 1909, Ch. 45, See. 256, as
amended by Ch. 514, Secs. 1 and 2,
1914. (Not more than 70 hours 1n
one week.)
Cotton and Woolen Mills:
Georcta. Code 1910, Sec. 3137, as amended by act,
p. 65, Acts 1911. (Not more than
60 hours in one week.)
Marytanp. Pub. Gen. Laws 1911, Art. C, See. 1.
(Except in contracts for work by
hour.)
Manufacturing Establishments:
Mississippr. Acts 1912, Ch. 157, as amended by Acts
1914, Ch. 169, See. 1.
ELEVEN HOUR LAWS.
. Factories:
Norts Carouina. Acts 1915, Ch. 148. (Not more than
60 hours in one week.)
. Grocery Stores:
New Yorn. Cons. Laws 1915, Ch. 543, Sec. 236a. (Not
more than 70 hours in one week.)
. A Day’s Work Defined, Unless Otherwise Stipulated.
EIGHT HOUR LAWS.
Catirornia. Codes 1906, See. 3244.
Connecticut. Gen’l St. 1902, Sec. 4692.
Inuinors. Hind’s Rev. Stat. 1906, Ch. 48, Sec. 1.
Inprana. Annot. Stat. 1901, See. 7052.
Missourr. Rev. Stat. 1909, See. 7812.
New York. Consol. Laws 1909, Sec. 3, as amended
Chap. 494, Acts of 1913.
Ou10. Gen’l Code 1910, See. 6241.
Prennsytvania. Digest 1894, p. 1158, Sec. I.
Wisconsin. Stat. of 1901, See. 1729.
2,
TEN HOUR LAWS.
Fiorwwa. Stat. 1906, Sec. 2641.
Marine. Rev. Stat. 1903, Ch. 84, Sec. 57.
Micuigan. Comp. Laws 1897, Sec. 5454.
Minnesota. Rev. Laws 1905, Sec. 1798.
NEBRASKA. Rev. Stat. 1913, Sec. 3561.
New Hampsuire. Pub. St. 1891, Ch. 180, Sec. 20.
Ruope Istanp. Gen. Laws 1909, Ch. 249, Sec. 24.
II. Railroads.
. Telegraph and Telephone Operators, Dispatchers,
Signal Men, etc.
EIGHT HOUR LAWS.
Arkansas. Acts 1907, Act. No. 282, Sec. 1.
Connecticut. Acts 1909, C. 242, Sec. 1. (12 hours
in stations open only by day with
one operator.)
Maryzanp. Pub. Gen. L. 1911, Art. XXIII, Sec: 323.
(In 12 hours.)
Nevapa. Act. 1913, C. 283, See. 2.
New York. Consol. L. 1909, Sec. 8; amended C. 466,
Acts 1918.
Texas. Rev. Civ. Stat. 1911, Art. 6586, Rev. Crim.
Stat. 1911, Art. 1555.
West Virernta. Acts 1907, C. 59. (Where operators
are employed 20 hours or more.)
Wisconsin. Stat. 1911, Sec. 1816m.
NINE HOUR LAWS.
Missourrt. Acts 1913, p. 187, Sec. 1. (Railroad tower-
men only.) ~
Nepraska. Rev. St. 1913, Sec. 6088. (Not more than
18 hours in stations operated by
day only.)
NortH Carouina. Acts 1913, Ch. 112, Sec. 2. (Not
more than 13 hours in stations
operated by day only.)
Orecon. Acts 1911, Ch. 137, See. 2.
6
Unrrep States anp District or CoLtumBia. Acts 1906-7,
Ch. 2939, See. 2. (Not more than
13 hours in stations operated by
day only.)
. Trainmen, etc.
. TEN HOUR LAWS.
Micuican. Con. Laws 1897, Sec. 5459. (Within 12
consec. hours.)
New Yorx, Con. Laws 1909, Ch. 31, Sec. 7. (Within
12 consec. hours.)
HOURS OF REST REQUIRED AFTER SPECIFIED
HOURS OF LABOR.
. 8 hours of Rest Required after 16 Hours of Labor.
Arizona. Acts 1903, Act 34, Sec..1. (9 hours rest
required.)
Arkansas. Digest 1904, Sec. 6652.
Fuorwa. Gen. Stat. 1906, Sec. 2641. (After 13 hours
of labor.)
Inpiana. Acts 1907, Ch. 131, See. 1.
Kansas. Gen. Stat. 1909, Sec. 7129. (Hours of labor
must be consecutive.)
Micuican. Comp. Laws 1897, Sec. 5458. (After 24
hours of labor, trainmen only.) ©
Missouri. Rev. Stat. 1909, Sec. 7818.
Minnesota. Acts 1907, Ch. 253, Sec. 1. (Hours of
labor must be consecutive.)
Montana. Rev. Code 1907, Sec. 1741. (Hours of
labor must be consecutive.)
Nortu Dakota. Acts 1907, Ch. 207, See. 1.
Onto. Gen. Code 1910, Sec. 9007, as amended Acts
1913, p. 557.
8 Hours of Rest after 16 Consecutive Hours of Labor.
‘(10 Hours of Rest after 16 Aggregate Hours of Labor.
Cauirornia. Acts 1911, Ch. 484, See. 1.
Nesraska. Rev. Stat. 1913, Sec. 6088.
Nevapa. Acts 1913, Ch. 283, Sec. 2.
°
(
New Mexico. Acts 1912, Ch. 62, Sec. 1.
New York. Cons. Laws 1909, Ch. 31, See. 7.
Nort Carourna. Acts 1913, Ch. 112, Sec. 2.
Orrcon. Acts 1911, Ch. 137, Sec. 1. (After 14 hours
of labor.)
Sours Daxora. Acts 1903, Ch. 220, Sec. 1.
Texas. Rev. Civil Stat. 1911, Sec. 18091.
Wasuineton. Codes and Stat. 1910, Sec. 6581.
Wisconsin. Stat. 1911, Sec. 18091. (AIl employees.)
Unitep States. Acts 1906-7, Ch. 2939.
. 10 Hours of Rest after Certain Specified Hours of
Labor.
Cotorapo. Rev. Stat. 1908, Sec. 5515. (After 16 con-
secutive hours of labor.)
Georeta. Code 1910, Sec. 2693. (After 13 hours of
labor.)
Iowa. Code 1897, supplement 1907, Sec. 2110-a. (Any .
employee after 16 hours of labor.)
III. Street Railways.
NINE HOUR LAWS.
Massacuusetts. Acts 1912, Ch. 533, Sec. 2. (Within
: 11 hours.)
TEN HOUR LAWS.
Louisiana. P. 766, Act. 195, Acts 1886, as amended
Act. No. 122, Acts 1902. (Within
12 consec. hours.)
Micuican. Com. Laws 1897, See. 5459. (Within 12
consec. hours.)
New York. Cons. Laws 1909, Ch. 31, Sec. 6. (In 1st
and 2nd class cities hours must be
consecutive. )
Ruope Istanp. Laws 1909, Ch. 218, Sec. 1. (Within
12 hours.)
Wasuineron. Codes and Stat. 1910, Sec. 6578.
8
3. TWELVE HOUR LAWS.
Cautrorsia. Code 1906, Sec. 5246.
Maryann. Acts 1898, Ch. 123, See. 793.
New Jersey. Comp. St. 1910, p. 4990, See. 57.
Pennsytvanisa. Penna. Digest 1894, p. 1829, Sec. 268.
SoutHa Carotina. Code 1912, See. 431.
IV. Work Done in Private Business for Na-
tional, State or Municipal Governments.
1. EIGHT HOUR LAWS.
. Unitep States and District or CotvmsBia. Act of
Congress, August 1, 1892, amended
by C. 106, Acts 1912-1913, See. 3738,
and C. 174, Acts 1911-1912.
Araska. Acts of 1913, C. 7, Sees. 1 and 2.
Arizona. Constitution, Art. XVIII.
Cauirornia. Penal Code 1906, Sec. 653c.
Cororapo. R. S. 1908, Sec. 3921.
Hawa. R. L. 1905, Sec. 122, amended Act No. 11,
Acts 1907.
Ipano. Acts 1911, C. 131, Sec. 1, amended C. 165,
Acts 1913.
Inviana, Ann. Stat. 1894, Rev. 1901, Sees. 7052, 7053.
Kansas. Gen. Stat. 1909, Sec. 4643, amended C. 220,
Acts 1913.
Kentucky. Acts 1910, C. 123, See. 1.
Maryann. Pub. Loc. Laws 1888, Art. 4, See. 31a,
amended C. 94, p. 642, Acts 1910.
Apples only to Baltimore.
Massacuusetts. Acts 1909, Sec. of, ACTS 1911, C. 494,
Minnesota. Rev. Laws 1903, Sec. 1799.
Missourr. Acts 1913, See. 237, Applies only to cities
of second class.
Montana. Constitution, Art. 18, Sec. 4; Rev. Codes
1907, Sec. 1739.
Nevapa. Rev. Laws 1912, Sec. 6778.
New Jersey. Acts 1911, C. a43, Sed. 14 Acts 1913
253, See. 1.
9
New Mexico. Constitution, Art. XX, Sec. 19.
New York. Consol. Laws 1909, C. 31, Sec. 3; amended
C. 494, Acts 1913.
Out1o. Constitution Amendments 1912, Art. II, See.
37; Gen. Code 1910, Sec. 17-1, Acts
1913, p. 854.
OxuaHoma. Constitution, Art. XXIII, Sec. 1; Rev.
Laws 1910, Secs. 3757, 3758.
Orzcon. Acts 1913, C. 1, Secs. 1 and 4.
PENNSYLVANIA. Brightly’ s Digest, 1893-1903, Act No.
379,
Porto Rico. Rev. Stat. 1911, Sec. 1658, Acts 1913;
Act No. 140.
Texas. Acts 1918, C. 68, See. 2.
UTan. Constitution, Art. 16, Sec. 6; Comp. Laws
1907, See. 1336.
Wasuineton. Codes and Statutes 1910, See. 6573.
West Vireinta. Code 1899, p. 1146, Sees. 1 and 2.
Wisconsin. Stat. 1911, See. 1729m.
Wyomrine. Acts 1913, C. 90, See. 1.
V. Public Employment.
EIGHT HOUR LAWS.
Unitep States and Disrricr or Cotumpia. Act of
Congress, Aug. 1, 1892, amended C.
106, Acts 1912- 13, Sec. 3738.
Araska. Acts 1913, c 7, See. 1.
ARIZONA. Constitution, Art. XVIII.
Caurrornia. Constitution, Art. 20; Penal Code 1906,
See. 653c.
Cotorapo. R. 8. 1908, Sec. 3921.
Connecticut. Acts 1911, C. 282, Sec. 1. (Mechanics
in State Institutions. )
Hawan. R. L. 1905, Sec. 122, amended Act No. 11,
Acts 1907.
IpaHo. Constitution, Art. 138, Sec. 2; Acts 1911, C.
131, Sec. 1; amended C. 165, Acts
1918.
10
Inxpuwa. Ann. Stat. 1894, Rev. 1901, Secs. 7052, 7053.
Kansas. Gen. Stat. 1909, Sec. 4643, amended C. 220,
Acts 1913.
Kentucky. Acts 1910, C. 123, Sec. 1.
Marvianp. Pub. Loc. Laws 1888, Art. 4, Sec. 31a;
amended C. 94, p. 642, "Acts 1910.
Applies only to Baltimore.
Massacuusetts. Acts 1909, Sec. 37; Acts 1911, C.
494; Ch. 623, Sec. 1, 1914. (In-
cludes prison and reformatory em-
ployees.)
Minnesota. Rev. Laws 1905, Sec. 1799.
Missourt. Acts 1913, Sec. 237. Applies only to cities
of second class.
Montana. Constitution, Art. 18, Sec. 4; Rev. Codes
1907, See. 1739.
Nevapa. Rev. Laws 1912, Sec. 6778.
New Jersey. Acts 1911, C. 248, Sec. 1.
New Mexico. Constitution, Act XX, Sec. 19.
New York. Consol. Laws 1909, C. 31, Sec. 3; amended
C. 494, Acts 1913.
Oxt0. Constitution Amendments 1912, Art. II, Sec.
37; Gen. Code 1910, See. 17-1, Acts
1913, p. 854.
OxiaHoma. Constitution, Art. XXIII, Sec. 1; Rev.
Laws 1910, Sees. 3757, 3758.
Orsecon. Lord’s Ore. Laws, 1910, Sec. 5060; Acts
1913, C. 1, See. 4,
PENNSYLVANIA. Brightly’ Ss Divcet 1893-1903, Act No.
379.
Porto Rico. Rev. Stat. 1911, Sec. 1657; Acts 1913,
Act No. 140.
Texas. Acts 1913, C. 68, Sec. 1.
Uran. Conshlation Rat: 16, Sec. 6; Comp. Laws
1907, See. 1336.
Wasuineton. Codes ae Statutes 1910, Sec. 6572.
Wesr Vircinia. Code 1899, p. 1146, Sons, 1 and 2.
Wisconsin. Stat. 1911, See, {729m
WYoMING. Constitution, Art. XIX, Sec. 1; Acts 1913,
C. 90, "Bec, a
10a
THE FOREIGN LEGISLATION.
For many years the usual method of regulating men’s
hours of labor in some of the most important industrial
countries of Europe has been by special administrative
rulings, having the force of law. These have been con-
fined in the main to special dangerous trades. Thus,
for instance, in Germany the ‘‘Regulations of the Im-
perial Chancellor regarding Lead and its Products’’
have been promulgated from time to time. Among many
restrictions, two rulings may be cited as typical ex-
amples. According to the regulation of June, 1905, men
may not be employed more than four hours in one day
in cleaning out flues containing dry lead dust in lead
smelting works. A regulation of May, 1908, provides
that in certain processes in the manufacture of electrical
accumulators, men may not be employed more than eight
hours in one day, interrupted by a break of one and
one-half hours. (Bulletin of the United States Bureaw
of Labor, No. 95, July, 1911. Pages 172 and 176.)
In contrast to such elaborate special rules for single
trades obviously dangerous to health, the foreign legisla-
tion of the last few years shows notable instances of a
tendency to limit men’s hours of labor in general indus-
trial employments. Thus, for instance, in September,
1915, Norway passed a general law limiting the hours of
labor to ten hours in one day and fifty-four hours in one
week. (Gesetz betr. Arbewterschutz in wmdustriellen
Betrieben. Vom 18. September, 1915. Kap. III. § 28.
Bulletin of the International Labour Office. German
Ed. Vol. XIV. Nov., 1915. P. 284.)
In January, 1915, Portugal enacted a similar law lim-
iting the hours of labor in all industrial establishments
to ten hours in one day and sixty hours in one week.
10b
(Lei No. 296 regulando o tempo de trabalho diarvo, etc.,
99 de Janeiro de 1915. Bulletin of the International
Labour Office. German Ed. Vol. XIV. May, 1915. P.
90.)
In June, 1914, Switzerland reduced the hours of labor
of general factory workers from eleven to ten hours in
one day. (Bundesgesetz bctr. die Arbeit m den Fabriken.
Vom 18. Juni 1914. Bulletin of the International Labour
Office. German Ed. Vol. XIII. July 1914. P. 298.)
One of the war measures of Germany, dated August
12, 1915, prohibits more than ten hours of labor for all
workers in textile trades, viz., spinning, weaving, manu-
facture of cotton, woollen, flax, jute, or hempen goods.
(Bekanntmachung, betref. die Ewmschrankung der Ar-
beitszeit in Spinnereien, etc. Vom 12, August, 1915.
Bulletin of the International Labour Office. German Ed.
Fol. XIV. August, 1915. P. 179.)
In 1912, Greece by royal decree limited the hours of
labor in machine bakeries to ten hours in twenty-four.
This statute includes not only the bakers, but also stok-
ers, delivery men and salesmen. (Royal Decree With
Respect to the Regulation of Working Hours in Bakeries.
14th September, 1912. Bulletin of the International
Labour Office. Nov., 1913. P. 304.)
Sunilarly in 1915 Uruguay enacted a general eight
hour law for all factory workers. (U.S. Daily Consular
and Trade Reports. No, 801. Dec. 24, 1915. P. 1169.)
The more progressive legislation of New Zealand
had already, in 1901, contained a similar eight hour pro-
vision. (The Factorivs Act of 1901. No. 59.)
Thus the need of a maximum limit of hours for work-
ers in general industrial employment,—in addition to
the special restrictions for dangerous trades,—shows in-
ereasing and widespread recognition.
PART SECOND
THE WORLD’S EXPERIENCE ON WHICH THE
LEGISLATION LIMITING THE HOURS
OF LABOR IS BASED.
I—MENACES TO NATIONAL VITALITY.
The outstanding fact regarding national health and
mortality rates in the United States is the extraordinary
increase both relative and absolute in the so-called degen-
erative diseases, that is, diseases of the heart, blood-
vessels and kidneys.
While the death rate from diseases such as tuberculosis
and typhoid fever has been steadily declining, and the
high mortality from diseases of infancy and childhood
have been noticeably decreased, the mortality from the
cegenerative diseases shows steady and marked rise.
This record of the breakdown of the most important or-
gans of the body discloses a menace to American vitality.
While the reason for the extraordinary prevalence of
the degenerative diseases is still in part obscure, it is
clear that one important contributing factor is the stress
and strain of American ways of living and working.
The increase of degenerative diseases is apparently
not confined to any one class of society or any particular
occupation. Statistics prove that these diseases reduce
the working, productive period of life, the period of
greatest industrial activity. They are thus peculiarly
disastrous for industrial workers, already subject to
higher incidence of death and disease than other classes
of society.
12
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
Health News. Monthly Bulletin New York State Depart-
ment of Health, Albany. May, 1915. C.-E. A.
Winstow, Editor. Editorial. Controlling the
Diseases of Adult Life.
One of the most important, though hitherto almost
neglected, fields of public hygiene is the control of the
degenerative diseases of later life. Statistics show that
at ages over 45 the death rate in the United States 1s
increasing and not decreasing, as is the case at earlier
age periods. The increase is manifested almost wholly
in the degenerative diseases of the heart and blood ves-
sels and kidneys, and in cancer. It is not a necessary and
inevitable increase, for in England and in Sweden the
death rates at all ages are decreasing.
Most of the degenerative diseases cannot be cured
in the sense that diseases of early life are cured. Old
age prevails in time. The important fact is that in too
many cases old age comes on prematurely and without
the victim, suspecting its insidious onset. In a group of
supposedly normal commercial employes examined by
the Life Extension Institute of New York (average age
30 years) it is reported that 36 per cent. showed evidence
of urinary disease or disorder, 26 per cent. had abnormal
blood pressures and 13 per cent. had hardened arteries.
ts lea
Industrial Health-Hazards and Occupational Diseases in
Ohio. EE. R. Hayvyurst, A. M., M. D., Director,
Division of Occupational Diseases, Ohio State
Board of Health, February, 1915.
(1) In Ohio, in the year 1913, there were 68,378
deaths. Over half of these would not bear scrutiny as
either timely or justifiable. Most of the questionable
deaths occurred in adult life and before 70 years of age:
Questionable Deaths.
Oc Jaw crewc neat Gases 67 Tota, CrrcvuLatory Drs-
Tuberculosis (Total) ............ 6,555 RAGES) cranecnazatrec ehh wu tiits 11,358
Cancer (Total) .... we. 4,049 Lung Diseases (other than
Rheumatism 226 Tuberculosis) 2... 6,850
Anemia. ........ 240 Bright’s Disease (Total)...... 3,958
Alcoholism .. sao | 1315 Skin’ Diseases: wescedeveeserdavss 212
Nervous Diseases .................. 6,882 External Causes (violence,
Orcanic HEart DISEASE...... 8,907 etc.)
13
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
As against these there were but 822 deaths charged
to Otp Aag, as such.
(2) Diseases of the Circulation and particularly
Organic Heart Disease are causes of death pre-eminent
in adult life. The following table shows, for the State
of Ohio, the increase in death rates per 100,000 popula-
tion from these causes:
Death Rates.
All causes
combined Circulatory Organic Heart
Year. (per 1,000) Diseases. Disease.
155.95 108.26
185.03 126.63
206.95 157.32
227.80 177.80
(3) Deaths occurring under 70 years of age from Cir-
culatory or Heart Diseases should be considered pre-
ventable in the vast majority of instances. In Ohio, in
1912, over 1/6 of all deaths were due to Circulatory Dis-
eases and 14 of all deaths were due to Organic Heart
Disease alone. As a cause of death Tuberculosis has
been almost doubly outstripped by these chronic degen-
erative diseases, 58% of which have occurred before 70
years of age, and 20% of which have occurred before 50
years of age. (P. 13.)
An analysis of the General Mortality Statistics for
the registration area of the United States shows the fol-
lowing for the census year 1909:
14
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
Mortality Among Occupied Males.
Those in Those in 131
Agricultural Pursuits. Trades and Callings.
Deaths from pre-
ventable causes Of all deaths. Of all deaths.
(6/7 are diseases) 27.4% 43.0%
Deaths from De-
generative dis-
eases (under 70
years of age)... 26.5% 31.0%
Total deaths after
70 years of age... 35.9% 13.4%
In the above ‘‘Oeccupied Males’’ includes professional
persons, officials, proprietors, those in domestic and per-
sonal services, as well as those we term real workers, viz.,
in trade and transportation, manufacturing and mechani-
cal pursuits, mines, quarries, ete. (P. 14.)
Department of Commerce. Bureaw of the Census.
Washington, Jan. 16, 1916. Principal Causes of
Death. Census Bureau’s Summary of the Statis-
tics for the Registration Area in 1914.
According to a preliminary announcement with ref-
erence to mortality in 1914, issued by Director Samuel
L. Rogers, of the Bureau of the Census, Department of
Commerce, and compiled by Mr. Richard C. Lappin,
chief statistician for vital statistics, more than 30 per
cent. of the 898,059 deaths reported for that year in the
“registration area,’’ which contained about 25 of the
population of the entire United States, were due to three
causes—heart diseases, tuberculosis, and pneumonia—
and more than 60 per cent. to eleven causes—the three
just named, together with Bright’s disease and nephritis,
cancer, diarrhea and enteritis, apoplexy, arterial dis-
eases, diphtheria, diabetes, and typhoid fever.
The deaths from heart diseases (organic diseases of
the heart and endocarditis) in the registration area in
- 15
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
1914 numbered 99,534 or 150.8 per 100,000 population.
The death or mortality rate from this cause shows a
marked increase as compared with 1900, when it was
only 123.1 per 100,000.
Tuberculosis in its various forms claimed 96,903 vic-
tims in 1914, of which number 84,366 died from tuber-
culosis of the lungs (including acute miliary tubercu-
losis). As a result of a more general understanding of
the laws of health, the importance of fresh air, ete., due
in part, no doubt, to the efforts of the various societies
for the prevention of tuberculosis, there has been a most
marked and gratifying decrease during recent years in
the mortality from this scourge of civilization. In only
a decade—from 1904 to 1914—the death rate from tuber-
culosis in all its forms fell from 200.7 to 146.8 per 100,000,
the decline being continuous from year to year. This is
a drop of more “than 25 per cent. .
The only remaining death rate higher than 100 per
100,000 in 1914 was that for Bright’s “disease and acute
nephritis, 102.4. The total number of deaths due to these
maladies in 1914 was 67.545, more than 9/10 of which
were caused by Bright’s disease and the remainder by
acute nephritis. The mortality from these two causes
increased from 89 per 100,000 in 1900 to 103.4 in 1905,
since which year it has fluctuated somewhat. .
Apoplexy was the cause of 51,272 deaths, or (7. per
100,000. The rate from this malady has increased grad-
ually, with occasional slight declines, since 1900, when it
stood at 67.5.
Arterial diseases of various kinds—atheroma, aneur-
ism, etc. caused 15,044 deaths, or 22.8 per 100,000, i
the registration area. .
Diabetes was the cause of 10,666 deaths, or 16.2 per
100,000. The rate from this disease has risen almost
continuously from year to year since 1900, when it was
9.7 per 100,000.
The mortality rate from typhoid fever has shown a
most gratifying decline since 1900, having decreased from
35.9 per 100,000 in that year to 15.4 in 1914, or - 57 per
cent.
16
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
Chronic Diseases of the Heart, Kidneys, and Arteries,
from the Standpoint of Etiology, Prevalence, Mor-
tality, and Prevention. A Detailed Plan for Pub-
lic Education in a Large City Looking Toward the
Prevention and Control of These Diseases. By
Ira S. Witz, M.D., New York. The Medical Rec-
ord, June 5, 1915. New York.
Despite the increase of longevity incidental to the
progress of civilization, it is noteworthy that certain
diseases reflect an increased mortality in proportion to
the total number of deaths in any age period as opposed
to the decreased mortality noticeable, for example, among
the diseases of infancy and childhood. The increased
death rate from diseases of the heart, kidneys, and arter-
ies is most prominent among the causes of death which
apparently have not been diminished by the sanitary
efforts of health officers.
’ According to the mortality statistics of the United
States Department of Census, the death rate from or-
ganic heart diseases and endocarditis increased from
123.1 in 1900 to 151.2 per hundred thousand population
in 1912. The death rate from nephritis and Bright’s
disease increased from 89 to 103.1, and deaths from cere-
bral hemorrhage and apoplexy from 67.5 to 75.7 during
the same years and for the same unit of population.
This increase of mortality is less evident, but still mark-
edly shown by a consideration of the average mortality
rates for five-year periods, as is indicated in the follow-
ing table:
Mortality per 100,000
Population.
1901-1905. 1906-1910.
Organic diseases of the heart... 22 1332
Diseases of arteries, atheroma
STOICA ANT OENTEY, SI ces erent craecvnoecen 9.4 Tet
Bright's: Us@68@ scenes 87.4 87.4
Considering the relation of these three groups of
diseases to the general mortality of New York City for
17
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
the year 1912, basing our figures upon the same census
report, one finds that in New York City the total num-
ber of deaths from all causes in 1912 was 73,266, of which
number 7,251 were due to organic diseases of the heart,
_ 7,104 to nephritis and Bright’s disease, and 2,805 to
cerebral hemorrhage and softening. The total number
of deaths from these specified causes amounted to 17,150,
which approximated 24.08 per cent. of all the deaths in
the City of New York during 1912.
In order to determine whether this percentage of total
mortality was higher than that existent throughout the
United States, a further analysis of the deaths in the
registration area is provided. Out of a total number of
deaths in the registration area during 1912 of 838,251,
organic heart diseases were responsible for 86,175, ne-
phritis 62,267, cerebral hemorrhage 46,797. The total
number of deaths from these specified causes amounted
to 195,239, or approximately 23.2 per cent. of the total
number of deaths of the registration area. . . .
Inasmuch as all registration States do not possess
the same degree of advancement in matters of sanitation
and hygiene, it is only fair to establish the facts with ref-
erence to the urban and rural population in New York
State. We find that during 1912 in the cities of New
York State the total number of deaths was 106,429, to
which organic heart diseases contributed 10,602, Bright’s
disease 9,098, and diseases of the arteries, atheroma and
aneurysm, exclusive of embolism and thrombosis, 2,100.
The total number of deaths from these three general
causes in the cities of New York State during 1912 was
21,800, or approximately 20.5 per cent. of the total mor-
tality. For the same period of time the number of deaths
in the rural sections of New York State amounted to
36,179, of which 4,086 were due to organic heart disease,
2,868 to Bright’s disease, and 1,115 to diseases of the
arteries, atheroma, aneurysm, exclusive of embolism and
thrombosis. The total number of deaths in the rural
portions of New York State in 1912, therefore, amounted
to 8,069, or approximately 22.3 per cent. of the total mor-
tality.
From these figures it is apparent that the mortality
18
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
rate in New York State from these three general causes
was much below the general mortality from these causes
in the registration States, both in so far as cities are con-
cerned and the rural sections. It is equally obvious,
however, that the 24.8 per cent. of the total deaths im
New York City in 1912 is 4.3 per cent. higher than the
general average from these causes for all cities in the
State, and indeed is higher by 2.5 per cent. than the aver-
age for the rural population of New York State. These
figures lead one to assume that the proportion of deaths
from these three causes in the city of New York is con-
siderably higher than is warranted by its general place
in hygiene and sanitation in this country. ;
While these figures relate entirely to mortality, there
are no definite or scientific figures to indicate the preva-
lence of these diseases in terms of morbidity figures. If
one may assume a crude factor that has resulted from
the study of invalidity experience, there are approxi-
mately two years of illness for each death in the com-
munity. This would lead one to believe that the number
of individuals suffering from these diseases in New York
City during 1912 was over 150,000, in addition to the
738,266 who died from these three general causes. The
real meaning of these statistics, however, is tempered by
the fact that these three causes are increasingly active
as agents of mortality with the increase of age. From
the standpoint, therefore, of practical importance, it is
imperative to recognize the seriousness of these causes
of death at various ages. The following tables will indi-
cate the number of deaths from each of the three general
causes during five-year periods from the age of thirty to
sixty years, the period of greatest industrial activity.
Organic Heart Disease—Total Number of Deaths in
U.S. Registration Area—1912, 86,179.
30-34 Yrs, 35-39 Yrs. 40-44 Yrs. 45-49 Yrs. 50-54 Yrs. 55-59 Yrs.
1987 2935 3615 4376 0871 6613
During these thirty years the total number of deaths
wes 25.397. In other words, 38.9 per cent. of the total
19
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
mortality from this disease occurred during these thirty
years.
Nephritis and Bright’s Disease—Total Number of
Deaths in U. S. Registration Area—1912, 62,267.
30-34 Yrs. 35-39 Yrs. 40-44 Yrs. 45-49 Yrs. 50-54 Yrs. 55-59 Yrs.
1982 2858 3562 4210 5429 5685
During these thirty years the total number of deaths
was 23,726. In other words, 38.1 per cent. of the total
mortality from this disease occurred during these thirty
years.
Cerebral Hemorrhage and Softening—Total Number of
Deaths in U.S. Registration Area—1912, 45,752.
30-34 Yrs, 35-39 Yrs. 40-44 Yrs. 45-49 Yrs, 50-54 Yrs. 55-59 Yrs.
488 853 1288 2095 3337 4208
During these thirty years the total number of deaths
was 12,269. In other words, 26.9 per cent. of the total
mortality from this disease occurred during these thirty
years.
In order to be certain that the mortality from these
three causes during this thirty-year period is above the
general average of percental deaths during the thirty-
year period, the following table is offered:
All Deaths, All Causes—Total Number of Deaths in
U.S. Registration Area—1912, 838,251.
30-34 Yrs. 35-39 Yrs. 40-44 Yrs. 45-49 Yrs. 50-54 Yrs. 55-59 Yrs.
33,748 387,916 = 37,885 = =39,624 45,496 45,732
During these thirty years the total number of deaths
was 260,396. In other words, 31.1 per cent. of the total
mortality from this disease occurred during these thirty
years.
It is manifest, therefore, that the percentage of
deaths from organic heart disease, nephritis and
Bright’s disease, and cerebral hemorrhage and soften-
ing is far above the general percentage of mortality
from all causes during the thirty-year period.
20
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
To focus the same inquiry upon conditions in New
York City I am presenting similar tables for New York
City during the year 1912, using, however, the causes of
deaths as applied to the white population.
New York City—All Deaths, All Causes (White), 1912—
70,659.
30-39 Yrs. 40-49 Yrs. -50-59 Yrs.
7249 8404 - 8741
During these thirty years the total number of deaths
was 26,994. In other words, 34 per cent. of the total
mortality from all diseases occurred during these thirty
years.
New York City—Organic Heart Disease—1912, 7024.
30-39 Yrs. 40-49 Yrs. 50-59 Yrs.
393 884 1204
During these thirty years the total number of deaths.
from this cause was 2,641. In other words, 37.6 per cent.
of the total mortality from this disease occurred during
these thirty years.
New York City—Nephritis and Bright’s Disease—1912,
6871.
30-39 Yrs. 40-49 Yrs. 50-59 Yrs.
645 1112 1494
During these thirty years the total number from these
causes was 3,251. In other words, 47.3 per cent. of the
total mortality from these diseases occurred during these
thirty years.
New York City—Cerebral Hemorrhage and Softening—
1912, 2750.
30-39 Yrs. 40-49 Yrs. 50-59 Yrs.
98 241 604
During these thirty years the total number of deaths
from these causes was 943. In other words, 34 per cent.
of the total mortality from these diseases occurred dur-.
ing these thirty years.
ZI
Menaces to National Vitality —United States
The startling fact is now apparent that in New York
City during the thirty-year period these three general
diseases caused 34 per cent. of their total deaths, as
opposed to 31.1 per cent. in the registration area. Or-
ganic heart disease caused 37.6 per cent. of all its deaths,
as opposed to 38.9 per cent. in the registration area,
while nephritis and Bright’s disease yielded 47.3 per
cent. of their entire mortality, as opposed to 38.1 per
cent. for the registration area, and cerebral hemorrhage
and softening caused 34 per cent. of their total mortality
in New York City, as opposed to 26.9 per cent. in the
registration area.
From this compilation of figures, rather formal in
nature, we are brought face to face with the fact that
the mortality rate from these three general causes in the
City of New York is far higher during the thirty years
of greatest industrial productivity than they are for the
registration area as a whole. In other words, while a
greater mortality from these diseases is to be expected
in the decades after sixty years, New York City is suffer-
ing a disproportionate loss of human life from these
causes during the ages thirty to sixty years.
A recognition of the difficulties of diagnosis makes it
imperative to recognize that there are undoubted errors
in the causes of death as reported to registrars of vital
statistics. On the other hand, the interrelation of these
three diseases is such that the sum total of the mortality
may probably be regarded as reasonably accurate.
Diseases of the heart, kidneys, and arteries are very
closely interrelated. The diseases of the heart may un-
derlie arterial alterations or diseases of the kidneys.
Diseases of the kidneys may underlie diseases of the
heart and cause arterial degenerations; and, in turn,
arterial degeneration may cause diseases of either the
heart or the kidneys, or both. Finally, diseases of the
heart, the kidneys, and the arterial system may all be
dependent upon the same underlying cause.
Having recognized, therefore, the mortality and the
morbidity of these three diseases, the question arises as
to their preventability. . .
It has been estimated that 42.3 per cent. of all deaths
22
Menaces to National Vitality United States
belong to the category of those preventable. This in
itself is sufficient argument for the necessity of bending
all efforts toward the reduction of the morbidity and
mortality of diseases of the heart, kidneys, and arteries
which has already been shown to cause a disproportion-
ate mortality in the City of New York during the ages
of thirty to sixty years. ...
Owing, however, to the very seriousness of these three
general causes of death, it is improbable that thera-
peuties will work wonders in decreasing the mortality
for many years to come. It becomes of the utmost 1m-
portance, therefore, to lay special stress upon those
measures which will tend to lessen the prevalence of
these diseases. . . .
In order to lessen the prevalence of diseases of the
heart, kidneys, and arteries it is essential for a munici-
pal health department to attack the underlying factors
directly, and thus secure indirectly the benefit of a de-
ereased prevalence of them. Obviously, the reduction
of the prevalence of the underlying diseases will in itself
secure a decrease in both morbidity and mortality during
all ages up to the time of life when senile changes are
productive of fatal results. . . . (Pp. 1-11.)
American Public-Health Problems. Text and Tables
prepared by Freprerick L. Horrman, Statistician,
Prudential Insurance Company of America.
Panama-Pactfic Exposition Memorial Publica-
tions of the Prudential Insurance Company of
America, No. 4. 1915.
Mortality of Four Leading Cities, 1815-1914.
There are no complete vital statisties for the United
States, or even for a single state, extending over an
entire century. For the four cities of New York, Bos-
ton, Philadelphia and New Orleans, however, the records
are approximately complete, and the combined data are
presented in this chart for the purpose of visualizing
the probable trend of the urban death rate of the United
States during the last century. The mortality from all
causes during the first twenty-five years was 28.1 per
1,000 of population, increasing to 30.2 during the second
23
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
quarter-century, diminishing to 25.7 during the third,
and finally to 19.1 during the fourth. . . . The balance
of mortality for the last half-century, by principal
causes, is shown in the table below:
Balance of Mortality, 1864-1888—1889-1913
(Rate per 100,000 of Population)
1864-1888 1889-1913
Deaths Rate Deaths Rate
Small pox vaosienc cea acs 23,799 39.5 3,308 2.4
Asiatic cholera... sr {43506 7.5 10 0.01
Yellow fever ....... 8,469 14.0 821 0.6
Scarlet fever nui, “30,9083 66.3 25,560 188
Diphtheria and croup ............ 7A,27A 23.2 79,396 58.3
Typhoid and typhus fevers 32,042 53.1 33,573 24.7
Pulmonary tuberculosis ......... 220,048 364.9 303,862 223.3
PreétimOtia: coin oe a 113,712 188.5 315,048 232.0
Stomach and intestinal dis-
CAS OS cts we aan 298.6 266,991 196.2
Heart diseases* ... a 103.7 223,991 164.6
Nephritis od 78.7 179,258 131.7
CAnCEl eas hes atoll esters 46.4 98,085 72.1
* Heavier type added in these tables.
Mortality of New York City, 1815-1914.
The quarter-century death rate of New York City
increased from 28.1 per 1,000 of population during the
period 1815-1839 to 32.6 during 1840-1864, but declined
to 27.5 during the period 1865-1889, and still further to
18.4 during the quarter-century ending with 1914... .
The balance of mortality for the city of New York for
the last half-century, by principal causes, is shown in
the table below:
NEW YORK
Balance of Mortality, 1864-1888—1889-1913
(Rate per 100,000 of Population)
1864-1888 1889-1913
Deaths Rate Deaths Rate
Pulmonary tuberculosis... 108,477 390.0 180,492 221.4
Stomach and_ intestinal
ISCASES ooeccccececseccstccetcesetnseee 100,442 361.1 165,627 203.1
24
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
PrecsrmOmsd oeeceeeecseecteeeeceeeneeee 64,039 230.2 208,604 255-9
Diphtheria and croup .......... 43,151 155.1 47,352 58.1
Bright’s disease ccc 32,240 115.9 III,144 136.3
Heart diseases 2. 27,923 100.4 © 127,125 155.9
Scarlet fV OK eccecccseccseceence 23,164 83.3 18,391 22.6
CANCER ieee aa aN en 12,520 46.5 57,4860 70.5
Typhoid and typhus fevers 11,617 41.8 13,243 16.2
Smallpox 0.2 cee ase 6,599 23.7 1,177 1.4
Cholera. ........ 1,281 4.6 9 0.01
Yellow fever 28 0.1 4 0.005
Mortality of Philadelphia, 1815-1914.
The quarter-century death rate of Philadelphia de-
creased from 23.7 per 1,000 of population during the
period 1815-1839 to 21.9 during 1840-1864; it increased
slightly to 22.3 during 1865-1889, and diminished to 18.6
during the quarter-century ending with 1914. . . . The
balance of mortality for the city of Philadelphia for the
last half-century, by principal causes, is shown in the
table below:
Balance of Mortality, 1864-1888—1889-1913
(Rate per 100,000 of Population)
1864-1888 1889-1913
Deaths Rate Deaths Rate
Pulmonary tuberculosis ........... 60,822 310.3 69,414 210.1
Stomach and intestinal dis- :
CASES: aed cent eoeedudes 41,935 213.9 60,238 182.3
PHEUMOMNIA, eset cceecnctearsaelenannins 27,287 139.2 62,894 190.4
Heart diseases cece 20,203 103.1 53,897 163.1
Diphtheria and Croup cece 18,519 94.5 21,474 65.0
Typhoid and typhus fevers... 13,655 69.7 13,846 41.9
Scarlet fever 2. no 10,753 54.9 4.431 13.4
SEMEN DOR tcindeiinnamnennonaamtinciiitaens 8,566 43.7 969 2.9
Bright’s disease 200s 8,284 42.3 43,630 . 132.1
CAMCeR ss cece aerinnenct gee cha 8.351 42.6 22,813 69.0
Cholera ace soe ea cass lava Sale 1,020 G20 ue. es oe
Vel OW FOV EL icc eccccecssscsssecsessesestsessesseee 28 0.1
25
Menaces to National Vitality —United ‘States
Mortality of Boston, 1815-1914.
The quarter-century death rate of Boston increased
from 21.3 per 1,000 of population during the period 1815-
1839 to 25.0 during 1840-1864, but decreased to 23.8 dur-
ing 1865-1889, and diminished to 19.5 during the quarter-
century ending with 1914. . . . The balance of mor-
tality for the city of Boston for the last half-century, by
principal causes, is shown in the table below:
Balance of Mortality, 1864-1888—1889-1913
(Rate per 100,000 of Population)
1864-1888 1889-1913
Deaths Rate Deaths Rate
Pulmonary tuberculosis ............. 31,174 391.8 31,129 219.8
Stomach and intestinal dis-
SpA SCS! setae eee Ra 6,244* 225.5 23,444 165.5
Preumonia caceceececnecceceee .. 14,283 179.5 31,598 223.1
Diphtheria and croup . 9,698 121.9 8,406 59.4
Heart diseases .................. .. 8,674 109.0 26,882 189.8
Scarlet fever ............. . 4,887 61.4 2,451 17.3
Bright’s dis€ase cece 4,272 53-7 12,317 87.0
Typhoid and typhus fevers... 4,122 51.8 3,258 23.0
Cane hice oulew ere ree ee: 4,100 51.5 12,602 89.0
Smallpox. 2.25 ee kod 1,507 19.7 313 2.2
CHOLSTA cir d vaste wcte el aeecedc sets 22° 0.3 I 0.01
Vellow fevers een el ete 7 O.1 I 0.01
* Seven vears only, 1882-1888.
Mortality of New Orleans, 1815-1914.
The quarter-century death rate of New Orleans was
52.9 per 1,000 of population for the period 1815-1839.
This rate is without a parallel in American sanitary
history. . . . The mortality declined materially dur-
ing the quarter-century ending with 1889, when it fell to
32.3 per 1,000. . . . During the last quarter-century
the rate was reduced to an average of 23.9 per 1,000. The
lowest rate prevailed in 1913, or 20.0 per 1,000.
26
Menaces to National Vitality——United States
NEW ORLEANS
Balance of Mortality, 1864-1888—1889-1913
(Rate per 100,000 of Population)
1864-1888* 1889-1913
Deaths Rate Deaths Rate
Pulmonary tuberculosis .......- 19,575 396.5 22,827 310.7
Stomach and intestinal dis- ,
eases: a.cusdenden ante . 15,977 323.6 17,682 240.7
WGlOW Hever: sacar cee 8,406 170.3 816 II.
PHEMIIGTIAL sacs sew asgcare cuties 8,103 164.1 12,552 170.8
Sinall poss seins cole es 7,007f 136.9 849 =«11.6
Heart diseases 2. cece 5,765 116.8 16,087 219.0
Diphtheria and croup wn eee 2,906 58.9 2,164 29.5
Bright’s disease 2,683 54.3 12,167 165.6
Typhoid and typhus fevers... 2,048 53.6 3,226 43.9
Cane: isch eee ea ate 2,522 51.1 5,184 70.6
Clolehar caves alii Buelvontwia. Biss: SAAB acon calli
Sear letiever cel ey 1,I7Q 23.9 287 3.9
Mortality from Diabetes.
. . . In the registration states of the United States
during the decade ending with 1912, the urban mortality
rate from diabetes was 15.5 per 100,000 of population,
and the rural rate, 12.9.
During the period 1900-1913, the mortality from dia-
betes increased from 9.7 per 100,000 of population in
1900, to 15.3 im 1913. °.
There are no mortality statistics for the registration
area previous to 1900. The diabetes mortality in large
American cities has, therefore, been tabulated for the
present purpose for the period 1870-1913. According to
this investigation the rate was lowest in 1873, or 1.3 per
100,000 of population, increasing gradually to a maxi-
mum rate of 16.9 in 1912. (Pp. 23-24.)
Mortality from Bright’s Disease,
_ In the registration states of the United States dur-
ing the decade ending with 1912, the urban mortality
* Exclusive of 1883, except for smallpox.
at Including 1883. The mortality from other causes is not available for
1 i
27
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
from Bright’s disease was 114.6 per 100,000 of popula-
tion, and the rural, 74.8.
During the period 1900-1913 the mortality from
’ Bright’s disease in the registration area increased from
89.0 per 100,000 of population in 1900, to 102.9 in 1913.
There are no mortality statistics for the registration
area previous to 1900. The Bright’s-disease mortality
in large American cities has, therefore, been especially
tabulated for the present purpose for the period 1870-
1913. According to this investigation the rate was
lowest in 1873, when it was 52.9 per 100,000 of popula-
tion, and highest in 1907, when it attained to 131.6 per
100,000 population. Since that year the rate has fluct-
uated more or less, but has remained at a high level of
relative frequency. The data in this chart for the period
1890-1898 are of somewhat doubtful alue, on account
of probable inherent defects in the original returns
utilized for the present purpose. (Pn. 26-27.)
Life Extension Institute, Inc. What It Is; What It Does.
New York. 1915. Hygiene Reference Board,
Irvine Fisuer, Vale University, Chairman; Wm.
J. Harris, Federal Trade Commission; Hmrmann
M. Brees, M.D., Commisswner of Health, New
York; L. F. Barxrer, M.D, Johns Hopkins Un-
versity; JoHn F, Anperson, M.D., Director U. 8.
Hygienic Laboratory.
The extraordinary increase in the death rate in the
United States from diseases of the heart, blood vessels,
kidneys, nervous and digestive systems affords a most —
urgent reason for every person to adopt the practice of
periodic health examinations.
. . . Inten years, according to the census records of
a group of over 5,000,000 working people, the death rate
from these diseases increased as follows:
Apoplexy and nervous SySt@M ue 19%
ELC ATU: Siena einer eta
Kidney and urinary system
Liver and Digestion: .icccinicdeesuinnices
28
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
This record of the early breaking-down of the most
important organs of the body presents a problem of
national importance to the American people, for the same
evidence does not exist in Europe. It indicates a decline
in American vitality.
DEATH RATE — ORGANIC DISEASES
1880 1890 1900 1910
1354
30-4
254
20
AMERICA'S MORTALITY PROBLEM
Health News. Monthly Bulletin New York State De-
partment of Health. Albany, N. Y. May, 1915.
Diseases of Adult Infe and Middle Age. Eucrene
Lyman Fisk, M.D., Director of Hygiene, Life Ex-
tension Institute, Inc., New York, N. Y.
Medical men and sanitarians derive more comfort
from studying the death rates and vital statistics relat-
ing to infancy, adolescence, and early adult life, than
from those showing the trend of mortality in middle
life and old age. In the earlier periods of life, tremen-
dous gains in vitality have been made in the past quar-
ter century. Trench after trench has been taken from
such malignant enemies of childhood and youth as diph-
theria, diarrheal diseases, typhoid fever, tuberculosis,
and even pneumonia, long a stubborn fighter. The lines
. of these foes have been steadily pushed backward, and
their ultimate control seems probable. .
From full maturity to old age, death is chiefly caused
by the breaking down or wearing out of the vital organs.
Heart disease, apoplexy, paralysis, Bright’s disease of
the kidney, and cancer, are the enemies of middle life
and old age. It is well known that cancer is heavily on
the increase, but not so well known that the death rate
from diseases of the heart, blood vessels and kidneys
has practically doubled in this country during the past
thirty years, while in Great Britain there has actually
29
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
been a slightly reduced mortality from these causes. In
19138, between the ages of 30 to 60, there were 85,000
deaths in the United States Registration Area from
these degenerative affections, exclusive of cancer. This
means that for the country at large there is an annual
loss of more than 130,000 citizens in the prime of life.
That most of these deaths were premature and that 50
per cent. of them could have been postponed many years
by early warning and guidance is a conservative esti-
mate. (P. 136.)
Protecting the Human Machine. Condensed from an
Address Before the Board of Trade of Washing-
ton, D. C., Delivered by President KE. E. Rirren-
Hous, of the Life Extension Institute, on April
27, 1915.
Evidence found in the mortality records indicates a
marked decline in the power of American workers to
withstand the strain of modern life.
In the natural order of things, the human machine
will wear out and life must end. But why should Ameri-
cans wear out sooner, now, than they did a few years
ago? Why have the chances of early death after reach-
ing the prime of life increased?
How do we know that this has happened? Because
of the extraordinary increase in the death rate from the
breaking down of the heart, arteries, kidneys, and of the
nervous and digestive systems.
These are the diseases of old age. They are reaching
down into middle life and below, and increasing there,
and apparently at all ages.
These slowly developing afflictions are not only reduc-
ing the working, productive period of life but they are
lowering the working capacity of the individual often
before he realizes it, or recognizes the cause. They are
responsible for accidents, for damaged machines, spoiled
goods, and other costly errors. They are the concealed
enemies of alertness, accuracy and efficiency. Therefore,
every employer, small or large, is financially concerned
in checking the ravages of this steadily advancing enemy.
30
Menaces to National Vitality United States
The Locomotive and the Human Motor.
Accidents to the locomotive correspond to the germ
diseases, which are really accidents, and in time will
doubtless all be prevented.
In the wear and tear of the valves, boiler tubes, cyl-
inders, bearings and other vital parts of the locomotive
we have organic diseases—the diseases of degeneration,
for the life of the locomotive, like that of man, is de-
termined by the strain which is put upon its hardest
worked parts.
There are two general causes for shortening the life
of a locomotive which also apply to the human machine.
If it is originally defective or structurally weak, the
stress of service soon puts it out of commission. If its
machinery is not properly cared for, it will soon go to
the serap heap.
But we treat this machine of metal better than we do
the human machine; every bearing, every point of fric-
tion and strain is carefully watched. The engineer and
fireman are constantly inspecting the vital parts, and
they are ever on the alert for the slightest change in the
normal sound of its working, which to them would mean
that something was out of adjustment. In this event,
they promptly proceed to correct it before damage is
done. The vitals of the locomotive are not only thor-
oughly inspected at the end of each run, but every so
often it has a general overhauling.
In running the human machine, we take no such
precautions.
We feed it too much or too little fuel; we overstrain
its valves, tubes (arteries), and its vital parts generally
by making it carry a heavier load than it should, and by
excesses of various kinds. We give little heed to adjust-
ing our food to the needs of the body, and to the proper
disposal of poisons and waste.
The fact that the heart, arteries and kidneys are
among the very important organs that never rest, does
not impress us. We know that they toil night and day;
that they were working when we came into the world,
and that their task is continuous until we leave it. Com-
31
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
mon sense tells us that the strain upon these vital organs
is excessive. (P. 6.)
Department of Health of the City of New York. No. 18.
Reprint Series. June, 1914. The Next Step m
Preventive Medicine. 8S. 8S. Gotpwater, M. D.,
Commissioner of Health.
Attention has been called repeatedly to the increas-
ing mortality from diseases of the heart, blood vessels
and kidneys. The death rate from diseases of the heart
and kidneys has approximately doubled during the past
thirty years. These diseases, together with cancer and
tuberculosis, are the despavr of hygienists. If we do
not know how to prevent them, we know at least how to
recognize them in their earlier stages, long before their
victims are incapacitated; and in a large percentage of
cases we can postpone their serious development, pro-
mote the comfort of the individual, and prolong his
working life. (P. 4.)
In advocating the promotion of the recently estab-
lished Life Extension Institute, Dr. Eugene Lyman Fisk
pointed out that the diseases which, are gradually being
conquered, the diseases to which publie health activities
in the past have been directed, are diseases of the self-
limiting type, namely, those in which the human organ-
ism, if possessed of reasonable resisting power, summons
to its aid, from its own tissues and organs, the antidote
and cure. ‘‘But the diseases that are on the increase,’’
writes Dr. Fisk, ‘‘those of the degenerative class, are
not so characterized. Once their processes begin they
tend to progress to a fatal ending unless there is some
change in the habits or environment of the patient, and
even then a complete restoration of condition is often
difficult if not impossible. As the demand upon the pro-
fession to check these maladies of the nervous, renal and.
cardio-vascular type increases, the value of a periodic
inspection of the apparatus that is to be guarded and
conserved becomes logically evident.’’ (P. 8.)
32
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
How to Live. Rules for Healthful Living Based
on Modern Science. Life Extension Institute.
Invinc Fisuer and Evcens Lyman Fisx. New
York and London, Funk & Wagnalls, 2nd edation,
1915.
Foreword, by William H. Taft. While it is true that
to the public mind there is a more lurid and spectacular
menace in such diseases as small-pox, yellow fever and
plague, medical men and public health workers are be-
ginning to realize that, with the warfare against such
maladies well organized, it is now time to give attention
to the heavy loss from lowered physical efficiency and
chronic, preventable disease, a loss exceeding in magni-
tude that sustained from the more widely feared com-
municable diseases.
The insidious encroachment of the chronic diseases
that sap the vitality of the individual and impair the
efficiency of the race is a matter of increasing importance.
Pages VII-VIII.
Section VII.—Signs of Increase of the Degenerative
Diseases. The fact that in the United States the general
death rate has steadily fallen for the past several de-
cades, a phenomenon common to all civilized countries,
is accepted by many as evidence of a steady gain in
National Vitality. That there has been a gain in vitality
in the younger age groups is unquestionably true, but
this gain has served to mask a loss in vitality at the older
age periods.
This latter phenomenon, a rising mortality in elderly
life, is something almost peculiar to the United States.
It is not exhibited in the mortality statistics of the lead-
ing European countries. In those countries the fall in
the death rate has not been due solely to a reduction of
mortality in infancy and adult life through the conquest
of diseases of children, tuberculosis and other communi-
cable diseases. England and Wales, Denmark, Norway,
Sweden and Prussia show improved mortality at every
age period. (P. 281.)
It seems evident that unless this increased mortality
is due to some unknown biologic influence or to the amal-
gamation of the various races that constitute our popu-
lation, it must be ascribed, in a broad sense, to lack of
adaptation to our rapidly developing civilization. (P.
282.)
33
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
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34
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
DEATH RATE PER 1,000 IN PRUSSIA BY AGE GROUPS.
1875-80 to 1901-1910.
1875-1880* 1881-1890* 1891-1900* | 1901-1910
Ages eae
. Males |Females|| Males |Females Males |Females}} Males |Females
LA2 ORs Ae 71.8 69.1 70.2 68.0 58.0 55.5 45.3 43.1
Pe Sinha sighs abt ae 37.1 36.1 36.3 34.6 24.7 23.8 16.5 16.0
DH Siny rine 242 3 a 22.2 OAT 20.8 20.7 14.2 13.9 8.9 8.8
5-10. 9.3 9.2 8.8 9.0 5.9 6.1 4.2 4.4
10-15 3.9 4.3 3.8 4.3 2.9 3.3 2.4 2.7
19-20 siecseeeyces 5.1 4.6 4.8 4.5 4.3 3.8 4.0 3.6
20-25 is eee ec tee 7.7 6.3 7.0 5.8 6.0 5.1 5.2 4.6
258 0G isioG. 5 ond 8.6 8.2 7.6 7.5 6.1 6.1 5.3 5.5
30-40 10.9 10.3 10.6 9.7 8.3 ye) 7.0 6.7
40-50............ 16.7 12.3 16.3 11.7 14.3 10.0 12.5 8.6
50-60 27.6 20.7 26.9 19.8 24.2 17.5 23.5 16.0
60-70 53.0 46.3 51.4 44.8 48.7 42.0 45.5 37.4
10-80 couse wey sed 113.3 | 106.2 110.2 | 113.9 102.5 4 97.1 100.6 | 102.0-
80 and over...... 236.4 | 227.2 238.2 | 229.0 233.1 | 223.3 214.4 | 202.6
j
Note that in both sexes there was a steady and substantial decline in the death rate
at all age periods of life during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
*Koniglich Statistisches Bureau in Berlin Preussische Statistik, Hft. 184, p. iv.
+Zeitschrift des Koéniglich Preussischen Statistichen Landesamts, Berlin, 1912, p. xvii.
(Pages 290-291.)
DEATH RATE PER 1,000 IN SWEDEN BY AGE GROUPS.*
1801-10 to 1891-00
Ages 0-5 5-10 | 10-15 | 15-25 | 25-35 | 35-45 | 15-55 55-65 | 65 over
Years
1801-10 79.0 | 12.1 7.2 8.5 | 11.0 | 14.9 | 22.7 | 40.8 111.4
1811-20. . 76.0 9.7 5.6 1.2 9.9 | 14.3 | 21.0 | 37.6 102.9
1821-30.. 63.1 7.6 4.5 6.1 9.4 | 13.6 | 20.1 | 35.4 96.9
1831-40. . 60.3 7.5 4.7 6.0 9.8 | 14.3 | 20.8 | 35.6 102.1
1841-50 56.8 7.8 4.4 5.5 8.0 | 12.2 | 18.1 | 31.8 97.1
1851-60 60.5 | 10.9 5.5 6.1 8.4 | 11.9 | 17.9 | 32.1 91.6
1861-70 57.3 951 4.4 5.4 7.2 { 10.1 | 15.1 | 28.7 87.2
1871-80. . 52.3 8.5 4.2 5.3 7A 9.3 | 13.1 | 23.6 79.4
1881-90.. 43.6 1.7 4.0 5.2 6.6 8.2 | Li.5) | 2h 71.4
1891-00 36.9 6.0 3.6 5.4 6.5 1s8- | LO9. |] ALOT 71.3
| \
Note the pronounced fall in the death rate at every age period during the past century.
_ ‘ee Prinzing Medizinische Statistik, Verlag von Gustav Fischer in Jena, 1906. (Page
Increasing Organic Disease. The New Public Health
Problem. Address Delivered Before the Ameri-
can Public Health Association, Rochester, Sep-
tember 9, 1915. EH. E. Rirrennouss, President
Life Extension Institute, Inc.
The increasing waste of American vitality and life
from degenerative diseases among wage earners and
other classes is rapidly reaching the magnitude of a
national menace. (P. 4.)
By combinine the mortality from the degenerative
30
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
diseases, disturbances of the ratios by improvement in
diagnosis or classification are obviated, for such change
would not be apt to take them out of this group. Any
advance in completeness or accuracy would be naturally
too slight in the short period of ten years to account for
io extraordinary increase indicated by the returns.
Peril
In twenty years, 1890-1910, it (the death-rate) in-
creased in the registration area 41 per cent., divided as
follows:
Increase
Heart and circulatory. to Bahctialeaiiacows 46%
Kidneys and urinary..................... 50%
Apoplexy and nervous system
. It is a significant fact that the mortality from
these diseases in England and Wales, Sweden and other
hygienically advanced nations has been either stationary
or declined during these three decades. (P. 6.)
To sum up, the best available evidence shows that
American life waste from the degenerative diseases is
excessive; that it is increasing rapidly, both in city and
in rural population, and among the native and foreign
born elements; that it is increasing in the younger age
groups, but in greater ratio in middle life and old age;
that this increased mortality has caused an increase in
the general death rate commencing with age group 40-50,
and that these increases do not occur in kindred nations
in Europe. In short, American vitality appears to be
declining. .
This “adverse trend is not only very marked but the
death rate from organic disease is very high. The life
waste from this cause is excessive. (Pp. 6-7.)
The most common and plausible reason offered for
this trend is found, however, in the statement that the
changes in living conditions during the past two genera-
tions have been so rapid and so extraordinary that we
have not yet had time to adjust our lives to them. We
know that these changes have been much more radical
and abrupt here than in Europe.
36
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
It is a matter of common knowledge that the high
nervous tension under which Americans work and live
is virtually unknown in other countries. There is also
significance in the fact that during the past fifty years
the proportion of our population which has changed
from an outdoor to an indoor life, or from a physically
active to a physically inactive life, has enormously in-
creased. This has been caused by the marvelous gain
in our wealth, in time-saving and labor-saving devices
and in cheap transportation. With all this has also come
a change in the nature and richness of our food.
There are millions of Americans who are living phy-
sically unbalanced lives as a result of these changes, to
whose aid preventive medicine must come.
But aside from the cause of the increase in this life
waste, the vital fact before us is that we now actually
know of the habits of life which place excessive strain
upon the heart, arteries and kidneys and cause them to
wear out too soon. (P. 8.)
United States Public Health Service. Weekly Public
Health Reports. Vol. 30. Oct. 1,1915. Industrial
Hygiene. A Plan for Education in the Aroidance
of Occupational Diseases and Injuries. J. W.
ScHERESCHEWSKY, Surgeon, United States Public
Health Service.
_ There would hardly seem need for an extended discus-
sion of the necessity for education in industrial hygiene
and the avoidance of occupational complaints. There
are approximately from 25,000,000 to 30,000,000 indus-
trial workers in this country, all of whom are more or
less exposed to health hazards. While many of these
are the ordinary health hazards, present in the indus-
trial as in any other sphere, on the other hand many of
them are inherent to the occupation in question. There
can be no question that the steady operation of these
hazards exerts a deleterious influence upon the health of
the individual, while many of them seriously menace life
or curtail the period of productive activity.
37
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
One of the most important results effected by the
present ‘‘Safety First’’ campaign is that our eyes have
been opened to the fact that it is not sufficient to make
industries ‘‘Safe’’ from an accident standpoint; they
should be ‘‘Safe’’ from a health standpoint as well. In
other words, no industry ought per se to exert an injuri-
ous influence upon the health of the worker; in no indus-
try should occupation therein entail curtailment of the
period of economic activity.
While in the absence of reliable statistics we can
only approximate the average yearly loss through the
sickness of workers, figures which have been published in
Europe enable us reasonably to conclude that the average
annual loss through sickness, to workers in this country,
is not far from eight to nine days. This would amount
to some 600,000 days each year, or an economic loss
of $360,000,000 if average annual earnings are $600. The
loss due to premature physical decline or to reduction
in productivity, the result of the continuous operation
of industrial health hazards, cannot as yet be estimated.
This can be arrived at only as a result of future studies
which are highly necessary.
A large part of the loss just adverted to is preventable
and is due to lack of knowledge or to carelessness. It
need hardly be said that the need for the conservation of
human life and health was never more imperative than it
is to-day. The gigantic destruction now going on daily
in the vast conflict of European nations only emphasizes
the urgency for methods of conservation of life and
health. In addition to this, our attention is being repeat-
edly called to the alarming increase in the so-called
‘‘Diseases of degeneration.’’ The conclusion seems in-
evitable that this increase can he due to nothing but the
operation of modern conditions of civilization which have
modified, more than any other particular, the ways in
which man gains his daily bread, i. e., industrial condi-
tions. (Pp. 2928-2929.)
38
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
United States Public Health Service. Supplement No, 24
to the Public Health Reports. May 7,1915. Exer-
cise and Health. FreprrtcK CHARLES SMITH,
Passed Assistant Surgeon United States Public
Health Service.
At the age of 40 the expectation of life is less now
than it was 30 years ago. This is true for both men and
women. Life expectancy during infancy and childhood
has increased owing to more intelligent care of young
children, to the introduction of diphtheria antitoxin, and
other means of combating the infectious diseases, and
to more sanitary living. But the diseases of degenvra-
tion are increasing, especially those involving the kid-
neys, heart, and blood vessels, particularly among per-
sons not employed at manual labor. One reason for this
is the lessened physical and the increased mental work
entailed by our complex social fabric. More people are
engaged in sedentary occupations than formerly. More
nervous energy is required of men. Deprived of the
natural assistance which physical exercise affords in
eliminating through skin and lungs the waste products of
the body, the kidneys become overloaded and fail. Lack-
ing the normal assistance which working muscles give
to circulation as they urge the blood and lymph onward
in the natural channels, and overloaded with food poisons
which brain work cannot burn up as physical exercise
will, the arteries become brittle and weak and the heart
muscle flabby lke the biceps of its unfortunate possessor.
The florid business man succumbs to apoplexy perhans;
another big, pasty-complexioned brain worker to neph-
ritis; another to a fatty heart or to chronically overtaxed
digestion, all of which could have been postponed for
many years by a moderate amount of daily exercise. As
Eager, of the Public Health Service, has said: ‘Most
men, perhaps athletic in youth, erow stale and deteriorate
in physical tone after 80; few grown women take sufficient
active outdoor exercise.’? And the New York City de-
partment of health ascribes part of the increased mortal-
ity after middle life to ‘‘the wear and tear of the strenu-
ous existence in modern city life, particularly associated
39
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
with insufficient physical exercise in the open air.’’
(P. 3.)
Possibilities of Reducing Mortality at the Higher Age
Groups. Read before the Section on Vital Statis-
tics, American Public Health Association, Colorado
Springs, September, 1913. Louis I. Dusuin, Px.D.,
Statistician, Metropolitan Life Insurance Com-
pany, New York.
Particular interest has been concentrated, during the
last decade, on the mortality at the higher age groups.
The unfavorable changes which have been observed in
the death-rates at these ages are in striking contrast to
the conditions at the younger ages, where, during the last
fifty years, marked improvements have occurred in both
sexes. This contrast has occasioned much comment from
sanitarians, the medical profession, and especially from
imsurance executives, who, as you can well understand,
are deeply concerned with the vast possibilities of check-
ing losses from premature mortality. The interest of
the community, however, is paramount to all others in
view of the great value to it of each adult, not only in
economic terms, but also in the larger social aspects
which are involved in the serious disturbances to family
life resulting from the death of a parent or a wage
earner.
Mortality Changes in Ten Years.
I present herewith Table I, which gives the death-
rates for males and females for the years 1900 and 1911,
respectively, for the Registration States as they were
constituted in the year 1900. These included Connecticut,
District of Columbia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York,
Rhode Island and Vermont, which states enjoyed good
registration conditions at both dates. The figures pre-
sented, therefore, are quite comparable for the two
periods. Figures earlier than those for 1900 would be
most desirable for comparison, but they cannot be ob-
tained.
40
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
Table I—Comparison of Mortality of Males and Females
by Age Groups. Death-rates per 1,000 Population.
(Registration States as Constituted in 1900.)
- Males Females
Age Per Cent. Per Cent.
1900 1911 Increase 1900 1911 Increase
or Decrease or Decrease
UWrider & vce 54.2 39.8 —26.57 45.8 33.3 — 27.29
B29! i esccishsckendoreeses 4.7 3.4 —27.66 4.6 32k —32.61
10-14 ww... ee 2.9 2.4 —17.24 Bel. 2.1 — 32.26
MSS 19 ceecsiec stents. 4.9 3.7 —24.49 4.8 a3 —31.25
D022 4 eee 7.0 5.3 —24.29 6.7 4.7 —29.85
Oak credence 8.3 6.7 —19.28 8.2 6.0 —26.83
85-44 oes 10.8 10.4 — 3.70 9.8 8.3 —15.31
WS RSE ccceecngunsies 15.8 16.1 + 1.90 14.2 12.9 — 9.15
B96 4 vczcsscsecssastheecs 28.9 30.9 + 6.92 25.8 26.0 + 0.78
G5 74 > weerseeedcesceceese 59.6 61.6 + 3.36 53.8 55.1 + 2.42
75 and ovet........ 146.1 147.4 + .89 139.5 139.2 — 0.22
A Ages’ sscscissce 17.6 15.8 —10.23 16.5 _ 14.0 —15.15
You will observe that, for the males, all age groups
up to and including 35-44 show decreases in the mortality
rates for 1911 in comparison with those for 1900, the per-
centages of decrease ranging from 27.66, for the age
group 9-9, to 3.70, at the age group 35-44. From this
age group onward, the rates for 1911 are persistently
higher than for the earlier date, the largest difference
being at age period 55-64, when the percentage of increase
reaches 6.92. For females, the decreases in the mortality
rates extend up to the period 45-54, inclusive, the de-
creases varying from 32.61 per cent., at the age group
5-9, to 9.15 per cent., at the age group 45-54. The ages
50-74 show a slight increase, and above 75 the rates for
the two periods are virtually identical. It is evident,
therefore, that at all ages the mortality has been much
more favorable for the females than for the males, but,
in both sexes, the various forces which have been at work
to reduce mortality suddenly lose their effectiveness dur-
ing the period of middle life, at which time an actual
deterioration occurs. Above age 75, no significant
41
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
changes have taken place and we are not much concerned
with a problem of ‘‘old age’’ mortality.
The Increased Frequency of Certain Causes of Death.
It is necessary, therefore, in our analysis to concen-
trate attention on the diseases and conditions which cause
the larger part of the mortality at the advanced ages.
These include cancer, diabetes, apoplexy, organic heart
disease, diseases of the arteries, cirrhosis of the liver
and Bright’s disease. The least median age at death
of this group is about 55 years. Together, they form
51.2 per cent. of all deaths at age 40 and over, in the
Industrial mortality experience of the Metropolitan Life
Insurance Company during 1911. The corresponding
percentage in the Registration Area is 51.4.
Table II shows the rate per 100,000 for each one of
these causes for the years 1900 and 1910, respectively, in
the Registration States as constituted in 1900.
Table IJ.—Death-rate per 100,000 of Population for Cer-
tain Causes of Death—Male and Female Combined.
(Registration States as Constituted in 1900.)
Per Cent.
Cause of Death 1900 1910 Increase
1. Cancer (all forms) : 82.9 30.6
Q. Diabetes anecceeeececceccseeeecsece ‘ 17.6 60.0
3. Cerebral hemorrhage and
POPC cea ten 72.9 86.1 18.8
4. Organic diseases of the
H@art: ceo eee 116.0 161.6 39.3
5. Diseases of arteries............. 5.2 25.8 396.2
6. Cirrhosis of livev.................. 12.6 14.4 14.3
7. Bright’s disease ................ O10 95.7 18.1
TEMG Lelie ener eed 361.8 484.1 33.8
It is evident from this array that the rate per 100,000
has increased considerably in all of the causes mentioned,
the rate for the seven diseases combined being 33.8 per
42
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
cent. higher for 1910 than for 1900. The largest increases
are to be observed for the circulatory diseases, namely,
the diseases of the arteries and organic heart disease, the
former having increased close to fourfold in the ten
years.
We will now proceed to discuss the factors which, we
believe, are in a large measure responsible for the condi-
tions observed. In general, it is clear that we must look
to the conditions of life in the earlier ages for an explana-
tion. We shall consider this early environmental influ-
ence under three heads, namely: ,
(a) The occurrence of disease in childhood and early
adult life.
(b) Habits and modes of life, including especially such
as constitute what insurance men call the ‘‘moral haz-
ards,’’ and
(c) The effects of occupation.
The Effect of the Communicable Diseases on Mortality.
In the first place, such diseases as organic heart dis-
ease and Bright’s disease, which are exceedingly preva-
lent at the advanced ages, are often the sequele to dis-
eases occurring previously, namely, the acute infections
of early life. These impairments often go unnoticed
until, under the stress of middle life, they terminate in
one or another of the degenerative diseases which we
have just considered.
The Effect of Venereal Disease and Alcohol.
Second, the habits and modes of life have their effect
upon the mortality at the later ages. Details of personal
hygiene, such as a rational diet, a reasonable amount of
exercise, regular hathing and those subtle refinements of
mental hygiene, which are designed to conserve nervous
force, are of great significance. Most important, how-
ever, for our discussion, are the effects of the venereal
diseases and of the intemperate use of alcoholic bever-
OPES, cw 4
Third, and most important, in our discussion of the
43
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
factors contributing to middle age mortality, are the
effects upon the body of the habits and conditions of
work. This is what we may call the occupation factor.
We are all familiar with the picturesque example of the
modern business man who is supposed to work at white
heat and under great pressure, and who, as a result,
presents long before due time the classic picture of the
broken-down human machine suffering from the whole
gamut of the degenerative diseases. The sanatoria and
watering places of Europe annually reap their harvest
from this product of American commercial life. But we
cannot be much concerned with this small group in our
discussion. They do not modify our death-rates ma-
terially, which are determined rather by the conditions
of life and work prevailing among the industrial classes
of the country. We must, therefore, turn to this much
larger group, who, unfortunately, have not received
sufficient attention from medical men in their search for
the factors of occupational stress. (P. 7.) .
The Popular Science Monthly, April, 1915. American
Economic and Social Problems Arising Out of the
War.* The Trend of American Vitality. Louis
I. Dusuin, Pu.D., Statistician, Metropolitan Life
Insurance Company, New York.
The trend of American vitality could best be deter-
mined by comparing a series of life tables for the last
three or four deeades. These would tell us whether the
expectation of life at each age had increased or de-
creased during this period; but, unfortunately, no such
tables are at hand. We are only now beginning to real-
ize the value of such statistical devices for measuring
our vital resources. ..
The New York City tables for the period 1909 to 1911,
for example, indicate that the probable snan of life for
children under five has been extended by ahout ten years
since the earlier tables for the period 1879 to 1881 were
prepared. The improvement in life exyectancy con-
tinues until about age 35. From this age onward the
*A series of papers presented before the Section for Social and
Economic Science of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science at a meeting in Philadelphia on December 29, 1914.
44
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
expectation becomes reduced. In Massachusetts, the re-
duction in the expectation of life has occurred at an even
earlier age. Life tables for a few other states show
similar conditions, the only variation being in the age
at which the change sets in. In spite of the unsatisfac-
tory data from which most of these tables were derived,
we may infer that the expectation of life at the higher
ages has been lessened over a wide area of the country
during the last three decades.
It has, therefore, been assumed quite generally that
the deterioration observed after age 40 is due to the in-
crease in the incidence of these so-called ‘‘degenerative’’
diseases. Indeed, much of the propaganda for better
personal hygiene at middle life has received its impetus
from the discussion of this tendency in American mor-
tality... . The figures are apparently confirmed by in-
dependent analyses made in a number of specialized
areas in which it appears that these degenerative
diseases have increased at about the same rate as in the
registration states. We are warranted in concluding,
therefore, in spite of the lack of absolutely accurate data,
that the trend of our mortality in middle life is at pres-
ent unfavorable and that this condition is accompanied
by an increasing incidence of the degenerative diseases.
The question we now desire to put squarely is this:
What are the forces at work in American life which have
made for this increased mortality at the adult ages? In
a recent paper entitled ‘‘The Possibilities of Reducing
Mortality at the Higher Age Groups’’ the writer pointed
out some of the conditions of present-day life which he
believed tended to increase the death rates from the so-
called ‘‘degenerative’’ diseases. In this paper reference
was made to the greater use of alcoholic beverages and
especially to the deleterious effects of modern conditions
of industry. It was assumed that the changing condi-
tions of American industrial life involved a greater
strain on the organism, causing it to break down at an
earlier age than was formerly the case under the less
intense conditions of labor. In the present paper I wish
to refer to another element which is apparently at work
in the causation of these higher death rates from the
diseases above mentioned. (Pp. 313-315.)
45
Menaces to National Vitality —United States
RESULT OF NEGLECT OF PERSONAL HYGIENE
28.7
EFFECTS OF THE “WEAR AND TEAR” OF LIVING
(DISEASES NOT VIGORGUSLY ComaAATTED)
20.9 ill
1880 1890 1900 3910 1880 1860 1900 1910
ENGLAND AND WALES UNITED STATES (Reg. Area)
DEGENERATIVE DISEASES—COMBINED DEATH RATE—PER 10,000 POPULATION—FROM
DISEASES OF HEART, BLOOD VESSELS AND KIDNEYS.
RESULT OF PROGRESS, PUBLIC HYGIENE
(olSCASES VIGOROUSLY ComBaTTED)
TYPHOID FEVER
TUBERCULOSIS OF LUNGS
24.5
3.6
18.0
12.8
} :
1880 1900 1912 1890 1900 1912
PERCENTAGE OF DECREASE 65.2 PERCENTAGE OF DECREASE 48.9
DEATH RATE PER 10,000 OF POPULATION IN THE U. S. REG. AREA.
TYPHOID FEVER AND TUBERCULOSIS OF LUNGS.
(P. 316.)
46
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
I refer to important changes in the composition and
characteristics of the population. The last thirty years
have seen a great influx of foreign peoples to this coun-
try. The reports of the Department of Labor show that
in the period since 1880, 22,300,000 immigrants reached
our shores. ... These immigrants have settled princi-
pally in the registration states. . . . (P. 317.)
This immigration to our registration area must,
therefore, largely determine the adult mortality which
these communities experience. If the immigrants are
relatively short-lived and suffer especially from the
diseases of middle life, then we must expect an increased
incidence in the mortality rates from these causes in the
area where they congregate, and correspondingly a re-
duction in the expectation of life in the total population.
While immigrants to America come from all parts of
the world, the larger number have come, in recent years,
from the countries of southern and eastern Europe. . .
The mortality rates prevailing normally in these coun-
tries are uniformly higher than those found in the reg-
istration area. Thus, according to the latest available
figures the crude death rate in Russia was 28.9 per 1,000
in 1909; 18.2 per 1,000 in Italy in 1912; 20.5 per 1,000 in
Austria, and 23.3 per 1,000 in Hungary in 1912. We have
no right to assume that the mere entry of these foreign
peoples has at once a favorable effect upon their mor-
tality. Their adverse conditions of life, especially in our
large cities, the economic stress to which they are put,
and the dangers in the unskilled trades in which they
engage, all would point to a continuance, at least, of the
higher death rates from which they suffer in their native
countries.
This conclusion does not in any way make unneces-
sary the caution and advice which the associates of the
Life Extension Institute and other hygienists have
taught us. . . . Indeed. if a full return is to be received
from our campaiens for life extension, it is necessary
that an attempt be made to instruct the foreign popula-
tion in the principles of personal and civie hyviene. This
will involve very difficult problems of education, but the
results will prove as fruitful as those which have been
47
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
directed toward our better circumstanced classes. The
problem of the mortality at the higher age groups is a
complex one and many things will need to be done if we
hope to accomplish our chief aim, which should be to
show a saving in life all along the line, both in our native
and foreign-born stocks, not only at the younger ages
where American medicine has made brilliant contribu-
es but more especially after middle life. (Pp. 317-
The Occupational Diseases, W. Gitman Tuomrson, M.D.,
Professor of Medicine, Cornell University Medical
College, New York. New York and London, Apple-
ton. 1914,
Relation of Occupational to Other Diseases.
This is a very important matter, for it not rarely
happens that an occupational disease which is not neces-
sarily fatal, so strongly predisposes to some other disease
hy undermining the resisting power of the organism that
the combination does prove fatal.
Diabetes, although not a disease of the nervous system,
is made distinctly worse and is often apparently induced
by occupations involving unusual nervons strain and
mental worry.
Arterioselerosis is one of the inevitable processes of
advancing age, but ordinarily should not give rise to
symptoms much before the seventh or eighth decade of
life. It may, however, occur at any time after twenty-five
or thirty years of age. Hence the apt saving that ‘‘a man
is as old as his arteries’’. Arteriosclerosis and chronic
nephritis appear. to he upon the increase, for both may
be caused by alcoholism, both are rapidly advanced by
worry and mental as well as physical strain. The ordi-
nary day laborer entering Bellevue Hospital, who has
handled the pick or coal shovel, or lifted heavy weights
as a longshoreman, who has solaced his leisure moments
with poor whiskey, is, if he has passed his thirty- fifth
year, morally certain to have thick-walled arteries. If
he gets a little older, he may have an aneurysm or dilated
artery; and, if older still, he may have a broken blood
vessel in the brain.
48 .
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
There are two diseases often associated, namely,
Brights disease of the kidneys and arteriosclerosis. Their
frequent occurrence as a result of metal poisoning has
been mentioned, but in addition, they are produced by
many forms of occupations aside from those of metal
workers. Exposure to cold and wet among fishermen, the
strain of heavy lifting among longshoremen, exposure to
great heat among stokers and foundrymen are well rec-
ognized among the causes of these diseases. These types
of laborers are very prone to the constant use of strong
liquors, and chronic alcoholism is thus usually added to
the exciting causes of such diseases. These diseases may
not prove fatal for many years, but they impair general
health and strength, and lessen the capacity for work.
Moreover, any intercurrent serious infection like pneu-
monia is very liable to prove fatal; or, a few years later,
the diseased arteries may give rise to apoplexy and the
diseased kidneys to convulsions or fatal coma. (Pp. 50-
52.)
Report of the New York Bureau of Labor Statistics,
1900.
But there is a waste of energy, nevertheless, in the
organization of labor in American factories: It is the
social wastefulness involved in wearing men out before
their time. It is indeed a singular fact that so little
attention has been drawn by medical men and economists
to the immense financial loss to the community involved
in the early death of overworked wage-earners or those
subject to noxious gases, dust, ete. (Pp. 60-61.)
The mortality among male workers in the industrial
districts is all but twice as heavy as it is in the agricul-
tural districts, thus showing the expensiveness to the
community of noxious pursuits. Regarding man simply
as a working animal, the community cannot afford to
permit such a disproportionate mortality. If all these
workers were slaves we may be sure that their owners
would take care to preserve their lives beyond the pres-
ent average. (P. 64.)
49
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol.
AXVIT, No. 38. 1906. Physical and Medical As-
pects of Labor and Industry. Freprrick L. Horr-
MAN, Statistician Prudential Insurance Co. of
America, Newark, N. J. .
Sickness in one form or another, incapacity to work
and gradual impairment of physical vigor are more in-
sidious in effect than accidents, but, at the same time,
most important factors in diminishing both social and
economic efficiency.
The importance of the subject is illustrated in the
numerous and practically universal sick benefit associa-
tions established among working men of their own initia-
tive, as well as in the more recent development of what
is known as health insurance, the principles and practice
of which rest upon a fairly secure actuarial basis and
partly established sickness experience. The average
amount of sickness in weeks per annum varies consid-
erably among different classes of workmen, but the facts
are not as clearly established for this country as for
some of the more important friendly societies of Eng-
land, which for many years have had the benefit of quali-
fied actuarial advice and supervision. The bureau of
Labor Statistics of New Jersey in an earlier investigation
reported upon the annual amount of sick time lost among
men in different occupations, but the results are not as
conclusive as would be desirable. The economic import-
ance of sickness is hardly less than its social aspects.
for. the loss of actual working time is only one of the
evils; the drain on the family resources to meet medical
and other expenses requires also to be taken into account.
According to Watson, who has exhaustively investigated
the sickness experience of the Manchester Order of Unity
of Odd Fellows, representative of English workingmen
generally, the amount of sickness in weeks per annum
enhances with increasing age. Between the ages of 16
and 19 the amount of sickness to be expected is not quite
one week per annum, increasing gradually to two weeks
per annum between the ages of 45 and 49, to four weeks
per annum between 55 and 59, to 25 weeks per annum
between 75 and 79, and to not quite 39 weeks between
OU
Menaces to National Vitality——United States
the ages of 90 and 94. The term sickness in old age,
however, is, as a rule, equivalent to physical infirmities.
. . . The experience of friendly societies, however,
underestimates the actual amount of prevailing sickness,
since the funds of the society are not drawn upon except
in cases sufficiently serious to conform to the established
rules and usages of the society. . . . It requires no
very extensive investigation, however, to establish the
fact that a very considerable amount of the prevailing
sickness is strictly preventable and due in a_ large
measure to unhygienic conditions of factory life or
trades generally. (Pp. 473-4.)
Transactions of the Strth International Congress on
Tuberculosis. Washington, 1908. Vol. VIII.
Proceedings of Section V. Tuberculosis as an
Industrial Disease. Frepertck L. Horrman.
Philadelphia, Win. F. Fell Co., 1908.
The problem of occupation mortality and tuberculosis,
with special reference to that period of life at which the
degree of consumption frequency is most excessive, may
now be briefly restated as follows: The census mortality
rate of 1900 for men in gainful occupations was 15.0
per 1,000 and the consumption death rate 2.4 or 16.0 per
cent. of the mortality from all causes. Among men in
manufacturing and mechanical industries the general
death rate was 13.8 per 1,600 and the consumption death
rate 2.6, or 18.8 per cent. of the mortality from all
causes. Among men in agricultural, transportation, and
other outdoor occupations (including, however, a eon-
siderable proportion of persons of advanced years) the
general death rate was 15.8 per 1,000, and the consump-
tion death rate 1.5, or 9.5 per cent. of the mortality from
all causes. Contrasting the consumption death rates in
these two groups of employments, the enormous waste
of human life in industry becomes readily apparent. If
the consumption mortality in dusty trades could be re-
duced to the corresponding proportion for men in out-
door occupations, a very large number of lives would be
saved and continue for many years, which are now, to
a large extent, needlessly wasted. The problem may be
ol
Menaces to National Vitality —United States
emphasized by a few specific illustrations of occupations
exceptionally exposed to the risk of dust inhalation. The
census mortality rate for marble and stone cutters was
14.9 per 1,000, and the consumption death rate 5.4, or
36.2 per cent. of the mortality from all causes. The
general death rate of cigar makers was 18.7 per 1,000,
and the consumption death rate 4.8, or 27.7 per cent. of
the deaths from all causes. The general death rate for
printers and compositors was 12.1, and the consumption
death rate 4.4, or 36.4 per cent. of the mortality from
all causes, while for the strictly outdoor labor class,
that is, farmers, planters, and farm laborers, the general
death rate was 17.6 per 1,000, but the consumption death
rate was only 1.1, or 6.25 per cent. of the mortality from
all causes. (P. 831.)
Report of Illinois Commission on Occupational Diseases.
January, 1911.
In connection with the subject of sickness insurance
we may cite the evidence furnished by the Board of
Commissioners of Cook County, Illinois. In a report
given out by them on September 20, 1910, they say:
‘Section 1. Increase of Hospital Population.—We
find that the hospital (that is, of Cook County, public
charity) 1s greatly overcrowded. In 1903 the daily aver-
age was 835; in 1908, five years later, it was 1,303, show-
ing an increase of 56 per cent. in daily average popula-
tion. During the last year the daily average was 1,451.
This increase is due to a number of causes: (1) The
inerease in the population of the county; (2) the exten-
sion of industrial pursuits which resulted in an in-
crease of accidents and occupational diseases endangering
human life; (3) the popularization of the hospital idea.’’
In Section 6 of the same report this board recom-
mends a bond issue of three million dollars for the con-
struction of five new buildings to meet the increased
demands.
This evidence is in accordance with the experience of
older countries with their extended systems of sickness
and accident insurance, and the statistics carefully kept
52
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
for this purpose. These statistics show that sickness
is a far greater cause of disability of workmen than
industrial accidents.
Where statistics have been kept in this country the
same fact is made apparent. (Pp. 18-19.)
The burden of the diseased, crippled, and disabled
workman finally falls on the community; and the com-
munity in self-defense must inquire in a scientific way
for the causes of that burden to learn how to diminish
its weight. (P. 19.) :
American Labor Legislation Review. January, 1911.
Proceedings Fourth Annual Meeting of the Ameri-
can Association for Labor Legislation. M emorval
on Occupational Diseases addressed by a Com-
sae of Experts to the President of the United
tates.
Many employments, by their nature, predispose to
ill-health and curtail the duration of life. .
Tn the case of most trades, however, which predispose
to ill-health, the pathological results are only observed
in a higher morbidity from general diseases, particularly
tuberculosis, non-tubercular lung diseases, rheumatism,
nervous and digestive diseases, ete. In the so-called
‘‘dusty trades,’’ the mortality from tuberculosis is known
to be enormously in excess of the normal proportion in
recognized healthful employments. The statistical evi-
dence upon this point is the same for European coun-
tries as for the United States.
The effective protection of industrial workers against
the trade risk of ill-health and curtailed longevity is
now recognized as being largely a question of legal and
oe employers’ and community responsibility. (Page
Some very useful tables are contained in the census
mortality report for 1908, which include the essential
facts for a selected group of occupations, emphasizing in
a striking manner the extraordinary proportionate mor-
tality from tuberculosis in particular trades. It is shown
by this report that at ages 25-34 the proportion of deaths
from tuberculosis of the lungs was 49.2% for printers
53
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
and compositors, 40.5% for glassworkers, 56.9% for
hatters, 54.2% for leather workers, 41.1% for marble
and stone cutters, and 39.8% for textile operatives. In
some of these trades the mortality from respiratory dis-
eases is also decidedly excessive, while in others the
mortality from rheumatism, nervous diseases, heart dis-
eases, industrial poisoning, accidents, etc., is consider-
ably above the normal. Mortality statistics, however,
inadequately measure the true effects of industry on
health and life, and what is required are national morbid-
ity statistics and sickness experience data derived from
workmen’s sickness insurance associations and other
trustworthy sources. (Pp. 137-8.)
The Health of the Worker. C. E. A. Wiystow, Associate
Professor of Biology, College of the City of New
York, and Curator of Public Health, American
Museum of Natural History, New York. Printed
and distributed by the Metropolitan Life Insur-
avr.e Company for the use of its Policy-holders,
1913.
A great many men and women die every year on
account of the conditions under which they work.
If a man goes into certain trades it means he will have
five, ten or fifteen years less of life than if he earned his
living in some other way.
It is true. The death rate among cutlery grinders in
Sheffield, England, for instance, is just about twice as
high as it is for other men of the same age. Half the
men who ie in this trade die of industrial disease
(chiefly tuberculosis), due, largely, to breathing in sharp
particles of dust.
Most industrial diseases are preventable. The bad
conditions that exist in factories and other industrial
establishments are due mainly to ignorance. They keep
the worker uncomfortable, they hinder his work, and
they make him an easy prey to any sicknesses that come
along. They are likewise harmful to the employer’s in-
terests, for he is a constant loser from poor and care-
less work, spoiled stock, absences and the breaking in
of green hands. Dangerous conditions continue to exist
ot
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
because neither employer nor employee knows what is
going on. They do oe understand that dust and fumes,
bad air, poor lighting ay dirt make sick men and a
oor product... . (P. 3.
. Boer ee ain Great Industrial Disease-—When
a mine gets on fire or a boiler bursts, there are big head-
ires in the papers and everybody reads about it all over
the country. When here and there a workman begins to
feel poorly and cough and then drops out of the shop and
goes to the hospital or the churchyard, no one knows
or cares about it but his family and friends. A great
many more men die of industrial tuberculosis than are
killed in mine fires and boiler explosions, with railroad
collisions thrown im. (Pp. 3-5.)
Occupational Hygiene. Lue K. Franken, Siath Vice-
President Metropolitan Life Insurance Company,
New York. Paper read before the Detroit Confer-
ence, Niagara Falls, September 4, 1913.
Statistics of occupational diseases. The literature on
the subject is very extensive, particularly in countries
which have introduced some form of social insurance. In
practically all enlightened countries, with the exception
of the United States, a careful record has been kept for
years of industrial accidents. In countries where sick-
ness insurance has been developed there are to-day fairly
accurate statistics showing the relation between diseases
and occupation.
Effect of Occupation.
It may safely be said, at the present time, that for the
large numbers of workers in the trades, health and length
of life are determined largely by the work they do. Let
us take some specific instances. The cutlery grinders of
Sheffield, England, show a death rate of 30 per thousand,
about half of which is from tuberculosis. The population
as a whole, on the other hand, for the same age groups,
shows a rate of 15 per thousand. In other words, the
cutlery grinders have a death rate twice that of the
community at large, which is directly due to the effect
of breathing the particles of steel dust to which they
50
Menaces to National Vitality —United States
are constantly exposed. Lead workers are subject to
very serious dangers from their trade. Jn the ten years
between 1899 and 1909 there were reported in the United
Kingdom alone close to seven thousand deaths from lead-
poisoning of one sort or another. Figures for the United
States are not at hand, but conditions in the shops are
worse and the number must be larger. Dr. Hamilton, in
an investigation of conditions in Illinois, found cases of
lead-poisoning in 33 out of 56 establishments where lead
was used in the process of manufacturing. (P. 1.)
JT am taking the liberty of presenting as appendixes
to this paper a compilation which I have made of the
morbidity and mortality statistics of the most important
sickness society in Germany, ‘‘The Local Sick Benefit
Society of Leipsic and Vicinity,’’ whose sickness statis-
tics for the period 1887-1904 have been most carefully
compiled and subsequently published by the Imperial
Statistical Bureau of Germany.*
The Leipsic Experience.
The arrangement which J have made of these statis-
tics shows very clearly that occupation is a most im-
portant factor in increasing morbidity and mortality.
The table shows that based on occupation, there is an
ever-ascending scale of sickness and death. ‘‘Barbers,’’
as you will see according to the table, show a rate of 395
days of sickness per hundred members per annum,
whereas ‘‘all male occupations’’ present an experience
of 855 days of sickness per hundred members per annum.
If we go to the other end of the table we find that
polishers and mctal grinders show 1,215 days of sickness
per hundred members per annum, or 142.1 per cent. of
the morbidity among all male occupations in the Society.
I think it is safe to say that in the particular occupations
of metal grinder and polisher, the dust which is raised
is instrumental in bringing about the high morbidity.
Similarly, other trades show the results of working con-
ditions injurious to health. (P. 2.)
*For compilation see Frankel, pages 12-15.
56
Menaces to National Vitality—United States
Experience of the Metropolitan.
The relation of occupation to mortality is strikingly
brought out in the Industrial Experience of the Metro-
politan Life Insurance Company. The following table
shows the mortality from certain causes of death for
white males and females.
Comparison of Mortality Rates—White Males and
Females—By Principal Causes of Death. Metro-
politan Industrial Experience—1911. (Paid-up
Policies Excluded.) Ages 15 and Over.
Ratio
Per 100,000 at Risk. Males to
Cause of Death. Males. Females. Females.
Tuberculosis (all forms)........ 353.46 219.82 160.8
Cancer (all forms)... 70.40 125.24 63.4
Cerebral Hemorrhage, Apo-
plexy, Paralvsis 2000. 107.68 107.43 100.2
‘Organic Diseases of the
Cart p.2c8iirs Gaara es ny 198.85 193.45 102.8
Diseases of the Arteries........ 32.74 22.31 146.8
Pneumonia (all forms) ......... 143.04 103.33 138.4
Cirrhosis of Liver... 36.47 17.54 207.9
Bright’s Disease cospscsneusiurn 154.92 135.72 122.2
Total Female Diseases
(mon paerperal) io Se 18.53 eee
Puerperal State 000 49.95
External Causes occ 199.43 53.06 375.9
It may be assumed that the males and females re-
ferred to in this table belong to the same social stratum
and that their home environment is the same. The ex-
cess in male deaths must, therefore, be attributed to
the occupational hazards to which the men are exposed.
The females, in the main, are wives of working men and
lead more sheltered lives. Of all occupational diseases,
tuberculosis is the most common. The excess of deaths
in males from the disease is proof of this statement.
Most significant are the deaths of males from external
causes, ete. Accidents still demand their unnecessary
toll from the working men of the United States.
That certain occupations may produce disease is un-
ov
Menaces to National Vitality—Great Britain
deniable. That certain industries are more hazardous
than others needs no discussion. In fact, this has been
so clearly recognized in modern social legislation, that
in England as well as in other countries, under the
Workmen’s Compensation Act, certain occupational
diseases have been classified as coming under the pro-
vision of the Act, and compensation is paid to workmen
suffering from such diseases precisely as if they re-
sulted from industrial accidents. I need only mention
that in England glass-blowers’ cataract, a peculiar
disease of the eye resulting from working in front of
glass furnaces, is compensated in the same wav as if an
employee suffered the loss of a leg in consequence of the
work in which he was engaged. In other countries, lead-
poisoning and phosphorus-poisoning and other diseases
resulting from hazardous industries are similarly pro-
vided for. (Pp. 3-4.)
It is a waste of effort to pay benefits for avoidable
sickness and accident. It is a far-seeing economy which
fosters attempts to minimize hazards incidental to in-
dustry. (P. 4.)
What has been aba thus far in factory hygiene has
been largely under pressure of legislation. The em-
ployer has not yet, to any extent, wakened to the realiza-
tion that efficiency in his establishment means better
workers; that a mill or factory properly equipped so that
his workmen are exposed to a minimum of danger and
risk indicates the highest kind of good business sense.
(Pyahd
Lecture on the Evils of Protracted Hours of Labour.
Wriuiam Fereusson, Edinburgh. James Hogg,
1847.
There is much light thrown on this part of the ques-
tion in a recently published pamphlet by Dr. Stark, ‘‘On
the Sanitary Condition of Edinburgh,’’ which pamphlet,
I am sorry to say, is already out of print. In that
pamphlet it is shown, by statistical tables, that the aver-
age duration of life among the working classes is im-
mensely below that of the middle, and more especially
08
Menaces to National Vitality—Great Britain
the ‘‘upper,’’ classes of this city. The middle classes,
that is, master tradesmen and shopkeepers, live one-
third longer than the working classes: while the aris-
tocracy, that is, gentry and professional men, live one-
half longer than the working classes. . . . Dr. Stark
attributes this fearful disparity chiefly to want of clean-
liness, bad air, deficient sewerage, and such like causes;
and there can be no doubt that all of these bear their
share of the evil. But, with all due deference to Dr.
Stark, I would say that excessive labour contributes
more to the result than all the other causes put together.
And, remember, what is true in Edinburgh is true of any
other town. In Paris and London the mortality in the
quarters inhabited hy the working classes is proved to
be nearly double that which occurs in those inhabited by
the more wealthy. The same holds true of the rural dis-
tricts. Recent inquiries have proved, beyond all cavil,
that the average duration of life among the labouring
classes is little more than one-half of what it is among
what are called the upper classes of the community.
(Pp. 12-13.)
You are all aware that several employments, from
being carried on in a vitiated atmosphere, from the
deleterious nature of the materials wrought in, &c., are
extremely detrimental to health, so much so, that two
hours a day devoted to them is more fatal to the consti-
tution than six or eight hours devoted to other employ-
ments. Consequently, it would be unfair to compel men
to work as long at the one as the other. (Pp. 17-18.)
National Conference on the Prevention of Destitution.
1912. Papers and Proceedings. London, P. 8.
King & Son, 1912. The Reduction of the Hours
of Work and the Limitation of Overtime. Discus-
Sion.
Councillor A. Callighan (Jarrow Borough Council)
said that in 1898 an eight-hour day was introduced in
the Cleveland iron-producing district for all men em-
ployed in the blast furnace work with the exception of
10 per cent. of the men to whom the employers would
a9
Menaces to National Vitality—Great Britain
not grant an eight-hour day because their work was con-
sidered to be of an easy character. This 10 per cent.
of the men worked twelve hours per day, and he should
like to give a few facts with regard to the effect of work-
ing that number of hours upon this 10 per cent. of the
men compared to the effect on the other men of working
eight hours. In the first place they had 600 men in Cleve-
land working a twelve-hour day, and yet not one of those
men held a position as an official in the Cleveland district.
He had asked his lodge secretary, the secretary of the
Jarrow Lodge, to go through the books to see how they
stood in connection with the men who were working
12 hours per day. They had 135 men on their books,
26 of whom were employed for 12 hours per day, and
for five years they could not find one who ever held a
position in their branch as an official, They also ex-
amined the sick fund in connection with the Jarrow
Branch, and, although the 12 hours’ work was stated by
the employers to be easier, they found that for the year
1911 the sick money paid to the men working 12 hours
was 75 per cent. more im proportion to that paid to those
working 8 hours at the harder work. They had also gone
through the district sheet, which was in respect of 5,000
men, and they found that the death-rate among the
twelve-hours’ men was out of all proportion greater than
among the men working eight hours. (P. 469.)
Work and Wages: In Continuation of Earl Brassey’s
‘Work and Wages’ and ‘Foreign Work and English
Wages.’ Part III. Social Betterment. Syv-
wey J. Coapman, M. A. London and New York.
Longmans, Green & Co., 1914.
Urbanisation, with its congestion of population and
smoke, has doubtless reduced the physical vitality of
the population ; and industrialism has directly helped this
retrogression by rendering nervous strain more acute
and limiting the possibilities of the open-air life. (Page
111.) . . . Arterial decay and heart troubles appear
to have been the main factors retarding improvement in
the mortality of men past middle age, and one cause no
doubt is the strain of modern industrialism. (P. 114.)
60
Menaces to National Vitality France
Documents Parlementaires. Chambre des Députés.
Session Extraordinaire, 5 Novembre, 1906. An-
nexe No. 874. [Parliamentary Documents of the
French Chamber of Deputies, Special Session,
November 5, 1906. Annex 874.] Proposition de
loi ayant pour objet l’institution de la journée de
huit heures etc. [Bill for the Eight-Hour Day
and Minimum Wage for Male and Female Labor-
ers and Employees. |
Under a humane method of social production, in
which profit consequently would not be the main object,
the physiological limit which separates exercise from
fatigue would mark the maximum of effort and of work-
ing-time which in no case may be transgressed and short
of which it is hygienic wisdom to stop. . . .
As it cannot under a capitalist regime do away with
the overwork which is its foundation, the workin class
is trying to reduce it to the limits of hygiene. The ex-
cessive morbidity and mortality of the worker, the de-
generation that threatens his class, have forced even his
nee and political masters to recognize the necessity
of this. 3
In factories where the working day has been reduced
from eleven, ten, nine, to eight hours the workers’ mor-
bidity has been considerably decreased, and decreased
in a ratio rising with the decrease of working hours.
This would have been higher still if at the same time the
intensity of the work had not been proportionately in-
creased. (P. 59.)
Fourteenth International Congress of Hygiene and
Demography. Berlin, 1907. Vol. III, Sec. VIII.
Berufs Morbiditat und Mortalitat. [The Mor-
bidity and Mortality of Occupations.] Aurrep R.
von LinpHEM, Vienna.
It was first through the vast insurance undertakings
of states that the interest arose as to the share of occu-
pation in producing morbidity, and, as Germany led the
61
Menaces to National Vitality Austria
Way in insurance for working people, she also leads in
resulting statistics, followed closely by Austria, Switzer-
land and Italy.
_ But statistics arising incidentally from the work of
insurance do not possess that scientific character which
should mark medical statistics. . . :; The statistics
of occupation morbidity and mortality are still compara-
tively scanty. . . . Yet the work of establishing ab-
solutely correct and ample statistics on these subjects is
one of the most important duties of the state. The con-
nection between the occupation and the sickness and
death of men is far closer than that which exists between
age, climate, and race, on the one hand, and morbidity
and mortality on the other. (Pp. 1286-7.)
Staats-und Soziahvissenschaftliche Forschungen. Heft
188. [Researches in Political and Social Science.
Vol. 138.] Edited by Gustav ScHMoLLER and Max
Serine. Hohere Arbettsintensitat bei kiirzerer
Arbettszeit, thre personalen und technisch-sarhli-
chen Voraussetzungen. [Intensification of Work
m Shorter Working Hours: Its Personal and
Technical Basis.) UWrnst Bernuarp. Leipzig,
Duncker and Humblot, 1909.
The statement has been made that mortality in indus-
try is proportionate to the degree of dust involved. Ac-
cording to Sommerfeld, 2.39 per thousand persons die of
tuberculosis in trades that involve no dust, compared
with 5.42 thousand in trades involving dust. -In Lanca-
shire, as elsewhere, textile workers have a higher death
rate than miners. There is a striking difference in the
tuberculosis figures for trades carried on in the open air
and those carried on in closed rooms.
The conservation of energy through other ways of
eliminating waste of power has been already mentioned.
In a room where 40 looms are at work there is an inces-
sant thunder which makes speech almost impossible.
Some of the older operatives in machine shops regularly
become hard of hearing because of the noise of the ham-
62
Menaces to National Vitality Germany
mers. Others become pathologically sensitive to noises.
In 575 cases of neuroses among workmen, an investiga-
tion proved 66 (1114.%) to have been caused by noise.
Every enforced position of the body, even though not
tiring in itself, is fatiguing in the long run. Continued
standing or sitting has injurious effects and causes cer-
tain specific industrial diseases, especially if, as in the
case of machine sewing, it is connected with a bent posi-
tion of the body. . . .
Fhe following description of Paul Gohres gives clear
expression to the fact that the ‘‘passive expenditure of
energy, the waste of power,’’ causes more fatigue than
the performance of the actual act of production. ‘‘It is
really not the hardest manual effort or performance, but
this living, breathing, sweating together of many human
beings, the resultant oppressive and fatiguing air, the
never-ceasing, nerve-wearing, creaking, roaring, rattling
noise and the incessant monotonous standing for eleven
hours, often in one and the same place—all this together
makes our factory work an activity that strains and in-
jures all our powers. . . .”’
For all these reasons reduction of hours more or less
quickly decreases morbidity and mortality alike. Ma-
chine shops like Allan & Co., cotton mills, after the pas-
sage of the ten-hour bill, together with other plants,
affirm the improvement of health among their operatives.
A large German textile mill, which has been working for
some time at considerably reduced hours, finds that the
number of cases of sickness has decreased ‘‘to a notable
degree.’? . . . The continued decrease in the mor-
tality figures for English miners must certainly be in
vart ascribed to reduction of hours. . . . In South
Yorkshire the morbidity rate fell in 1889, since the adop-
tion of the eight-hour day for miners, by 28.32%. The
average age of English machinists rose from 381, in
1871 to 4814 in 1889. Since 1872 they have had the nine-
hour day. ‘‘Part of this increase,’’ savs Schulze-Giver-
nitz, ‘is doubtless to be ascribed to general sanitary im-
provements, but half of it at most. The other half is due
t» the shortening of the working day.’’ (Pp. 75-78.)
63
Il—THE DANGERS OF LONG HOURS.
A.—BAD EFFECTS OF LONG HOURS ON HEALTH.
1.—Reation or Fatigue to DIsgAseE.
a. GENERAL PREDISPOSITION.
Science teaches that immunity from disease is due
chiefly to the individual’s adequate power of resistance.
Health is preserved not by absence of exposure, but by
the power of resisting the ever present chances of disease.
The first study of so-called ‘‘occupational diseases’’
was begun two hundred years ago. It has long been
recognized that workers in certain occupations, clearly
subject to special dangers, succumb to special forms of
disease and premature death. :
Obviously, workers in the dangerous trades who are
over-fatigued and exhausted, are more readily attacked
by occupational diseases. Fatigue intensifies all the spe-
cial dangers and lessens all the chances of escaping the
peculiar hazards of the trade. It was formerly supposed
therefore that only in occupations subject to such special
‘risks was special protection needed for the workers.
More recent investigations show that not only in the
dangerous trades, but in all industries, a permanent pre-
disposition to disease and premature death exists in the
common phenomenon of fatigue and exhaustion. This is
a danger common to all workers, even under good work-
ing conditions, in practically all manufacturing industries,
as distinguished from the specially hazardous occupa-
tions.
In ordinary factory work, where no special occupa-
64
Predisposition to Disease —Uniced States
tional diseases threaten, fatigue in itself constitutes the
most imminent danger to the health of the workers be-
cause, if unrepaired, it undermines vitality and thus lays
the foundations for many diseases.
Industrial Medicine. Papers and discussions presented
at the 39th Annual Meeting of the American Acad-
emy of Medicine, 1914. Fatigue as an Element of
Menace to Health in the Industries. L. Duncan
Buvxxey, A. M., M. D., Physician, New York Skin
and Cancer Hospital, Consulting Physician, New
York Hospital, etc., New York City.
Damage to the Individual When Neglected.
Excessive fatigue when neglected leads to a depres-
sion of vital powers to such a degree that recuperation
is not possiblé under a continuance of the same condi-
tions of life and work; indeed, when these are persisted
in there is a continued lowering of vitality, so that each
day one is less able to bear the exhausting fatigue, and
thus a vicious circle is formed, often ending in a com-
plete breakdown. True, this is often not recognized for
a while. but the individual, finding each day’s work
harder, exercises more and more will power, and, like
a hard master, forces the unwilling slave to do work,
physical or mental, with increasing disability until a
breakdown occurs.
Few grasp sufficiently the fact that lowered vitality
leads to many diseases which either shorten life or de-
velop invalidism. Surrounded as we are by multitudes
of micro-organisms, many of which are beneficent and
many injurious, a full vitality with active metabolism
makes proper use of those favorable to life, but sueeumbs
to those which are harmful. We all know that the tubercle
bacillus is almost omnipresent, and pathologists state
that every autopsy can show evidence of some slight
invasion by this micro-organism, and yet relatively few
come under its full influence and develop signs which can
be recognized as active tuberculosis; and we all recog-
65
Predisposition to Disease.—United States
nize now that those who are thus affected are those who
suffer from lowered nutrition, often caused by prolonged
and excessive fatigue. The same may be said in regard to
pus coci and many other microbes, and nature has pro-
vided phagocytes, which in healthy blood continually
guard us against their harmful influence, but which fail
in this duty when the vital system is lowered by excessive
fatigue, either physical or mental. (P. 47.)
Many of the great industries are recognizing that effi-
ciency of work is best attained when perfect vitality of
their operatives is secured, and happily very great ad-
vances have been made in many directions in regard to
reaching this end; but unfortunately there are multitudes
of other industries, great and small, where no such far-
sighted policy prevails. There is need, therefore, of
much education and enlightenment, not only in the inter-
est of the employed, but also on behalf of the industry or
occupation, for those who have adopted this course testify
to even its great pecuniary benefit to all concerned.
(P. 48.)
Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor. No. 75.
March, 1908. Industrial Hygiene. Gro. M.
Koser, M.D., LL.D.
Measures for the Protection of Wage-earners.
One of the important predisposing causes to disease
is overwork or fatigue, because the accumulation of
waste products in the blood, from muscular wear and
tear, together with the expended nervous energy, com-
bine to render the system more susceptible to disease.
Excessive work is inimical to health, and long hours and
hard work are calculated to diminish the general power
of resistance, and thus bring about physical deteriora-
tion. Hence the necessity of laws regulating the hours
of labor and the enforcement of a day of rest as con-
templated by the Sunday laws. (P. 536.)
The statistics of the morbidity and mortality of
various occupations, while far from satisfactory, and
subject to more or less erroneous conclusions, neverthe-
less indicate that persons habitually engaged in hard
66
Predisposition to Disease.—United States
work are more frequently subject to disease and present
a higher mortality than persons more favorably situ-
ated; and this is especially true of factory employees,
because their work is generally more monotonous,
fatiguing, performed under less favorable surroundings,
and they are too often also badly nourished and badly
housed. (P. 473.) :
The effects of a constrained position, combined with
a sedentary life, are very injurious. This is especially
seen in weavers, shoemakers, engravers, watchmakers,
tailors, lithographers, etc., all of whom are obliged to
assume a more or less constrained attitude, which inter-
feres with a proper distribution of the blood supply and
is liable to be followed by internal congestions. But
perhaps the greatest harm results from deficient move-
ment of the chest and consequent interference with nor-
mal respiration. As a matter of fact, many of these
artisans suffer from phthisis, constipation, dyspepsia,
and hemorrhoids, and all have a low average duration of
life. (P. 522.)
There is abundant statistical evidence to show that
industrial workers pay a very heavy tribute to the so-
ealled ‘‘white plague’’; nor is this surprising when the
many unfavorable factors to which the workers are sub-
jected are considered, such as crowded and insanitary
workshops, deficient light, overwork, long hours in a bad
air, dampness, exposure to extremes of heat and cold,
sudden changes in tempeiature, and the inhalation of
irritating dust, vapors, ete. All of these factors are cal-
culated to lower the power of resistance and favor the
spread of disease, especially when some of the workmen
themselves are already afflicted. . . . (P. 535.)
Bulletin of the Committee of One Hundred on National
Health. Prepared for the National Conservation
Commission by Professor Irvine Fisuzr, Yale
University. No. 30. Washington. July, 1909.
The present working day is a striking example of the
failure to conserve national vitality. In order to keep
labor power unimpaired, the working day should be
67
Predisposition to Disease.—United States
physiological—.. e., it should be such as would enable the
average individual to completely recuperate over night.
Otherwise, instead of a simple daily cycle, there is a
progressive deterioration. A reduction in the length of
the work day would be a chief means of improving the
vitality of workmen, as well as the worth of life to them.
The fatigue of workmen is largely traceable to their long
work day and serves to start a vicious circle. Fatigue
puts the workman in an abnormal frame of mind. He
seeks to deaden his fatigue by alcohol, tobacco, exciting
amusements, and excesses of various kinds. The mo-
mentary relief which he thereby obtains is purchased at
the expense of an increasing susceptibility to fatigue,
resulting soonor or later in complete depletion of his
vital energies and in the contraction of tuberculosis or
other fatal disease. (P. 45.)
The relatively slight impairment of efficiency due to
overfatigue leads to more serious impairment. Just as
minor ailments prove to have an unsuspected importance
when considered as gateways to serious illness, so the
inefficiency from fatigue is vested with great significance
as the first step toward minor ailments. Obviously if
overfatigue could be reduced to a minimum, this reduc-
tion would carry with it the prevention of the major part
of minor ailments, which in turn would lead to a great
reduction in more serious illness, and this finally would
lead to a great reduction in mortality. A typical succes-
sion of events is first fatigue, then colds, then tubercu-
losis, then death. Prevention, to be effective, must begin
at the beginning. (P. 47.)
Social Insurance with Reference to American Conditions.
I. M. Rusinow, Chief Statistician Ocean Accident
& Guarantee Corporation; Former Statistical Ex-
pert, United States Bureau of Labor. New York,
Henry Holt and Company, 1913.
... All investigations have demonstrated a higher
mortality rate and, consequently, a higher sickness rate
among the poorer classes.
It is quite true that the same causal connection cannot
68
Predisposition to Disease.—United States
always be established between all sickness and occupa-
tion as between the trade and industrial accident... .
There are non-industrial accidents as there are non-
industrial diseases. There are specific occupational dis-
eases directly traceable to certain industrial processes,
no less than certain classes of accidents are traceable to
certain machinery. But as most accidents are due to the
general conditions of the industry, rather than specific
mechanical appliances, so most ailments are due to the
general conditions under which the workmen live and
work as wage-workers.
In a very interesting paper on ‘‘How to Attain Good
Health and Longevity,’’ a physician* enumerates the
following decalogue of a normal life: (1) Plenty of good
food; (2) abundance of fresh air; (3) physical exercise
in the open air; (4) a substantial annual vacation: (5)
peace of mind; (6) intellectual work; (7) proper distri-
bution between city and county life; (8) congenial occu-
pation; (9) normal sexual life; (10) good medical care.
4a. 207.)
For the vast and growing majority of the workingmen
and workingwomen, not a single one of these conditions
can be realized. In fact, these ten conditions are lack-
ing in such a marked degree that only by a high degree
of resistance of the human body, and by its essential
inherited healthfulness, can the fair degree of health of
our wage-workers be explained. But the effect of the
absence of all these conditions is often invidious, and
manifests itself more in premature superannuation and
various ailments than in acute attacks of illness. (P. 208.)
. As far as the wage-worker is concerned, physical
exercise in the open air is possible for a few trades only,
and then it must be performed in all sorts of weather
conditions leading to diseases of exposure, catarrhal and
rhermatie conditions.
The indoor worker has neither the time nor the
strength for it, for a full day’s work is not calculated to
develop the desire for more physical exercise. The sort
of physical exercise the factory workman gets is monoto-
nous, limited often to a few muscles, too fast to be
* Dr. William J. Robinson in Critic and Guide, November, 1911.
69
Predisposition to Disease-—United States
healthy, aud produces muscle fatigue rather than harmo-
nious bodily development. And the whole tendency of
modern industry is to make this muscular exercise faster,
more uniform, and more monotonous. ... The rapid
growth of our cities is preducing a generation to which
country life is absolutely unknown, for even the brief
vacation of clerical employments is altogether unknown
to the industrial wage-workers. Interruption of work
occurs only during periods of unemployment, whether
because of dull times or labor conflicts, when extreme -
anxiety destroys all advantages of the enforced rest... .
(P. 210.)
If such are the negative factors preventing a high
standard of health among all wage-workers, there are
other positive ones which directly lay the responsibility
of the workingman’s illness upon the industry.
First, there is the large class of occupational diseases,
a phrase to which we as yet give a very narrow, limited
interpretation, 2. €., such diseases as only occur as a
result of a definite occupation. As yet the study of this
problem in this country is in its infancy. There are the
many forms of industrial poisonings as a result of
handling hundreds of poisonous substances. . . . There
is hardly any one line of modern manufacture which is
free from the dangers of industrial poisoning. But in-
dustrial poisonings do not complete the whole list of
industrial diseases. . . . Under this definition a great
many ailments may properly be included in addition to
the industrial poisonings due directly to harmful sub-
stances. (Pp. 211-212.)
... The influence of océupation upon the sick-rate,
which we have established by statistical illustrations, is
exercised primarily in one of two ways; either in a gen-
eral lowering of vitality and resistance power, or by
creating specific dangers to certain organs, specific pre-
dispositions to certain diseases. It is difficult to tell which
is the more important factor. (P. 218.)
And if these influences are so strong as between one
occupation and another, one industry and another, they
must appear still stronger when the wage-workers are
compared with the more prosperous classes of the com-
70
Predisposition to Disease——United States
munity. ... Industrial insurance companies show a very
much higher mortality rate than ordinary insurance com-
panies; ‘‘wealthy’’ blocks in cities have been found to
have a lower mortality rate than ‘‘slum’’ blocks, etc... -
(P. 220.)
United States Public Health Service. Weekly Public
Health Reports. Vol 29. May 29, 1914. Indus-
trial Conditions. Their Relation to the Public
Health. B. S. Warren, Surgeon, United States
Public Health Service, and Sanitary Adviser,
United States Commission on Industrial Rela-
tions.
In the study of methods for the prevention of disease
investigators have found that many of their problems
are industrial and economic and that success in disease
prevention very largely depends upon the proper adjust-
ment of the industrial relations of employer and em-
ployee upon a basis that will permit employer and
employee to live according to hygienic standards.
The public health forces should co-operate with those
at work on these economic problems. They can thereby
add to the powerful influences already working for in.
dustrial betterment, and can help not only to obtain sani-
tary shops, but also to secure the better adjustment of ©
industrial relations, which are so potent in lowering the
resistance of the individual emplovee and of all those
who are dependent on him for a livelihood. . . .
The national campaign for the study and prevention
of tuberculosis has developed the fact that practically all
persons at one time or another have the germs of the
disease introduced into their bodies, and that these
germs remain there without causing any apparent dam-
age until the resistance of the individual is lowered from
some cause due to inheritance and environment. There
is little doubt that industrial conditions are frequently
responsible for the environment which is active in lower-
mg individual resistance.
This deleterious environment resulting from existing
industrial conditions begins to exert its blighting influ-
ance with the beginning of life itself. It puts its stamp
71
Predisposition to Disease.—United States
on the child yet unborn. It continues its influence
through infancy and childhood. . .
In view of the well-recognized fact that disease af-
fects more readily people with lowered resistance, whose
bodies present conditions more favorable to the develop-
ment of disease than do the bodies of average persons, it
becomes necessary to study every circumstance in the
oceupation of the sick and disabled industrial worker,
because occupation largely determines the environment,
which is such a potential cause for lowered resistance.
(Pp. 1348-1349.)
Diseases of Occupation and Vocational Hygiene. Edited
by Georce M. Kossr, M. D., Professor of Hygiene,
Georgetown Umiversity, and Witt1am C. Hanson,
M. D., Massachusetts State Board of Health, P.
Blakiston’s Son & Co., Philadelphia, 1916. Fatigue
and Occupation. Freperic 8. Len, New York.
The immediate causative relation of fatigue to other
diseases than those mentioned [viz. infections and neu-
rasthenia] is neither so obvious nor so clearly estab-
- lished, but it is probable. Fatigue in a normal degree is
a harmless, even a healthful, phenomenon—in its essen-
tials metabolic—which involves a physiological depres-
sion of the bodily functions and induces its own termina-
tion and a return to the former capacity for work, but it
can easily be carried too far; destruction of cellular ma-
terial and the accumulation of toxic katabolic substances
unwisely persisted in without adequate opportunities for
recuperation can proceed to a pathological degree and in-
terfere profoundly with the normal metabolic processes
of the organism. Thus the foundation of profound dis-
eased conditions may be laid. (P. 256.)
Fatigue and Borderland of Illness.—Even where
diminution of output is not present and where specific
diseases cannot be traced directly to the fatigue of labor
it is undoubted that industrial overwork often occurs
and puts the worker into a physical condition, at present
difficult to recognize by any specific test, wherein his
physiological mechanisni is in a state of depression and
ready to fall a prey to specific maladies. Treves speaks
72
Predisposition to Disease.—Great Britain
of this as not presenting ‘‘a well-defined morbid pic-
ture; but it is a slow deviation, often ebscured by its
very slowness, and predisposing to illness of any nature;
it is the borderland of illness.’’ The future careful study
of individuals will doubtless make this condition more
precise. (P. 259.)
The Occupational Diseases. W.Gitman THompson, M.D.,
Professor of Medicine, Cornell University Medical
College, New York. New York and London. Apple-
ton. 1914.
General Fatigue.
Fatigue of muscles, nerves and the mind constitutes
an important factor in predisposition to disease among
many classes of workmen and operatives. Its effects have
hecome very noticeable in recent years, owing to the prac-
tice of ‘‘speeding up’’ or increasing the output of work
under contracts where time-saving is an essential matter.
General fatigue is most often met with among mill and
factory operatives in the textile fabric industries. In
these industries much complicated machinery is employed, .
and the faster it is operated and the longer the hours
of work, the greater the physical and mental strain and
consequent fatigue re-action. ...
Patent factors in inducing fatigue found in large fac-
tories are incessant floor vibrations, as where many looms
are working, constant noise, the confusion resulting from
overcrowding, poor air, poor light and monotony of work.
Fatigue is known to diminish the quantity of antibodies
in the system, and hence to increase its susceptibility and
lower its resistance to infectious diseases such as grippe,
pneumonia and tuberculosis. General fatigue further
acts by inhibiting digestion and ultimately interfering
with nutrition. (P. 525.)
British Sessional Papers. Vol. VI. 1901. Report from
the Select Committee of the House of Lords on
Early Closing of Shops.
6... . Sir W. MacCormac stated that ‘‘There is no
doubt in my mind that such lone hours (an average of
72)
Predisposition to Disease.—Great Britain
fourteen hours per day) must contribute to the incidence
of disease; that it must lower the general vitality of
persons so engaged and render them more liable than
they otherwise would be to attacks of different forms of
disease. . . .’’
7. Furthermore, he urged on us that the evil is one
which increases as time runs on; ‘‘it is gradual and pro-
gressive in its effects, and it goes on, I am afraid, in a
cumulative degree.’’
8. Sir W. Selby Church, the president of the College
of Physicians, gave similar evidence. (Pp. v-vi.)
Work and Wealth: 1 Hwmnan Valuation. J. A. Hoxpson.
New York, The Macmillan Company, 1914.
From the great body of the factory labour which
goes to the provision of our national income, the first
ereat human cost that emerges is the burden of injurious
fatigue which results from muscular or nervous over-
strain, and from the other physical and moral injuries
which are the natural accompaniments of this overstrain.
(P, 63.)
To this account of the physical costs of excessive work
in muscular and nervous waste must be added the greater
liability to accidents and the greater susceptibility to
industrial and non-industrial diseases which fatigue en-
tails; (P.-67.)
That over-fatigue connected with industry is respon-
sible for large numbers of nervous disorders is, ot
course, generally admitted. The growing prevalence of
cardiac neurosis and of neurasthenia in general among
working-people is attested by many medical authorities,
especially in occupations where long strains of atten-
tion are involved. But the general enfeeblement and
loss of resistance power to disease germs of all kinds
are even more injurious consequences of over-exertion.
Many experiments attest the fact that fatigue reduces
the power of the blood to resist bacteria and their toxic
products. (Pp. 67-68.)
74
Predisposition to Disease.—Italy
Revue Internationale de Sociologie. Nov., 1895. Le Tra-
vail Humain et ses Lois. [The Laws of Human
Work.j Wrancesco 8. Nirti, University of Naples.
Paris, Giard et Briére.
It may be that the workman can continue working for
a long time without feeling the harmful effects of fatigue.
But, after he has lost a certain amount of his organic sub-
stance he no longer possesses the necessary resistance to
external conditions and he is exposed to all sorts of ills.
Fatigue constitutes a permanent predisposition to all
discases. . . . (P. 1035.)
Many prevalent maladies arise from nothing else than
a genuine overstrain, the result of exhausting and bur-
densome toil, which predisposes the worker to fall a vic-
tim to disease.
Too much importance has at times been attached to
exterior conditions of work, and too little to the power of
resistance of the worker. The reports of factory inspect-
ors have, however, often pointed out that, wherever the
work is too prolonged and degenerates into fatigue, the
salubrity of the surroundings does not suffice to guard
the worker against the results of overwork and exhaus-
tion. (P. 1035.)
Crichton, even in his time, showed in what a sinister
fashion fatigue acted upon the sensibility and upon alert-
ness, and proved that it was the predisposing cause of
disease. (P. 1037.)
Fourteenth International Congress of Hygiene and
Demography. Berlin, 1907. Vol. II, Sec. IV.
Ermidung durch Berufsarbeit. [Fatigue as a Re-
sult of Occupation.) Dr. Zaccarta Treves, Turin.
Berlin, Hirschwald, 1908.
The reports which we have heard (Roth and others)
here prove conclusively that overstrain resulting from
occupation does exist; that it is also entirely possible to
combat it: there is, in short, a problem of overwork.
(Pp. 626-627.) This overstrain which physiologists,
psychologists, clinicians, and above all nerve specialists
75
Predisposition to Disease.—France
and alienists, encounter so often as to be no longer de-
ceived by it, does not present a well-defined morbid pic-
ture; but it is a slow deviation, often obscured by its very
slowness, and predisposing to illness of any nature; it is
the borderland of illness.
There are physical manifestations of general or local-
ized muscular weakness; signs of incertitude or of awk-
wardness in rapid and rhythmical movements; insomnia
or troubled restless sleep; atony of digestive organs, ir-
regularity of pulse, vertigo, nausea, pain, troubles of
motor and vaso-motor reflexes; there are the most ca-
pricious manifestations in the psychic realm. . .
The differences in objective symptoms will depend
on the organ that may be especially overtaxed in the
overworked individual under consideration, but such dif-
ferences must not deceive us as to the essence of over-
strain. We must keep this general proposition before
our eyes always, in order to understand the phenomenon
of overstrain, especially in order to comprehend it in the
working class, more particularly in those attached to
highly specialized industries. For in these persons one
does not observe such extreme evidences of fatigue in the
physiological meaning of the word as can be experiment-
ally exhibited in the laboratory, and consequently we
shall fail to explain the chronic symptoms of fatigue in
them if we do not recall their whole mode of life, as de-
termined by their occupational environment, as well in
the mill or factory as out of it. (Pp. 627-628.)
De la Fatigue et de son nyuenIce Pathogénique. [Fatigue
and its Pathogenic Influence.] Dr. M. Carrizv,
University of Montpellier. Paris, Balliére et Fils,
1878.
The pathogenic réle of fatigue is so imperfectly
known and so differently estimated that in beginning its
study it is necessary to reach a clear idea of what fatigue
is before going on to examine those diseases in whose
origin it is concerned. (P. 59.)
Like many other causes, fatigue does not always act.
in an identical way in the production of disease, nor play
76
Predisposition to Disease.—France
the same pathogenic part. In brief, the result depends
also on the illness that develops and upon the organism
iu question; it is therefore evident that it will vary ac-
cording to the kind of illness and condition of the patient.
Tt is not, indeed, that transitory state, to which the
cessation of activity puts an end, that induces illness.
This state simply indicates the need of rest, as hunger
indicates the need of food. But if these appeals are not
attended to, if these needs are not satisfied or only
partly so, then it comes about that we have morbid
troubles, provoked on one hand by an exaggerated func-
tional over-activity, and on the other by defective repara.
tion. (P. 60.)
A special pathogenic cause does not always give the
same results, nor always act in the same way: an entire
regiment is subjected to cold; it might be supposed that
this would have an identical effect on all the men, but
two will have pneumonia, ten bronchitis, fifteen rheuma-
tism, and the greatest number will not be affected. This
comparison serves to show how, under the influence of
fatigue, we may expect to see a variety of diseases ap-
pear.
In some cases it will be simply a predisposing cause;
its part is reduced to a minimum. Nevertheless it is
there; compare for instance the resistance of the vigor-
ous individual to malarial poison with that of the un-
fortunate, exhausted by severe toil; whose excessive
tissue waste cannot be repaired even by an ample food
supply. There we have a general predisposition to dis-
ease. (P. 61.)
Fatigue seems sometimes to have closer connections
with the outbreak of illness, without its influence being
precisely definable. Again, there are cases where the
pathogenic role of fatigue is more precise and important,
so that one may even say, given certain personal pre-
dispositions, that fatigue will determine the development
of oe diseases... .
ut in general, a thorough study of pathogenesi
shows that fatigue is not one of fisse Sisloatal ents
whose powerful action imprints upon the organism
77
Predisposition to Disease—Germany
such an injury that a definite disease is sure to follow.
How far removed, for instance, is the insidious effect
that we have traced, from the active and almost certain
effect of poisons? .. . That the germ of smallpox alone
is capable of producing smallpox no one will deny. Yet
how different are the variolas that occur in exhausted
overworked individuals and those which are not compli-
eated by fatigue or any other depressing secondary
cause. (P. 63.)
If fatigue is not a powerful cause in the production of
disease, it is so in engendering superadded elements
which are sometimes of capital importance.
Disease is not an entity always identical with itself.
The simplicity of doctrinal description is often lost in
the presence of the patient. And it is upon the patient
ie not on the illness, that fatigue exerts its action.
P.. Gai}
Handbuch der Hygiene. Bd. 8. [Handbook of Hygiene.
Vol, 8'.] Edited by Dr. TuHEoporn Weyvu. Allge-
meme Gewerbehygiene und Fabrikgesetegebung.
[General Industrial Hygiene and Factory Legis-
lation.] Dr. Emit Roru. Jena, 1894.
It is an uncontested fact that all detrimental condi-
- tions of factory work—whether they arise from length of
working hours or burden of work, or from the close
proximity of many. persons in one room, or from the spe-
cial so-called occupation diseases,—become obvious just
so much the sooner and so much the more permanently
as the individuals in question are less resistant. Thus,
of all the individuals engaged in a certain industry (no
matter whether it is a question of handling poison or
dust-creating materials or of working with irritants, or
of the weather and bad air, or of unnatural positions or
overexertion of special groups of muscles)—of all these
persons some will not suffer in health, while others will
suffer after the lapse of some years. Still others in a
much shorter time display all the well-known mischievous
effects in typical forms, either as poisoning or as diseases
of specially taxed or specially weak organs, or as char-
acteristic crippling and deformity.
78
Predisposition to Disease.—Germany
The explanation of this is not that the first and second
groups were less exposed or knew better how to avoid the
dangers, but that they were better protected than the
last group. This protection is partly inherited and con-
stitutional, based on the strength of individual organs,
and is partly the result of the whole standard of living.
... The more favorable these social factors and the
more obedient to hygienic laws the whole mode of life,
the greater the resisting power of the whole organism
and its separate organs will be. The more unfavorable
those conditiuns are, the less resistant is the organism.
(Pp. 1-3.)
Archiv fiir Soziale Hygiene, VI. 1911. Arbeit und Tu-
berkulose. (Work and Tuberculosis.) WKorrscu.
A long duration of the working time has an unfavor-
able effect, through the disproportion between work and
rest. Fatigue without subsequent adequate rest, dam-
ages the entire body, and lowers its power of resistance.
The nature of fatigue presumably rests on a variety of
physiological and anatomical causes; the accumulatiou
of toxic waste products in the gray substance of the
cerebral cortex, or in the muscle itself; the consumption
of an energy-producing substance in the nerves and |
muscles; or a structural change of the anatomical tissue-
elements, in the nerves and muscles. Like the muscle
itself, the nervous functional capacity is also altered and
involved.
To the deficiency of consecutive rest, after long or
strenuous work, must be attributed a considerable share
of the serious diseases of wage-earning individuals, espe-
cially the workers in industrial concerns. The brief rest
on Sunday is unfortunately not often utilized for health-
ful exercise in the open air. A properly employed con-
secutive resting-period of one to two weeks in the year,
is an important hygienic demand, and is needed to main-
tain in the worker’s body a certain amount of elasticity,
without which he will promptly succumb to disease-pro-
ducing conditions. (P. 212.)
9
b. FATIGUE AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
Overfatigue predisposes to the infectious as well as
to general diseases. Scientific laboratory experiments
prove that fatigue markedly diminishes the power of the
blood to overcome bacteria and their toxic products. Thus,
for instance, of two groups of animals, the one resting
and the other fatigued by muscular work and both inocu-
lated by pathogenic bacteria, the fatigued animals suc-
cumb more quickly and in larger numbers. The resting
animals may wholly resist the infection.
Hence overfatigue constitutes a danger to the public
health, as well as to the individual, since working people
who are overfatigued more readily take and spread in-
fectious disease.
Diseases of Occupation and Vocational Hygiene. Edited
by Georce M. Kossr, M. D., Professor of Hygiene,
Georgetown University, and Witu1am C. Hanson,
M. D., Massachusetts State Board of Health. P.
Blakiston’s Son & Co., Philadelphia, 1916. Fatigue
and Occupation. Frepreric 8. Len, New York.
Fatigue and Disease.—The connection between fa-
tigue and disease is probably much more frequent and
close than is usually recognized. To disease fatigue
stands in the relation of both cause and effect. That it
may be a factor in causing disease is, indeed, often be-
lieved, and this belief is justified by laboratory experi-
ments. Thus, it has been shown experimentally that of
two groups of animals, the one resting and the other
fatigued by muscular work and both inoculated by patho-
genic bacteria, the fatigued animals exhibit a fall of the
opsonic index and succumb to the disease in larger num-
bers. This may best be interpreted as indicating that
the resistance of the body to the action of bacteria is
80
Fatigue and Infectious Diseases.—Italy
diminished by the metabolic changes involved in the
fatigue processes. If this is true of one species of bac-
terium it is probably true of others, and from the preva-
lence of the infectious diseases in the life of man it 1s
obvious how important is the matter of avoiding undue
fatigue. (P. 253.)
La Riforma Medica, No. 31, 1910. L’Importanza dello
strapagzo fisico nel meccanismo dei processt
d’infezione e d’immunita. [The Significance of
Physical Fatigue, in the Mechanism of Infectious
Processes, and for Immunization.] Domenico DE
Sanpro. [Experimental investigations. |
Fatigue greatly favors the development of infections,
because under the chemical changes of the body-interior,
—nervous exhaustion, heart-weakness, and circulatory
disturbances,—there occurs a weakening of the defensive
powers of the organism, in form of a diminished phago-
eytic activity and alessened chemotactic power of the
cells, with a lowered production of bacteriolysins, anti-
toxins, agglutinins, opsonins, and so forth. Physical
over-exertion, of any kind, predisposes to the onset of
infections. The first results of a severe taxation of the
individual’s strength consist in a lowering of the body-
metabolism, nervous exhaustion, weakening of the heart,
and impaired blood-formation. These conditions in their
turn restrict the forces through which the body defends
itselt, as stated above. The findings are based upon
ee experiments on dogs, rabbits, and guinea-pigs.
(P. 84. ;
La Riforma Medica, Vol. XXVIII. 1912. Alcunt
fenoment che l’affaticamento produce sul sangue
e nelle infeziom. [Some Phenomena produced by
Fatigue, on the Blood, and in Infections.] D. Scat-
FATI.
The author’s investigations are exclusively restricted
to certain changes produced by fatigue, on the blood and
on the course of infections. Blood-examinations were ac-
81
Fatigue and Infectious Diseases.—Italy
cordingly carried out in all the animals serving for the
experiments: Every other day, an equal quantity of an
emulsion of typhoid-bacillus-cultures was injected into
the marginal ear-vein of the animals (rabbits). Some
of these were fatigued every day, during altogether seven
days. . . . The other animals were allowed to remain
at rest. Repeated examinations were made of the blood
of all the animals, fatigued or not, the blood of the
former being examined soon after the exercise.
The coagulation-power of the blood was investigated
for the same purpose. The coagulability of the blood in
the fatigued animals was found to be considerably di-
minished. . . . The retarded coagulability in the
fatigued animals indicates a diminution of the body-
resistance. .
It is a well-known. fact that the typhoid bacillus does
not rapidly develop in the blood of animals, after the
injection of a less than fatal dose. As a rule, in the
blood of the ordinary laboratory animals, such as rabbits
and guinea pigs, the typhoid bacillus is not found until
after a relatively long time (five, six, eight days), pro-
vided these animals are kept under normal conditions of
food and rest. Such conditions favor the animals’ re-
sistance against the various infections, whereas fatigue
(like other unfavorable factors, such as cold or hunger)
diminishes or prevents the production of these resistant
powers. The author found that typhoid-bacillus cultures
grew within 48 hours, in the blood derived from fatigued
animals, whereas cultures prepared with blood from rest-
ing animals remained sterile.
Fatigue was furthermore found to diminish the pro-
duction ‘of the agglutinins in the blood serum of the ani-
mals. The phag ocytic power of the blood serum of
fatigued animals is considerably diminished, as compared
to that of unfatigued animals.
These various results again confirm the modern
views, according to which in fatigue certain substances
are produced in the organism which must be regarded
as true toxins, since they possess all the properties of
toxins. Such ‘harmful factors render the animals less
82
Fatigue and Infectious Diseases.—Italy
resistant against infections, through the various changes
brought about in the properties of the blood. (P. 145.)
La Riforma Medica, No. 44, 1914. Il valore delle keno-
tossine nei processi d’immunita. [The Value of
The Kenotoxins in the Immunity-processes.] V.
PaLMULLI. ,
Neuromuscular exertion is followed by a period of
_ fatigue, which is subjectively perceived as an inability
to make new efforts. We know that fatigue physiologi-
cally produces changes, in part well-defined, in the func-
tional capacity of practically all organs, systems, and
apparatus, such as the heart, the vessels, the blood, the
lungs, the nervous system, the kidneys, the suprarenals,
and so forth. Continued exertion exaggerates these
changes and lowers the power of resistance of the organ-
ism towards any kind of disease. It has been positively
shown, by numerous clinical observations, that great
fatigue is a predisposing cause, of no slight importance,
in the origin of disease. Especially in the infectious
diseases, fatigue represents a predisposing factor which
must not be left out of consideration.
Investigating the part played by the so-called keno-
toxins or fatigue-poisons, in the processes of immunity,
it was found, in personal experiments upon animals, that
the intravenous injection of such substances, from
fatigued animals, into dogs, led to a reduction in the
immune power of their blood serum. This reduction
manifests itself by a diminution of the agglutinating,
bacteriolytic, phagocytic, and opsonic powers of the
blood. The observations therefore suggest a delayed or
arrested production of protective and offensive sub-
stances, such as agglutinins, opsonins, bacteriolysins, in
the blood, during fatigue, which accordingly predisposes
to bacterial infection. The experiments were carried out
on dogs which had been infected with the endotoxins of
the typhoid bacillus and in addition were given subeu-
taneous or endovenous injections of kenotoxins, in pro-
gressive doses on three consecutive days (10-20-40 ecm).
The results undoubtedly showed that the injection of
kenotoxins causes a lowering of the various immunizing
83
Fatigue and Infectious Diseases.—Italy
properties of the blood serum in these animals. In other
words, the outcome of these experiments very clearly
demonstrates the acquired inferiority of tue animal or-
ganism towards infectious agents, in consequence of
muscular fatigue: The kenotoxins, being the specific
substances of fatigue, when injected into infected organ- .
isms, give rise to the same changes as are caused by
physical strain. (P. 1205.)
Thirteenth International Congress of Hygiene and
Demography. Brussels, 1903. Vol. V., Sec. IV.
Dans quelle mesure peut-on, par des méthodes
phystologiques, étudier la fatigue, ses modalités et
ses degrés dans les diverses professions? Quels
sont les arguments que les sciences physiologiques
et médicales peuvent ou pourraient faire valour en
faveur de tel ow tel mode d’ orgamsation du tra-
vail? [To what extent may fatigue resulting from
occupation be estimated by physiological methods,
and what arguments can medical and physiologi-
cal science present in favor of special methods of
industrial organization?| Dr. Zaccaria TREVEs,
University of Turin. Brussels, 1908.
One of Lagrange’s chief services has been in being
one of the first to point out that the wastes due to exces-
sive consumption or the poisonous materials due to in-
sufficiently repaired muscular work, accumulate in the
body, and that this causes a greater predisposition and
a lowered resistance to disease, especially infectious
maladies. In especially grave cases this accumulation
may manifest its presence by a characteristic sympto-
matology. (P. 31.)
Il Ramazzini. Giornale Italiano di Medicina Sociale.
Anno I. Fasc. 1. [Italian Journal of Social Medi-
cme. I, 1. January, 1907.) Antagonismi igieni-
co-economict. [The Conflict between Hygiene and
Industry.] Pror. Aincero Cerruti, Director of the
Institute of Experimental Hygiene at Rome.
Fatigue also predisposes to infectious diseases.
84
Fatigue and Infectious Diseases.—France
Typhoid, for instance, is much more easily taken after
excessive and exhausting labor. It has even been proved
that the poison of fatigue predisposes to disease individ-
uals who might be able to resist infection under other
circumstances. (Pp. 36-37.)
Il Ramazzini. Giornale Italiano di Medicina Sociale.
Anno I. Fasc. 12. [Itahan Journal of Social Medi-
cine. I. 12. December, 1907.] Nuwove ricerche e
nuove conquiste nel campo della patologia e dell’
igiene. [New Researches and Acquisitions in the
Pathology and Hygiene of Labor.] Dr. G. Y.
GIGLIOLI.
The influence of overfatigue in inducing predisposi-
tion to disease even in organisms capable of resisting in-
fection under more favorable circumstances has been
again demonstrated by Ronzani in some experiments
showing the diminution of bacteriocidal power exhibited
by the lungs of overfatigued animals or of those exposed
to other deteriorating conditions.
On the other hand, the part which fatigue plays in
bringing about morbid local conditions and in rendering
the organism more susceptible to the influence of the
poisons used in manufacture has not received as much
attention as the importance of the subject demands. The
fact of such increased susceptibility is confirmed by
many clinical observations, especially as regards toxic
neuroses. (P. 704.)
Archives de Physiologie Normale et Pathologie. No. 2,
1890. Contribution a l’Etude Experimentale du
Surmenage, Son Influence sur l’Infection. [Ex-
perimental Investigations of Over-exertion and its
Influence upon Infections.] CHarrix anp Rocer.
Over-exertion, in man, has been held responsible for
various more or less serious pathological manifestations,
without its being possible to state if we are here dealing
with an auto-intoxication through waste-products, or
with infections, favored by the bad condition of the
85
Fatigue and Infectious Diseases.—France
organism. Fatigue apparently diminishes the resistance
against microbic diseases, for it is known to favor their
development and to aggravate their course. The exact
part played by over-exertion in this connection is not
easily determined, however. When armies in the field,
for example, are decimated by infectious diseases, as is
often the case, the excessive work done by the soldiers
is not the only possible etiological factor, for it is also
necessary to keep in mind the part played by emotions,
ere poor hygienic conditions in general, and so
orth.
In order to study the influence of fatigue upon the
development of infectious diseases, 36 white rats were
inoculated with anthrax germs. Of this number, 15 rats
served as controls (i.e., standards for observation), 21
rats were fatigued after the inoculation, being kept mov-
ing on three consecutive days; those which had not died
by the end of this time were left alone. . . . All the
rats were inoculated at the same point, under the skin of
the flank. The outcome was that the general fatigue of
the inoculated animals greatly favored the development
and generalization of the infections: The hard-worked
animals always died before those which were left at rest;
sometimes they succumbed to the disease, whereas the
latter resisted it. (P. 841.)
La Semaine Médicale, No. 4. 1890, La Fatigue et les
Maladies microbiennes. (Fatigue and Microbic
Diseases.) CHARRIN AND Rocer.
In order to ascertain the influence of bodily exertions
upon the development of microbic disease, animal ex-
periments were made, in such a way that the animals
were caused to run for a certain length of time in a sort
of treadmill wheel. White rats were found the most
suitable subjects. Dogs and cats were not desirable for
these experiments, on account of their immunity against
various micro-organisms. White rats tolerated this
exercise for seven hours daily, during which time they
travelled a distance of 15 kilometers in their cage.
86
Fatigue and Infectious Diseases.—France
In the first set of experiments, weak anthrax cultures
were employed for the infections. Four rats which re-
ceived twelve drops of anthrax virus, but which were
allowed to rest afterwards, remained alive; of eight other
rats, which were inoculated in the same manner and were
made to run in the treadmill afterwards, only one rat
survived; the seven remaining animals died within one
to three days. Next in order, experiments were carried
out with virulent anthrax cultures. Of the eleven inocu-
lated rats, five animals which were left at rest in their
cage after the inoculation, resisted the infection; whereas
the six other rats, which were made to run in the tread-
mill after the inoculation, died in 24 to 30 hours. The
local manifestations of the disease in these animals were
slight, or altogether absent, but the liver and spleen were
found to be full of anthrax bacilli. Guinea-pigs which
were inoculated with small pieces of these organs from
the infected rats, promptly died. (P. 29.)
Bulletin de l’ Inspection du Travail. Fasc. 1-2. Min-
istéere du Commerce, de l’Industrie, des Postes, et
des Telegraphes. Travaux originaux des Inspec-
teurs. [Bulletin of the Labor Department. Leaf-
lets, 1-2. Original Contributions of the Inspec-
tors.) Le Repos Hebdomadaire. [The Weekly
Rest Day.] M. vz Las Casas. Paris, Imprimerie
Nationale, 1907.
Physicians and hygienists declare that the man who
does not rest sins against his own health; that he is guilty
of slow suicide and shortens appreciably the years of life
that nature meant him to have. Doctors say, too, that
the man who works but does not rest, is more susceptible
than others to the epidemic diseases which are prevalent
in industrial centres, and they add, finally, that such a
man, if he is actually attacked by such maladies, offers
less resistance to them and is more likely to succumb.
{P. 146.)
87
Fatigue and Infectious Diseases——Germany
Evghth International Congress of Hygiene and Demo-
graphy. Budapest, September, 1894. Vol. III, Sec.
IV. Uber den Einfluss der Arbeitszeit auf die
Gesundheit der Arbeiter im Allgemeinen. [The
Influence of Working Hours on the Health of
Workers in General.] Dr. Emi Roru, Potsdam.
Budapest, 1895.
All overwork—no matter whether it is such by reason
of its severity or excessive degree of exertion or of its
continuance beyond the normal length of time—may
either cause illness: (1) Directly; as shown by bad
effects on the digestion or the circulation. This results
in a general disturbance of nutrition with consequent
impairment of function or disease of individual organs.
Or (2) indirectly, in depressing the normal power of
resistance of the tissues, and thus favoring the invasion
of infectious bacteria. The lowered resisting power in-
creases predisposition to disease. (P. 94.)
Handbuch der Arbeiterwohlfahrt. Bd. II. [Handbook
of the General Welfare of the Working Classes.
Vol. II.) Edited by Dr. Orro Dammsr. Arbeiter-
schutz. [Injuries of Occupation.] Dr. AscHer.
Stuttgart, Enke, 1903.
Such overworked individuals are not only completely
incapable of obeying the laws of hygiene, they are also,
on account of their lowered resistance to every form of
disease, especially the infectious forms, a standing men-
ace to society, a menace which is also serious in regard
to sexual diseases both as to their immediate and remote
environment. ...
The diminution of working time is a measure of self-
protection demanded by the state. The fear of lessened
production under shorter hours has, moreover, never
been realized, hence this argument is without force. (P.
79.)
88
¢. FATIGUE AND NERVOUS DISEASES.
Overfatigue from excessive working hours not only
renders overtaxed workers susceptible to general and in-
fectious diseases, it predisposes them effectually to more
subtle nervous disorders, especially neurasthenia in its
various forms.
Neurasthenia and other nervous diseases are due to
overstrain of the nervous system. Since the central
nervous system regulates all the vital functions, nervous
exhaustion or neurasthenia may affect all organs and
functions of the body.
Intense and long lasting fatigue is a characteristic of
the disease. Disorders of the heart, circulation, the
special senses and the digestive apparatus are common
symptoms.
Nervous exhaustion, considered until recently a dis-
order of brain workers and the well-to-do solely, has been
found by physicians and physiologists to be alarmingly
prevalent among industrial workers, subject to the strain
of overlong hours. Overexertion from excessive work,
combined with the strain of continuing at work after
fatigue has set in, constitutes an important factor in
bringing on such nervous derangements, which exhibit
among working people exactly the same clinical appear-
ance as among other classes of society.
American Labor Legislation Review. Jan. 1911. Neuras-
thenia among Garment Workers. Stoney I.
Scuwas, St. Louis University.
In the private practice of neurology where the aver-
age physical surroundings are good, where various trades
89
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—United States
are represented, aid in which factory workers are very
much in minority, the diagnosis of neurasthenia is jus-
tified in only about five per cent. of cases. In the Grand
Avenue Dispensary, in which the patients are largely
laborers, foundry workers, workers in the metal trades
and various out-of-door businesses, neurasthenia is com-
paratively rare. In the Jewish Dispensary, on the other
hand, where from 40 to 60 per cent. are factory hands in
the garment trades, it is the most common neurological
diagnosis made. The total percentage of this diagnosis.
can easily reach from 25 to 30 per cent. Now this dis-
crepancy is sufficiently startling to warrant an inquiry,
directed towards the discovery of the factors which are
found among garment workers particularly, to explain
so marked a prevalence of neurasthenia in that occupa-
tuoals TP. 29.)
Work in factories which produce garments is not con-
tinuous, but is planned to meet exigencies of fashion and
season. This means that at stated periods of the year
work must necessarily be rushed to completion. During
such periods the worker is compelled to work overtime,
and at the highest possible productive capacity. Such a
period of intense exertion is followed by a great slacken-
ing of work, during which the factory force is cut down
sometimes to a minimum proportion. The economic ef-
fects of being out of work, or working at what, from the
individual worker’s point of view, is an economic loss,
invalidates whatever value there might come from the
cessation of lessening of labor. This brings up naturally
the insecure tenure of labor among this class of workers.
The anxiety incident to loss of the accustomed wage, the
doubt as to the permanence of position, the irregularity
of work, all tend to increase the load which the worker
must carry. (Pp. 31-2)
American Labor Legislation Review. June, 1912. Occu-
pational Nervous and Mental Diseases. CHar.us
L. Dana, Cornell University Medical College.
Take a man or woman and make him or her do a dex-
terous piece of work over and over again during long
90
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—United States
hours and under a nervous strain. Underfeed a little,
shorten or disturb the sleep, and you can produce neural-
gia or neuritis or a cramp within from two or three
months. Take a person who has not a very stable ner-
yous system and put him at work for long hours, at
tasks of concentration or skill. Let him have no real
recreation and not quite enough restful sleep and you can
produce a mental trouble of at least a minor type.
Those who work on a certain tension, like mill opera-
tives in charge of machinery, engineers, etc., and those
who work always with a strain and effort to finish a cer-
tain fixed amount in a fixed time, get nervous or mental
troubles unless they have periods of real recreation. Real
play is needed for hard, tense work. For the ordinary
worker it is not so important. Scientific management
therefore, which speeds up the human machine, must give
it longer rest and an absolute change of nervous and
mental interest. (Pp. 221-222.)
Umted States Public Health Service. Public Health Bul-
letin No. 71. May, 1915. Studies in Vocational
Diseases. I. The Health of Garment Workers. J.
W. ScHerescHewsky, Surgeon U. 8. Public Health
Service.
While it is self-evident that the health of workers and
the hygienic conditions under which industries are carried
on have always been of fundamental importance to so-
ciety, it is only within the past decade or so, in this coun-
try at least, that these questions have begun to receive
their merited recognition as a part of the general
problem of safeguarding the public health. In the past
the true correlation of conditions affecting the health
of workers to those affecting the public welfare has been
misapprehended in that questions involving the hygiene
of industries have been treated more or less as separate
and accidental branches of sanitary science, constituting
a field entirely apart from that of the study of general
hygienic conditions. Fortunately, however, the old view-
point is being rapidly replaced by the concept that, far
from constituting a separate field of their own, the
91
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—United States
hygienic conditions in industries must be considered as
forming a part of the general field of public-health work.
(Plast
Attention has been called by Schwab to the high rate
of prevalence of neurasthenia among garment workers.
Data upon this point are therefore of interest. Among
3,086 individuals there were 239 cases of nervous affec-
tions, of which 207 were in males and 32 in females, a
rate of prevalence for each sex of approximately 10 per
cent. and 3.2 per cent. respectively. (P. 78.)
There was a considerably large number who pre-
sented no definite condition which could be diagnosed,
but gave a strong impression of being predisposed to
neuropathic affections. Of the nervous affections en-
countered neurasthenia was by far the most prevalent, 89
male workers presenting well- marked clinical pictures
of neurasthenia. (P. 79.)
There are two factors, generally speaking, which tend
to cause overstrain among pieceworkers in the garment
trades, hence especially operative for operators and fin-
ishers. First, the temptation to overspeed for the pur-
pose of earning high wages when work is brisk, followed
by a period of inactivity in the slack season, during which
time is afforded for introspection, consideration of the
future, worry as to whether work will be forthcoming
during the next season, depression over the present bad
season, and similar concepts. (P. 79.)
Next to neurasthenic and psychasthenic conditions,
the condition about to be described, for want of a better
term, under the name of ‘‘occupational’’ pains, seemed
the most common nervous affection observed. These were
present in 2.73 per cent. of the workers examined.
No physical signs could be found, in most cases, to ac-
count for these. pains. (P. 80.)
Nervous affections, particularly neurasthenia, are
common among garment workers, especially males. Piece-
workers are mainly affected. The element in the garment
trades thought to be particularly active as an etiological
factor, consists in the characteristic fluctuation in sea-
sonal activity of the industry. This fluctuation seems to
be operative in the following way: During the busy sea-
92
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—United States
son pieceworkers overdrive tlemselves in order to earn
a high wage to provide for themselves and their fam-
ilies during the dull season. When this sets in a reaction
takes place, feverish energy being replaced by introspec-
tion, forbodings over the future, and similar painful
mental states known to favor the genesis of neuroses.
(P. 100.)
Eighth Report of the Henry Phipps Institute for the
Study, Treatment and Prevention of Tuberculosis.
Factors Affecting the Health of Garment Workers.
W. R. M. Lanois, M. D., Director of the Clinical
and Sociological Departments, and Janice S.
Reep, Research Assistant in Sociology. Philadel-
phia, Henry Phipps Institute, 1915,
Evidences of Fatigue as Shown in Hospital and Dispen-
sary Records.
In addition to ailments which seemed to be attributable
to the trade itself, it was found that muscular strain
was complained of by 78 of the 402 males, and 47 of the
341 females intensively studied. Headache was noted
among 43 of the males and 95 of the females.
The hospital records, already alluded to in a previous
part of the report, also revealed some interesting data
relating to fatigue. The condition most frequently en-
countered was neurasthenia. After giving due allow-
ance to the laxity which prevails in the use of this term,
and the large percentage of Jews represented among the
patients, it is a reasonable supposition that in a great
many instances the diagnosis was correct, if the term
neurasthenia can be used to imply nervous exhaustion.
The condition was noted as having occurred in 147 of
916 males (16.2%) and in 90 of 236 females (38.2%).
It is more than likely that among those who complain,
from time to time, of muscular strain, headache, ete.,
while at work, the condition in many instances develops
into nervous exhaustion sufficiently marked to be desig-
nated neurasthenia. It is claimed by some that an occu-
pational neurasthenia is not of infrequent occurrence, and
93
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—United States
that the nervous exhaustion can usually be shown to he
due to some trade process. In many instances either
the trade process itself predisposes to fatigue, or the con-
ditions under which the work is done contribute largely
to that end.
In some cases the muscular strain either becomes
chronic, or the pain becomes sufficiently severe to cause
the worker to seek relief. Among the hospital cases
studied, 40, or 4.4% of the males, 8, or 3.4% of the females,
were designated as suffering from myalgia. In addition,
41, or 4.5% of the males, and 8, or 3.4% of the females,
had chronic muscular rheumatism. While the latter term
should not be used, it is often employed to indicate pain-
ful affections presumably muscular in origin.
In addition to the affections noted above, the hospital
records showed that among the 916 males, 52, or 5.7%,
suffered from neuritis or occupational neuroses; among
the 236 females 4, or 1.7%, were so designated. While
the majority of the cases were diagnosticated as having
neuritis, it is more than likely that in most instances
they had an occupationa] neurosis rather than true neur-
itis. Among the 52 instances encountered among the
males, it is interesting to note that just one-half were
pressers. If in each case the exact trade process had
been indicated rather than the use of the general term
‘‘tailor,’’ it is quite probable that the number of pressers
would have been even greater. It will be recalled that
in the table showing the relation between fatigue and
the trade process, the pressers were most subject to that
condition. Evidently in not a few instances the fatigue
of certain muscle groups becomes sufficiently marked to
constitute a true occupational neurosis.
In considering the relation of tuberculosis to the trade
we considered in detail the various factors which might
contribute to the condition. This analysis showed that
the morbidity rate of tuberculosis was dependent on two
general conditions:
(1) The conditions under which the trade is operated,
plus the working environment, and
(2) The home environment and the general habits of
the worker.
94
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—United States
These two factors also determine to a great extent the
occurrence of fatigue. (Pp. 91-92.)
Diseases of Occupation and Vocational Hygiene. Edited
by Grorce M. Koper, M. D., Professor of Hygiene,
Georgetown University, and Writ1am C. Hanson,
M. D., Massachusetts State Board of Health. P.
Blakiston’s Son & Co., Philadelphia, 1916. Fatigue
and Occupation. Freppric 8. Ler. New York.
Outside the realm of infections, fatigue as a causative
factor in disease is perhaps most obvious in neurasthenia.
The most common single precedent of this form of neu-
rosis is excessive activity of the nervous system. Con-
tinued muscular fatigue, if it is without accompanying
excessive excitation of the nervous system, probably can-
not induce neurasthenia; the nervous system is the pri-
mary seat of the preceding fatigue process. There are,
of course, many contributing causes, but overwork, over-
pressure, overstrain are the unavoidable precedent of
the nervous breakdown. (P. 256.) :
Fatigue and Health of Industrial Workers.—One of
the most striking evidences of the existence of fatigue
and its seriousness in industrial work is found in a con-
sideration of the health of workers. Here we must dis-
tinguish between localized and general affections. Local-
ized affections comprise those in which one part of the
body, such as a group of muscles with their nervous con-
nections, is overstrained by long-continued use. Here
are to be grouped the fatigue neuroses, such as writers’
cramp, telegraphers’ cramp, and the various other spas-
modic muscular conditions that occur in violin and piano
players, seamstresses, shoemakers, hammermen, and
others, as well as miners’ nystagmus and the professional
torticollis of tailors and cobblers. The seat of these
pathological conditions is probably the central nervous
system; they have, however, not yet been critically
analyzed sufficiently from the physiological standpoint,
and their real nature is therefore unknown. The ascrip-
tion to fatigue as the causative agent of the more
general diseases from which industrial workers suffer
99
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—United States
is not so clear as with the localized affections, It
is doubtful, for example, whether the proneness of
locomotive engineers to diabetes is rightly to be at-
tributed, as has been done, to the nervous strain of
their work. With nervous disorders and especially
neurasthenia, however, the connection seems quite
evident. There can be mo question that this state
of chronic generalized fatigue, which has usually been
supposed to be peculiar to professional men, men of large
affairs and the wealthy unemployed, is often directly the
sequel of the cumulative fatigue of the long-continued,
monotonous, wearing labor of dustrial workers. There
is a general consensus of opinion among those best fitted
to know that in recent years there has been a marked
increase of neurasthenia among working people, and that
this is due largely to the overstrain of their occupations.
(P20)
Ibid. Etiology and Prophylaxis of Occupational Dis-
eases. Grorce M. Koser, Washington, D. C.
Neurasthenia is by no means confined to mental work-
ers. Of 285 cases treated by Petren, 189 belonged to the
laboring and agricultural classes. It is true that certain
occupations involving exposure to industrial poisons,
such as coal gas, carbon disulphide, lead and manganese,
predispose to this disease, as do also occupations involv-
ing exposure to excessive heat, light and noise. But when
we see an increase all along the line of industrial work-
ers, affecting, according to Schwab, about one-fourth of
the garment workers in St. Louis, it is evident that the
foundation is chiefly laid in the ‘‘speeding up system,”’
which has also invaded Europe. (P. 448.)
96
' Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—Italy
Thirteenth Congress of Hygiene and Demography.
Brussels, 1903. Vol. V, Sec. IV. Dams quelle
mesure peut-on par des méthodes phystologiques, .
étudier la fatigue, ses modalités et ses degrés dans
les diverses professions? Quels sont les argu-
ments que les sciences physiologiques et médicales
peuvent ou pourraient faire valoir en faveur de
tel ou tel mode d’organisation du travail? [To
what extent may fatigue resulting from occupa-
tion be estimated by physiological methods, and
what arguments can medical and physiological
science present in favor of special methods of in-
dustrial organization?] Dr. Zaccaria 'TREVES,
University of Turin. ;
Physicians have long insisted that neurasthenia, once
supposed to be exclusively characteristic of intellectual
over-exertion, is extending widely among workers whose
labor is mechanical and material. (P. 36.)
Fourteenth International Congress of Hygiene and De-
mography. Berlin, 1907. Vol. II, Sec. IV. Ermi-
dung durch Berufsarbeit. [Fatigue as a Result of
Occupation.] Dr. Zaccaria Treves, Turin. Berlin,
Hirschwald, 1908.
Does what physicians call ‘‘exhaustion’’ (surmen-
age) really exist in the working population? This ques-
tion, which was not thought of in the earliest studies of
neurasthenia, since neurasthenic conditions were sup-
posed to be ailments of the liberal professions and those
engaged in intense intellectual application exclusively,
has to-day been answered by the medical profession in
the affirmative; the daily observation of workers in hos-
pital and dispensary has led to this conclusion. Above
all, what has led us to it is that the observation of well-
established morbid conditions, the study of their etiology
and course, has disclosed among workers who might
easily pass for normal a variety of circumstances favor-
able to the invasion of these maladies and to general
morbidity; circumstances, all of which are ultimately
linked with the problem of fatigue.
97
* Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—Italy
From this knowledge have proceeded all the efforts
made by hygienists to ameliorate the general conditions
of existence in and out of the factory, to plan for insur-
ance, ete. . . . to shorten hours of labor, to limit the
work of women and, above all, of children.
Thence have resulted all those ameliorations which,
as proved by statistics, have had substantial results for
good. To-day, in fact, we possess, in the practical field
of industrial enterprise, extensive proofs that it is pos-
sible to introduce along with technical improvements a
more logical organization of hours and wages, which
allows a certain improvement of the physical, moral,
economic, and mental conditions of the worker, or, in
other words, an increase of his productive capacity, and
the output of industry. (Pp. 626-627.)
We will endeavor to decide in accordance with the
laws of voluntary work, what are the physiological
sources of overstrain. Acute as well as chronic fatigue
cannot be gauged solely by the output of workers. I
agree (with a previous speaker) that one is not struck by
signs of overfatigue or exhaustion among workers in
shops and factories, and that such workers do not reach
such a point that they absolutely cannot control their mo-
tions or concentrate their attention—excepting those in
‘certain lines of work which demand very rapid motions.
. . . But it must be recalled, from the physiological
standpoint, that the production of voluntary work,
whether mental or manual, follows a curve essentially
different from the curve of organic fatigue. . . . The
oscillations of the will (urging on a fatigued workman)
varying with the interest which work inspires, have the
effect of intensifying application and minimizing the
sensation of effort, thus concealing fatigue. I believe
that these volitional curves—oscillations of the will—
which have to-day a more definite significance than for-
merly in experimental psychology, constitute in their
entirety the complete psychic personality of the jndivid-
ual and the reason for different capacities of production
and of resistance. In the exaltation or the depression of
this personality, with resultant changes in the organs,
and the subjective ills which warn the individual of these
98
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—Italy
organic changes, is found the complete picture of over-
strain; that is to say, of work done in a state of exertion
where there is a more or less marked and persistent dis-
proportion between the usefulness of the work in itself
and in the worker’s estimate, on the one hand; and the
amount of energy and will power expended on it, on the
other hand. When, however, in the industrial field, such
a degree of fatigue is reached that the workers can ap-
preciate it by a difference in output, it cannot be con-
cluded that they have the power of instinctive self-pro-
tection to guard against the premonitory onset of fa-
tigue; that depends, obviously, on the conditions of the
contract of labor. As a physiologist, I believe that even
if these fatigued workers produce less, this production,
diminished as it is, costs the workers more dear than
their previous labor; the more so because a moderate
degree of fatigue has the effect, with many persons, of a
general stimulus of the nervous factors involved in work.
Here we have indeed the crux of the whole question. If
the physical cost of the long hours and overstrain which
characterize unintelligent industrial organizations were
directly and proportionately evident, both in the sensa-
tion of fatigue and in the output of the industry indi-
vidual and collective, the problem of fatigue, as a result
of industrial labor, would in my opinion have been solved
long ago, instead of being obscured by the illusory pro-
fits of long hours and insufficient wages. (Pp. 629-6390.)
Proceedings of the First International Convention on
Industrial Diseases. Milan, 1906. Frenastenia e
delinquenza in rapporto a taluni ordinamenti del
lavoro. [Imbecility and Criminality in Relation
to Certain Forms of Labor.] Pror. CrisaFULL.
Mental fatigue with its two fundamental factors (ex-
cess of work and of excitation: insufficiency of rest and of
recuperation) contributes largely to the pathogenesis of
nervous industrial diseases. .;
Excess of work (overwork) surrounds the nervous
cellular tissue with the products of disintegration accen-
tuating the auto-poisoning phenomena and, with them,
oo
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—Italy
the functional exhaustion and insufficient reintegration of
the nerve cells: in such a condition the whole metabolism
changes, with evil consequences to the entire nervous
organization especially because the gray matter of the
nerve centres ‘‘in the physiological state has a most
active material metabolism.’’ (Luciani.) (P. 151.)
Il Ramazzwm. Giornale Italiano di Medicina Sociale.
Anno I-Fasc. 1. [Italian Journal of Social Medi-
cine, I. 1. January, 1907.] Antagonism rgrenico-
economicrt. [The Conflict between Hygiene and In-
dustry.| Pror. Anarto Cutui, Member of Parlia-
ment, Director of the Institute of Experimental
Hygiene at Rome.
In normal work, an equal balance between assimila-
tion and elimination is maintained in the muscular sys-
tem. When this limit is passed fatigue results. Fatigue
develops an actual and active poison, and its influence is
manifest not only in the muscular system, but in the
respiratory, circulatory and nervous system. Excessive
labor may lead to neurasthenia. It is to be noted that
the result may follow excessive muscular labor, as well as
intellectual effort. The nervous system is more slowly
influenced by fatigue, which increases the danger of neu-
rasthenia. Jn many cases indeed the effects harmful to
the muscular system are combined with those affecting
the nervous system when the gravest results follow.
Many trades lead to muscular and nervous exhaustion,
which is in fact one of the most serious evils of our civil-
ization. (P. 36.)
Il Ramazzint. Giornale Italiano di Medicina Sociale.
Anno I-Fasc. 12. [Italian Journal of Social Medi-
cine, I-12, December, 1907.] Nuovo ricerche e
nuove conquiste nel campo della patologia e dell’
Igiene. [New Researches and Acquisitions in the
Pathology and Hygiene of Labor.] Dr. G. Y.
GIGLIOLI.
In a critical study of the first International Congress
on the Diseases of Labor, I have described the evolution
100
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—Italy
of the medical study of health conditions as they concern
the wage-earning classes. I attempted to show how the |
first vague Ramazzinian conception of trade diseases has
developed into the wider and more definite theory of the
pathology of labor. This most important division of
social medicine has developed in a very short time into a
well organized and distinct study. It is not, nor does it
tend to become, what is popularly called a ‘‘specialty,”’
but it has the dignity of being considered the most modern
branch of medical study, and has its ardent expounders,
clinics, laboratories and students.
It is a very modern development, stimulated by the
most recent scientific researches and acquisitions in hy-
giene, economics and politics. Through it, new methods
of study have developed, by which not only the typical
“‘diseases of labor,’’ but all the factors which bear upon
the health conditions of wage earners are estimated and
studied clinically and experimentally.
. . . Modern pathology thus unites studies of fatigue
and nutrition with the most recent theories of predispo-
sition to infection induced in formerly healthy organisms.
It reconciles the very latest theories of neuro-pathology
with the latest ideas about the neurasthenics of labor.
While it does not attempt to invade the other branches
of medicine, it does draw from them facts and data with
which to reinforce its own postulates on social economic
matters. This most modern development may appear
to some too vague and general, to others too restricted.
but it is certainly gaining ground and growing continu-
ally more complete and definite.
There have been many valuable contributions to the
pathology and hygiene of labor of an experimental,
clinical and legislative nature in the last few months.
(Pp. 699-700.)
101
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—Austria
Eighth International Congress of Hygiene and Demo-
graphy, Budapest, 1894. Der Physische Ruckgang
der Bevolkerung in den modernen Culturstaaten
mit besonderer Riicksicht auf Oesterrewch-Ungarn.
[The Physical Degeneration of the Population m
Modern Civilized Countries with Particular Refer-
ence to Austria-Hungary.] Dr. Jutius Donats,
Umwversity of Budapest. Budapest, 1896.
Nerve specialists and alienists can no longer avoid
the admission that the enhanced struggle for existence
in modern society, the pursuit of wealth and pleasure
in the higher strata of society, and overwork, depriva-
tion and the increasing uncertainty of life itself in the
lower, conduce to the weakening and ruin of the nervous
system, and powerfully advance the spread of neuras-
thenia, hysteria, the.desire for stimulants and opiates
(alcohol, morphine, cocaine, etc.), with all the serious
disorders resulting from them for the present genera-
tion and for posterity as well. (P. 607.):
Uber die Wachsende Nervositat Unserer Zeit. [The In-
crease of Nervousness in our Trmes.] Dr. Wit-
HELM ERs, Professor of Medicine, Heidelberg Uni-
versity. Heidelberg, Koester, 1894.
The neurasthenic may appear at first to be as capable
as a healthy person, but he wearies quickly, is easily ex-
hausted, and cannot shake off his fatigue; moreover, he
is unduly susceptible to all stimuli, and this in turn reacts
unfavorably upon his fatigue and capacity for exhaustion.
Thus it is quite relevant . . . to compare neurasthenia.
with fatigue and to define it as a pathological excess and
fixity of fatigue. (Page 11.)
Heightened irritability, then, on the one hand, and
great weakness, fatigue, and tendency to exhaustion, with
the resultant loss of efficiency, on the other, make up the
picture of neurasthenia.
These conditions may affect every part of the ner-
vous system—brain, mind and spirit, organs of sense,
102
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—Germany
spinal cord and sympathetic nerves, circulatory, digestive
and generative organs—in short, the entire body; but as
they are by no means of identical extent in all organs,
there results the inexhaustible variety of symptoms of
neurasthenia. (P. 11.) ;
Without a doubt, one of the most important funda-
mental requirements of health is found in the correct al-
ternations of work and rest. (Pp. 28-29.)
Die Pathologie und Therapie der Neurasthene. [Pa-
thology and Therapeutics of Neurasthema.] Dr.
Otto Binswancer, Professor of Psychiatry and
Director of the Psychiatric Hospital at Jena. Jena,
Fischer, 1896.
(For the comprehension of neurasthenia) we must first
clearly define a process which absolutely controls the
pathogenesis of neurasthenia. This is fatigue, which,
under pathological conditions, may be characterized by
the terms ‘‘chronic fatigue’’ (Dauerermiidung) and ex-
haustion. ...
There will be complete reparation of the state of over-
fatigue which has not gone beyond physiological limits,
while complete reparation or compensation for chronic
fatigue can only be attained with difficulty after long
periods of recuperation or, in many cases, it can never be
fully attained. (P. 20.)
If exertions are demanded of the chronically fatigued
person which bear no relation to his remaining supply of
energy, a condition finally comes on in which the fune-
tional mechanism involved absolutely refuses to work.
This condition we call exhaustion. It mav be only transi-
tory, or may remain fixed for a lone time. (P. 21.)
Pathological conditions of activity of the nervous sys-
tem rest upon disturbances of the molecular mechanism
which are capable of injuring, either temporarily or per-
manently, the legitimate play of forees—the physiological
equilibrium between synthetic processes and those of
oxidation. (P. 23.)
103
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—Germany
Diseases of the Nervous System. H. Oppenuzim, M. D.,
University of Berlin. Authorized translation by
Epwarp EH. Mayer, A. M., M. D. Philadelphia and
London, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1900.
Neurasthenia, or Nervous Exhaustion, is a very com-
mon disease today, especially in the large cities. Even
though it may have occurred at all times (and had been
known for a long time as nervousness), it has without
doubt increased in extent in the last years by the extra
demands that have been made on man in his struggle for
existence and in his social life. (P. 703.)
Symptomatology.—The chief symptom of neuras-
thenia is the irritable weakness,—1. e., the abnormal ex-
eitability accompanied by exhaustion, the latter being pre-
dominant. The patient is irritable and easily excited; but
the excitement, whether pleasurable or otherwise, soon
leads to exhaustion, producing and leaving a feeling of
weakness and apathy. (P. 704.)
Fatigue, however, easily results, his ability for work
is markedly abridged, and the least exertion exhausts
him. The intensity and duration of this fatigue are char-
acteristic. It may be so marked that all mental work is
rendered impossible. Occasionally the ability to conduct
visual memory pictures to the brain, to remember the ap-
pearance of a certain person, place or object, is greatly
impaired. (P. 705.)
Disorders of the special senses are also found and
likewise bear the marks of increased sensitiveness and
exhaustion. The eye and ear are particularly often af-
fected. Seeing stars or spots (mouches volantes), a mist
before the eyes, fatigue in reading (‘‘the letters seem to
swim or run together or dance before the eyes’’), in-
creased sensitiveness to noises, buzzing in the ears, ring-
ing, whistling, or murmuring in front of the ears, ete.,
are frequent and painful and stubborn disorders. (P.
706.) ;
Many of the ‘‘asthenopic disorders’’—especially the
onset of fatigue of the sight—are probably to a great ex-
tent due to an increased exhaustion of the muscles of ae-
commodation and of the recti interni. Sight and hearing
104
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—Germany
are not weakened, and an opthalmoscopic examination
never reveals any disease of the optic nerves. A moder-
ate contraction of the visual field is also occasionally ob-
served in cases of pure neurasthenia. A neurotic 1m-
pairment of hearing may likewise be combined with it.
P, 707.
Of i motor disorders, the common symptoms are
weakness (not paralysis), tremor, and slight fatigue. (P.
707.)
The vasomotor disorders deserve special attention,
being found in many patients. . . . The disturbances of —
the heart are closely allied to these vasomotor disorders.
They may be subjective or objective. Palpitation of the
heart is an important subjective symptom. . . . Accelera-
tion of the heart may also be recognized objectively.
(P. 709.)
Digestive Disorders.—These are prominent symptoms.
Nervous dyspepsia is not an independent disease, but one
of the most frequent forms in which neurasthenia ex-
presses itself. (P. 712.)
Zeitschrift fiir padagogische Psychologie, Pathologie
und Hygiene. IV. Der Einfluss des Grossstadtisch-
en Lebens und des Verkehrs auf das Nerven-
system. [The Influence of the Life and Rush of
Great Cities on the Nervous System.] ALBERT
Moir. Berlin, 1902.
Nervous diseases are not unknown among laborers
and all those whose work is with their muscles; indeed,
they occur here more frequently than is often supposed.
It is to be remembered that the nervous system shares
in every act of muscular exertion—muscles cannot act
without nerves. As, however, the ordinary day laborer
does not make as intensive or as strenuous a demand
upon his nervous system as does the brain worker, the
more frequent occurrence of nervous diseases among the |
latter is readily explainable. Ordinary working men are
rendered more liable to nervous disorders by being
exposed to definite conditions which are harmful to the
nervous system, and long hours of work must be placed
105
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—Germany
in this category because, as weariness becomes more
pronounced, the nervous effort induced by the will power
must be constantly greater in order to overcome or
resist fatigue.
Numerous cases of neurasthenia may be observed
emong the workers in home industries, either in town or
country.
In general, many cases come under observation where
sleep has been insufficient, or, by nature of the occupa-
tion, irregular, as with waiters and railroad men. And
also, as Mobius has correctly pointed out and empha-
sized, those workers are especially liable to nervous
disease whose tasks require an excessive precision, ex-
cessive attention to fine details, this making exhausting
demands upon the nervous centres. (P. 127.)
Uber die Ursachen der Neurasthenie und Hysterie bet
Arbeitern. [Lhe Causes of Neurasthenia and
Hysteria among Working People.] Paun Scuon-.
Hats. A study of 200 Cases in the Workingman’s
Sanitarium at Schénow Zehlendorf. Berlin, 1906.
The opinion that nervous affections resulting from
mental overstrain are confined to the well-to-do classes
has long been disproved by practical experience. It was,
however, for a long time, not easy to bring ample proofs
that the lower working classes shared to a considerable
extent in the distribution of nervous diseases, because
such data lay solely in the hands of private practitioners
or hospitals. The State compulsory insurance has now
given the needed opportunity. (Pp. 5-6.)
Amtliche Mittheilungen aus den Jahres-Berichten der
Gewerbe-Aufsichtsbeamten. XXII. 1897. [Offi-
cial Information from Reports of the (German)
Factory Inspectors.) Berlin, Bruer, 1898.
Hours of work in the industrial establishments of
Reuss i. L. are, on an average, 1114. Nervous diseases
and lung diseases are stated to be the results of occupa-
tion. The same diseases have been observed by the offi-
106
Fatigue and Nervous Diseases.—Germany
cers of the sickness insurance department in Chemnitz
to be the consequences of the long hours (amounting to
13) of the mill hands; in this connection a workman said
that the prolonged hours of work were senseless, when
one considered the inevitable destruction of strength.
The establishment of a maximum day was a mandate of
hygiene. (P. 242.)
Nerurologisches Centralblatt, No. 5, 1915. Uber Poly-
neuritis, als Begleiterscheinung nervoser Krschép-
fungseustinde im Kriege. [Polyneurttes, as an as-
sociated phenomenon of nervous exhaustion, in
warfare.| Mawny.
Great physical exertions, and psychic emotions, were
followed by a state of grave exhaustion, which presented
the typical picture of neurasthenia: Loss of body
weight; bodily and mental fatiguability; insomnia; a
sensation of functional incapacity; psychic depressional
headache, and similar disturbances. Objective examina-
tion yielded the usual trifling findings, in neurasthenic
cases, in form of lively reflexes, slight tremors, fluttering
eyelids, rapid irregular pulse, a certain degree of psychic
inhibition and retardation. The essential feature in
these cases was represented by a more or less extensive
polyneuritis, involving different nerve areas. These
polyneuritic symptoms were purely sensory in character,
whereas symptoms of motor paralysis were altogether
absent. The general exhaustion, the impairment of the
entire constitution, through over-exertion and depriva-
tions incident to the war, here apparently acted in two
directions; namely, in the determination of neurasthenia.
on the one hand, and of damage.to peripheral nerves, on
the other. (P. 150.)
107
(1) Nervous Diseases and Statistics of Foreign Sickness
Insurance Societies.
The close causal relation between overfatigue and
nervous diseases is illustrated by the statistics of foreign
sickness insurance societies. Close medical observation
of working people receiving state treatment or sick pay
in Germany has shown that nervous diseases have in-
ereased markedly alarmingly among them. Medical
study of individuals shows further that among the causes
of nervous breakdown the most effective is precisely the
strain of industrial occupations, characterized, as they
are, by speed and monotony of repetition. The preval-
ence of neurasthenia and nervous disorders is so wide-
spread that they are designated by physicians abroad as
modern occupation diseases. Curtailment of excessive
working hours is declared a physiological necessity.
Since speed and specialization are admittedly greater
in American industry than in any other, it is certain that
medical observation of working people in. this country
must disclose an even greater prevalence of nervous
exhaustion.
Uber die Wachsende Nervositat Unserer Zeit. [The In-
crease of Nervousness in our Times.] Dr. Wit-
HELM Erp, Heidelberg University. Heidelberg,
Koester, 1894.
In all grades of society . . . among the poor and
wretched, also, neurasthenia is clearly a more wide-
spread evil than formerly. It is to be found in shocking
frequency not only among educated men, officials .
railroad and telegraph employers . . . but also
among factory workers, sewing women, etc. (P. 15.)
108
Nervous Diseases and Insurance Statistics—Germany
It only needs a superficial survey to teach us that
everything which overstrains, fatigues, and exhausts the
nervous system is capable of inducing that condition
which I have characterized as a pathological fixation of
fatigue—as irritable weakness and exhaustibility. (P.
15.)
Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, Nr. 21, 25. Ma,
1905. Die Neurasthenie im Arbeiterkreisen.
[Neurasthenia in the Working Classes.) Dr. P.
LevususcHer and Dr. W. Bisrowtcz, formerly of
the Beelite Sanitarium of the State Old Age and
Invalidity Department of Berlin.
The increase of diseases of the nervous system among
working people in the last decade is a fact that is now
firmly established by extensive and carefully conducted
statistical inquiry. This is most clearly evident in re-
spect to the psychoses; but there is also no doubt, in the
minds of the most informed authors, that neurasthenia—
which, though less menacing than insanity to the effici-
ency and labor capacity of the worker, is still sufficiently
serious in this respect—is also steadily increasing in
frequency and in severity. (P. 820.)
Whatever different causes of neurasthenia may be
brought forward by different authors since Beard de-
picted its general features, there is one point on which
all are agreed; namely, that the modern organization of
industry, with all its factors and sequels, is a most pro-
lific source of neurasthenia. Though, for some years,
not only the laity, but also the chief medical experts on
neurasthenia, as Lowenfeld and Binswanger, overlooked
the working classes in relation to this disease, this atli-
tude is now radically changed. On all sides, in the clinics
and physicians’ offices, and by the managers of the large
insurance funds, proofs of the enormous increase of
neurasthenia as a cause of inability to work are being
presented. There are two reasons for this change: 1.
The observation of chronic diseases of working people
has become vastly more far-reaching and exact. 2.
109
Nervous Diseases and Insurance Statistics.—Germany
Altered conditions in the labor world have created an
unusual liability to acquired nervous troubles. We are
inclined to think that both of these factors contribute,
though not in the same proportion, to the explanation of
the fact.
it is certain that the question of diseases of working
~ people has come more prominently to the front than was
the case in the past. And employers are learning that
the health and strength of the people is an advantage to
them as well. (P. 821.)
. . How frequently delay in seeking medical ad-
vice may have formerly happened is, of course, not pos-
sible to estimate. Frequently enough, without. doubt,
and yet we regard our second explanation of increased
neurasthenia, the altered conditions of life and labor, as
of much greater weight. Work has become very differ-
ent. Piece work has indeed obtained larger wages, but
has developed an impetus and speed and intensity of
effort that used to be unknown, and this invariably
crushes the weaker workers, those for whom all work is
a heavier burden than for the strong. Continuous anxi-
ety is felt by these lest they fall behind. Then sometimes
voluntarily, sometimes compulsorily, overtime is under-
taken, and so it turns out that the working hours, instead
of being comparatively shorter than the usual day, are
really much longer, and by reason of the irregularity far
more exhausting. (P. 821.)
Thorough and ample observation bearing on the
forms and etiology of neurasthenia among working
people has been made possible only by the creation of the
great. Sanitaria of the State Insurance Department.
When the first one, that at Gutergotz, was built in 1894
for about 100 chronic male cases, the applications were
so numerous that the large sanitorium for 220 men and
110 women at Beelitz was next erected.
Of the patients treated in these establishments on an
average, 26% have been neurasthenics, and the percent-
age for individual years has risen from 18% in 1897 to
about 40% in the past few years. (P. 821.)
110
Nervous Diseases and Insurance Statistics —Germany
CrassiricaTion Accorpine To Ocevrpation. Amonxe 1564
CASES.
Typesetters 246=15.75% of the cases
Carpenters J48= 9.45% ‘SS
Locksmiths T= 35.00% ve ee ae
Mechanics B0—_ 1.09%
(P. 821.)
The whole number of typesetters insured is about 1%
of all insured persons: the whole number of carpenters,
about 5¢¢. When this proportion ts considered, the per-
centage of neurasthenic cases among typesetters—1d.1d%
of all neurasthenic eases—is most striking, while that
of the carpenters,—9.45°-,—though high, is not quite so
disproportionate. Oppenheim also points out the fre-
queney of neurasthenia among newspaper typesetters.
P2225)
We wish to suggest that a key to explain the great
increase of neurasthenia among workers generally in our
great cities may be found in the unusually large number
of cases in the above-mentioned trades. We have here
to do with classes of workmen who stand perhaps highest
among their associates.
. . . The typesetter must follow with strained atten-
tiveness an occupation of indescribable monotony, for
the speed to which he is forced destroys all meaning of
what he sets.
It is the same with the work of many mechanics, who
never see a completed piece of work go out of their
hands, who only make a part of some whole. But here
we have to do with the best of our modern city working-
men and their growing claims, not only for material but
also for spiritual things. What to the common workman
is only work, should bea ealling to every true craftsman,
and this can no longer be the ease. cP ale .)
He who is not strong and enjoving the vigor of health
must under these conditions become neurasthenic. When
workingmen have an occupation which brings with it a
certain pleasure there is, according to our observations,
little trace of neurasthonia to be found. Sueh i is, for in-
stance, the case with painters, who in spite of the dis-
lil
Nervous Diseases and Insurance Statistics —Germany
tinctly unfavorable circumstance of liability to lead
poisoning are seldom neurotic.
The influence of uncongenial work is naturally intensi-
fied by cares, illness—troubles to which the worker and
his family are constantly exposed—and yet, contrary to
what one might expect, the latter causes alone have been,
in our experience, insignificant in accounting for neuras-
thenia. But almost always in answer to the question,
“What caused your illness?’’ comes the reply, ‘‘The hard
work.’’ (P. 822.)
We must here state plainly that as to clinical appear-
ances we have found nothing to differentiate the neuras-
thenic workingman from the neurasthenic patient of any
other social class. The symptoms and conditions are the
same for both. (P. 824.)
The most important curative factors for our city
wage-earners, as well as for the patients of the middle
and higher classes, are, removal from the monotony of
their work, often also from painful family conditions, the
opportunity to enjoy from time to time the pleasures of a
fairly comfortable existence, freedom, air, and light.
(P. 824.)
The dangers threatening the health and well-heing of
the nation from the increase in nervous diseases, though
not recognized by all, have yet been emphasized by many
experts, in recent years.
Pelman, Mobius, Grohmann, Laehr, Determann,
Cramer, and Windscheid have energetically promoted
the combating of neurasthenia among workingmen, and
the influence of the State Insurance Department and the
large private benefit societies tends to agitate the ques-
tion more and more generally. (P. 825.)
Verwaltungsbericht der Landes-Versicherungsanstalt
Berlin, fiir das Jahr 1906. [Report of the State
Invalidity and Old Age Insurance Department for
Berlin, for 1906.1] Report of the Physician-in-
Chief ‘of the Beelite Sanitarium. (Tuberculosis
not wncluded.)
In the course of the year, 1655 men and 824 women
were treated. .. .
112
Nervous Diseases and Insurance Statistics —Germany
By far the largest number of the patients were
nervous cases, and those suffering from gouty diathesis
and articular rheumatism, cardiac and stomach diseases
also took an important place. Of the cardiac cases, aside
from valvular troubles, most suffered from myocarditis,
hypertrophy of the heart, weakness of heart, dilatation
or a complication of the last two disorders, that naturally
presented a markedly severe type of illness. . . .
Forty per cent. showed simple, idiopathic hypertro-
phies, 35 per cent. were neuroses of the heart, 10 per
cent. dilatations, and 10 per cent. primary weakness of
the heart.
Along with the major cardiac neuroses there is also
seen, among the working people of Berlin, as a result of
overwork, an extremely prevalent neurasthenia, which is
more or less a concomitant of heart disease; the features
of this latter reveal the frequency of maladies to which
special trades, such as typesetters (compositors) are
specially predisposed. . . . (P. 61.)
Of the 1450 (1410) men patients who were discharged,
748 (684) or 52 (49) per cent.—over one-half—were
nervous cases, whose breakdown was in the majority of
cases directly due to their overworking in their various
occupations. . . . (P. 67.)
Ibid. For the year 1909.
During the past year the patients discharged from
the Beelitz Sanitarium numbered, men 1815, women 803.
Of this whole number 1707 men (94 per cent.) and 762
women (95 per cent.) were restored to earning capacity.
_ As was the case last year, nervous ailments predom-
inated among the men, the most frequent form of nervous
illness being neurasthenia.
Of the 1815 male patients 1206, in round numbers
almost 70 per cent., were nervous cases, and, while in
some the exciting cause of breakdown might be variously
explained, in by far the largest proportion it arose from
the overstrain of their daily labor. (P. 112.)
The seriousness of nervous disorders to wage-earners
may be seen in the following figures showing the entire
113
Nervous Diseases and Insurance Statistics —Germany
number of days lost from work by sickness. The total
number, which is here reproduced, includes all the time
from when the patients first stopped work, and the time
spent in sanitarium. To emphasize the figures, a few only
of the other most serious disease groups are shown in
comparison.*
Whole Number of Working Days
Lost from Time of Cessation
of Work to Time of Discharge
from Sanitarium.
Disease Groups. -
Men Women
Tr P@ CELTS: ete ch SE cacao Seema 60 - 373
Poisonings 125900
Malnutrition: snsecten su escus 2,773 7,861
Skin, muscles, joints, etc....... 5,177 935
Digestive troubles ....00200000...... 3,425 2,057
Nervous: disord rs \.sc2 2020s. eet 44,965 25,075
* The whole table is not reproduced. CP. 112.)
Zettschrift fiir Klinische Medizin. Bd. 60. 1906. Aus
dem Sanitarium der Landes-Versicherungsanstalt
Berlin in Beelitz. Uber Herzerkrankungen in der
Berliner Arbeiterbevilkerung. [Heart Disease
among the Working People of Berlin.) Dr. Litsz-
nau, Assistant Physician in the Beelitz Sanitarium
of the Old Age and Invalidity Insurance Depart-
ment of Berlin. Berlin, 1906.
. . . Of the cardiac cases here treated, the number
of neuroses of the heart and of simple, idiopathic hyper-
trophies preponderated greatly, being 35 per cent. for
the former, and 40 per cent. for the latter. Dilatations
of the heart followed, some of them primary, a few re-
sulting from cardiac hypertrophy, other cases of primary
weakness of the heart (Debilitas cordis) with 10 per
- cent.
The essential purpose of this work is to show how
cardiac diseases develop in working people as a result
of injurious conditions of labor, and therefore, beside
hypertrophies and dilatations, only those diseases are
114
Nervous Diseases and Insurance Statistics——Germany
considered in whose origin occupational and industrial
dangers play a more or less leading part, and which,
therefore, according to this origin, may be properly des-
ignated as genuine working-class diseases.
Dilatations resulting from the drink habit are ex-
cluded. (Pp. 134-135.) .
In coming to the class of cardiac neuroses it is to be
remarked that nervous affections of the heart among
Berlin workmen are very common, as may be inferred
from the extraordinary prevalence of neurasthenia. (P.
136.
i has been found that when these workers are re-
moved from the enormous competition and rush of the
city, overstrained working energy soon fails. This con-
tinuous overwork is the cause of the general and often
grave neurasthenia, as has been recently shown in an
instructive article. (Leubuscher und Bibrowiez, ‘‘Die
Neurasthenie in Arbeiterkreisen.’’) (P. 137.)
In most of these cases of simple neurasthenia, ner-
vous affections of the heart are the rule. There is the
sensation of palpitations, pain in the region of the heart,
a feeling of great anxiety, and shortness of breath after
exertion. Such diseases have serious importance for
workers on account of cardiac complication. (P. 137.)
The cases described above are limited to those in
which the heart symptoms of nervous origin present the
dominating features and which, therefore, may be re-
garded purely as cases of cardiac neuroses.
The causative factors of such maladies, as in general
neurasthenia, may be admittedly of manifold kinds; yet
it is worthy of especial mention, in considering cases here
reported, that the cause of sickness was repeatedly
ascribed to the definitely injurious influences of the
patients’ work, to physical or mental overstrain or
anxiety of one kind or another in connection with occu-
pation. (P. 137.)
The tendency of cases of cardiac neuroses to relapse
must be pointed out: Certain of our cases show this
tendency very interestingly. With some, after treatment
in the sanitarium, light employment was permitted, and
by the strict avoidance of physical overstrain the disease
115
Nervous Diseases and Insurance Statistics Germany
then followed a favorable course. In other cases invalid-
ism was declared, and the invalidity pension secured.
These, also, showed a gratifying improvement as the re-
sult of relief from exertion and the saving of strength.
Mental as well as physical overstrain frequently re-
sults in cardiac neuroses. The patients of this class are
recruited from salesclerks, bookkeepers, secretaries, ma-
chinists and telephone clerks.
Printers (typesetters) especially are Hmndenouely rep-
resented in this category, for the acuter forms of neuras-
thenia in general are extraordinarily widespread among
them. The night work necessary in this occupation, and
the ever more exacting piecework, exhibit a steady ten-
dency to strain the nerve-energy of the individual to its
very uttermost limit. (P. 139.)
Uber die Ursachen der Neurasthene und Hysterie bei
Arbeitern. [The Causes of Neurasthenia and Hys-
teria among Working People.|] Paut ScHonHats.
Berlin, 1906. A Study of 200 Cases in the Work-
imgman’s Sanitarium at Schénow Zehlendorf.
. . Another group of injurious factors is to be found
in the work itself. In all, 45 cases, or almost 22.5 per
cent., gave physical overstrain from work as the prime
cause of illness, and here the piecework system seemed to
play an especially injurious part. In 15 cases I concluded
that piecework was the original cause of the breakdown,
and in 10 of these cases I could discover no other con-
tributory factor. Four of the others had some slight
hereditary predisposition, and the overstrain here acted
as the excitant of disease. The fifth had returned to
piecework after several brief illnesses, until he finally
became permanently overstrained.
Thus, to repeat, 5 per cent. of all the cases of neuras-
thenia were traceable entirely to the overstrain of piece-
work, with no other discoverable cause for illness.
This is a high figure, but whoever has been inside of a
factory and has observed the prodigious rapidity of the
pace of work there, and the foresight and attention which
each worker must exercise, will be able to estimate cor-
116
Nervous Diseases and Insurance Statistics —Germany
rectly the wearing nature of piecework. It is not alone
the physical strain, but in a high degree the psychic fac-
tor that must be taken into consideration. It is the ner-
vous tension and-strain that is felt by the workers them-
selves to be the hardest feature of their work. Few can
long endure such work. One patient had done piecework
from his eighteenth to the forty-sixth year. He was an
exception. Most workers can only keep it up for four
to five years, then seek something easier.
Even night work is not quite so harmful. In eight
cases I found it (night work) as one cause, but only three
cases where night work was the exclusive cause of disease.
In the other five, it was, it is true, the chief cause, yet
other slightly predisposing conditions were also present.
(Pp. 14-15.)
Among twenty-two cases caused by unfavorable con-
ditions of work, fourteen showed that overstrain in work,
especially where overtime was required, was chiefly re-
sponsible for the breakdown, while other less prominent
factors had also had some injurious influence, and had .
helped in the result. (P. 16.)
We find then three specially dangerous factors in the
life of the worker: Trauma (accident), Aleohol and Over-
strain. Other dangers, such as ordinary illness, etc.,
threaten all classes alike.
What is to be done? The State is making provision
for accident: a campaign is being waged against alcohol:
there remains the question of overstrain to be dealt
with. (Pp. 22-23.)
It is. now generally recognized that the combination
of physical and mental overstrain is especially danger-
ous for the nervous system: Artisans will therefore show
a higher percentage of nervous disease than laborers,
and the skilled artisan will suffer more than the casual
worker or man of all trades whose work is largely me-
chanical. In fact, my inquiries showed that 57 per cent.
of the cases were skilled artisans, to 43 per cent. of the
others. (Accident cases are not included.)
_ The difference is even sharper when we compare the
liability to nervous diseases among artisans, and the
lly
Nervous Diseases and Insurance Statistics. —Germany
more skilled workers with such liability among common
laborers. The relation is then 74.0:26.0, as seen by the
following table:
1. Artisans, highly skilled 57.0%
skilled 17.0% 74.0%
2. General Workers 43% |
unskilled 26.0% ;
(Page 24.)
In the endeavor to find out what employment was most
injurious I distinguished between factory work and or-
dinary business employment; further, between public
transportation, and ordinary day labor. I then found
that of the artisans, 21.0 per cent. of the cases of illness
were in small businesses, to 36 per cent. in factories.
CP. 25.)
Of the general workers, again, 18 per cent. were fac-
tory workers, while transportation showed 7.0 per cent.,
and day laboring work 6.0 per cent.
- These last figures are by many writers found to be
higher, but the differences may be accounted for by the:
localities where their observations are made. (P. 25.)
It seems indubitable that factory work considerably
outweighs other occupations in the sense that it provides
the great number of factors tending to produce the
neuroses of work in the industrial populations, and I am
compelled to conclude that modern industry, continually
developing as it is on more and more colossal lines, con-
stitutes a dangerous and potent cause for a continuous
increase of neurasthenia and hysteria. (P. 26.)
Fourteenth International Congress of Hygiene and Demo-
graphy. Berlin, September, 1907. Vol II, Sec.
IV. Ermidung durch Berufsarbeit. [Fatigue re-
sulting from Occupation.] Dr. Emit Roru. Berlin,
Hirschwald, 1908.
Beside the intensity of work and other factors, ...
there is still another factor to be considered, whose im-
portance is universally underestimated; that is the
psychic factor. Mosso, in his investigations of the law of
fatigue has shown ergographically the influence of psychic
118
Nervous Diseases and Insurance Statistics —Germany
weariness on muscular strength, by demonstrating that
whenever there is fatigue of the psychic centres there is
always a resultant corresponding condition of the motor
centres. In proportion as physical work is, at the same
time, mentally fatiguing, the greater the attentiveness
that it requires, so much sooner does fatigue appear.
This is the case in all occupations which are linked
with special dangers, and where especial demands are
made upon the responsibility of the worker, or where an
extreme and unremitting attentiveness is required. . .
The psychic factor is furthermore of decisive import-
ance for the working capacity as such. Even the skilled
workman does not work as evenly as the machine, but
his capacity displays certain regular, recurrent variations
due to the psychic factor. (P. 611.)
The researches of Pieraccini into the curve of work
showed that, with the calling of a muscle or nerve into
activity, the extent and certainty of its functioning first
gradually increased, and in the second period of work
was lowered. The second and third hours displayed, with
manual workers (handworkers), the highest point of
achievement, which was not exceeded through the rest of
the whole day.
With this the results of a large steel and rolling mill
agree, as it was there shown that of the average output
of 40 t, 23 ¢ belonged to the morning, and 17 to the rest
of the day.
The psychic factor is also important in another re-
spect. With the progressive division of labor, work has
become more and more mechanical. . . .A definite share
of overfatigue and its sequels, especially neurasthenia,
must be ascribed to this monotony; to the absence of
spontaneity or joy in work. How alarming the increase
of anemia and neurasthenia among working people has
been in the past ten years is shown by the records of the
sick benefit funds, the polyelinies, and the hospitals.
Many medical and scientific authorities have emphasized
the increase of neurasthenia in the working classes. The
ample materials of the Berlin State Insurance Sanitarium
at Beelitz have more particularly served to prove the
119
Nervous Diseases and Insurance Statistics Germany
steady increase of neurasthenia,—actually from 18 per
cent. in 1897, to 40 per cent. in 1904. Similar figures are
shown by the sanitarium at Zehlendorf, where the highest
percentage of neurotic patients were hand-workers and
skilled workers, with whom the combination of physical
and mental strain reacted destructively on the nervous
system. ... (Pp. 613-614.)
But that monotony is also of importance in so far as
it nullifies pleasure in work, thereby favoring the onset
of fatigue, must also be admitted from a part of the sta-
tistics. So, according to a factory inspector, the effect of
certain light work with corset steels, admitting of no
break for several hours, was distinctly fatiguing; the
remedy was a periodical change of work for the em-
ployees in question. (P. 615.)
_ Of greater importance is the excessive overstrain of
piecework, which indeed pays better, but at the cost of a
speed and intensity of work which was formerly un-
known. That these injurious effects first assail the weaker
part of the working population is self-evident. My own
observations, especially in textile mills, confirmed the
frequency of anemia and neurasthenia, especially among
young women. (P. 615.)
To estimate more correctly the influence of kinds of
work, we may observe the results noted as to pulse and
respiration in a large electric works. Here, in no case
was heightened pulse or respiration observed at the end
of work. The difference between this and textile factory
work is that in the latter the worker is to a great extent
dependent on the machine, and must keep up with its
speed, while in the electric establishment the workers are,
as a rule, dependent on the machinery only to an extent
which they determine for themselves. (P. 617.)
As the textile workers are dependent, at the mercy of
the machine, so the clerks in the big stores are at the
mercy of the public, and it is this unremitting attention,
coming and going, and nerve strain that explain the high
percentage of anemia that is continually found among
shop girls in these places. (P. 617.)
120
Nervous Diseases and Insurance Statistics.—Austria
Fourteenth International Congress of Hygiene and Dem-
ography. Berlin, 1907. Vol. III, Sec. VII. Berufs
Morbiditdt und Mortalitat. (The Morbidity and
Mortality of Occupations.] ALFRED R. von Linp-
nem, Vienna. Berlin, 1908.
Sources of information: 1897-01 inclusive. The Vienna
District Sickness Insurance Societies; General Working-
men’s Insurance and Relief Society; Electric Street Rail-
ways Insurance Society; eleven Steam Railways Insur-
ance Funds.
I have endeavored to elucidate the question of how
far the increasing nervousness of modern life is con-
nected with occupation. The question is, indeed, not a
new one. (P. 1293.)
I selected two occupations, railroading and _ electric
works. ... The number investigated reached about
98,480 members of the sick benefit funds... . (Sum-
mary. The number of these investigated, 98,480 in the two
modern industries, railroading and electricity—including
in the latter only those whose work was in some way re-
lated to the electric current—was compared with about
388,000 members of other occupations. Relation of former
to latter, 98,480: 388,000—about 1:5.) ... It was evi-
dent that the respiratory organs of those engaged in the
railroad service were much less endangered than those of
the industrial workers in more sedentary occupations in
Vienna.
From various tables relating to the two occupations
under examination it may be asserted that these two
modern callings show a persistently greater contingent of
nervous diseases than do other occupations. To this is
to be added that nervous diseases must be recognized as
cn diseases in all great modern industries. (P.
These disorders may with perfect right be truly desig-
nated as modern occupational diseases. (P. 1299.)
..- Nervous diseases are to be recognized as most
characteristic phenomena of our modern industries.
iP iso) industries
121
Nervous Diseases and Ages of Incidence—Germany
Soctale Medizin. Dr. Wautuer Ewaxp. Vol. II. Ursachen
der Invaliditat. [Causes of Invalidity.] Berlin,
Julius Springer, 1914.
It is a mistake to suppose that neurasthenia is a dis-
ease of the upper classes only. It is very frequent among
working people. In the records of the Sick Fund of the
General Miners’ Union at Bochum in 1910, for example,
among 223,000 cases of sickness there occurred 513 cases
of neurasthenia and 102 cases of epilepsy, while in the
same year among 4,100 cases of invalidity among miners,
48 cases of neurasthenia and 13 cases of epilepsy led to
invalidity. (P. 290.)
(2) Ages of Incidence.
Adults are more susceptible to nervous disorders
than young persons. Liability to these diseases is found
highest between the ages of twenty and forty-five years.
Hence adults, as well as young persons, must be guarded
from excessive overstrain, which engenders nervous
exhaustion.
Die Pathologie und Therapie der Neurastheme. [Patho-
logy and Therapeutics of Neurasthema.] Dr.
Otro Binswancer, Professor of Psychiatry, and
Director of the Psychiatric Hospital, Jena. Jena,
Fischer, 1896.
Finally, in considering the importance of age, it is to
be said that certain stages of the physical and mental
development are uncommonly perilous to the nervous
system in individuals with a hereditary handicap and
constitutional predisposition to nervous disorders. Even
healthy persons are more liable to neurasthenic ills in
certain periods of life than in others. Still more im-
portant than the time of puberty, when the physical
growth has increased claims made upon it, is the age
between 20 and 30, for then the physical and mental
strength is put forth most strenuously and incessantly in
the struggle for a livelihood. Yet even in mature man-
hood, 30 to 40, neurasthenia frequently occurs... .
122
Nervous Diseases and Ages of Incidence.—Germany
Hosslin’s statistics showed that among 828 neu-
rasthenias 83 per cent. occurred between the ages of 20:
to 50 years.
My own experience is, that of 131 cases, in whom I was
able to locate exactly the starting point of the disease as.
to the time it began, the relation to age was as follows:
Began in the first decade of life— 4 cases
oe iz 66
second ‘‘ ‘¢ ‘ 46 ‘
66 ‘ee third O46 EQ
6“ “6 fourth 66 66 ED
6c bc 6h fifth 6c 66 (ae 3 66
6c 6666 sixth OO EE GD
6c se 6 ogeventh (6 6 f! Loy
(P. 46.)
Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift. Nr. 21; 25. Mai,
1905. Die Neurasthenie wm Arbeiterkreisen.
[Neurasthenia in the Working Classes.] Dr. P.
LevususcHer and W. Brsrowicz. Formerly of the
Beelitz Sanitarium of the State Old Age and Inva-
lidity Department of Berlin. Berlin, 1905.
Our reasons for the age groupings in our tables are
as follows: Age up to 20 years is, for various reasons,
unimportant in the consideration of neurasthenia. .. .
We therefore end one period here. The next five years
we regard as the period of completed growth. The time
between 26 and 35 years seems to be the most serious
epoch—that of founding and supporting the family, of
care and responsibility, of intensive work. Almost
equally important is the period from 36th to 45th year.
We chose the latter as a limit because after this tie
organic changes of age, arteriosclerosis, emphysema,
ete., begin to make themselves evident. Following this
grouping we find the following figures:
I. (16-20 years) 3.8% of the Neurasthenics
IT. (21-25 “ ) 11.0% © «& “
III. (26-35 66 ) 40.0% 66 be 6c
IV. (36-45 “* ) 31.0% « « ce
V. (over 45°) 14.0% « « us
(P. 822.)
123
Nervous Diseases and Heredity.—Germany
In these statistics we have not shown the period of
the onset of neurasthenia, but that stage where the
gradually developing symptoms had reached a degree
that seriously threatened the working capacity, a cri-
terion that is justified by practical considerations.
Our results correspond closely with those of Léwen-
feld, who found most cases fell between the years of 20
and 45. Krafft Ebbing’s figures at Aethaus were also
similar. (P. 822.)
Verwaltungsbericht der Landes-Versicherungsanstalt
Berlin, fiir das Jahr 1906. [Report of the State
Invalidity and Old Age Insurance Department for
_ Berlin; for 1906.| Report of the Physician im
Chief of the Beelhtz Sanitariwm. (Tuberculosis
not cluded.) Berlin, Loewenthal, 1907.
As regards age most of the male patients, 59 per
cent., were in the prime of manhood—between 30 and 50
years, whilst patients under 20 or over 60 were only 2
per cent, each. (P. 72.)
(3) Nervous Disease and Heredity.
A predisposition to nervous disorders may be trans-
‘mitted, and may constitute a marked disability in the
second generation. The protection of workers from the
excessive fatigue which may lead to nervous cisorders is
needed for the preservation of the race.
Die Pathologie u. Therapie der Neurastheme. [Path-
ology and Therapeutics of Neurasthena.] Dr.
Orro Bryswancer, Prof. of Psychiatry and Direc-
tor of the Psychiatric Hospital, Jena. Jena,
Fischer, 1896.
(Having studied the subject of heredity) what does
this inherited predisposition signify? What influence
124
Nervous Diseases and Heredity —Germany
will it have upon the future development of the indi-
vidual? As we have seen that the neuropathic predis-
position is exhibited by a general diminution of the
efficiency of the nervous system as the result of, appar-
ently, insignificant hindrances to development, its im-
portance from the clinical standpoint is not hard to
state.
Such detrimental factors as those to which human
society as a whole or individual members of individual
occupations or of social classes are all equally exposed,
will have the effect of producing insanity and nervous
diseases with distinctly greater frequency in individuals
of neuropathic predisposition. (P. 37.)
Grenefragen des Nerven wnd Seelenlebens, Bd. IV.
[Borderland Problems of Nervous and Psychic
Infe.] Edited by Lozwenretp and KureE.ia.
Berufswahl und Nervenleben. [The Choice of Oc-
cupation and Nerve Life.| Dr. Aveusr Horrman.
Wiesbaden, Bergmann, 1904.
It is universally agreed by physicians that diseases
of the nervous system have become inordinately more
frequent in the last few decades than in an earlier period.
Hiven granting a more faulty diagnosis of nervous dis-
orders in former years, and admitting that the attention
of physicians was less drawn to such disorders then than
now, it is nevertheless certain that insanity and nervous
diseases did not formerly take the frightfully prominent
place that they take to-day. . . . :
The causes are varied. In the foreground stands the
rush of modern civilization, and, when one generation
has become permeated with nervous affections, the next
one suffers these ills, through inheritance, in doubly dis-
tilled strength. (P. 5.)
125
Nervous Diseases and Heredity —Germany
Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift. Nr. 21. 25. Mat,
1905. Die Neurasthenie in Arbetterkreisen. [Neu-
rasthenia in the Working Classes.]| Dr. P. Lev-
BUSCHER and W. Brsrowicz, formerly of the Bee-
lite Samtarium of State Old Age and Invalidity
Department, Berlin.
Neurotic diseases, if not counteracted, are often the
first step in the direction of organic diseases or severe
mental disorders.
But our generation is not alone in being menaced with
the grave dangers of these diseases. A terrible question
is involved, that concerns the future—the question of
heredity. We shall not attempt here to answer the query
as to the inheritance of acquired characteristics. . . .
But one thing is undeniable; the influence exerted upon
the sensitive and impressionable natures of children by
neurotic parents is inexpressibly unfavorable. (P. 825.)
Verwaltungsbericht der Landes-Versicherungsanstalt
Berlin, fiir das Jahr 1906. [Report of the State
Invalidity and Old Age Insurance Department for
Berlin, for the year 1906.] Report of the Physician
in Chief of the Beelite Sanitarium. (Tuberculosis
not included.) Berlin, Loewenthal, 1907.
A considerable proportion of the cases, of both sexes,
and especially those belonging in the category of nervous
patients, were handicapped by inherited disease on one
or on both sides of their parentage. Such cases usually
exhibited the gravest symptoms, ran the most unsatisfac-
tory course, and showed a uniform tendency to relapse.
The inherited taint was evidenced by epilepsy, insanity,
love of drink, general nervousness or migraine. (P. 70.)
According to our tables as shown, out of 5538 (4665)
men, there were 1859 (1596) or over one-third (34 per
cent.) who had inherited taints, and of 1128 (816) women
there were 729 (565), or 65 (69) per cent. with inherited
taints.:
Of those suffering from diseases of the lungs, 14-15
126
Nervous Diseases and Heredity.—Germany
per cent. had inherited the diathesis; of the nervous
patients, 20-29 per cent.; of those suffering from cancer,
ulcers, and abscesses, 5-7 per cent., and of gouty-rheu-
matic cases, 6-11 per cent. (P. 71.)
Uber die Ursachen der Neurasthente und Hysterie bei
Arbeitern. [The Causes of Neurasthena and
Hysteria among Working People.| Paut Scuoéy-
Hats. A Study of 200 Cases in the Workingman’s
Sanitarium at Schonow Zehlendorf. Berlin, 1906.
Predisposition plays an important part in all internal
diseases, but is specially menacing in the case of nervous
diseases. Those persons in whose families nervous dis-
eases have occurred are more inclined to similar dis-
orders than those who are not hereditarily so burdened.
Such predisposition may be variously described—
Binswanger defines it as ‘‘a molecular inferiority of the
nervous system.’’ Inherited weakness being present,
some external exciting factor is usually required to pre-
cipitate actual disease. (P. 7.)
It is clear that the more pronounced the heredity, the
more easily will an insignificant cause be capable of
bringing on illness; and vice versa, in a person of better
heredity, external influences must be more intense and
harmful to cause illness. (P. 8.)
Such hereditary handicap I found beyond question in
9.5 per cent. of 200 cases in the Workingman’s Sani-
tarium at Schénow Zehlendorf. This figure is without a
doubt too low, but the difficulty of getting family histories
from these patients is great. Binswanger gives 49 per
cent. of men and 35.5 of women as hereditarily predis-
posed. Binswanger’s figures are not confined to work- |
ing people. Leubuscher and Bibrowicz state it at 21.5
per cent. (P. 8.)
127
(4) Nervous Diseases and Overstimulation.
The onset of nervous exhaustion is often unperceived.
A special danger to health arises when, after excessive
work, this form of overfatigue shows itself in unnatural
stimulation, which conceals fatigue and creates a false
exhilaration. Only after health is seriously threatened,
does the overstrain become apparent, overstimulation be-
ing succeeded by reaction and exhaustion.
The Mental Symptoms of Fatigue. (Reprinted from the
Transactions of the New York State Medical Asso-
ciation.) Epwarp Cow ss, M. D., Medical Super-
intendent of the McLean Hospital, Somerville,
Mass. New York, Fless and Ridge, 1893.
The sensory function by which the complex normal
feelings of fatigue are appreciated, may itself be over-
exercised to exhaustion. There is tere of the power to
feel the tire. This condition may be called fatigue
anaesthesia, and, beginning with the early stages of
pathological fatigue, there is usually some degree of it.
Every physician has experienced this when, after a night
of anxious professional work, with loss of sleep, he has
had a day of excitable alertness of mind and body, and
there is a sense of nervous strain, with, perhaps, undue
mental facility and physical irritability. Many hours’
sleep may be gained in the following night, but instead
of feeling refreshed he has a sense of malaise, languor,
and fatigue. The real fatigue was greater the day be-
fore, but he could not feel it as such. It is not until the
second day after the excessive effort that he has recov-
ered his exhausted power to feel the fatigue. In a lesser
degree this fatigue anesthesia becomes a constant accom-
paniment of the neurasthenic condition. (Pp. 22-23.)
The Harvey Lectures, 1905-1906. Fatigue. Freveric S.
Lez, Ph.D. Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1906.
... The chief sign of fatigue is, in a word, depression
128
Nervous Diseases and Overstimulation.—Italy
—depression of irritability, wherein a given stimulus
calls forth a response of less intensity than before; and
depression for the total capacity for work, whatever the
intensity of the stimulus; its early stages may show,
however, a temporary heightened irritability and_an ap-
parent, not real, heightened capacity for work. (P. 169.)
Thirteenth Congress of Hygiene and Demography. Brus-
sels, Sept. 1903. Vol V, Sec. IV. Dans quelle mesure
peut-on, par des mcthodes physiologiques, étudier
la fatigue, ses modalités et ses degrés dans les
diverses professions? Quels sont les arguments que
les sciences physiologiques et médicales pewent ow
pourraient faire valoir en faveur de tel ou tel mode
d’organisation du travail? [To what extent may
fatigue resulting from occupation be estumated by
physiological methods, and what arguments can
medical and physiological science present in favor
of special methods of wmdustrial organization? ]
Dr. Zaccarta Treves. University of Turin.
Lagrange observes that the intensity and rapidity of
modern industry are attained rather by making excessive
drains on nervous force than by the use of muscular
power. ‘‘There results a special form of fatigue’’ (says
Lagrange), ‘‘not that kind which inclines us frankly to
rest,—which gives a sensation of well-being or content
after work well and thoroughly done, with sufficient time
to do it in, but a species of exhaustion accompanied by an
abnormal nervous irritability,—an enervation—perhaps
appearing in the form of depression, perhaps as excita-
tion and impressionability.’’
Die Pathologie und Therapie der Neurasthenie. [Path-
ology and Therapeutics of Neurasthenia.| Dr.
Orro Bryswanesr, Prof. of Psychiatry and Direc-
tor of the Psychiatric Hospital at Jena. Jena,
Fischer, 1896.
Simple fatigue is the natural consequence of every
considerable expenditure of energy. ... If this simple
129
Nervous Diseases and Overstimulation.—Austria
weariness is intensified beyond a certain limit . . . as in
climbing mountains, a condition of overstimulation oc-
curs.
One is temporarily capable, apparently, of a still more
considerable exertion, the sensation of fatigue disappears,
the general flagging gives way to an unnatural elasticity
of movement, so that one pursues his aim with acceler-
ated speed. As soon, however, as the wished-for goal is
reached, the artificial tension vanishes, the unstrung con-
dition asserts itself. In this state, it is often impossible
to sleep, for the overfatigue is combined with a peculiar
unnatural overstimulation of the senses. ... But with
healthy individuals, such symptoms also disappear after
a short time (1 to 2 hours) and deep sleep finally banishes
all trace of fatigue. (P. 20.)
Fourteenth International Congress of Hygiene and
Demography. Berlin, 1907. Vol. III, Sec. VIII.
Berufs Morbiditat und Mortahtat. {The Morbid-
ity and Mortality of Occupation.] Arrep R. von
Linpuem, Vienna. Berlin, Hirschwald, 1908.
Of these victims of modern speed and rush, the neuras-
thenics, Professor Erb has rightly said, ‘‘They appear
to be capable of doing everything that the robust can do;
but as soon as they are tired, exhaustion comes on, and
their incessantly increasing irritability intensifies their
fatigue.’’ (P. 1300.)
Medizinische Klmuk, No. 15. 1913. Uebermidung
[Over-fatigue.] Dr. Ap. Scumipt.
The laity speak of over-fatigue, when people are un-
able to find their urgently desired rest or sleep, after
having undergone excessive physical or mental strain.
The medical profession have not yet devoted much atten-
tion to this ‘‘over-fatigue,’’ which is usually grouped
with exhaustion through overwork or overstrain, and con-
sidered as a cause of acute and chronic neuroses, general
or organic.
130
Nervous Diseases and Overstimulation.—Austria
I believe that a strict distinction should be made be-
tween over-fatigue and exhaustion: Both are the results
of taxation of the organs beyond their natural functional
capacity. But, whereas in exhaustion, the organ ulti-
mately fails to respond to the ordinary stimulus, or even
to a maximum stimulus, although it shows no pathological
disturbances when at rest,—the organ in over-fatigue
still remains irritable, actually craving stimuli, as it were,
and it becomes diseased, when it is put to rest.
Experience teaches that persons with a healthy ner-
vous system, when exposed to maximum stimuli, react
only up to the point of exhaustion; meaning that they fail
to react after the functional capacity of their organs has
been used up. On the other hand, persons with an un-
stable nervous system are sometimes capable of an ex-
cessive output of work, under the influence of extraordin-
ary conditions. The fatigue-sensation which irresistibly
forces the normal person to sleep, is displaced in these
cases by the stronger stimulus of the psychic excitement,
so that they remain awake and active for an unnaturally
long time. When finally they break down, their organs
cannot find repose, which is so urgently needed, but they
crave action, and develop a condition of pathological irri-
tability.
Psychic factors are accordingly involved, in most of
the manifestations of over-fatigue. In chronic condi-
tions, the pathological irritability of such organs is al-
ways associated with an abnormal weakness of function.
From this point of view, the cases may also be inter-
preted as the manifestations of a neurasthenic tendency,
elicited through over-stimulation. CP. 86 0:)
131
d. GENERAL INJURIES TO HEALTH.
The fatigue which follows excessive working hours
may become chronic and result in general deterioration
of health. While it may not result in immediate disease,
it undermines the vitality of the worker and leads to gen-
eral weakness, anemia or premature old age.
Continuous overexertion has proved even more dis-
astrous to health than a certain amount of privation;
and lack of work in industrial crises has entailed less
injury to health than long-continued overwork. The ex-
cessive length of working hours, therefore, constitutes in
itself a menace to health.
The Survey. Vol. 31. New York, Jan. 3, 1914. Can
American Steel Plants Afford an Etght-hour
Turn? Wiiiam B. Dickson, Former Vice-Prest-
dent Umted States Steel Corporation.
In my judgment a large proportion of the steel work-
ers who, from early manhood, work twelve hours a day,
are old men at forty. (P. 376.)
New Hampshire. House Journal. June, 1847. Report
recommending Shortening Hours of Labor, Regu-
lating Child Labor, and Establishing 10-hour Day.
Their duties do not generally require great exertion
of physical strength, but are rendered fatiguing by the
constant attention required by the rapid and increasing
motion of the machines, attended by a constant noise and
jar, which are distracting to persons unaccustomed to
the mills.
It seems certain to the undersigned that labor of this
nature cannot be continued any great length of time
without serious injury to the health of the operatives.
ect If the slow and fearful diseases which this mode
of life tends to bring on are escaped, a loss of strength
132
General Injuries to Health.—United States
and activity must ensue from it, which may result in the
perpetual evil of a sickly and enervated population in all
the large manufacturing towns. (P. 476.)
Massachusetts House Documents No. 153. 1850. Muinor-
ity Report of the Special Comnuttee Re Limitation
of Hours of Work.
That there are great evils suffered by the operatives,
from excessive hours of labor, is not now denied by intel-
ligent people, however much they may differ as to the
proper remedy....
Among the most important consequences of protracted
hours of labor will be the effects upon the health of the
laborers. The undersigned believe that ten hours a day
of constant application to labor, of any description, and
under any circumstances, if continued for any consider-
able length of time in succession, is as much as the powers
of the human constitution can bear, and, that a longer
application than this must result in serious detriment
and premature decay of the vital powers. They believe
that any number of persons working ten hours a day
will accomplish during their lives far more labor than
the same persons would do by attempting to work more
time than that per day. If this be true relative to per-_
sons in ordinary employments, it must be true in relation
to operatives in the factories, subjected as they are to
extraordinarily unhealthful influences and conditions.
The nature of factory employments is such that large
numbers are congregated in carefully closed rooms, and
are obliged to breathe, during the whole day, the impure
air which is not properly changed by ventilation during
some of the seasons of the year for months in succession.
Of course, the evils of excessive hours of labor must be
from this cause greatly aggravated. (Pp. 9-10.)
Leaving theories and deductions from imperfect statis-
tics, the following buswmess letter from an officer of a
health insurance company to one of its agents may be
deemed of some weight as throwing light upon the ques-
tion of health:
133
General Injuries to Health_—United States
Orrice or NorrotK County Heatta Insurance
ComPaNny.
Lower Floor, Merchants’ Exchange, Boston.
July 27, 1849.
Mr. C. V. N. Brundige.
Sir:
We have determined not to take any more applica-
tions, especially from the factories. Such places have
been the graves of other companies, and we mean to
avoid them. From what few policies we have there, we
are constantly receiving claims. Doubtless there may be
some good subjects there, but, from past experience, it
would seem that there was not more than a grain of
wheat to a bushel of chaff—we can’t distinguish them.
Yours,
StepH. Barry.
Here we have the opinion of no visionary theorist
upon the relative health of factory operatives. It is a
practical business conclusion from the results of previous
experience, and formed purely with a view to the risks
and profits of a business transaction. Health insurance
companies have suffered losses, both from real and
feigned ill-health; and this determination of the Norfolk
Company proves that their opinion was that there was
more ill-health or more dishonesty among the operatives
in the factories than elsewhere in the community. It will
not be urged anywhere that the letter quoted was in-
tended to impeach the morality of the operatives. (Pp.
18-19.)
Massachusetts House Documents. No. 98. 1866.
Dr. Jarvis, physician of Dorchester, says:
(Specific) cases are not necessary to show the injuri-
ous effect of constant labor at long hours. . . . There
may be serious evils from constant and exhausting labor,
that do not show themselves in any positive, clearly de-
fined disease; while nevertheless the vital forces of the
whole man, physical and mental, are very greatly im-
paired. (Pp. 35-36.)
134
General Injuries to Health.—United States
Every man has a certain amount of constitutional
force. This is his vital capital, which must not be dimi-
nished. Out of this comes daily a certain and definite
amount of available force, which he may expend in labor
of muscle or brain, without drawing on his vital capital.
He may and should work every day and expend so much
force and no more, that he shall awake the next morning
and every succeeding morning until he shall be three-
score and ten, and find in himself the same amount of
available force, the same power, and do his ordinary
day’s work, and again lie down at night with his
constitutional force unimpaired. (P. 36.)
Judging by this standard, there can be no doubt of the
serious injury often resulting from overwork, even when
no palpable evidence appears. (P. 36.)
Dr. Ordway, practising physician many vears (in
Lawrence), has no hesitation in saying that mill work,
long continued, is injurious to bodily and mental health,
and materially shortens life. (P. 63.)
Massachusetts Senate Documents. No. 1. 1874. Ad-
dress of Governor William B. Washburn to the
two branches of the Legislature. January 8, 1874.
Though a statute provision fixing the number of hours
that operatives shall be required to work never has ap-
peared to me of such vital importance as some consider
it, yet I freely admit that there is one aspect of the matter
which seems to entitle the question of enacting such a
statute to careful consideration. While as a general
proposition it may be desirable to leave employers and
employees free to agree upon prices and hours of labor,
yet the State cannot afford to be utterly regardless of
the health and social well-being of a large class of its
citizens for fear of interfering with some established
custom or some prevailing system. That the strength
of our operatives in many of our mills is becoming” ex-
hausted, that they are growing prematurely old, and that
they are losing the vitality requisite to the healthy enjoy-
ment of social opportunity, are facts that no careful and
candid observer will deny. Ten hours is the standard of
135
General Injuries to Health—United States
the longest day’s work known to any branch of mechanical
industry in this commonwealth outside a portion of our
large manufacturing corporations. What would be lost
to employers, and what would not be gained to employees,
by adopting the ten-hour system in these establishments.
(Pp. 33-34.)
The limit of a day’s work to three-fourths of the labor-
ing class in this commonwealth being ten hours, I am not
able to see that any great detriment would result if the
same limit should be extended to the other fourth. I
have no hesitancy in recommending that the experiment
be tried, and you may anticipate executive approval if
you enact a ten-hour law. I know of no reason why it
should not apply to male as well as to female operatives.
(P. 35.)
Some Ethical Gains Through Legislation. FLORENCE
Keutey, General Secretary of the National Con-
sumers’ League. New York and London, Macmil-
lan, 1905.
Daily assured leisure serves a purpose of the highest
social value by enabling the wage-earner to husband that
resource of nervous energy which is required to continue
active working-life after the passing of youth. In the
garment-trades men are old at forty and women are
superannuated at thirty, largely by reason of the alterna-
tions of overwork and enforced idleness, and the absence
of that regularly recurring sufficient period of rest be-
tween the close of one day’s work and the beginning of the
next, which alone permits body and mind to bear years
of continuous work without wearing out. Premature old
age is induced by overwork as effectively as by dissipa-
tion, and old age in the wage-earning class means de-
pendence, if not pauperism.
The philanthropic world is all astir on behalf of the
crusade against tuberculosis. Funds are readily. forth-
coming for the foundation of sanatoria for the use of
working people, especially young girls and children. But
tuberculosis is promoted by over-work as much as by
any other single cause. To shorten the hours of daily
136
General Injuries to Health.—United States
labor, to afford daily leisure for rest and recreation to
young employees during the years of life in which the
susceptibility to infection is greatest... 1s quite as
clearly a life-saving service as to build and maintain
sanatoria.... (Pp. 109-110.)
The Steel Workers. Joun A. Fircn. The Pittsburgh
Survey, Russell Sage Foundation Publication.
New York. Charities Publication Committee,
1910.
As long as the twelve-hour day prevails, attempts to
improve health conditions in the mills will be largely
nullified. If the best of bathing facilities were installed,
although the men to-day feel their lack, it would prob-
ably be the unusual man who would avail himself of
them. At the end of twelve hours in the mill most men
want the shortest cut out to what remains of the day.
When the mills are running full the men are chroni-
cally tired. The upsetting of all the natural customs of
life every second week when the men change to the night
shift, is in itself inimical to health. It takes until the end
of the week, the men say, to grow sufficiently accustomed
to the change to be able to sleep more than four or five
hours during the day. And then they change back. The
alternation of day and night shifts every fortnight is
desired by the men; it gives each man 26 weeks a year of
day employment. But the seven-day week and the
twelve-hour shifts accentuate the evils inherent in all
night work.
By far the greatest menace to health in the steel in-
dustry is, in my belief, this twelve-hour day. Besides
this, heat and even speeding are unimportant. If the
other conditions that I have mentioned are at all un-
hygienic in their nature, the effect of everyone is intensi-
fied by the abnormal work-day. Who can doubt that to-
ward the end of a twelve-hour shift a man’s vital energy
is sub-normal, and his power of resistance to disease
materially lowered? If this is true, it must be trebly so
at the end of the twenty-four-hour shift, which is experi-
enced fortnightly in Allegheny County by nearly 6,000
blast furnace men. (Pp. 62-63.)
137
General Injuries to Health.—United States
The standard of efficiency required and maintained in
the mills has grown along with the growth in the ton-
nage. The steel mills to-day offer an excellent demon-
stration of the theory of the survival of the fittest. The
steel workers are men of strong, sturdy constitutions;
they must be, for when they begin to fail they cease to be
steel workers. Often I was told by workmen of forty and
forty-five that they had been at their best at thirty years
of age, and that at thirty-five they had begun to feel a
perceptible decline in strength. The superintendents
and foremen are alert in detecting weakness of any sort,
and if a man fails appreciably, he expects discharge. A
few years ago a general order was reported to have been
sent from headquarters to all mills of the Carnegie Steel
Company directing the superintendents to accept no
more men over forty years of age in any department, and
in some departments to hire only men of thirty-five and
under.* In the rules for its pension department adopted
January 1, 1902, the American Steel & Wire Company
has this provision: ‘‘No inexperienced person over
thirty-five years of age and no experienced person over
forty-five years of age shall hereafter be taken into the
employ of the company.’’ There is a provision for sus-
pending this rule in case of ‘‘special’’ or professional
services,t thus indicating an expectation of physical de- —
terioration on the part of mill workers at an age when
professional men are esteemed capable of discharging
their duties. (Pp. 183-184.)
Workingmen’s Insurance in Europe. Len K. Franxeu
and Mitzs M. Dawson. Russell Sage Foundation
Publication. New York, Charities Publication
Committee, 1910.
The authorities insist, therefore, that increase of
sickness is genuine and is due in Germany to the stress
and strain of modern industry. Hours of labor vary
from eight to fifteen per day. The large stores, for in-
* Pittsburgh “Dispatch,” September 26, 1904.
+ Regulations of Pension Department, American Steel & Wire Com-
pany, No. 6.
138
General Injuries to Health—United States
stance, open at 8 a.m. and close at 8 p.m., allowing one
hour for luncheon. It has been ascertained that in those
factories where the hours are longest, the greatest num-
ber of cases of accident and sickness occur. Many work-
men continue to work even when really incapacitated, and
only when the slack season comes do they take advan-
tage of the opportunity to consult a physician. This, it is
asserted, accounts for the increase of sickness during
such periods which others ascribe to simulation and
malingering. (P. 242.)
American Labor Legislation Review. June, 1912. Effects
of Confined Air Upon the Health of Workers.
Gzorce M. Price, New York State Factory Inves-
tigating Commission.
The effects of constant and continuous inhalation by
workers of the vitiated atmosphere of shop or factory
will undoubtedly manifest themselves upon the general
health of the workers, but more immediately and directly
in the organs of respiration and digestion. Lassitude,
fatigue, headaches, anorexia, anemia, indigestion, defec-
tive oxygenation, lack of vital resistance, and a predis-
position to catarrhal affections of the air passages, are
the inevitable results of a chronic intoxication by vitiated
air.
The diseases, therefore, which we would expect to
find among workers in vitiated atmospheres are bron-
chitis, anemia and indigestion. Pulmonary tuberculosis
and diseases of metabolism would probably be the
sequelae. (Pp. 312-313.)
Hours of Labor in the Steel Industry: A communication
to 15,000 Stockholders of the United States Steel
Corporation. Written, after full investigation, by
Joun A. Fircn, for Cuartes M. Cazor, 95 Milk
Street, Boston, a stockholder of the Steel Corpora-
tion. Boston, 1912.
An employe of the Pennsylvania Steel Company
remarked to me: ‘‘T never get used to the long
139
General Injuries to Health—United States
turn; it always leaves me nearly dead, and then on the
end of it I go onto the night shift for a week—thirteen
hours of work every night. I never get a decent rest in
the daytime, and I feel miserable all the week. The end
of the week on night turn comes Sunday morning. I
get twenty-four hours off then, so I try to stay up and
‘have dinner with the family; it’s the only time in the
week that I have with them—but it’s pretty hard. I’m
so sleepy all the time.’’ (P. 12.)
“Tt’s a great strain on a man,’’ another at Lacka-
wanna told me. ‘‘I could stand eight hours all right,
but the twelve-hour schedule is a terribly nerve racking
thing. I am only twenty-seven years old and my nerves
are getting pretty bad. It’s simply a killing pace in the
steel works, and no pleasure in it. Most of the skilled
men that I know are just trying to save their money un-
til they get a stake and go out into something else be-
fore the industry kills them.’’ (P. 13.)
American Labor Legislation Review, March, 1914. Work-
ing Hours in Continuous Industries. Introductory
Address. Witu1am C. Reprietp, Secretary of
Commerce.
We know too little, practically, although among the
well-informed we know quite a bit theoretically, of the
loss from fatigue. I doubt if I could afford to have at
work in my shop a thousand men who were partially poi-
soned. Yet I believe it to be true, and to be the consensus
of medical opinion, that tired men are partly poisoned
men. Fatigue, therefore, is a thing I cannot afford to
have in my shop. It stands against my revenue as a
blockade, and I cannot afford to run my factory, nor you
your factory, beyond the point where the willing mind
finds an untired hand to respond to its motor forces.
It seems to me that on the side of costliness of fatigue
we know altogether too little, and it appears very prac-
tically in a great deal of our work. . . .
I believe with all my heart, and I believe it increas-
ingly, that when the day shall come that we run our fac-
i40
General Injuries to Health—United States
tories such hours and in such ways that our men shall
go home at night without excessive fatigue, then, and
not until then, shall we reach the height in quality and
quantity of product which we need to compete in the
markets of the world. (Pp. 107-108.)
Social Insurance with Special Reference to American
Conditions. J. M. Rusrnow, Chef Statistician,
Ocean Accident ¢& Guarantee Corporation; Former
Statistical Expert, United States Bureau of Labor.
New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1914.
It is sufficient to mention tuberculosis in dusty trades
to convey this idea. A disease is no less occupational
because it occurs outside the occupation as well, as long
as a close, causal connection between the occupation and
disease exists, and while tuberculosis is the gravest and
most widespread form of occupational disease, it is not
the only one. There are the many ruptures of persons
required to carry heavy weights. There is the forced
exposure to unfavorable climatic and weather conditions,
as in railroading or in building trades. There is the
over-exertion of certain muscles of organs of sense, as
in drafting, in railroading, for the eye; as in boiler-shops
for the ears; there is the harmful result of improper
postures upon lungs and digestive organs, as in the seden-
tary occupations of the clerical force, or upon the female
organs because of excessive standing of the salesgirls,
and there are the harmful results of night work for a
large and growing army of workers who have been forced
to reverse the normal conditions of life and work; and,
finally, there is the vastly more universal phenomenon
of excessive fatigue due either to excessive hours or ex-
cessive speed, or both. In short, though it is difficult to
measure it in individual cases, there is no doubt that
modern industry is responsible for a large proportion
of the workingman’s illness, as it is responsible for the
majority of industrial accidents. (P. 212.)
_ Even physiologically speaking, old age actually ar-
rives earlier than it did, at least in the case of the work-
141
General Injuries to Health—United States
ingman. Perhaps there is no better illustration of the
glaring economic contrasts of modern social life than
the difference of the effect of old age upon the propertied
classes and the wage-workers. The constant speeding
up of the industrial processes, the almost inhuman in-
tensity of effort which grows even more than in direct
proportion to the shortening of the workers’ hours, the
work at great depths in mines, or dizzy heights in build-
ing operations, the ever-present danger of bodily injury,
all these facts have their effects. We have scarcely
begun to study the problem of pathological effects of
fatigue, but that it must result in producing premature
old age is quite evident. The result is the pathetic prob-
lem of the man at fifty, of which we hear so much at
frequent intervals, and which threatens to become the
problem of the man at forty-five. Modern tendencies in
industry all work together to aggravate this situation.
(Pp. 304-305.)
Industrial Health-Hazards and Occupational Diseases
in Ohvo. E. R. Hayvuurst, A. M.; M. D.; Director,
Division of Occupational Diseases, Ohio State
Board of Health. 1915.
Fatigue symptoms should never be permitted to exist
in industries. These are, in a minor way, tiredness, sore
muscles, stiff joints, aches and pains, etc., while in a more
severe form we have such signs as muscular cramps, ob-
stinate lumbago, wry neck, neuritis, neuralgia, and ‘‘oc-
cupational neuroses,’’ in which any attempt to return to
the regular work results in spasms of the muscles used,
accompanied by soreness, constant aches and pains,
trembling, gradual emaciation and partial paralysis of
the parts. In time, ligaments weaken so that flat feet
occur (perhaps with varicose veins, eczema and ulcers),
round shoulders, bowed backs and sunken necks. In-
ternal organs drop downward (especially the kidneys
and the female organs), causing much chronic invalidism.
Such signs are usually accompanied with a mental condi-
tion of anxiety which is out of all apparent proportions
142
General Injuries to Health.—United States
to what can be seen, and along with headache and con-
stipation make up the disease conditions known as ‘‘neu-
rasthenia.’”? . . . The next stage is ‘‘nervous break-
down.’’ Many persons, of slightly unsound condition to
begin with, develop a ‘‘fatigue psychosis,’’ that is, in-
sanity which may be sudden and violent or just a gradual
deterioration characterized as ‘‘played out,’’ ‘‘no good
any more,’’ ‘‘can’t make his day’s wages,’’ ete. Our
hospitals, dispensaries, charities, various institutions and
asylums are crowded full of these classes of persons.
About 90 per cent. of them are over 40 years of age,
which make a significant contrast with the age-group
figures for wage-earners in manufacturing industries,
about 90 per cent. of whom appear to be under 40 years
of age.
Then which affects the steady worker causes
anemia, enlargement of the heart, increased blood pres-
sure, circulatory diseases, kidney disease, and neurasthe-
nia or nervous exhaustion. This latter is a very common
complaint of the working classes. Chronic fatigue pre-
disposes to weakness and paralysis of special parts, and
to nervous breakdowns. The general fibrosis of all or-
gans and parts encroaches upon the reserve forces of
these organs and parts. Premature old age is a conse-
quence. During the course of any of these chronic affec-
tions, which are usually progressive when once incited,
the person is predisposed to all manner of acute diseases,
one of which, in the end, is finally signed upon the death
certificate as the cause of demise. (Pp. 35-36.)
New York Medical Journal, September 4, 1915. Occupa-
tion as an Etiological Factor in Disease. NatHan
Scuwartz, M. D., Acting Medical Inspector, Divr-
ston of Industrial Hygiene, Department of Labor.
_ Another cause of anemia in factories is poor ventila-
tion and overcrowding. In such cases, there is a gradual
pallor, languor, and then an anemia, and this is ascribed
to improper oxygenation of the blood from vitiation of
the air by gases from the intestinal tract, from eructation
and exhalation, and also from organic matter given off
148
General Injuries to Health—United States
with perspiration. In certain occupations anemia is due
directly to the toxic nature of the gases or dust arising
in the process of work, as in metal plating, smelting,
printing, foundry work, ete. (P. 517.)
Diseases of Occupation and Vocational Hygiene. Edited
by Gzorcr M. Kossr, M. D., Professor of Hygiene,
Georgetown University, etc., and Wiut1am C. Han-
son, M. D., Massachusetts State Board of Health,
etc. Philadelphia. P. Blakiston’s Son & Co., 1916.
Etiology and Prophylaxis of Occupational Dis-
eases. GrorcEe M. Kossr, M. D.
Illustrations of the acute and chronic eflects of ex-
cessive muscular strain are seen in the undue prevalence
of cases of hernia, among persons engaged in hard work,
especially in those who lift or carry heavy weights on
ladders, as in the building trades. Fortunately derricks
and lifts are diminishing these hazards. The effects of
habitual hard work in the causation of diseases of the
heart and circulatory system, which in some instances
may result in sudden death from cardiac exhaustion or
rupture of the blood-vessels have been pointed out.
Indeed, there is ample statistical evidence to justify
the conclusion that persons habitually engaged in hard
work are more frequently subject to disease and accident
and present a higher mortality than persons more favor-
ably situated. (P. 447.)
Preventive Measures.—The general effects of over-
work and chronic fatigue are characterized by loss of
appetite, anemia, digestive derangements, respiratory
and cardiac affections, fatigue neuroses, neurasthenia,
and general deterioration of health... .
It is obvious that there must be proper intervals for
rest and recuperation, hence the necessity of regulating
the hours of labor and the enforcement of a day of rest.
We have referred . . . to the high mortality of the
industrial workers of Great Britain at the beginning of
the nineteenth century. This was at a time when em-
ployees in the cotton mills were obliged to work from
144
General Injuries to Health—United States
14-18 hours a day. Koelsch informs us that after the
reduction of the hours of labor, from 12-8 hours a day,
in the alkali works of Norwich, the morbidity rate sank
from 10.12 per cent. to 6.1 per cent. After the introduc-
tion of the 9-hour shift in the English machine shops, in
1872, the average span of life of these workers was length-
ened in the course of 17 years from 3814 to 4814 years.
In estimating the general efficiency of such commendable
laws it is but fair to concede that the general health move-
ment in the last four decades, especially the improvement
of the air we breathe and the water we drink, has played
an important part in the prolongation of human life.
The physiological remedy for fatigue is rest and sleep,
which offers an opportunity for recuperation.
Hours of Labor.—The enactment of laws limiting
actual labor to 8 hours a day finds ample support in a
study of the relation of fatigue to accident liability and
can also be defended upon general health principles.
(Pp. 448-449.)
Ibid. Diseases of the Blood, Circulatory System and
Kidneys. Txomas S. Lan, Washington, D. C.
Broadly speaking, the etiological factors of the dis-
eases of the blood, the circulatory system and the kid-
neys, considered as occupational diseases, are either
those that act mechanically, such as strain and exposure
to physical forces, or the industrial chemical poisons.
The defective hygienic surroundings under which, al-
most of necessity, many trades are carried on also have
their part in causing certain of these diseases. (P. 235.)
Primary Cardiac Overstrain—Although many, per-
haps most, of the persons who are subject to attacks of
cardiac failure with dilatation are possessors of a dam-
aged myocardium, most authors now agree that disturb-
ance, inefficiency or failure of the circulation may be
brought about in a healthy heart by overstrain. As an
occupational disease primary cardiac overstrain is fre-
quent among soldiers, porters, miners, blacksmiths and
metal workers. (Pp. 239-240.)
Arteriosclerosis.—Arteriosclerosis, local or general,
145
General Injuries to Health.—Great Britain
is undoubtedly the commonest form of circulatory dis-
ease, due directly to the influence of occupation. Two
of its etiological factors are prevalent among many in-
dustrial workers, namely, arterial strain and lead poi-
soning. The former is brought about by prolonged and
heavy muscular exercise, especially that associated with
much lifting, or by constantly repeated sudden efforts
which produce a great increase in blood pressure, and ul-
timately a permanent high tension. This condition may
be also brought about by occupations that are accom-
panied by severe and prolonged mental strain or worry.
The manner in which lead acts on the arterial system is
still somewhat uncertain. It may act directly as an
irritant to the arterial walls, and it certainly raises the
blood pressure, probably by its action on the kidneys.
Increased blood pressure in itself, if sufficiently long
continued, inevitably leads to arteriosclerosis. A third
factor which is doubtless very prevalent among these
patients, though perhaps no more so than among other
classes of the population, is intestinal auto-intoxication,
more particularly that caused by the decomposition of
certain proteids. We find arteriosclerosis very com-
mon among stevedores, iron and steel workers, smiths,
butchers, and soap boilers, painters and others exposed
to chronic poisoning by the heavy metals; as also among
those who are subjected to severe mental strain and wor-
ry. (P. 245.)
Hours of Labour. Gnorce J. Eccarrus. London, Office
of Labour Representation League, 1872.
The death rate settles all disputes as to the effect of
overwork on health and life. On two recent occasions
the death rate has proved that constant work, which
is generally synonymous with overwork, is more dan-
gerous to life than a certain amount of privation. Dur-
ing the cotton famine the death rate of Manchester fell,
and when all work stopped in the Hast of London, and
the distress of the poor was at its height, the death rate
of St. George’s in the East sunk to the level of the most
favored districts. (P. 27.)
146
General Injuries to Health—Great Britain
A general reduction of the hours of labour is neces-
sary on social, economical, sanitary, and moral grounds,
and is demanded by the working classes all over the
world. (P. 29.)
Eight-Hour Movement. Verbatim Report of a Debate
between H. M. Hynpman and C. Brapiaueu. Lon-
don. Freethought Publishing Co., 1890.
If it can be shown, as shown it undoubtedly can, that
in industry after industry—in nearly every industry in
this country—workmen and workwomen are worked to
an extent which not only is not profitable to them, but
which absolutely saps their vitality, destroys their intel-
ligence, and leaves them no leisure for consideration,
and crushes them down like brutes of the field, and
worse—then I say no industry is profitable. No indus-
try is profitable which can only be carried on under con-
ditions which mean degradation for those who practice
that industry. There are few perhaps who consider
what is the pecuniary value of health. That to the com-
munity must be the most profitable industry that can
possibly be entered upon which obtains the best pos-
sible health for every man, woman, and child in the par-
ticular community, for in that lie the great resources
of this great country. (P. 6.)
What are the effects of over-work? One of the ef-
fects is this. I do not say that over-work is the only
cause of the early decease of the working classes, but
the working classes at this time die at just half the age
of the class to which I belong—the class, namely, of
those who live upon labor. The average of the working
classes at the present time is about twenty-seven years
as against fifty-five for those who do not work. . . .
So bad is this over-work for the people that during per-
iods of depression, when the workers are not permitted
to work owing to the system of industrial anarchy which
at present prevails, positively the death-rate among the
workers falls, although at that very time they are ex-
posed to semi-starvation, and worse. That was the case
during the time of the Lancashire cotton famine, when
147
General Injuries to Health—Great Britain
positively during that awful period the death rate amoug
the workers of Lancashire fell, although a cotton famine
and a period of no work prevailed throughout that great
country. (Pp. 6-7.)
The Hygiene, Diseases, and Mortality of Occupation. J.
T. Aruiper, M. D., A. B., F. R. C. P., Late Milroy
Lecturer at Royal College, London, Percival,
1892.
Excessive exertion may operate either over a long
period and produce its ill results slowly, or be sudden
and severe. . . . When such people are seized by
some definite lesion, attention is so completely attracted
to it that the antecedent over-toil laying the foundation
for the malady is apt to be overlooked. (P. 16.)
The want of exercise of the body induces torpidity
of functions, reduces lung capacity and respiratory
completeness, and the activity of the abdominal muscles,
which aid both respiration and the functions of the di-
gestive organs. Hence, the proclivity to venous stasis
(congestion), particularly in the pelvis and lower ex-
tremities and in the rectal vessels, with the production
of constipation, adds to these disorders of digestion in
their multiform shape, debilitated muscular power, and
a low vitality and vigor generally. (P. 19.)
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XXXIX. Part I. 1893.
Royal Commission on Labour.
Testimony of Mr. William Allan, Messrs. Allan &
Co., Marine-Engine Builders. (Sunderland).
6866 . . . Have you observed any physical re-
sult? A great improvement. I have observed a great
improvement in the lads and in the tone of the men,
more especially with my apprentices. We used to have
at one time from, perhaps, 10 to 15 out regularly, and
since that has been introduced I have observed that
they have been in far better health, and I have asked
their parents and themselves too.
148
General Injuries to Health.—Great Britain
6868 . . . If anything, you get more production?
Yes.
6869 . . . The cost of production, therefore, is,
if anything, a little less?—It is.
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XXXV. 1894. Royal
Commission on Labour. Fifth and Final Report.
Part I. General Review of the Evidence.
In favour of intervention by the Legislature the chief
arguments put forward were as follows: i
(2) In many industries the hours are still so long
as to be injurious to health. Even if this does not af-
fect the health of the present generation of workers, it
may injure that of the next. In some industries long
hours are a source of danger to the men employed and
to the public. In any case the working classes should
have additional opportunities for recreation, for self-
improvement, and for the fuller realization of family
life. (P. 61.)
Ibid. Minority Report by Mr. Witt1am ApranaM, Mr.
Micuarnt Austin, Mr. James Mawnpstey, and Mr.
Tom Mann.
The prevention of excessive hours of labor stands,
in our view, second in importance only to the reform of
the sweated industries. We believe that no factor in the
degradation of the standard of life is more potent than
the physical exhaustion and absence of leisure involved
in long hours of manual work.
A regular working day not exceeding eight hours,
with the suppression of all but inevitable overtime, would
produce, in our judgment, not only a marked improve-
ment of the health and efficiency of the wage-earning
class, but also an incalculable extension of education,
trade union organization, co-operation, and other agen-
cies for raising the condition of the workers. We think
that the influence of every department of the government
should be persistently employed to achieve this important
result. (P. 131.)
149
General Injuries to Health—Great Britain
Eight Hours for Work. Joun Raz, London and New
York, Macmillan & Co., 1894.
In the first place, while it is true that under the short-
hours system men work harder while they are at their
work than they do under the long-hours system, it is also
true that the short hours and hard work impose less
strain on the body than long hours and dawdling,
especially if the hours are passed in a hot, or dusty, or
poisoned atmosphere, such as many trades are obliged
to work in. The increased exertion during work-hours
has always been balanced, and more than balanced, by
the restorative effects of the longer period of repose or
recreation in good air. While the men do as good a
day’s work as they did before, they improve in health or
vigor. After the Ten Hours Act was six months in op-
eration Mr. Horner reported that the workpeople had,
many of them, told him they enjoyed better health than
they used to enjoy; and their story was confirmed by
‘managers and overlookers, who said there had been less
sickness in the mills than before, one manager, who was
personally unfriendly to the ten-hours day, expressing
great surprise to find how much better his men were in
health, and how much more vigorously they worked, al-
though their wages had sunk so low that many of them
got scarce a bellyful of food. The effect of the Act of
1874 only repeated this experience of the Act of 1847.
The textile workers again intensified their exertions, till
they did their old day’s work in the shorter term, and
their intenser exertions have again in no way hurt their
growth in bodily health and vigor. (Pp. 100-101.)
. Messrs. Brunner, Mond & Co., . . . write Messrs.
Webb and Cox that ‘‘the effect on the health and physique
of the men of this change has been most beneficial,’’ and
they supply some striking particulars to the Depart-
mental Committee of the Home Office on the health of
chemical workers. The figures of the sick club connected
with the works show that during the summer quarter in
1889, before the introduction of the three shifts, the per-
centage of men who received sick pay was 7.1, while
‘during the same quarter of 1893, after the introduction
150
General Injuries to HealthGreat Britain
of the three shifts, the percentage was only 5.1, making”
a reduction of 28.32 per cent. In 1889 the men attended.
by the doctor amounted to 10.12 per cent. of the whole,
but in 1893 it was only 5.1 per cent., showing a reduction
of 49.6 per cent. (P. 105.) :
Indeed the rate of mortality among miners in this
country observes almost a strict proportion with the
customary duration of their working-day, being less in
the short-hour districts than in the long-hour districts.
(P. 106.)
Seasonal Trades. Edited by Swney Wezs and ARNOLD:
Freeman. London, Constable & Co., 1912. The
West End Tailoring Trade.
. . . It is not the low rates of pay, but the irregular
work, the long hours, and the high pressure under which
work, when it comes, is carried out, which are the great
evils of the West End trade. .. . In the busy season
sixteen and eighteen hours a day, for six or even seven
days a week, will be worked for several weeks on end.
Overtime is extended until after midnight; buttonholes
are given out to the women to be worked at all night;
and the presser takes up the process in the small hours
of the morning when the cthers leave off, so that the
finished garment may be delivered in the shop by 9.30
A.M. sharp. In fact, in many cases, workshops are never
closed; and the men drop to sleep on their tools, or le
down in their clothes too exhausted to return home to
rest. (Pp. 84-85.)
Sanitary regulations of all kinds are indeed more
strictly enforced than those relating to the limitation of
hours, and workshops are clean—cleaner than the ordi-
nary living-rooms of persons of the same class. But
little enforcement is possible in the domestic or small
home-workshop of the provision which limits the women’s
work from 8 A. M. to 8 P. M., in the rare visits of the
Factory Inspector, the offending women are smuggled
into the back room, or if needs be, into bed; and the In-
spector has not the face to disturb ‘‘my sister asleep.’’
(This failure is the more to be regretted as any effec-
151
General Injuries to Health—Great Britain
‘tive enforcement of the Factories and Workshops Act
would at the same time check the excessive overtime of
the men, for the work is seldom able to proceed for any
length of time without the help of the women.) These
long hours of persistent toil inevitably affect the health
of both men and women. Meals are taken at any time
and in any shape. The men go for hours without food,
-and are then too tired to eat. The whole household is
demoralized; and, whether windows are open or closed,
the air becomes vitiated during the heat of the long sum-
‘mer day. Perhaps the presser’s workshop suffers most
heavily; windows are shut to keep in the damp atmos-
phere favorable to the work, and the heat rising from
‘the steaming irons and wet cloth is intolerable. But
-everywhere men and women look haggard and white;
few do not suffer from indigestion and nervous strain;
-all are anemic; and the prevalence of phthisis, or con-
‘sumption, is excessive. Over one-third of the cases of
consumption known to the Westminster Health Society
‘in North Westminster (Soho, Strand and Mayfair areas)
are tailors, or members of a tailor’s family; and of these
four-fifths are Jewish. These figures are the more sig-
nificant in that the earnings of the tailor average con-
siderably higher than those of other wage-earners in
‘the same district; and the incidence of consumption nor-
‘mally follows that of poverty. Indeed, outside the privi-
leged individual system, it is rare to find an elderly tailor
at work; the consensus of opinion among Trades Union
‘officials, as well as among the men themselves, is that the
tailor on sectional work is worn out between forty-five
and fifty, and that the presser and machiner are those
‘to drop out first. Perhaps the men suffer more severely
‘than the women. (Pp. 86-87.)
Rational Hours of Work. I. The Case for Reduction.
Shorter Hours and Greater Efficiency. A. H.
CrosFieLp. Reprinted from the ‘‘Manchester
Guardian,’’ June 27, 1913.
If we turn now to consider the disastrous physical,
‘mental, and moral effects of excessively long hours and
152
General Injuries to Health—Great Britain
exhausting conditions of work on men and women in
their family and civic life, the most eloquent testimony
against these evil conditions of work undoubtedly comes
from those who have experienced and suffered under
them. The evidence against excessive hours of work—
which in point of fact not seldom becomes positively
inhuman—is of course overwhelming. I may perhaps be
permitted to give one illustration. Alderman Patrick
Walls, general secretary of the National Union of Blast-
furnacemen, has described to me his experience of six-
teen years’ work on twelve-hour shifts. 72 hours one
week and 96 the next, making an average of 84 hours
a week (inclusive of meal-time). When two gangs of
men work at a continuous process such as blast furnaces,
once a fortnight 24 hours’ continuous work is necessary
for one gang, in order that the men may change from
day to the night shift or vice versa. Mr. Walls as a
young man in his prime must have been a fine specimen
of a powerful, athletic Briton. Yet he told me that,
walking home at the end of that 24-hour shift, he used
to feel as if a straw in his path would throw him on iis
face. So much for the physical effects of such iniquit-
ously long hours of work. It represents a strain such
as no man would dream of putting on his horse. (P. 5.)
Rational Hours of Work. II. Eight-Hour Shifts in
Iron and Steel Trades. A. H. Crosrisrp. Re-
printed from the ‘‘Manchester Guardian,’’ June
30, 1918.
‘Take the case of the strike of the smelter workers
which occurred at Swansea last November. This was
not in any way caused by differences about wages. It
was a question of conditions of employment. The work
is very hard, hot, and injurious to health. There is no
stoppage of work at the week-end, because the manu-
facture is absolutely continuous, and, while the number
of hours per week vary, the average of working hours
week by week is 70 per man. The complaint of the men,
to quote their own language, is that they are ‘“sapped
out, prematurely aged, made miserable by chronic poi-
153
General Injuries to Health—Great Britain
soning, and crushed by unnatural fatigue.’’ Their of-
fer was to sacrifice one-seventh of their wages in re-
turn for the concession of Sunday rest! (Pp. 12-13.)
The Case for the National Muimum, with Preface by
Mrs. Stoney Wess. London, National Committee
for the Prevention of Destitution, 1913.
The extent of the physical deterioration due to exces-
sive hours can be measured by the experience of the
working of the eight hours day in the Durham and Cleve-
land iron industry in 1908. A number of the men
performing easy work were kept on twelve hours per
day. Investigations made in one of the trade union
branches showed that the men working twelve hours
drew 75 per cent. more sick pay in proportion to their
numbers than those working eight hours, despite their
easier work. Over the whole district the death-rate
among the twelve-hour men was out of all proportion
greater than among the men working eight hours.
Overwork and the National Purse——Mention of sick
pay suggests that not only do long hours of labour make
a heavy drain on the national health, they will make an
equally heavy drain on the national purse. When the
Insurance Act is in full working order it is probable that
a sum largely in excess of £30,000,000 will be spent by the
insurance, poor law and public health authorities in cop-
ing with the various forms of ill-health. The experience
of the Durham and Cleveland iron workers indicates that
a large portion of this sum will be spent in repairing the
ravages of excessive overwork on the health and physique
of the workers. (Pp. 17-18.)
Work and Wages. In Continuation of Kart Brassey's
“Work and Wages’’ and ‘“‘Foreign Work and
English Wages.’’ Part III. Social Betterment.
Smney J. CHapman, M. A., London and New
York, Longmans, Green & Co., 1914.
In Germany practically all iron and steel workers
toil in twelve-hour shifts, which is the more serious in
154
General Injuries to Health—Great Britain
that the sickness and accident rate among such workers.
is exceptionally high. (P. 253.) ;
Much more inquiry is requisite, not only into mat-
ters affecting the dangerous trades, but also into such
problems as that of industrial fatigue with the intention
of securing if needful the regulation of specially tiring
work and conditions—like the carrying, pushing, and
hauling of heavy weights, prolonged standing. exces-
sive nervous tension, and bad ventilation. (P. 77.)
British Medical Journal. April 24th, 1915. Munition
Factories.
At the Enfield Lock small arms factory, which is under
government control, the men work in two shifts, a day
and a night. The day shift works out at 54 hours per
week, and the night shift at 75 hours. The men are al-
lowed an alternate Sunday off, and the whole factory
takes a Sunday holiday once a month. At the Haster
holiday a rest of four days was given. The men are paid
by piece work... extra pay is given for night work. ...
The catering is good. The health of some of the men
who have come under our observation has been deteriorat-
ing. They are looking thinner, their faces are pale and
some show a highly-colored patch of venules on each
cheek. The appearance of the men suggests that the
conditions of their occupation will lead to an increased.
incidence of phthisis. They complain of the heat and
closeness of the factories... .
_The management ought to take full advantage of the
hours of daylight, and not put on the larger shift at
night when artificial lighting must be used, when the
factory is closer and hotter, and when the men are nat-
urally less able to bear fatigue. A night shift of 11 hours.
is too long a strain for men, impelled as they are by
patriotism and money to work against time. The over-
warm, close atmosphere diminishes the tone and vigour:
of the workers and lowers their metabolism. The ex-
hausting effect of factory labour is largely due to its.
monotonous nature. One set of neuro-muscular mechan-
isms is continually used and fatigued. ... Owing to the-
155
General Injuries to Health.—Germany
greatly diminished loss of body heat in the confined,
warm factory, the need of the whole body for food is
lessened; at the same time, the exhausted nervous system
craves for restitution. ... From the atmospheric condi-
tions mentioned arises the need for stimulants and an im-
pulsion to eat too much food. ... The result is alimentary
disorder. Hence the whole train of an impoverished
metabolism is started which leads to diminished vigour
and lessened joy in life. The confined atmosphere at the
same time exposes the workers to massive infection from
the carriers of the germs of tuberculosis, influenza and
other infections... . The shutting of windows favors mas-
sive infection . .. while at the same time the natural
immunity is lowered by the depression of the metabolic
processes. (P. 729.)
Annalen des Deutschen Reichs. Bd. XXI, 1888. [An-
nals of the German Empire. Vol. XXI. 1888.]
Der internationale Schutz der Arbeiter. [Inter-
national Labor Legislation.] Dr. Grorar ADLER,
University of Freiberg. Munich and Leipsig,
1888,
The results to the worker of an unduly long work-
ing day are easy to perceive. His health, his energy,
and working capacity are undermined. His body be-
comes more receptive to disease; his family life is
ruined. His whole time is spent in work, except for the
sleep that is necessary to maintain life—with the result
that he is deprived of all that tends to culture and is re-
duced to a purely animal existence. (P. 482.)
Handbuch der Hygiene. Bd. 8. [Handbook of Hy-
giene. Vol. 8!.] Edited by Dr. Turopors WEYL.
Allegemeine Gewerbehygiene und Fabrikgesete-
gebung. [General Industrial Hygiene and Fac-
tory Legislation.] Dr. Emiz Rotu. Jena, 1894.
Among the dangers of occupation in the more re-
stricted sense those injuries that are induced by a too
156
General Injuries to Health—Germany
prolonged working time and by too heavy an amount of
work take first place.
It is evident that the health of even the most robust
workingman suffers if he is compelled to exceed the lim-
its of his physical capacity—if wearied organs are de-
nied the necessary reparation. There must be, there-
fore, in every case a relation between the length of work-
ing time and severity of work if occupation dangers are
to be considered. (P. 26.)
Amtliche Mitthetlungen aus den Jahres-Berichten der
Gewerbe-Aufsichtsbeamten, XXII, 1897. [Off-
cial Information from the Reports of the (Ger-
man) Factory Inspectors.] Berlin, Bruer, 1898.
The physicians connected with the local insurance
against sickness in Aachen, in reply to a question of the
president as to how far they attributed ill-health among
adult working men to extremely long hours of work, re-
plied that the freedom of employers to work their men
without legal restriction had certainly led to grave
abuses, and that there were workmen who at times were
subject to over-exertion that could not but be preju-
dicial to health. (P. 240.)
In the interest of the workingmen’s health it is great-
ly to be regretted that such long hours are prevalent
ae especially as experiments have so often shown
that product has not been lessened by reduction of
hours of work. It is greatly to be desired that the phy-
sically broken down factory workers (of this region)
a have the beneficent aid of a maximum working
ay. :
Well-meaning and clear-sighted employers lament the
conditions, but can do nothing individually.
One employer declares that ‘‘the very fact that weav-
ers who have 3 or 4 looms to attend to cannot even stand
up straight, because they must keep them continuously
going—is reason enough for a shorter day.’’ (P. 241.)
Bad conditions are prevalent in tailoring and shoe-
making. . . . The results of excessively long hours
157
General Injuries to Health—Germany
and bad conditions are seen in the pale faces, round-
shouldered attitude and low vitality of these workers.
Their most apparent disease forms are articular rheu-
matism, eye troubles, chest and lung diseases, inflam-
mation of the joints and of the abdominal organs. In
order to overcome the evils of shoemaking and tailoring,
there should be the same regulation of working time and
pauses as in bakeries. (P. 259.)
Jahresberichte der Gewerbe-Aufsichtsbeamten 1m Kén-
agreich Wiurttemberg fir das Jahr 1901. [Re-
ports of the Factory Inspectors in the Kingdom
of Wirttemberg, 1901.) Stuttgart, Lindemann,
1902.
Human physique has not progressed proportionate-
ly with the perfection of machinery,—on the contrary,
there are signs that it is suffering deterioration, and it
is therefore not surprising that the workman’s body
eannot for a long stretch of time keep pace with the ma-
chine and the extensive demands it makes upon his at-
tention and vigilance, without suffering serious injury
to health. The efforts made in consequence by the work-
ers to preserve their health (their only capital) by at-
taining a reduction of working hours and a legal nor-
mal day are entirely justifiable. (P. 14.)
Jahresberichte der Gewerbe-Aufsichtsbeamten und
Bergbehérden fir das Jahr 1906. Bd. III. [Re-
ports of the (German) Factory and Mine Inspec-
tors for the Year 1906. Vol. III.) Berlin, Deck-
er, 1907.
Alsace-Lorraine:
The efforts toward establishing shorter hours are so
gratifying that it is all the more regrettable still to find
a number of industries, even some which stand high, re-
taining the systematically long hours of work which are
bound to exhaust prematurely the mental and physical
power of the workers. (P. 26.%)
158
General Injuries to HealthGermany
Stenographic Reports of the German Reichstag. 1 Ses-
sion, 1908. Appendix 8. Report Nr. 701. Um
Geseteliche Verhinderung des die Gesundheit
Ruinirenden Uherschichtenwesens, im Bergre-
vier. [For the legal Prohibition of Excessive
shifts Ruinous to Health wm Mines.) Report
brought in by REPRESENTATIVE SACHSE.
The second point of the petition sets forth the great
overstrain to which the miners are subjected through
extra long shifts and the injury therefrom both to them-
selves and to the insurance office. Many men had from
40 to 48 shifts a month and their health was injured and
the insurance funds drained thereby.
‘The following statistics are offered as proof of this
statement:
Sick pay rose 20 per cent. in two years. In 1900 and
1902 the cases of sickness per member and per year were
0.5 per cent.; in 1904 they were 0.6 per cent.
Days of sickness per member and per year totaled, in
1900, 8.2 per cent.; in 1902, 8.6 per cent.; and in 1904 9.6
per cent., which means a rise of 17 per cent. in time lost.
Accidents getting compulsory compensation num-
bered, in 1900, 12.19; in 1902, 13.55 and in 1905, 15.55 per
1000 members.
The accidents reported rose from 103.48 in 1900 to
126.45 in 1905 per 1000 insured men. -
The age of miners invalidated fell as follows: The
average age at which invalidity pay was begun was in
1892, 50 years. In 1900 it fell to 48.9; in 1903 to 46.6
(statistics of the miners’ union.)
The miners’ union of Bochum gave 42.2 years as the
average age for invalidity in 1904; and 43 years in 1905.
These are frightful figures and a diserace to German
social conditions. They prove not only that hours of
work are too long, but also that the practice of excessive
shifts is absolutely murderous.
The Commission appeals to the government for pro-
tective legislation. (P. 4465.)
158a
General Injuries to Health—Germany
Working Hours in Continuous Processes of the Iron and
Steel Industries. Report to the International As-
sociation for Labor Legislation. Franz WIBER,
Chairman of the Christian Metalworkers Union of
Germany. Duisburg, 1912.
High Accident and Morbidity Rates as Consequences of
Long and Exhausting Work.
The iron and steel industry shows the highest rate of
accidents and disease; the rate of accidents exceeds even
that of mining. The constantly increasing complexity
of mechanical installations involves constantly increasing
danger. Even though the modern development of ma-
chinery no longer makes such severe demands on the
physical strength of the worker, there has been a signifi-
cant increase of the speed and strain of the work. The
pace of the machines, derricks and cranes is constantly
increased and with it the danger of accidents rises. There
is danger to life and limb merely in going through a roll-
ing mill in operation.
On the other hand, the severity of the work and the
excessive heat before the furnaces, together with drafts
and drinking large quantities of cold drinks, the dust
and poisonous fumes—all combine to endanger the health
of the workers. ... In the hot summer months it is an
everyday occurrence to see workmen faint with exhaus-
tion at their work. The irregular meal-times also have
a bad effect on health. To be sure, the morbidity figures,
in contrast to those concerning miners, are very difficult
to obtain. The sickness insurance is in the hands of the
special industrial associations, which are exceedingly
chary of giving any statistical information. The follow-
ing figures are therefore based in part on earlier years.
In the Krupp firm, at Essen-on-the-Ruhr, the inci-
dence of sickness for the entire working force was as fol-
‘lows:
Days.
1902—=57.22 per cent. Average duration of sickness 15.29
1906—62.87 ‘é “¢ 15.56
1910—=65.45 ‘* ‘* = e - ‘¢ 18.30
158b
General Injuries to HealthGermany
This period of nine years shows a rise not only in the
incidence, but also in the duration of sickness. We must
take into account, however, that not even half of these
workers are employed in the most taxing processes of
the industry. The majority are employed in the muni-
tion works and the machine shops. (Pp. 35-38.)
Moreover, only thoroughly strong and healthy men
are employed in these heavy processes. The applicants
have to undergo an exceedingly careful physical exami-
nation and their employment depends upon the report of
the physician. The great majority of the iron and steel
works take on no workers over 40.... (Pp. 38-39.)
We must not fail to emphasize, in discussing the prob-
lem of securing labor, the fact that the introduction of
the eight hour shift will defer the onset of invalidity. In
the heavy processes of steel manufacture the average
industrial life of the workers is fifteen years. This is
shown, for example, by a provision of the Krupp Pension
Fund. The furnacemen in the Krupp plants qualify for
the pension after fifteen years, while the time limit for
the other workers is set at twenty years. With the intro-
duction of the eight hour day the steel industry will have
no further difficulty in securing labor. (P. 60.)
The preceding facts go to prove that a change is not
only imperatively necessary, but also entirely within the
realms of possibility. The long and exhausting working
hours in the iron and steel industry, with their many
accompanying dangers, are in no way consistent with the
ae and cultural progress of the present time. (P.
159
General Injuries to Health—Switzerland
Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fir dffentliche Gesund-
hettspflege. Vol. 43. 1911. Zur Phyzwologie und
Pathologie der Arbeit, mit besonderer Beriicksicht-
igung der Ermidungsfrage. [Physiology and
Pathology of Work, with Special Reference to the
Fatigue Problem.|] Dr. E. Roru.
The more the body is inundated with fatigue-products,
the more evident become the signs of chronic fatigue or
over-fatigue. The principal expressions of chronic fa-
tigue are digestive disturbances, anomalies of blood-
formation, symptoms of anemia, nervous disturbances,
such as neurasthenia, and finally, general invalidism. Un-
doubtedly, the condition of the organs, the constitution
of the body, have a decisive influence upon the earlier or
later onset of fatigue and over-fatigue. The most im-
portant external factors in this connection are sufficient
recreation and suitable nutrition. A period of rest in
the middle of the day’s work is an important factor for
the easing of the work and the saving of the worker’s
strength. (P. 651.)
Berichte wiber die Fabrikinspektion im Jahr 1879. [Re-
ports of the (Swiss) Factory Inspectors, 1879.]
Berne, Stampflische Printing House, 1880.
It is a great pity that, in estimating the pros and cons
of the ‘‘normal day of work,’’ so little consideration is
paid to the results of the long hours both on the physical
and moral well-being of the worker.
In going about in the embroidery regions, one hardly
thinks of physical drawbacks, when seeing the factories,
which are usually clean, light, and airy; but when one
meets men who, formerly robust, have lost their healthy
looks after a few years of the excessively long hours of
work and who are now worn out and unstrung; when one
hears embroiderers of 48 years called old and invalid,
one feels like inquiring further. It will be found that the
work is in itself extraordinarily strenuous. . . . The
physicians in these regions universally affirm the extreme
danger to health in the unreasonably long hours of work.
(P. 14.)
160
General Injuries to Health_—France
Berichte tiber die Fabrikinspektion wm Jahr 1881. [Re-
ports of the (Swiss) Factory Inspectors, 1881.]
Schaffhausen, Brodtmann, 1882.
When the normal day was introduced by law for fac-
tory workers, it was first of all based on reasons of health.
More and more numerous protests had been made as to
the excessive labor imposed upon the worker, and the
injury to health and strength that was being suffered by
our people was emphasized on all sides. Measures of
prevention against these abuses were regarded as coun-
selled by nature, which provides men with the instincts
of self-preservation. To these reasons were added others
of a social nature. It was hoped to elevate the working
classes morally and intellectually, to give them more time
for family life, social amenities and education. (P. 13.)
Sixth International Congress of Hygiene and Demo-
graphy. Vienna, 1887. Par XIV. Sec. on Hygiene.
Fabrikhygiene und Gesetegebung. [Factory Hy-
giene and Legislation.} Dr. Frmortrxs ScHuuer,
Swiss Factory Inspector, Vienna, 1887.
In the factory inspection reports of many countries
there may be found ample observation of the destructive
influence of long hours. Thus a Saxon report says of
glassmakers ‘‘they have high wages, and live well, but
do not live to old age. They have excessive hours of
Work ?> (F235.)
Etude sur l’Influence de la Durée du Travail Quotidien
sur la Santé Générale de l’ Adulte. [Study of the
Effect of the Length of Working Hours upon the
General Health of Adults.} Dr. Inia Sacuniye.
Lyon, Waltener Et Cie, 1900.
There is a weighty factor, over and above such ex-
ternal conditions as housing, nutrition, etc., ete., which
exercises a widespread influence upon the health of the
people. This is no other than the duration of the working
hours of wage-earners. (P. 20.)
161
General Injuries to Health—Austria
Revue d’Hygiene. T. 26,1904, Enquéte sur la Situation
Sanitaire des Owvriers du Textiles dans l’ Arron-
dissement de Lille. [Inquiry wmto the Samtary
Conditions in the Teatile Trades in Lille and tts
Environs.| Dr. D. Vernarcue. Paris, Masson et
Cre.
The longer the working hours and the whole period of
occupation in the mills the less probability is there that
the textile worker may retain his health unimpaired.
(P. 1066.)
42.08 to 100 of the textile workers had poor health.
4. Some ailments were due to bad hygienic con-
ditions, . . . the others were due rather to physical
overstrain. (P. 1078.) aa
Eighth International Congress of Hygiene and Demo-
graphy. Budapest, 1894. Vol. VII, Sec. V. Uber
das Verhdltniss der Dauer des Arbettstages zur
Gesundheit des Arbeiters und dessen Einfluss auf
die offentliche Gesundheit. [The Length of the
Working Day in its Relation to the Workman’s
Health and its Influence wpon Public Health.] Dr.
E. J. R. Kresost, Vice-Secretary of the Chamber
of Commerce in Budapest. Budapest, 1896.
All accumulated experience and evidence fully justify
the conclusion that the length of working time is of
weighty importance to the workman’s health and that
overwork is accompanied by most harmful consequences
to the organism.
As a matter of fact, practising physicians observe
among persons with excessive hours of work, such as
bakers, tailors, sewing women, shop girls, etc., definite
disturbances of health for which they hold the long hours
directly responsible. And yet a direct proof of every in-
jury resulting from overwork is almost unattainable.
For, connected with the overwork are other and related
factors that are injurious, such as a fixed artificial pos-
ture, or dust, or poisons, insanitary shop and factory,
or insufficient nutrition, and it is often almost impossible
to separate their effects. Other complicating factors
162
General Injuries to Health —Belgium
might also be adduced in many cases, such as insufficient
sleep, great haste at meals, imperfect safety appliances
in the lesser industries. Nevertheless the relation of long
working hours to health is, in certain forms of ill health,
easily demonstrable. So, for instance, in certain trades,
definite maladies result from too long standing. ist
Others equally definite are caused by too long sitting
: and others are conspicuous as resulting from
excessive muscular over-exertion. . . . Now, though
we may say, in such cases, that the injuries to health are
the direct results of standing, sitting, or lifting, there
can scarcely be room for disagreement when we take it
to be a settled fact that the wnderlying relation of the
length of the working hours to the state of health is clear-
ly established.
Taking for granted that all other conditions (nutri-
tion, housing, general sanitation, etc.) remain unchanged,
this difference of time in the occurrence of sickness must
be attributed to the excessive hours of work, which reach
beyond the limits of endurance. (Pp. 326-327.)
Instituts Solvay. Travaux de VInstitut de Sociologie
[Sociological Publications of the Solvay Instt-
tute.] Une Eapérience Industrielle de Réduc-
tion de la Journée de Travail. [An Industrial
Experiment im the Reduction of Hours of Labor.]
L. G. Fromont, with Preface by E. Manam.
Brussels, Misch et Thron, 1906.
The eight-hour day was not . . . forced upon
M. Fromont by his men. He came to it himself from
observation of the exhaustion of his employees. He no-
ticed their physical deterioration, found constant de-
ficits in the sick benefits fund, and could not resist the
conviction that the 12-hour day was excessive. Thus
in undertaking his experiments he was clearly conscious
of the end in view; it was a question of increasing the
endurance and productivity of the working force by a
reduction of working hours. (Preface, Pp. xvii-xviii.)
The gratifying results of the experiment, (as to out-
163
General Injuries to Health.—Belgium
put and wages, were completed in a most remarkable
manner by the evidence of progressive and permanent
improvement in the men’s health. This final demonstra-
tion was given by the sick benefit fund, which with prac-
tically the same number of members showed a steadily
growing balance.
The annual results on this fund are evident in the
diagram where the curve shows the incontestably good
influence of the eight-hour day. (P. 81.)
y
FRANCS
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
1889 (890 189) 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 190! 1902 {903 1904 YEARS.
It should be observed that non-employment due to
accidents has nothing to do with this fund, for from its
formation the Company has insured all its employees
164
General Injuries to Health. Belgium
against accidents and pays all the resultant expenses.
The sick benefits fund has to do only with cases of sick-
ness. Thus the results reached are all the stronger ar-
guments in favor of our thesis.
The rather marked drops for the years 1895, 1900,
and 1902, which lower the curve to the points C. H. and
K. are due to epidemics of influenza which raged dur-
ing the winters of these years. Aside from these drops,
which are thus naturally explained, the curve shows a
general and constant rise.
We must conclude without fear of exaggeration that
the curve of improvement shows the steady progress
which may be indicated by the continuous line ob M ef-
ge Nrm.” (Pp. 82-83.)
*The eight-hour day was adopted at the Engis Chemical Works in 1893.
165
€. INJURIES TO EYES AND EARS.
(1) Eyes.
Serious injury to the eyes results also from excessive
working hours. The danger of eye-strain from over-
long hours and close application is intensified by the lack
of proper and adequate lighting of workrooms. Shorter
working hours not only relieve the strain upon the eyes,
but diminish the necessary time for working with arti-
ficial light.
Industrial Health-Hazards and Occupational Diseases
im Ohio. E. R. Havuurst, A.M.; M.D.; Director,
Division of Occupational Diseases, Ohio peat
Board of Health. 1915.
A flickering light, or a dim light can be just as alien
ing, from its effects upon the human eyes, as the most:
laborious work. On the other hand, brilliancy is equal-
ly as dangerous. We see the extremes of this in some:
of the furnace and melting processes, where eyes are
subjected to intense heat, as well as light, thus predis-
posing to ageing (cataracts, retinitis, conjunctivitis,
ete.) Extremes are seen in the case of welding by the
various types of blowpipes and electric methods now in.
vogue, in which not only the eyes require to be protected
by alternate layers of colored glass, but even the skin,:
to prevent the consequence of cancer. The eye also suf-:
fers from contrasts of light and shadows, as are seen
particularly in rooms where furnace glares are mostly
depended upon for lighting. Such conditions, of course,
produce inaccuracies of execution, and lead to accidents,
as well as curtailment of production. Nystagmus, or
dancing pupils, so commonly seen among coal miners,
has been recently shown to be due essentially to poor
lighting. The eyes are greatly fatigued by looking down
constantly upon bright objects or reflecting surfaces.
For instance, many persons suffer from headache when
166
Injuries to Eyesight.—United States
they look upon an expanse of river or lake water while
the sun is shining. The retina of the human eye 1s nor-
mally adapted to high-lights (the sky) which come above
the center of the field of vision, and to dark tones and
colors in the lower field of vision. Looking down upon
white reflecting surfaces, as upon paper, in ironing white
goods, etc., is the cause of considerable industrial head-
ache. (Pp. 21-22-23.)
Report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health.
1906. Report on the Sanitary Conditions of Fac-
tories, Workshops, and other Establishments.
Poor light is itself a factor of no mean consequence
in reducing the physiological resistance to disease. It
may be a concomitant of a number of other unsanitary
influences which affect the health of the worker, as for
example, in the weaving and spinning rooms; or it may
be the principal factor, as in web drawing. Apparently
too little thought has been given, in mill construction, to
providing for light in accordance with the kind of work
to be done in a given room. Many rooms are of old con-
struction, with comparatively low ceilings, small win-
dows, and small panes of glass. Some of these rooms
are narrow, and admit fair light from the sides; but some
are wide, and some are basement rooms, which lack both
an ample supply and an even distribution of light.
Aside from the question of mill construction, two im-
portant factors contribute to poor light in a large number
of rooms, viz: (1) neglect to keep the ceiling and
walls clean and white; and (2) infrequent washing of
windows, allowing them to go unwashed in some in-
stances for several years. It is frequently the case that
prismatic glass of different kinds and sizes is introduced
into poorly lighted rooms; but unless this glass is kept
reasonably clean, it is of little value. In poorly con-
structed and neglected rooms, with or without prismatic
glass, artificial light is not uncommonly used even on
bright, sunny days in the late morning or early afternoon
nours; and in such rooms gas jets are as likely to be
167
Injuries to Eyesight—United States
found as incandescent bulbs. Even if artificial light is
not used until the late afternoon hours, there is then
much variation as to the time and method of lighting
and the kind of light in use. In some instances the light
should be turned on half an hour, or longer, before the
engineer sees fit to do so; yet the employees during this
time are supposed to continue their work with the same
degree of accuracy and rapidity as with good light.
It is a well-established fact that either the overuse
of the eyes, or the use of eyes under bad conditions, may
give rise to eye fatigue or to eye strain; and many eye
specialists believe that at least 80 to 90 per cent. of head-
aches are dependent upon eye strain.
With these facts in mind, it is impossible to ignore
the probability that many individuals working by gas
light, or even electric light, in dirty, unpainted, over-
heated rooms, with impure air and excessive moisture,
for ten hours a day or merely for the last two hours dur-
ing the day, use up a great deal of nervous energy, and
suffer from eye fatigue, or eye strain, and its conse-
quences. (Pp. 470-471.)
American Labor Legislation Review. June, 1912. Occu-
pational Eye Diseases. Exutce M. Acer, New
York Postgraduate Medical School.
It is certain that stokers, bottle makers, glass-blowers,
and others who are continually exposed to very intense
light and heat have an enormously increased liability to.
cataract. One foreign observer found that as many a»
40 per cent. of the bottle makers in one establishment
showed evidences of cataract though the great majority
of them were under forty years of age. The left eye,
which is nearest the fire, was invariably affected more
than the right. (P. 227.)
There is also a very large group of diseases, organic
or functional, which are due to prolonged use or excessive
strain of the eyes. . . .
There are at least three distinct types of eye fatigue
which show themselves in different trades. We have
168
Injuries to Eyesight—United States
already alluded to the retinal fatigue resulting from the
constant watching of polished or reflecting surfaces, re-
sulting in the asthenopia of gilders and polishers. Next
comes the muscular fatigue which we see in the trades
that compel the constant use of the eyes for close, fine
work. The perfectly normal eye sees things close at hand
only by a process of accommodation of focusing, which
is a muscular effort and which produces a normal fatigue.
It is, therefore, perfectly possible to strain healthy, nor-
mal eyes by overwork. In most of the so-called errors of
refraction, hyperopia, astigmatism, and the like, distinct
vision is only possible by overaccommodation, and the
individual who has to accommodate too much naturally
becomes tired sooner than he otherwise would. .
To-day there are many trades in which the workman sits
hour after hour chiefly engaged in watching intently—a
task which eventually tires even the normal, healthy eye.
And among the factory workers, badly housed, ill fed
for generations, diseased, refractive errors, which are
for the most part congenital, are not only practically uni-
versal, but often so great that they cannot be compen-
sated for any amount of strain.
Consider the garment workers, for instance. They
all suffer from errors of refraction, large or small. They
have less than the normal compensatory powers because
their muscles are overworked and badly fed. They work
long hours in close, badly ventilated, badly lighted rooms,
driven to the utmost. The least muscular relaxation
means indistinct vision and mistakes in their work, and
for every mistake there is a regular tariff of fines and
deductions. The constant strain to see distinctly results
in a whole series of eye symptoms. The muscular fatigue
causes headache, which most operatives seem to consider
an inevitable incident of life. The eye, like the hand, has
its muscle cramps from overstimulation, and its pareses
from exhaustion, but, while the cramp of writers and
telegraphers is regularly included in the list of oceupa-
tional diseases, nothing is said of the far more common
ciliary spasm or the convergence insufficiency of the eye
worker. The nervous exhaustion which follows the ef-
fort to stimulate tired ocular muscles day after day is
169
Injuries to Eyesight.—United States.
certainly one at least of the causes of lowered vitality
and depression. Neurasthenia and the other fatigue and
attention neuroses are said to be practically universal
among the garment workers, and no small part of it can
be ascribed to eyestrain. (Pp. 227-229.)
Personally I believe that the eye diseases due to
fatigue are far more important than we commonly sup-
pose. More people are blind from malignant myopia and
retinal detachment than from all the trade poisonings.
. . Any intelligent shop management must con-
sider the eyes of employees. (P. 230. y
IVorkers’ Health Bulletin. Issued by the Joint Board
of Sanitary Controls wn the Cloak, Suit and Skirt
and the Dress and Waist Industries. Grorern M.
Price, M. D. New York, 1915.
Insufficient and improper light is dangerous to life
because of the greater liability of workers to accidents,
dangerous to health because it causes eyestrain, head-
aches and other diseases, and finally, dangerous to eye-
sight because of overstrain and impairment of the eyes
and to general health, because eyestrain causes head-
aches and other diseases. (P. 6.)
No organ of the body is so important and indis-
pensable to the enjoyment of life and happiness as our
eyes. Yet, no organ of the body is so much over-used,
misused and abused.
Of every one hundred workers examined in our of-
fice, SEVENTY-FIVE were found to have defective
vision in one or both eyes. In only very few cases were
glasses worn that really corrected the defects. In most
cases the glasses, if worn at all, not only did not correct
the defects, but made them worse.
Defective eyes are due to stooping posture, to eye-
strain, to insufficient light and to glaring light.
A stooping posture cause; congestion in the eye, eye-
ae and leads to bad eyesight, to headaches and back-
aches
Straining of the eyes because of insufficient or of im-
170
Injuries to Eyesight—Great Britain
proper light is injurious to the eyesight and to general
health. Gane)
Glare is caused by light which is unshaded or too in-
tense.
Overstrain of eye is also caused by too prolonged
work, by overfatigue, by over-time and much night work.
(P. 13.)
British Home Office. Interim Report on an Investiga-
tion of Industrial Fatigue by Physiological Meth-
ods, by A. F. Stantey Kent, M. A., D. Sc. (Oxon),
Henry Overton Wills Professor of Physiology im
the University of Bristol. London, 1915.
Notes on the Times at Which the Observations Were
Taken.
Colliers —The experiments were carried out at the
beginning and at the end of an eight hours’ ‘‘shift’’ in
each case.
The colliers commenced work on what is called the
‘afternoon shift’’ at 3 p.m.on Monday. They went down
the pit between 2 and 3 p. m., so as to be ready to start
work at 3. They then worked, with cne 20 minutes’
interval, till 11 p. m., and came up the pit some time
between 11 and12 p.m. (P. 17.)
In the ‘‘Ratio’’ given in the last line values over unity
(Dia ... a diminished acuity of vision after labour.
. 19.
Second Experiment (Colliers). Maximum distance
in centimetres at which Standard Letters can be recog-
nised. This—the first test of the present series based
upon an examination of the special senses—is of great
interest.
With two exceptions, every test shows that the dis-
tance at which the standard letters could be seen proved
to be greater before than after work, that is to say, as
a result of the work, the acuity of the sight was dimin-
ished. . . . The differences in many of the remain-
ing cases are large, and, omitting the results of the first
day, when the novelty of the conditions probably af-
171
Injuries to Eyesight——Great Britain
fected the results more than later in the series, it is seen
that the ratio A/N rises consistently during most of the
time of the test—1.118-1.20-1.240-1.190.
Second Experiment (Colliers).
Maximum distance (in centimetres) at which Standard Letters recognised.
January, 1915.
Examinee. Monday, 4th. Tuesday, 5th. Wednesday, 6th. Thursday, 7th. Friday, 8th.
At N* A N A N A N A N
1J.J. iL. 76 60 66 72 74 55 64 50 60 54
2*F. T. 610 593 602 600 641 610 645 571 600 515
3G. C. 252 182 343 220 369 300 367 148 164 122
43. W. L. 503 426 626 517 564 563 569 476 575 444
5D. WwW. L 300 175 277 300 169 146 286 227 216 171
6S. M. 595 544 666 600 732 620 686 636 675 618
Total 2336.0 1980.0 2580.0 2309.0 2549.0 2294.0 2608.0 2103.0 2290.0 1924.0
Average 389.0 330.0 430.0 384.8 428.1 382.38 434.7 350.5 381.7 320.7
Ratio A/N 1.180 1.118 1.120 1.240 1.190
tA: Afternoon, between 2 and 3 P. M.
*N: Night, between 11 P. M. and 12 midnight.
(Pp. 19-20.)
Fatigue. A. Mosso, Professor of Physiology, University
of Turin. 1896. Translated by Marcarer Drum-
monn, M. A., and W. B. Drummonn, M. B., Extra
Physician, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edin-
burgh, New York, Putnam, 1904.
Rest has such an effect upon vision that some work-
men, such as printers, tailors, and shoemakers, after
their Sunday rest, see very well for several days; but in
the middle of the week the symptoms of asthenopia re-
commence; and so troublesome are they that the suffer-
ers have to cease work and go to the doctor, complain-
ing not only of obscurity of vision, but of pain extend-
ing from their eyes to the frontal and occipital regions
of the head. (P. 139.)
Fatigue of the eyes in perception of the colour has
been thoroughly studied by Goethe (Zur Farbenlehre,
1812).
172
Injuries to Eyesight.—France
From his work on colours I shall quote some para-
graphs which deal specially with ocular fatigue.
We have all tried the experiment of looking at the
sun, or gazing fixedly on the flame of a candle, and then
shutting our eyes. We are all aware that the eye re-
tains an image of a circle, which is at first bright with
a pale-yellow centre, but quickly becomes rose-coloured
around the edges.
After a time, this red increasing towards the centre
covers the whole circle and at last the bright central
point. No sooner, however, is the whole circle red than
the edge begins to be blue and the blue gradually in-
croaches inward upon the red. When the whole is blue
the edge becomes dark and colorless. The image then
becomes gradually fainter and at the same time dimin-
ishes in size. (Pp. 229-230.)
Goethe has likewise pointed out the effect of debility
upon vision: ‘‘In passing from bright daylight to a
dusky place we distinguish nothing at first; by degrees
the eye recovers its susceptibility: strong eyes sooner
than weak ones; the former in a minute, while the latter
may require seven or eight minutes.’’
This observation of Goethe’s as to longer duration
of fatigue phenomena in enfeebled persons is of great
importance in our present study. (P. 230.)
Etude sur l’Influence de la Durée du Travail Quotidien
sur la Santé Générale de l’ Adulte. [Study of the
Effect of the Length of Working Hours upon the
General Health of Adults.] Dr. In1a SacHnine.
Lyon, Waltener et Cie., 1900.
_ Bocci_ has studied the influence of fatigue on human
vision. He holds that in fatigue of the eye and its at-
tachments there are two distinct factors, namely, pure-
ly muscular fatigue and weariness of the nerve centres.
In a series of experiments with normal individuals who
were fatigued he found a diminution of keenness of
vision, of refraction, of accommodation, of impression-
ability of the retina, of equilibrium and of muscular co-
ordination. (P. 59.) .
173
Injuries to Ears.—Germany
Handbuch der Arbeiterwohlfahrt. Bd. I. [Handbook
of the General Welfare of the Working Classes.
Vol. I.] Edited by Dr. Orro Dammer. Beschddt-
gungen der Arbeiter bei der Arbeit. [Injuries of
Occupation.] Dr. AscHEr. Stuttgart, 1902.
Over-exertion of different organs:
The eye:
Puddlers, glassblowers, and others whose eyes are
continually exposed to extreme heat and light not only
suffer greatly from inflammation of the connective tis-
sues of the eyes, but also frequently from cataract.
Shortsightedness was found in a great number of
cases among the darners of a worsted mill the result of
the spasmodic accommodation of the eyes, as well as in-
flammation of the conjunctiva; that is the result of over-
strained eyes in many occupations, especially those car-
ried on in artificial or in poor light—the remedy lies in
improving lighting facilities and in shortening the work-
ing hours. (P. 492.)
(2) Ears,
Various incidents of industrial life, such as extremes
of heat and cold, dust, fumes, ete., are injurious to the
organs of hearing. Loud and intense noise in manufac-
ture is an important cause of impaired hearing, especially
among machinists, boilermakers and metal workers.
Recent experiments show a distinct lowering of the
acuity of hearing among fatigued workers.
Diseases of Occupation and Vocational Hygiene. Edited
by Gzorce M. Kosszr, M. D., Professor of Hygiene,
Georgetown University, etc, and Witt1am C.
Hanson, M. D., Massachusetts State Board of
Health, etc. Philadelphia, P. Blakiston’s Son &
“Co., 1916. Occupational Injuries and Diseases of
the Ear. By Crarence Joun Brake, M. D., Bos-
ton, Mass.
Injuries and diseases of the ear, of occupational ori-
gin, may be grossly divided into three classes; those
174
Injuries to Ears.—United States
which are limited to the external ear, those which affect
the sound-transmitting apparatus of the middle ear, and
those which are ultimately expended in their deleterious
effect upon the more delicate sound-transmitting appara-
tus of the cochlea and the terminal nerve distributions
which constitute the static organ of the labyrinth.
The effect upon the auricle of exposure to extreme
cold in the indoor trades is less frequently observed than
that produced by climatic exposure, but the results are
the same. ...
Similar inflammatory changes in the auricle are the
result of exposure to extreme heat; stokers, smelters,
braziers, puddlers and railway firemen are liable to cir-
ewnscribed inflammations of the dermis on the anterior,
the more exposed surface of the auricle and especially
in the region of the helix and the tragus, while the dust
and grime accompanying these and similar occupations,
including metal, glass, stone and wood workers, using
denatured alcohol, and grinders and polishers, mother-
of-pearl cutters, brush makers, are frequently produc-
tive of some form of eczema of the auricle and of the
external canal.
In all of the trades dealing with molten metals wounds
and burns of the auricle are frequently possible. . . (Pp.
339-340.)
Injuries not only to the auricle but also to the exter-
nal canal and even the drum head are not infrequent in
the trades which have to deal with the fabrication of
metals; blacksmiths, and other hammerers and forge
workers are subject to injury from flying particles as
are also stone masons and, less frequently, wood work-
ers, while the dust resultant in these and similar occu-
pations settling upon the auricle about the entrance of
the external auditory canal and requiring vigorous wash-
ing for its removal may be in the course of that process
washed into the external canal and there retained, with
the effect not only of obtunding the hearing, but of
setting up irritation in the skin lining the canal. In this
latter respect the character and constitution of the dust
has a determinative effect, the dust of iron, steel and
of coal having usually a merely obstructive effect, while
175
Injuries to Ears.—United States
that of zine ore, containing also lead, cadmium and ar-
senic is more or less irritating and consequently pro-
ductive of eczema of the auricle and canal and of furun-
culosis and diffuse dermatitis. In wood polishers and
jig sawyers where denatured alcohol has been used in the
dressing and finishing of the wood or where acids have
been used for checking and staining, the resultant dust is
more irritating than that of the raw wood alone. (Pp.
340-41.)
In all of the trades which entail more or less continu-
ous exposure to heated air laden with dust and foul with
poisonous gases, the effect upon the ear is secondary to
that induced in the mucous membrane of the nose and
nasopharynx and varies, according to the degree and
character of the irritation or infection, from a non-sup-
purative progressive thickening process in the soft tis-
sues of the middle ear to a suppurative process more or
less destructive in its course.
The number of the trades in which these two forms
of implication of the middle ear are observable is large
and their enumeration includes almost all of the occupa-
tions which are conducted in a dusty atmosphere and
those especially in which dust and irritating vapors are
among the by-products of manufacture; when to these
unfavorable conditions there is added the loud noise of
continuously operative machinery the cycle of injurious
effects, so far as the auditory transmitting and percep-
tive apparatus is concerned, is complete and the welfare
work of the trades will not have become adequate to its
purpose until it has eliminated both dust and noise as
essential factors. (P. 343.)
Under modern processes of manufacture the majority
of the trades are conducted through the intervention of
machinery interposed between the workman and the
material employed with the resultant introduction of an-
other prejudicial factor, especially and continuously in-
vading the organ of hearing and even, in some instances,
affecting that other portion of the internal ear which
is a peripheral organ of equilibration, it being clinically
observable that high grades of impairment of hearing
are more common among those metal workers whose day
176
Injuries to Ears.—United States
labor confines them to subjection to intense sounds made
up largely of overtones of high pitch than among the
workers in noises of lower pitch, beamers in cotton mills,
for example.
Gottstein and Kayser found marked impairment of
hearing in 50 per cent. of smiths and machinists exam-
ined by them. Holt found marked impairment of hear-
ing in 35 per cent. of coppersmiths, and Barr found nor-
mal hearing in a little over 9 per cent. only of boiler
makers, while Habermann reports that out of 31 boiler
makers there was not one with normal hearing.
The consensus of opinion is to the effect that the de-
gree of impairment of hearing in all these cases had a
definite relationship to the duration and the intensive
character of the operative sound. Both ears were usu-
ally tested, but more particularly that which was habitu-
ally directed toward the sound source. Subjective noises
were an almost unvarying accompaniment of the im-
pairment of hearing, but dizziness or vertigo was pres-
ent only in the more advanced cases, where the upper
tone limit in hearing was notably decreased. Dizziness
is also more likely to be an accompanying symptom, in
mill and factory operatives, when to the noise of the
machinery there is added a sensible vibration. (Pp.
345-46.)
The mass of reported clinical observation upon this
subject has found its more intimate support in physio-
logical experimentation only within a few years and that
by a series of investigations made by individual observ-
ers, but often in collaborative relationship, their purpose
being the exact determination of the effects produced in
the acoustic labyrinth as the result of subjection of ani-
oe to the continued influx of loud noises of different
inds.
The majority of these experiments included the use
of very high-pitched tones produced by whistles, organ
pipes, high-pitched metallic bodies of various kinds, and
metallic sounds of lower pitch under resonance condi-
tions simulating those of the trades as exhibited in fac-
tory operatives, machinists, and boiler makers, the gen-
eral results of these observations being that the expos-
Lit
Injuries to Ears.—United States
ure of one or both ears continuously, for a period of
several days or weeks, to a pure tone of high pitch or
to a mixed tone of medium low pitch, with correlated
high-pitched overtones, was followed by a degenerative
process in the organ ot Corti, beginning in the nucleated
ciliated cells, progressing to the neuron, and then, sec-
ondly, attacking the vibrating mechanism and extending
to the contiguous membranous labyrinth.
The degenerative process was found to bear a meas-
ure of relationship to the intensity and duration of ap-
plication of the invasive tone... .
Where one ear was closed to the extent of preventing
the entrance of sound waves through the normal exter-
nal passage, the cochlea exposed to the sound waves was
alone found to have undergone a degenerative process.
(Pp. 346-47.)
Clinical experience has shown that with continued
exposure of the human subject to intense sounds of high
pitch there is evoked, in addition to a sense of fullness,
subjective noise and malaise, a greater or less degree
of dizziness; and the laboratory evidences of the location
of degenerative changes in the lower portion of the
cochlea suggest the possibility, in view of the vestibular
contiguity, of a possible secondary excitation of the
equilibrating end organ. (P. 348.)
Repeated observations, made at intervals, in the cases
of telephone operators with normal or approximately
normal hearing have shown that very little change in the
hearing, even in years of service, results from the occu-
pation, but that with changes in the sound-transmitting
apparatus with appreciable diminuation of hearing unon
entering the service, a further diminution is noticeable
after prolonged occupation in telephone work.
The demand upon the normal hearing power in tele-
phone operation would seem, therefore, to be so little
in excess of the usual conversational demand as to cause
no resultant defect.
The sum of the recorded statistics of observations in
this rapidly increasing branch of public utility service is
too small to make other than very broad and very gen-
eral conclusions possible, and the subject is one which
178
Injuries to Ears.—United States
might advisedly receive more attention on the part of
the medical profession. ; :
Among the most complete are the conclusions arrived
at by Blegvad as the result of a series of precisely con-
ducted observations, embodied in an extended record
beyond the capacity of a brief review, but well repaying
careful reading, to the following effect: In 26.4 per cent.
of the 371 telephone operators with norma! hearing, who
were made the subject of examination, there was a re-
traction of the drum-head in the ear to which the receiv-
ing instrument was usually applied, the other ear evi-
dencing either none or only a slight retraction. The
continued use of the telephone caused no depreciation of
the hearing in operators with normal ears, nor was there,
on the other hand, any appreciable increase in the capac-
ity for the hearing of tones of high pitch and slight in-
tensity, as is sometimes claimed by the operators, this
claim being supported rather by the increase in the ac-
commodative power for tones of this class and by the
gradually acquired habit of eliminating mentally the co-
incident and the extraneous noises. The aural lesions
and traumatic neurosis incident to the accidental intro-
duction upon the line of strong currents are the result of
the exhibition of a loud and sudden sound and are to be
guarded against by proper protective construction in
the telephone lines.
It is evident, therefore, that in addition to the occu-
pational conditions which should come under the con-
sideration of welfare work as they have been previously
regarded, there should be especial attention given sys-
tematically, both by study of cause and effect and by
effort at protection from the results of continued expos-
ure to loud and especially penetrating noises.
The sound-transmitting apparatus of the middle ear
serves the double purpose of sound transmission and of
protection to the transmitting and perceptive mechanism
beyond it, but is capable of exerting this office only for
periods of limited duration and, under conditions of con-
tinuous subjection to loud sounds, covering a limited por-
tion of the audible scale, in itself becomes fatigued and
incapable of exercising its protective office. The obstacle
179
Injuries to Ears.—Great Britain
presented to the passage of sounds of short wave lengths
through the soft tissues of the body affords a certain
measure of protection in one direction, and the obtund-
ing of the external auditory canal prevents the influx of
the objectionable sound through that natural passage,
but this serves as only a partial protection and an impor-
tant step in the welfare work of the trades will be in the
elimination of that offensive and injurious by-product of
mechanical action, viz., sustained and unnecessary noise.
(Pp. 349-350.)
British Medical Journal. December 6,1913. On Health,
Fatigue and Repose. Wit11am Srieune, M. D.,
Professor of Physiology, University of Manches-
ter.
Fatigue of Organs of Sense.
Medical men are constantly warning the public, and
pointing out to teachers of youth, the disastrous effects
of eye-strain. Tea-tasters know well how rapidly the
sense of taste—the palate, so called—becomes fatigued.
We all know how soon our sense of smell is paralysed.
It is partly for the reason that persons breathing an
almost putrid atmsophere fail to detect what is pain-
fully unpleasant to any one entering such a room from
the fresh air outside. For the same reason one has to
sniff a rose in order to smell its perfume.
The sense of hearing under certain conditions is no
exception. The dull dreary drip of a long and uninter-
esting lecture, or a monotonous discourse delivered in, it
may be, an atmosphere not too hygienic, soon has its ef-
fect on the audience. The hearing centre of the brain
through the ear is soon lulled to inactivity, a condition
which speedily affects neighboring regions of the brain.
The combined result is somnolence, and it may be sleep.
Then a sudden loss of control and relaxation of the
muscles of the back of the neck, and the senseless head
nods. When chin meets chest the sleeper awakes in a
state of semi-somnolent surprise. In this case there is
weariness and lassitude rather than fatigue in the true
sense of the word. (P. 1474.)
180
Injuries to Ears.—Great Britain
British Home Office. Interim Report on an Investiga-
tion of Industrial Fatigue by Physiological Meth-
ods, by A. F. Stantey Kent, M. A., D. Sc. (Oxon),
Henry Overton Wills Professor of Physiology m
the University of Bristol. London, 1915.
Fourth Experiment (Colliers).
Maximum distance at which Standard Watch heard (in
ems.) (P. 16.)
In the great majority of the instances here also, as
in the tests of the sense of sight, the readings at the end
of a period of labor are less than at the beginning, thus
indicating that a distinct lowering of the acuity of the
special sense investigated has resulted. The few dis-
crepancies present are altogether swamped in the aver-
ages, and the ratio* A/N rises from 1.186 on the first day
to 1.288 on the third day, falling to 1.198 on the last day
of the test. The special interest attaching to this series
of tests has reference to the fact that it supports the
results obtained in the tests of sight, and seems to con-
firm the indication that the special senses are largely
affected by labor prolonged to the point of fatigue, and
that an examination of their condition may be found to
afford a valuable index to such fatigue.
*A—Afternoon; N—Night.
Fourth Experiment (Colliers).
Maximum Distance (in centimetres) at which Standard Watch heard.
January, 1915.
Examinee. Monday, 4th. Tuesday, 5th. Wednesday, 6th. Thursday, 7th. Friday, 8th.
A N A x A N A N A N
32.0) 27.0 22.5 19.5 75 21.0
12.0 18.0 16.5 11.0 15.0 13.5
L 49.0 45.0 23.0 19.5
0
° 70.0 46.0 80.0 59.0 75.0 45.0
27.0 22.0 15.0 1
52.0 51.0 53.0 5
B. 67.0 62.0 62.0 60. 87.0 56.0 75.0 60.0 68.0 68.0
oak 99.0 77.0 85.0 75.0 120 70.0 75.0 65.0 75.0 61.0
6S. M 97.0 74.0 96.0 53.0 65.0 45.0 74.0 62.0 60.0 59.0
Total 891.0 331.0 334.0 279.0 338.0 262.0 343.0 276.5 320.5 267.5
Average 65.1 55.1 55.7 46.5 56.3 43.7 57.3 46.08 53.42 446
Ratio A/N 1.180 1.198 1.288 1.240 1.198
GP, 220)
181
Injuries to Ears.—Italy
Notes on the Times at Which the Observations Were
Taken.
Colliers—The experiments were carried out at the
beginning and at the end of an eight hours’ ‘‘shift’’ in
each case.
The colliers commenced work on what is called the
‘‘Afternoon shift’’ at 3 p. m. on Monday. They went
down the pit between 2 and 3 p. m. so as to be ready
to start work at 3. They then worked, with one 20
minutes’ interval, till 11 p. m., and came up the pit some
time between 11 and 12 p.m. (P. 17.)
In the ‘‘Ratio’’ given in the last line values over
unity indicate ...a diminished acuity of hearing after
labor. (P. 19.)
Archivio Italiano di Otologia, Rinologia e Laringologia
July, 1907. No. 4. Della wmfluenza della fatica
sull’ organo dell’ udito. [The Effect of Fatigue
on theAuditory Organ.| Dr. Luter Rucant, Army
Physician, and Dr. Vincenzo Fracoua, Assistant
Army Physician. Report to the X Congress of
the Italian Society of Laryngology, Otology and
Rhinology.
In October, 1894, Poli published in the eo.
Italiano di Otologia, etc, a short paper, ‘‘On the Effect
of Fatigue’’ on the hearing. His observations, besides
being scanty, were incomplete, as he himself acknowl-
edges, for he could not ascertain the previous condition
of ‘hearing of the individuals examined previous to their
being affected by fatigue (bicycle riding). In addition,
he lost sight of most of them after examination, so that
except in a few cases he could not tell how long this
difficulty of hearing lasted.
As far as we know, no other work on the subject
has been published. We determined, therefore, to make
a number .of investigations in the military garrison of
Siena, with a view not alone to carry out repeating in
greater numbers Poli’s experiments, but also to extend
their scope.
182
Injuries to Ears.—Italy
Our numerous observations were carried on among
the soldiers of the infantry and cavalry regiments, and
the fatigue was due to various causes. Protracted
bicycle riding, prolonged running, marches of several
kilometres and other military exercises, riding, etc. The
fatigue often occurred in warm weather.
In all the individuals that came under observation
the results were obtained before exertion, immediately
after, and at various intervals after over-fatigue, due to
different forms of exercise.
The separate examination was made among soldiers
who had recently entered military service and among
older ones who were better inured to fatigue.
We always selected men of normal hearing who were
free from any nervous tendency. Many were, however,
examined who had affections of the ear, but these affec-
tions were not sufficiently serious to constitute a disabil-
ity for military service... .
We do not give individual results because by far the
greater number of cases agree in their symptoms. We
find that over-fatigue causes a diminution of the sense
of hearing in both ears, and this diminution is in propor-
tion to the greater or less degree of fatigue. In indi-
viduals, however, accustomed to the work and discipline,
hearing is affected to a less degree; but this hardness of
hearing is temporary, and after a shorter or longer
period it disappears and hearing again becomes normal.
... We may say that in almost all the soldiers exam-
ined there was always hyperaemia of the tympanic mem-
brane, particularly after excessive fatigue. One inter-
esting fact was that when a man was inured to fatigne
the intensity or degree of color of the membrane of the
tympanum was affected and the intensity was certainly
not so great as in those who were new to the work. We
also saw in several instances soldiers who were accus-
tomed to various forms of athletics who, although they
did not suffer from ear affections and though their
pharynx showed no changes, still had a certain thicken-
ing of the tympanic membrane, almost as though it were
infiltrated, and yet its parts were unimpaired. Besides
the red suffusion of the membrane in those who were
183
Injuries to Ears.—Italy
over-tired, there was almost constant sensitiveness of the
labyrinth shown by the usual tests. These disturbances
subsided with the disappearance of the hyperaemic con-
dition of the membrane.
... If we ask what are the causes of these disturb-
ances of hearing we are entering on a very complicated,
and at the same time much discussed question.
The conception of fatigue which results directly from
observation and experiment, and which is most in accord
with the present views of science, tells us that from a
physical point of view fatigue is the result of the diminu-
tion of stimulation and, hence, there is ever increasing
effort of the nervous centers to produce the necessary
stimulus. From the point of view of chemistry on the
other hand, the excretion or elimination of the waste sub-
stances is indispensable to the activity of the muscles.
Repair cannot take place as promptly when there is an
over-accumulation of toxic materials, which exercise on
the muscles an action similar to that of curare. These
principles apply as completely to the organs of hearings
as they do to the heart, the circulation, the nervous re-
flexes and the other organs of sense. Practise or training,
as we have shown, decreases the dangers of fatigue, as it
teaches us how to work with the least waste of energy.
This question would lead to a long discussion which is
perhaps outside our line of research. Suffice it to say
that our observations have demonstrated the facts above
mentioned which we may consider directly dependent on
disturbances of vaso-motor origin, and on a true condi-
tion of toxic poisoning.
From our researches so far we can draw the follow-
ing deductions, some of which agree with those of Poli:
1. Fatigue always causes a diminution of the sense
of hearing.
2. Such diminution of hearing always affects both
ears.
3. The degree of diminution of hearing depends more
or less on the degree of fatigue, of whatever kind it is.
4. The diminution of hearing is less in those who are
inured to the kind of work producing fatigue.
184
Injuries to Ears.—Italy
5. The diminution of hearing is, of course, greater in
fatigued persons who have any affection of the ear.
6. The diminution of hearing is temporary and dis-
appears gradually after a shorter or longer period of
rest until the hearing becomes as normal as it was before
the fatigue.
7. After over-exertion there is almost always present
hyperaemia of the tympanic membrane and inflamma
tion of the labyrinth.
8. These changes, always of a transitory nature, are
more or less marked according to the amount of fatigue.
9. The diminution of hearing and the other symptoms
(hyperemia of the tympanic membrane and inflamma-
tion of the labyrinth) disappear gradually, but not
always after a few hours’ rest.
10. These conditions depend upon simple vaso-motor
disturbances or a true condition of intoxication, which
is in accord with the modern view of fatigue, from a
physical point of view, and from that of chemistry.
185
f{. INJURIES TO OTHER ORGANS OR PARTS OF THE BODY.
Whenever the nature of a worker’s employment or
the position required by the work makes particular de-
mands upon any organ of the body, that organ or part
of the body first tends to become overstrained.
Excessive length of hours intensifies such overuse of
particular organs or parts of the body in the different
trades, and only the establishment of shorter hours can
lessen the danger of such overstrain.
Diseases of Occupation and Vocational Hygiene. Edited
by Grorce M. Koszer, M. D., Professor of Hygiene,
Georgetown University, etc., and Wiuttam C. Han-
son, M. D., Massachusetts State Board of Health,
etc. Philadelphia, P. Blakiston’s Son & Co., 1916.
Etiology and Prophylaxis of Occupational Dis-
eases. Gzorcr M. Koser, M. D.
The effects of a constrained working position, com-
bined with a sedentary life, have been briefly mentioned
in connection with indoor occupations. The effects are
especially harmful in youthful workers whose osseous
system is not fully. developed and there is little doubt
that most of the bone and joint deformities are developed
in the earlier years of their work, and aggravated by
habit. Among the more important should be mentioned
the hollow chest and round stooped shoulders, caused by
a stooped and cramped position, as seen especially in
tailors, engravers, lithographers, watchmakers, metal
grinders, shoemakers, and all others obliged to assume
a more or less bent-over posture. In shoemakers (cob-
blers) the pressure of the last against the breast bone,
aggravates the anterior compression and often causes a
typical depression of the sternum. All thoracic postural
deformities naturally interfere with free expansion of
the lungs, and hence with the respiratory functions. A
stooped or bending posture also interferes with the
proper distribution of the blood supply, and invites con-
gestions of the abdominal and pelvic organs.
186
Injuries to Other Organs.—United States
As a matter of fact, a large number of this class of
artisans shows a peculiar predisposition to consumption,
many suffer from anemia, constipation, dyspepsia, and
hemorrhoids, and the majority have a low average dura-
tion of life. :
Round shoulders and lateral curvature of the spine
are quite common in bearers of burdens, and in all oc-
cupations involving the elevation of one shoulder above
the other, so that even a clerk by a faulty position, or
in the absence of an adjustable chair, may acquire lateral
curvature of the spine. Such deformities are also quite
common in blacksmiths, locksmiths, cabinetmakers and
others, largely because of faulty posture and work-
benches, and also on account of the unequal development
of certain muscular groups.
Among youthful workers, especially apprentices of
bakers, barbers, waiters, nurses, etc., ‘‘flat-foot,’’ ‘‘knock-
knee,’’ and ‘‘in-knee’’ and varicose veins of the lower ex-
tremity are frequently observed, as a result of being on
their feet too long. Varicose veins, eczema, and ulcers are
also quite common in motormen, conductors, machine
tenders, and others who are obliged to be standing the
greater part of their working hours. Shultes?! found
varicose veins in 12.2 per cent. of German recruits, who
had pursued an occupation involving a standing position,
4 per cent. in those who stood and walked, and 1 per cent.
in those engaged in a more sedentary position... and
none in those whose occupation was wholly sedentary.
Abnormal position combined with pressure is respon-
sible for muscular cramps, sciatica, and neuralgic affec-
tions. (Pp. 443-444.)
Nervous and Mental Diseases. ArcurpatD Cuurcu, M
D., Professor of Nervous and Mental Diseases
and Medical Jurisprudence in the Northwestern
Umversity Medical School, etc, and Frepsrick
Prrerson, M. D., President of the State Commis-
ston in Lunacy, New York, etc. Philadelphia, 1901.
Many occupations requiring the constant repetition
of certain precise muscular movements may, eventually,
187
Injuries to Other Organs.—Great Britain
through overuse and fatigue, give rise to disturbances of
muscular control, for the mancuvre in question. The
conditions may be manifest as pain, tremor, weakness, or
cramp, but usually these are variously combined in dif-
ferent cases. This group of motor disturbances is also
called occupation spasms or occupation neuroses. (P.
544.)
Among the occupation spasms more commonly en-
countered are the cramps of violin and pianoforte play-
ers, telegraphers’ cramp, seamstresses’ cramp, and ham-
mer cramp in smiths and artisans using the hammer.
Artists, flower-makers, turners, watchmakers, knitters,
engravers, masons in using the trowel, sailors from pull-
ing on ropes, treadlers, compositors, enamellers, ciga-
rette-makers, shoemakers, milkers, money-counters, let-
ter-sorters, and players on various musical instruments,
including drummers, comprise the list given by Gowers.
It has been noted in a shoe salesman from the stoop-
ing position needed in putting on shoes, ... and in
various factory employees who incessantly use the same
movement in feeding or attending some machines. (P.
551.)
The Hygiene, Diseases, and Mortality of Occupation. J.
T. Aruipez, M. D., A. B., F. R. C. P., Late Milroy
Lecturer at Royal College. London, Percival,
1892,
When insufficient muscular activity is associated with
almost constant standing, the increased difficulty to the
return of the blood from the lower limbs is the most pro-
nounced feature, and productive of varicose veins, and
ulcers and thickened knee and ankle joints. (P. 19.)
Workpeople obliged to stand long, and especially when
this happens in early youth, lose the arch of the foot and
become flat-footed, with deformed ankles and often
‘knock knees.’’ (P. 558.)
188
Injuries to Other Organs.—Switzerland
Siath International Congress of Hygiene and Demno-
graphy. Vienna, 1887. Part XIV, Vol. I-XIV.
Sec. on Hygiene. Fabrikhygiene uad Fabrikge-
setegebung. [Factory Hygiene and Legislation.]}
Dr. Frivotin Scuurer, Swiss Factory Inspector.
Vienna, 1887.
Far less conspicuous is a third set of factors which
exert a deleterious influence on health and so threaten
the well-being of workers, namely, the excessive muscu-
lar exertion demanded by modern forms of industry, the
strain on special organs, the one-sided muscular activity
resulting from continuous performance of the same mo-
tions. (P. 19.)
Handbuch der Arbeiterwohlfahrt. Bd. I. [Handbook
of the General Welfare of the Working Classes.
Vol. I.] Edited by Dr. Orto Damen. Beschadi-
gung der Arbeiter bei der Arbeit. [Injuries of
Occupation.] Dr. Ascusr. Stuttgart, 1902.
Widely prevalent is the inflammation of the instep
leading to flat-foot, the result of continuous*standing or
walking, and found especially among waiters, .shopboys,
bakers, etc. Continuous standing, especially when unit-
ed to severe exertion, as by smiths, laundresses, etc., pro-
duces also varicose veins. Through the long-enforced
standing only certain muscle groups are brought into
action, while the large muscles of the lower extremities
are inactive. There follows an enlargement of the
spaces between skin and muscles, a knotting of the large
veins of the legs; resulting in congestion of the blood
and tedious inflammatory process. (Leg ulcers.) An-
other result of great exertion of the abdominal muscles
is rupture (hernia). (P. 493.)
Overexertion of muscles, sinews, and joints leads to
rupture of muscles and ligaments, or to acnte or chronic
inflammation such as the ‘‘housemaid’s knee,’’ ete. Con-
tinuous overexertion of single groups of muscles induces
189
Injuries to Other Organs.—Germany
permanent deformities of the skeleton (wry-neck, spinal
curvature). (P. 493.)
General overexertion of the body, and insufficient
nourishment, rest, and sleep, repairing only imperfectly
the expended energy, lead to anemia, or to nervous dis-
orders and insanities. Overexertion of individual parts
brings atrophy of the part in question, with or without
preceding affections of the nervous system. (Pp. 495-
496. )
Fourteenth International Congress of Hygiene and
Demography, Berlin, 1907. Vol. II, Sec. IV. Er-
midung durch Berufsarbert. [Fatigue resulting
from Occupation.] Dr. Emit Rots. Berlin,
Hirchwald, 1908.
During the activity of work the blood current is so
distributed that the muscular fibres in action, also the
brain and the skin, receive a larger blood supply than
usual. The abdominal viscera, and especially the in-
testines, on the contrary, become anemic, as the intes-
tines part most readily with their blood supply, and the
increased demands of the active muscles are met by a
corresponding diminution of the intestinal circulation.
It follows that, at a time of continuous physical exer-
tion, the secretions of the intestinal glands and the pro-
cesses of absorption of the contents of the digestive
tract into the blood are retarded, and, if physiological
limits in this process are overpassed, permanent injury
to the digestive organs results, and anemia, chlorosis,
neurasthenia, or other ills are permanently and unavoid-
ably established. (P. 595.)
Fatigue, which, as has already been said, is the na-
tural sequence of all exertion, shows itself first locally
and then generally. The local effects are not confined
entirely nor even chiefly to the muscular structures that
are directly in use, but occur pre-eminently in those ac-
cessory muscles which are overstrained by work. This
is to be ascribed to the fact that static work is more
fatiguing than dynamic activity. The baker who has
190
Injuries to Other Organs.—Germany
kneaded bread all night in a bent attitude, complains of
pains in the legs; the shoemaker, of pain in the back;
the violin player, of cramps in the left hand, ete. ete.
(P. 598.) : ;
When fatigue becomes more intense it is overfatigue.
This is also, at first, of local extent. So may acute in-
flammatory process result from the overuse of single
muscles, tendons, and joints . . . such are the rheu-
matic disorders of minors. i
As a result of local overstrain may be found many
abnormal conditions . . . here must be included
dilation and hypertrophy of the heart . . . the right
side of the heart, by reason of its thinner walls, is es-
pecially affected. (P. 600.)
Finally, overfatigue involves the whole body sympa-
thetically, manifesting itself chiefly in disturbances of
the digestion, anemia, neuroses of various forms, and
chronic diseases, especially of the heart. It may also
be accepted as positive that physical overwork encour-
D eoLy premature development of arterio-sclerosis.
Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift fiir offentliche Gesund-
heitspflege. Vol. 43. 1911. Zur Phyziologie wnd
Pathologie der Arbeit, mit besonderer Beriick-
sichtigung der Ermiidungsfrage. [Physiology
and Pathology of Work, with special reference to
the Fatigue Problem.] Dr. E. Rots.
All fatigue first manifests itself locally, and then gen-
erally; locally, not alone and not predominantly in those
muscles which are chiefly utilized, but especially in the
auxiliary or supporting muscles which are exerted dur-
ing work; hence static work is more fatiguing than
dynamic work. Bakers who have kneaded dough all
night, in a stooping posture, will complain of pain in the
legs; shoemakers, of pain in the small of the back;
clerks who do much writing, of pain in the muscles of the
supporting arm; horseback-riders, of pain in the thigh
muscles; violin-players, of painful sensations in the left
191
Injuries to Other Organs.—Germany
hand which is constantly curved around the neck of the
instrument; and so forth. Acute or chronic inflamma-
tory processes may develop in over-exerted organs, in
the absence of the necessary rest and recreation.
Varicose veins are frequently met with, the sign of local
fatigue. Neuralgia and spastic conditions may likewise
develop in consequence of local exhaustion, involving
the corresponding nerve-branches. Heart changes,
more particularly dilatation, are sometimes observed
after fatiguing work, no less than after exaggerated
sports. Aside from cardiac dilatation, excessive physi-
cal work may also give rise to rupture of heart-valves
and to the origin of aneurisms. It favors the onset of
arteriosclerotic changes of the vessels, and may lead to
general or circumscribed calcification of the arteries.
(P. 691,}
Experience has shown that the premature onset of
fatigue is favored by a compulsory posture of the body,
and by the one-sided taxation of individual muscles.
Stooping and recumbent postures are especially fatigu-
ing. The more the abdominal and thoracic breathing are
hindered in work, thereby interfering with the drainage
of the blood from the veins, the sooner will circulatory
and respiratory disturbances make their appearance,
followed by symptoms of congestion on the part of the
heart and the liver.
It appears to be doubtful if the upright standing
posture as such favors the onset of fatigue. .
However, there is no doubt that youthful workers of
both sexes . . . are over-exerted by prolonged stand-
ing. Also adult workers, for example weavers, often
complain of fatigue, especially during the last hours of
the work, together with a diminished working capacity.
The stooping or oblique posture, in combination with
prolonged standing, is the most injurious factor. Work-
ers should always be given the opportunity to sit down
during the intervals of the work. (P. 651.)
High temperatures, high degrees of moisture, violent
concussions, compulsory positions of the body, single
taxation of a few individual muscles and: so forth, favor
192
Injuries to Other Organs.—Germany
the premature onset of fatigue, which in its turn leads
to neglect of the measures for personal protection. The
same is true of the absorptions of poisonous substances
in certain concerns.
For this reason, the furtherance of all measures, aim-
ing at better hygienic surroundings, increased resistant
power through a hygienic mode of life, especially rational
nutrition, with avoidance of weakening influences—is of
the greatest importance for the control of premature
fatigue, or overfatigue, respectively, in industrial con-
cerns. The same purpose is served by the granting of
an appropriate time of recreation (leave of absence)
commensurate to the duration and severity of the work.’
Especially for youthful workers of both sexes, and for
all workers in concerns where unusually hard work is
required, the granting of an appropriate leave of absence,
for recreation, represents a physiologic-hygienic neces-
sity. (P. 651.)
Zeitschrift fiir Gewerbehygiene, Unfallverhiitung, und
Arbeiterwohlfahrts Einrichtungen. Bd. XIV.
1907. Gewerbehygiene und Unfallverhiitung.
[Industrial Hygiene and the Prevention of Acci-
dents.| Dr. Werner Herrrer, Medical Officer.
Vienna, Steiner, 1907.
The injuries arising from physical overstrain are of
quite another kind than those previously described
(dust-poisons, ete.), as they may lead to general physical
enfeeblement and also to definite local damage, as in the
case of individual organs. Dangers of the kind first
mentioned arise from excessive sength of working hours.
. . . Hard work, such as lifting and carrying heavy
loads, injures the body by promoting hernia, straining
muscles, and bringing on cardiac disorders and lung dis-
eases. Continuous pressure on some one part of the
body induces swellings, inflammations, boils, and ab-
scesses. A bent, or tense, or unnatural position of the
body develops spinal deformities and alterations of in-
ternal organs. (P. 56.)
193
B. HEALTH HAZARDS IN MODERN INDUSTRY.
1. Tue New Strain 1x MANUFACTURE.
a. SPEED.
Modern industry is characterized by increased strain.
Machinery is increasingly speeded up, the number of ©
machines tended by individual workers grows larger,
processes become more and more complex as more opera-
tions are performed simultaneously. All these changes
involve correspondingly greater physical strain upon the
worker.
Possibilities of Reducing Mortality at the Higher Age
Groups. Read before the Section on Vital Statis-
tics, American Public Health Association, Colo-
rado Springs, September, 1913. Lovuts J. Dustin,
Pu.D., Statistician, Metropolitan Life Insurance
Company, New York. :
The character of American industry has completely
changed in the last fifty years. Formerly, most work
was conducted in the manner of the hand trades; to-day,
there is evident all along the line a specialization of in-
dustry which brings together under one roof large num-
bers of workers, each one performing some small and
distinctive part of the total process. This condition may
be best exemplified, perhaps, by the changes that have
occurred in the manufacture of shoes. Only a few gen-
erations ago the entire process of shoemaking was in
the hands of individual workmen, each one of whom per-
formed every operation in the process of making a shoe.
To-day, in cities like Brockton and Lynn, there are im-
mense establishments where shoes are made entirely by
machine processes directed by specialist workmen who
perform, at high speed and over long hours, one or at
most a few operations in the production of a shoe. What
is true of shoemaking is characteristic of other large in-
dustries.
194:
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—United States
This specialization has not been carried to its pres-
ent degree of perfection without having left its mark
upon the individual workman. He no longer enjoys
the pleasure incident to the performance of a whole task.
The unceasing whirl of high-speed machinery, the per-
- sistent noises of the shop and the necessary nervous ac-
commodation to the rapid movements of the machines
result, after long periods of time, in distinct psychoses.
Our vital statistics are not as yet sufficiently refined to
indicate the precise effects of these nervous conditions
upon the health of the worker, and we can, at present,
only speculate upon the importance of this factor. There
are, however, sufficient suggestions from physiology and
pathology that these vague derangements of the nervous
system, due to speeding-up processes and to the general
maladjustment of individuals to their work, may result
ultimately in distinct lesions of the heart and kidney.
Many cases of tuberculosis and other serious affections
of early life may be traced to the lowering of normal
vitality which follows occupational stress. It is our
contention that this element also plays a large and hith-
erto unsuspected réle in the causation of the diseases of
later life. I urge for serious consideration a study of
this phase of occupational hygiene. (Pp. 7-8.)
Report of the Maine Bureau of Industrial Labor Sta-
tistics, 1892.
The constant nervous tension from continued exer-
tion in a modern factory or workshop, for a period of
ten hours, is a severe strain upon the physical system.
Work is not done in the old, slow way, and, in nearly all
industries, by the present methods, from two to four
times the quantity of product is turned out in the ten
hours. How much faster is the operative compelled to
work, and how much greater is the strain, to accomplish
this amount of work, in comparison with the old twelve-
hour method. (P. 11.)
195
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—United States
Seventh Annual Convention of the International Asso-
ciation of Factory Inspectors of North America.
Chicago, Sept. 19-22, 1893. Forest City Printing
House, Cleveland, Ohio.
Inspector Dyson, of Massachusetts :
Let it be remembered that the gradual reduction in
the hours of labor has been met by the manufacturers
with improved machinery. :
In a textile mill there is a very small fraction of the
work that requires muscular strength. But it is the con-
stant and steady application of the mind, the eager use
of the eyes, which exhaust and wear out the human body.
The entire nervous system is so intently directed to
the detail of the work while the machinery is running to
its utmost capacity, that by night the worker is not only
tired and weary, but wellnigh worn out. (Pp. 118-119.) ©
Report of the New York Bureau of Labor Statistics.
1900.
Even the ten-hour day, which to some classes of toil-
ers would seem a great blessing, has now become too
long a period of work on account of the increasing in-
tensity of application. A good example of the tendency
of the last quarter century is furnished by the locomo-
tive fireman: The train-load and the locomotive of to-
day are two or three times as heavy as those of twenty
years ago, and the fireman’s work in a given time period
is perhaps doubled. Reduction in hours may in their
case signify no real relief from bodily fatigue. Through-
out all manufacturing industries a similar concentration
of energy has been called for in recent years, while cor-
responding reductions in the hours of work have not
always been made. Hence, if American mechanics are to
remain distinguished for the intelligence and inventive-
ness so necessary in the world’s competition, they must
not be oppressed and dulled by long hours, but must be
in a condition to bring to their tasks each day that fresh-
ness and buoyancy of body and mind that make play out
196
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.— United States
of work. And they need leisure not only to train their
children and perform their political and social duties,
but also to keep themselves informed as to the technical
improvements of their trade. (Pp. 68-69.)
United States Congress, House Report No. 1793. (4405).
Hours of Laborers on Public Works of the Umted
States. Reports from the Committee on Labor.
57th Congress, 1st Session. 1901-1902.
While there is still a variance of opinion on the ques-
tion whether modern machinery and methods so lighten
the physical drudgery of most occupations as to have an
equivalent effect to the shortening of hours in the con-
servation of energy, or whether such machinery and
methods operate to so tax the nervous powers as to be
equivalent in exhaustive effects to the lightening of
hours, your committee are of the opinion, after what has
been said on both sides, that the higher tension of modern
employment is at least a full offset to the saving accom-
plished in muscular force.
This effect of modern machinery on the powers of
the worker has been a question more immediately affect-
ing the American workmen than those of any other na-
tions. The foreign workman has very generally held to
the surface theory of some older varieties that machin-
ery 1s a competitor of labor and the one most threatening
to his employment, hence labor has strenuously and to a
considerable extent successfully resisted the introduction
of modern machinery. (Pp. 9-10.)
Report of the United States Industrial Commission. Final
Report, Vol. XIX. 1902.
It is brought out that in nearly all occupations an in-
creasing strain and intensity of labor is required by
modern methods of production. .. .
The introduction of machinery and the division of
labor have made it possible to increase greatly the speed
of the individual workman. . . . The testimony of a
Loy
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—United States
representative of the Cotton Weavers’ Association shows
this increasing strain of work. He says: .. . ‘‘Any-
body who works in the mills now knows it is not like what
it was twenty-five or thirty years ago, because the speed
of the machinery has been increased to such an extent,
and they have to keep up with it.’’ (P. 763.)
Even these cases where machinery has not increased
the intensity of exertion, a long workday with the ma-
chine, especially where work is greatly specialized, in
many cases reduces the grade of intelligence. The old
handwork shops were schools of debate and discussion,
and they are so at the present time where they survive
in country districts; but the factory imp ses silence and
discipline for all except the highest. Long workdays
under such conditions tend to inertia and dissipation
when the day’s work is done. (P. 772.)
The ground on which workingmen oftenest defend the
restriction of output is the need of protecting themselve-
from excessive and injurious exertion. The stress and
strain of work at high tension is declared in some trades
to have reached a point which noticeably shortens the
working life of the men. This is the complaint of the
flint glass bottle blowers, who formerly had a strict limi-
tation of output, but gave it up some years ago. They
are piece workers, and the spur is the desire of each
man to get the highest possible daily wage. The skilled
workmen in the steel mills are also piece workers. In
the rolling of black plate for tinning the daily output of
30-gauge, per man, in 1893 and 1894, is said to have been
about 3,600 to 3,900 pounds. The union has a limit for
the day’s work; but it was raised successively to 5,250 and
5,750 pounds, and the president of the union testified, in ©
1899, that he was satisfied that some men were making
‘‘iNegitimately’’ as much as 7,500 pounds in the 8-hour
day. Such a man, he declared, ‘‘does not consider him-
self physically, morally, or any other way. He does not
consider the evil effect he is having upon his trade. He
has no regard for his children who may follow after
him.*’*
*Reports of the Industrial Commission, Vol. VII, p. 393.
198
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—United States
Under a time wage system the spur to overexertion
comes directly from the masters. Aside from direct and
brutal driving, which is sometimes charged, the workmen
point out various devices by which, as they allege, em-
ployers try to get increased amounts of work; the hiring
of especially capable men, by extra payment, to set a
pace which others can be directly compelled to follow, if
anything like team work is involved, or which can be
held up as an example that they must copy; in some sorts
of machine work, the speeding up of the machinery; in
others, increase in the size of the machines; in others
again, the setting of one worker to tend two or more
machines.
On the employers’ side it is denied that the increase
of the size of machines, or of their speed, or the placing
of two or more under the charge of one person, neces-
sarily involves an increase of exertion. It is pointed out
that these changes are the direct result of the more per-
fect and more automatic working of the machines, and
of the less attention which they consequently require. It
is the unanimous assertion of the workmen, however,
that these changes, taken together, do involve an increase
of strain. The physical exertion may be no greater, or
may even be less; but, it is declared, the strain upon the
attention is such as to involve increased exhaustion at
i end of the day, and a shortening of a man’s working
ife.
It should be remembered that a man’s industrial life
may be shortened, not only by hastening his absolute
deterioration, but also by raising the standard of effi-
ciency. As the pace increases the number of men that
can maintain it diminishes. Men a little past the prime
of life, who would be able for years yet to do effective
work, find themselves forced out of the industrial field
because they are no longer capable of the intense appli-
cation and the rapidity of movement which existing stand-
ards require. (Pp. 817-818.)
199
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—United States
American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol.
XXVII. No. 3,1906. The Manhood Tribute to the
Modern Machine: Influences Determining the
Length of the Trade Life among Machinists.
Philadelphia, The American Academy of Political
and Social Science, 1906,
James O’Connell, President International Associa-
tion of Machinists:
The purpose of this paper is to prove that with the
introduction of modern high-speed machinery the life of
the operator of such machinery has been shortened.
Great changes have been made in the last quarter of a
century, and every industry has been affected with the
advent of the machine, but in no other sphere of human
activity has such a change been effected as has occurred
in the machine shop. (Pp. 491-492.)
First of all, old men have disappeared.
. . . Time was when age was honored in the machine
shop; .. . The speeding up of the machine has changed
all this, . . . his added years prevent him from keeping
pace with the machine, its gait is too rapid, so he is
forced aside to make room for a younger man... .
The youth fresh from school... enters the ma-
chine shop.... The great strain, both mental and
physical, socn proves too much for him... . If his
period of service in the machine shop is broken by in-
tervals of rest and recreation, nervous breakdown is
averted.
... Great care and watchfulness to guard against
the effects of the nervous strain are necessary when the
youth begins his career in the machine shop, for skill,
exact skill, cannot be acquired without it. And when pro-
ficiency has been reached, although the young machinist
does not notice it, he is still bearing the strain upon his
nerves. It is this overexertion kept up at high tension,
day in and day out, year after year, that is shortenin
the life of the machine- shop worker, and Foon him: of
longevity. (P. 494.)
Lessen the number of hours the worker is forced to
work at high speed, concert pitch, and his nerves will re-
200
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—United States
main normal, and he will live to the full—his promised
threescore years and ten. (P. 495.)
Ibid. Length of the Trade Life in the Glass Bottle In-
dustry.
Denis A. Hayes, President of the Glass Bottle Blow-
ers’ Association of America:
Each year the production of the individual workman
becomes greater. The highest day’s work of this season
becomes the standard of the next.
A man working according to present-day methods can
make three times as many bottles in a day of eight and a
half hours as he did twenty years ago in a day of ten
hours, but the expenditure of strength and energy is now
much greater than it was then.
... The hours of labor should be still further re-
duced, so that men would, after leaving their work, retain
sufficient mental and physical vigor for recreation, study,
and social intercourse. (P. 498.)
United States Congress. Senate Document, No. 521. Re-
port on Strike at Bethlehem Steel Works, South
Bethlehem, Pa. 61st Congress. 2nd Session, 1909-
1910. Washington, 1910.
The strike of February + was against overtime and
Sunday work, particularly the latter, by men who
claimed their normal working speed rate had been keyed
up for a number of years by the application of a time
bonus premium wage system. The strike was not begun
by those whose normal working time included Sundays,
but by those who claimed to believe that the encroach-
ments of Sunday work would ultimately absorb the nom-
inally 6-day departments and eventually make Sunday
work coextensive with the plant... .
The time-bonus system of payment obviously stimu-
lates speeding up even more than the ordinary piece-rate
system of payment.
The relation of the ‘‘time-bonus’’ system to the causes
of the strike were alleged to be direct by the workmen
201
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—United States
for the reason that the normal speed rate of work de-
veloped under it made overtime work especially obnox-
ious, and the necessity for Sunday as a day of rest espe-
cially urgent for the workmen. (Pp. 15-16.)
The Steel Workers. Joun A. Fitcu. The Pittsburgh
Survey, Russell Sage Foundation Publication. New
York. Charities Publication Conmittee, 1910.
. .. Partial or slight deafness was quite common, and
that they all attributed it to the noise. This noise has an
effect also on the nerves, which is intensified by the con-
stant vibration of the machinery; a strain more wearing
on some of the men than the work itself.
The prevalence of nervous strain is a matter not to be
lightly turned aside. Physical labor has without doubt
been greatly lightened by the improved processes that
have so changed the character of the steel industry with-
in the last fifteen or twenty years. But where the strain
upon the body has been lessened, responsibility has in
most cases grown more tense, with a consequent in-
creased demand on the nervous energy. This is true also
in some work where the physical activity is not less than
formerly. Improved processes frequently reduce the
total amount of human toil by throwing part of a gang
out of employment, only to leave the few who remain
with as hard physical labor as before. Rollers, particu-
larly, work as hard today as they did twenty years ago,
and under an added strain due to the more complicated
-machinery under their control, and the greater speed of
ee which increases the danger of accident.
. 58.
Great advances have been made in the production of
steel. New machinery and improved processes have gone
far toward achieving the standards that have been
reached. The great changes of the past twenty years
have already been discussed. Along with the improved
machinery there has been increased power. . . .
There is greater economy of time now than in former
years; additional furnace capacity has been provided, and
rolling mills do not have to wait for hot steel as was once
202 .
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—United States
the case. But not all of the credit of the increased output
can be given to the machinery; a very great deal, though
just how much no one could well say, is due to increased
intensity of physical effort. In the hoop mills, where
output has more than doubled, there is practically no
change in operation from that of twenty years ago... .
In the sheet mills, where output has doubled in the
last twenty years, there has not been in that time a single
important change in machinery or method. (Pp. 183-4.)
In some cases physical toil has been lightened by new
devices, but in almost every case where this is true re-
sponsibility has become heavier. The hot strain on back
and muscles has been eased only to make way, often, for
increased strain. More and more the demand is upon
nerve control and swift judgment. Dependence is still
upon human strength. The speed of the men who man
the plants has played its part. Devices to develop it, pos-
sibly not bad in themselves, become in their combination,
when there is no restriction of the length of the work day
other than the full round of the clock dial, a schedule of
overstrain; and they become, when there is no common
organization of the men to balance them and resist en-
¢roachment, a system of exploitation. (P. 191.)
The American M agazine, Vol. 71. M arch, 1911. Old Age
at Forty. Joun A. Fircn.
Twelve hours a day inside a mill, whether a man is in
a position demanding constant activity or whether he has
a ‘‘waiting job,’”’ is a long time. But its effect may be
more serious if his work is heavy. At the blast furnaces
and open-hearth furnaces there can be little speeding.
The iron takes its own time and few of the positions re-
quire constant labor. At the big up-to-date rolling mills,
however, the men work steadily. In these positions there
is a speeding system unparalleled in its effectiveness.
_ These men are paid by the ton, and that in itself is a
stimulus to increased activity. But this alone would never
have been sufficient to bring out the speed achieved today.
A gang system makes speeding easier. Each man in a
gang has to keep up with the others, and one gang has
203
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.— United States
to measure up to the speed of the gang before. The fur-
naces can drive the roll hands and they in turn can push
the shearmen. The steel has to be kept moving. Puta
strong, swift man at the head of the first gang and the
steel does its own driving.
But other stimuli are called into play. A system of
comparisons was put into effect long ago and the pride
of the men was worked upon. When one gang broke a
record it was told throughout the mill and the other gangs
were spurred to equal it or make a new one. In the same
way mills and superintendents were pitted against each
other, and records were made again and again, only to
be broken by new ones. In each case the record became
the normal thing, the thing demanded. Anything less
was condemned as not up to the standard. In the Car-
negie Steel Company, March and October are known as
“record months.’’ Machinery and men are speeded to the
limit in the hope of establishing new records of outputs.
... (Pp. 658-659.)
American Journal of Surgery. July, 1912. Surgical
Sociology. Ira S. Witz, M. D.
The problems of industry today vary greatly from the
problems of twenty-five years ago. The increased speed,
the gearing of the worker up to machines, the marked
monotony of effort due to increased specialization in in-
dustry, the noisiness of machine occupations, have all
brought an increased hazard to workers through the fa-
tigue,of attention, the retardation of sense impressions,
and the exhaustion of muscular control.
Diseases of Occupation and Vocational Hygiene. Edited
by Grorce M. Koserr, M. D., Professor of Hygiene,
Georgetown University, and Witi1am C. Hanson,
M. D., Massachusetts State Board of Health. P.
Blakiston’s Son & Co., Philadelphia, 1916. Fa-
nous and Occupation. Freperick S. Lzz, New
ork,
Specialization and Speed of Work.—A pronounced
feature of modern industrialism is the great division of
204
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—United States
labor among the workers and the limitation of the task
of each to a specific procedure. While certain kinds of
work still require the expenditure of much muscular
force by the worker, the introduction of machinery has
tended in general to diminish muscular effort. It has,
however, been replaced by a new element which is no less
fatiguing, namely, speed. Thus, in the making of hinges
a woman lifts a half-formed hinge, places it in the bend-
ing machine and quickly withdraws her hand, and re-
peats this series of movements at the rate of 50 times a
minute, or 30,000 times a day. The tops of tin cans are
cut by pressing the lever of a foot press 40 times a min-
ute, 24,000 times a day. In the telephone service an
operator can receive, answer and make the proper con-
nections for from 200 to 300 calls in an hour; in weaving
one woman must supervise 16 to 24 looms, ever watchful
that they are running properly; in sewing a single girl
watches intently the 12 jumping needles of her power
machine; in the making of women’s clothing by modern
machinery one operator in an hour will tuck 250 yards
of lawn, another will hem 400 yards of voile, another will
make 1,000 buttonholes, and still another will sew on
800 buttons; in the manufacture of candy one employee
will wrap 9,000 caramels in a day; and in a cigar factory
one man will bunch 2,000 stogies. An expert can insert
in one day the eyelets into 4,000 shoes; another can trim
the superfluous leather from the uppers of 5,200 shoes.
A machine-made shoe in the process of manufacture is
said to pass through the hands of no less than 100 work-
ers. A worker doing one thing does nothing else, that is,
his main activities are limited to a small part of his
body, to a restricted neuromuscular mechanism, which
undergoes a rapid rhythmic exercise. In some eases this»
exercise becomes hardly more than a series of exactly
similar unconscious reflex actions; in others it demands
the aid of an acutely attentive consciousness. The dan-
ger lies in the pace becoming so rapid that there is little
opportunity, such as usually exists with the rhythmically
beating heart, for recuperation between successive dis-
charges of energy. At the end of the day’s work, there-
205
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—United States
fore, the physiological mechanism involved is too often
near exhaustion and even the rest of the body may suffer
likewise.
We have here, indeed, a condition strikingly like that
of the single excised muscle of the familiar laboratory
experiment (Fig. 1. See Page 294.) With the excised
muscle the stimuli are electric shocks regularly and
rapidly repeated; with the industrial worker there is a
restricted group of muscles stimulated rhythmically
from a particular part of the nervous system. In both
eases necessary metabolic material is consumed and
fatigue substances are produced. With the excised
bloodless muscle there is no replacement of the one or
the removal of the other, and the stage of exhaustion is
quickly reached; with the human muscles and the associ-
ated nervous tissues fuel and oxygen are brought and
wastes are removed by the blood, but with the great
speed of stimulation katabolism is pretty sure to exceed
anabolism, and thus favorable conditions are provided
for the production of pronounced fatigue in the parts
involved and a lesser degree of fatigue in other parts of
the body. The lesson of Fig. 2 (see page 295) is here
directly applicable. (P. 260.)
Ibid. Etiology and Prophylaxis of Occupational Dis- .
eases. Gkrorczs M. Kossr, M.D.
Speeding Up.—Among all the fatigue factors, none
is more potent than the pernicious practice of “speed
ing up.’’ In order to meet the demands of competition,
lower prices, high profits, and trade supremacy, inven-
tive genius is ever at work to increase the speed and out-
put of machinery, and employees have to keep pace with
the machine. This speeding up is manifest in all the
mechanical industries, especially in the textile and cloth-
ing industry. Some of the sewing machines now carry
ten needles instead of one, involving correspondingly in-
creased strain of the eyes to watch for broken threads,
and also increased nervous tension and physical fatigue.
206
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—Great Britain
This high-pressure system had its origin in this country
and is by no means confined to individual industries.
The very excellencies of our progress have stimulated
the nerves and intellect and fired the ambition of men
until they overleap the limits of their natural powers.
Rest and recreation seems impossible to many, and the
temporary stimulant derived from the tempting cup
offers, for the time being, relief to our physical and
mental exhaustion. It is, however, like all so-called
“nerve tonics,’’ a dangerous remedy. It is like applying
the whip to a tired horse and the result is a constant
increase in the number of prematurely worn-out work-
ers, neurasthenics, alcohol and drug habitués. (Pp. 447-
448.)
Dangerous Trades. Tuomas Ottver, M.A., M.D., F.R.
C.P., Medical Expert on the White Lead, Danger-
ous Trades, Pottery and Lucifer Match Commi-
tees of the Home Office. London, Murray, 1902.
The introduction of steam has revolutionized indus-
try. . . . Machinery acts with unerring uniformity.
At times so simple is its mechanism that a child can
almost guide it, yet how exacting are its demands. While
machinery has in some senses lightened the burden of
human toil, it has not diminished fatigue in man. All
through the hours of work in a factory the hum of the
wheels never ceases. . . . While the machinery pur-
sues its relentless course and is insensitive to fatigue,
human beings are conscious, especially towards the end of
the day, that the competition is unequal, for their
muscles are becoming tired and their brains jaded... .
Present-day factory labor is too much a competition of
sensitive human nerve and muscle against insensitive
iron, and yet, apart from an appropriate shortening of
the hours of labor, it is difficult to see how this can be
remedied. The greater the number of hours machinery
runs per day the larger is the output for the manufac-
turer, but the feebler are the human limbs that guide it.
To the machine time is nothing; to the human being each
207
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed._—Great Britain
hour that passes beyond a well-defined limit means in-
creasing fatigue and exhaustion. (Pp. 115-117.)
The Economic Journal. Vol. XVIII. London, 1908.
Gaps in our Factory Legislation. B. L. Hutcutns.
Now it is important to remember that these (ten)
hours mean more work and more fatigue than they did
when the normal day was first introduced fifty-odd years
ago. The speeding up of machinery has increased the
strain, and even as long ago as 1872 shorter hours were
agitated for by the trade unions. . . . (P. 223.)
Diseases of Occupation from the Legislative, Social, and
Medical Powmts of View. Tuomas Ottver, M.A.,
M.D., F.R.C.P., Medical Expert on the White
Lead, Dangerous Trades, Pottery, and Lucifer
Match Committees of the British Home Office.
New York, Dutton, 1908.
In trades that are dangerous to health the hours
should not be long; and in textile industries, as the speed
of machinery is quickened and the nervous tension upon
the worker becomes greater, the hours of labor should
be proportionally reduced. (P. xi.)
It is an interesting problem to consider the probable
effects upon the health of the workpeople in the future
of the increased speed at which machinery is being run
in the factories and the speeding-up of the work in ship
yards. That there is greater strain upon the nervous
system, more exhaustion and consequently need for
greater leisure, few will deny, and that in many in-
stances the hard work induces premature old age goes
without saying. Will this speeding-up tend to make
female mill-workers better mothers and help them to give
birth to healthy and robust children, or to infants who
are puny, ill-nourished, and of a highly strung nervous
system? In some American factories in which stitched
muslin underwear is made, so great has been the im-
208 :
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—Great Britain
provement in the machinery of late that the sewing
machines are carrying two to ten needles instead of one
as formerly, and as a consequence many of the girls are
no longer capable of the sustained effort necessary to
follow the improved speed, and have been obliged to re-
linquish their occupation. The strain of the eyes m
watching for broken threads in order to stop the ma-
chinerv is almost intolerable; it requires an amount of
nervous energy and a constancy of attention which the
operators cannot supply. There is a limit beyond which
the speeding of machinery cannot be run without detri-
ment to the health of the operators unless their hours of
work are materially shortened.
Clearly, therefore, there are occupations, especially
the textile trades, that tend through sheer strain to wear
out the body of the worker and induce premature old age.
These industries may be said to show their baneful
effects upon the nervous system. (Pp. 3-4.)
Although the introduction of machinery has cheap-
ened products and placed more of them within the reach
of the poorer working classes, it has not always light-
ened labor. The rate at which machinery is run demands
greater attention from the workpeople and imposes upon
them a severe strain. To the artisan classes the Satur-
day half-holiday and the shortened working day have
proven a boon from a purely physical point of view.
Great as the rush and pressure are in this country, they
are even greater in America. (P. 5.)
The lightening of the burden of the textile worker by
improved machinery has not altogether made mill work
easier, for by raising the speed and increasing the out-
put a larger amount of machinery has to be tended, and
this constant vigilance imposes a considerable strain
upon the worker. If this is true of simple muscular
movements necessitating only mechanical supervision,
how much greater must be the strain and exhaustion
upon persons who in their employment are obliged to
execute a series of educated and rapid muscular move-
aay in which volition is sustained throughout. (P.
209
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—Great Britain
Work and Wages: In Continuation of Earl Brassey’s
‘Work and Wages”’ and ‘‘ Foreign Work and Eng-
lish Wages.’’ Part II. Social Betterment. Syp-
NEY J. CHapman, M.A. London and New York,
Longmans, Green & Co., 1914.
The road of economic advance has been largely by
way of specialism, and this has meant to the laborer the
partial, or occasionally complete, elimination of the short
periods of leisure by which his working hours used to be
broken up. In a modern workshop, noise, the necessity
of discipline, or of a continuously absorbed state of the
attention, have frequently reduced the possibilities of
relaxation to the barest limits. Humanity has no doubt
been relieved of the heaviest burden of toil by inventions
relating to the mechanism of production; but their appli-
eation has been accompanied on the whole by the need
for a closer concentration of effort. The intensification
of labor in a more confined sphere of activity may, as
Professor Miinsterberg argues, exercise more fully the
higher human faculties, and thereby bring with it a
deeper interest, but it will almost certainly prove
more exhausting even apart from the elimination of
change, leisure and social intercourse. And decade by
decade, with the ‘‘speeding-up’”’ of machinery, we should
expect to find more nervous strain accompanying the
process of production. (Pp. 233-234.)
Journal of State Medicine. Vol. 22. October, 1914. Lon-
don. Occupational Fatigue. Prorsssor Sir
Tuomas Ortver. University of Durham; late Medt-
cal Expert Home Office Committee on Dangerous
Trades.
‘‘So tired!’’ is the cry of thousands of men, women
and young persons at the close of a working day. How
to meet the complaint and to remove its cause are among
the problems of the present age. It would seem as if the
stress of modern times was becoming too great, and as
if the strain of industrial methods ‘through improved
machinery was becoming more than human strength can
210
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—Great Britain
bear. Part of the fatigue may be due to altered indus-
trial methods, changes in the food of the people, over-
crowding and other conditions incidental to town life.
Men and women are apparently more readily overcome
by fatigue than were our forbears. The greater preval-
ence of functional diseases lends support to the supposi-
tion. Owing to their exhausting nature, some occupa-
tions make men age much more rapidly than others. The
condition of the heart and arteries is the physiological
sign of a man’s age, his prospect of longevity and fitness
for work. Pierracini has shown that the arteries of the
arm of a workman which is more employed in hard work
than the other arm are always more atheromatous.
Presumably they have to bear greater strain. It can
hardly be that they are more poisoned by fatigue pro-
ducts than are the blood vessels of the less used arm, for
toxins act upon the arterial system generally, including
the heart. We want to know something of the limita-
tions of the human body so far as physical work and
strain are concerned. Within recent years the trend has
been to reduce the hours of labor. Experience has shown
that in factories where the working day is unduly pro-
tracted not only are accidents more numerous, but the
actual production of the last hour or two of a nine or ten
hours’ day is not equal to that of the average of the hours
which precede the close of an eight or nine hours’ day.
There is a limit beyond which work cannot be carried
without the individual becoming aware of his inability
to meet the demands upon his mental and physical re-
sources. Its approach is heralded by a sense of fatigue
due to poisoning of nerve centres and of peripheral
nerves by toxins generated within the body. .. .
(Pp. 342-343.)
Work and Wealth: A Human Valuation. J. A. Hopson.
New York. The Macmillan Company. 1914.
But where monotonous repetition is closely directed
by the action of a machine, as regards its manner and its
pace, there is a special nervous cost. For a hand-worker,
however dull or heavy is the work, retains some slight
211
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—Great Britain
power of varying the pace and perhaps of changing his
position or mode of work. A worker who either feeds a
machine or adjusts his movements in obedience to those
of a machine, as for instance a cutter in the clothing trade
or in shoemaking, has no such liberty. The special cost
here entailed is that of trying to make an organism con-
form in its movements to a mechanism. Now a human
being, or any other organism, has certain natural
rhythms of movement for work, related to the rhythms of
heart and lungs and other organic processes, and there
are natural limits also to the pace at which he can
efficiently, or even possibly, continue working. A machine
also has rhythms and a maximum efficiency pace. But
the rhythms of a machine are determined by its mechani-
cal construction and the apparatus which furnishes its
power: they are continuously uniform, and are capable
of being speeded up beyond the capacity of the human
tender.
A human rhythm is really labor-saving, in as much
as it eases the strain to work in accordance with a natural
swing. To set a man to follow the rhythm of a machine
not only loses this economy, but entails an extra effort of
conformity. The tendency to speed up a machine, so as
to get the most out of it, is liable to take out of the ma-
chine-tender even more than he is capable of recognising
in the way of nervous strain. Where considerable muscu-
lar activity is also required in following a high pace set by
a machine, an appalling burden of human costs may be ac-
cumulated in a factory day. (Pp. 70-71.)
If it be accompanied by a shortening of the hours of
labor, the damage inflicted by the rigor of mechanical
discipline may be compensated by a larger leisure. This
compensation, of course, is reduced or even nullified, if
the greater intensity of labor in the shorter day takes
more out of the man, as often happens, than was taken
out before. But, assuming that this is not the case, and
that for a longer dull routine work-day is substituted a
shorter but even more mechanical day, a net gain for
labor is still possible. (Pp. 218-219.)
The more rigorous routine of the work-day might be
adequately compensated by shorter hours, higher wages,
212
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—Canada.
increased opportunities for education, recreation, and
home life. (P. 220.) ;
But leisure, as an economic asset, is not a mere ques-
tion of hours. A shorter work-day might be dearly
bought at the cost of an intensification of labor which
left body and mind exhausted at the end of each day. The
opposition of workers to a policy of speeding-up, or the
use of pace-setters, is usually a sane act of self-defense,
and not the fractious obstruction to industrial progress
it is sometimes represented. No considerations of human
endurance limit the pace at which machinery driven by
mechanical power may be worked. Unless, therefore, re-
straints are put by law, custom or bargaining, upon the
speed of machines, or the number which a worker is
called upon to serve, competition may impose a work-day
which, though not unduly long in hours, habitually ex-
hausts the ordinary worker. It is not always realized how
great a change took place when the weaver, the shoe-
maker, the smith, passed from the workshops, where the
pace and other conditions of work were mostly regulated
by their voluntary action, to the steam-driven factory.
The shoemaker and the tailor under the old conditions
had time, energy and liberty for thought while carrying
on their work: they could slacken, break off or speed up,
their work, according to their inclination. The clicker
or heeler in a shoe factory, the cutter-out in a clothing
factory, have no such measure of freedom. This is, of
course, a normal effect of modern industrialism. Closer
and more continuous attention is demanded during the
working hours. :
Thus the real question of leisure is a question of spare
_ human energy rather than of spare hours. The shorter
working-day is chiefly needed as a condition favorable to
spare energy. (P. 233.)
Report of the Inspectors of Factories for the Province of
Ontario, Canada, 1894.
_ With the increased speed and complications of ma-
chinery in textile industries, especially in cotton looms,
the attendant has more mental worry in watching the
213
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—Australia
machines, and no doubt is more exhausted physically after
a day’s work. (P. 13.)
Report of the Inspectors of Factories for the Province of
Ontario, Canada, 1895.
A very small fraction of the work requires muscular
strength, but it is the constant and steady application
of the mind, the eager use of the eyes, which exhaust and
wear out the human body. The entire nervous system is
so intently directed to the detail of the work, while the ma-
chinery is running to its utmost capacity, that by night
the workers are not only tired and weary, but well-nigh
worn out. (Pp. 24-25.)
Report of the Inspector of Factories for the Province of
Ontario, Canada, 1896.
Though there is little work which requires great mus-
cular strength or exertion in our factories, yet the alert-
ness and exactness of attention and constant application
ie oe exhaust the nervous vitality very rapidly.
(P, 22.
New South Wales. Legislative Assembly. Report of the
Working of the Factories’ and Shops’ Act. 1904.
Miss Duncan, Inspector:
The effect of factory work on the individual appears
' to be to produce a skillful specialized worker moving
within narrow limits and ill-fitted to rise above them.
On the physical side, the want of exercise among those
who sit all day at their work, the long standing of others
in those processes which cannot be conveniently carried
on when sitting, in either case the over-exercise of cer-
tain muscles and the non-exercise of others, must bring
about a very one-sided development. ... Again the
constant vibration and noise, the unflagging attention de-
manded by work on power machines, and the high rate of
214
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—Italy
speed, must tend to operate disadvantageously on the
nervous system. (P. 13.)
Fatigue. A. Mosso, Professor of Physiology, Umversity
of Turin, 1896. Translated by Marcaret Drum-
monp, M. A., and W. B. Drummonp, M. B., Extra
Physician, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edim-
burgh. New York, Putnam, 1904.
By constant increase in the rate of movement, by in-
struments ever better adapted to their ends, modern so-
ciety endeavors to multiply and render more productive
the work of both of muscle and of mind. The prodigious
extension of the arts and the increasing velocity of ma-
chinery combine to hurry us onward; our haste will grow
from more to more, till it reaches an extreme point at
which the law of exhaustion sets an insuperable barrier
to the greed of gain... . (P. 168.)
The machinery in our factories is ever becoming more
ponderous; it is increasing in size, velocity of motion, and
productivity, and this increase still continues despite the
fact that we have already surpassed the furthest limit
set at first by our imagination. (P. 169.)
One very quietly perceives, however, that those ma-
chines are not made to lessen human fatigue, as poets
were wont to dream. The velocity of the flying wheels,
the whirling of the hammers, and the furious speed at
which everything moves, these things tell us that time
is an important factor in the progress of industry, and
that here in the factory the activity of the workers must
conquer the forces of nature. The hiss of the steam, the
rattling of the pulleys, the shaking of the joints, the
snorting of these gigantic automata, all warn us that they
are inexorable in their motion, that man is condemned
to follow them without a moment’s rest, because every
minute wasted consumes time that is worth money, seeing
that it renders useless the coal and the movements of
these colossi. (P. 171.)
Marx, in his celebrated work (Le Capital, Karl Marx,
p. 161), devotes a chapter to machinery, and arrives at
215
The New Strain in Manufacture: Speed.—Switzerland.
the following conclusions: that all our inventions have
not diminished human fatigue, but simply the price of
commodities; that machinery has rendered worse the con-
dition of the worker, because by rendering strength of no
avail it has entailed the employment of women and chil-
dren; instead of shortening the working-day it has pro-
longed it, instead of reducing fatigue it has rendered it
more dangerous and injurious; that to the accumulation
of riches corresponds an increase of poverty; that owing
to machinery society is receding further and further
from its ideal; that the reality has not corresponded to
our hopes.
. .. The powerful automaton of mechanics wants
nothing but intelligence and a nervous system; this want
a child or a woman ean supply and guide the blind giants
by the hand. It is a grave accusation to launch against
science, that in making herself mistress of the forces of
nature she tends to establish a monopoly for machinery,
to make labor the slave of capital. There are, moreover,
those who fear that human fatigue will come to be less and
less regarded, and that the workers will be gradually
eliminated and dismissed without means of subsistence,
that the intelligence of the people is deteriorating, be-
cause the greater the perfection of the machine, the less
the skill and ability required from the worker. (Pp. 173-
174.)
Untersuchungen wber die Gesundheitsverhdltnisse der
Fabrikbevolkerung der Schweiz. [Investigations
into the Conditions of Health of the Swiss Factory
Workers.] Dr. Frmorin ScHuter, Swiss Factory
Inspector, and Dr. A. E. Burcxuaropt, Professor of
Hygiene, Basle. Aarau, Sauerlander, 1889.
Instead of becoming wearied by personal labor, as in
earlier stages of industry, it is today the unremitting,
tense concentration in watching the machine, the neces-
sary rapidity of motion, that fatigues the worker. (P. 62.)
216
b. MONOTONY.
Besides the physical strain due to speed and com-
plexity of machinery, health is injured by the extreme
monotony of many branches of industry. Specialization
has been carried so far that change and variety of work
is reduced to a minimum. Minute division of labor re-
sults in the constant repetition of similar motions and
processes by the same worker, favoring the onset of
fatigue and requiring for relief the establishment of a
shorter workday.
Work and Wealth: A Human Valuation. J. A. Hoxson.
New York, The Macmillan Company, 1914.
Whereas the artistic or inventive, or even the profes-
sional man, is constantly doing something new, the
laborer continually repeats the same act or set of acts,
in order to produce a number of similar products. The
success of most labor consists in the exactitude and pace
with which this repetition can be carried on. The ma-
chine-tender is the typical instance. To feed the same
machinery with the same quantity of the same material
at the same pace, so as to turn out an endless number of
precisely similar articles, is the absolute antithesis of
art. It is often said that the man who feeds such a ma-
chine tends to become as automatic as the machine itself.
This, however, is but a half-truth. If the tender could
become as automatic as the machine he tended, if he
could completely mechanize a little section of his facul-
ties, it might go easier with him. But the main trend of
life in the man fights against the mechanising tendency
of his work, and this struggle entails a heavy cost. For
his machine imposes a repetition of the same muscular
and nervous action upon a being whose muscles and
nervous resources are continually changing. The ma-
chine, fed constantly with the same supply of fuel, geared
up to a single constant pace of movement, forced by un-
217
The New Strain in Manufacture: Monotony.—Great Britain
changing structure to the performance of the same
operation, friction and error reduced to. an almost neg-
ligible minimum, works through the longest day with a
uniform expenditure of power. The machine-tender is an
organism, fed at somewhat irregular intervals with dif-
ferent amounts and sorts of food, the assimilation of
which is also discontinuous and incapable of maintaining -
intact and constant in its quantity the muscular and
nervous tissue and the accompanying contractions which
constitute the physical supply of ‘‘work.’’ This organ-
ism has also many other structures and functions, physi-
cal and mental, whose activities and needs get in the way
of the automatic activity of machine-tending. Thus the
worker cannot succeed in becoming altogether a ma-
chine-tending automaton. He will not always exactly
repeat himself, and his attempt to do so involves two
sets of organic costs or wastes, due to the fact that,
though his labor tries to make him a specialized mechan-
ism, he remains a generalized organism. |
So far as labor consists in specialized routine, absorb-
ing the main current of productive energy, it is the
enemy of organic health. It is hostile in two ways: first,
in denying to man opportunity for the exercise of his
other productive faculties; secondly, in overtaxing and
degrading by servile. repetition the single faculty that is
employed. (Pp. 61-62.)
As the artist presents the supreme example of crea-
tive work, with a minimum of human costs and a maxi-
mum of human utility, so the machine-tender presents
the supreme example of imitative work, with a maximum
of human costs and a minimum of human utility.
(Pp. 61-62.) .
British Sessional Paners. Vols. XXIX-XXX. 1876. Fac-
tory and Workshops Acts Commission. Vol.
XXIX. Report.
We have already referred more than once to the un-
remitting and monotonous character of all labor at a ma-
chine driven by steam. Work at a machine has inevitably
a treadmill character about it; each step may, be easy,
218
The New Strain in Manufacture: Monotony.—Great Britain
but it must be performed at the exact moment under pain
of consequences. In hand work and house work there is
a certain freedom of doing or of leaving undone. Mill
(i. e. machine) work must be done as if by clockwork. .. .
The people are tied as it were, to machinery moving ata
great speed in certain operations; again it has been al-
leged that the state of the atmosphere is very unhealthy,
and the temperature at a great height, and from the em-
ployment of machinery the speed has been so much in-
creased that the wear and tear not merely of the body but
of the mind also, of the operatives were too great for them
to bear. (Pp. XXIX-XXX.)
The Eight Hour Day. Stwney Wess and Harotp Cox,
B. A. London, Walter Scott, 1891.
All medical testimony points to the fact that when-
ever a monotonous occupation is prolonged beyond a very
limited period, seven or eight hours at most, the physical
completeness of the worker is impaired. He becomes a
lop-sided animal. This is the case when the work in
itself is healthy enough, and when it is conducted amid
healthy surroundings. (P. 140.)
The Hygiene, Diseases and Mortality of Occupation. J.
T. Arntipes, M. D., A. B., F. R. C. P. Consulting
Physician to the North Staffordshire Infirmary;
late Milroy lecturer at the Royal College of Physi-
cians, etc. London, Percival, 1892.
The majority of indoor industries have the disadvant-
age of presenting little variety in the methods of working,
especially in manufactories, where there is great monot-
ony in whatever branch of employment is pursued, and
the workman counts for littlé else than an appendage to
a machine. Day by day the worker is called upon to do
the same mechanical act, without feeling a personal in-
terest in the result of his labor; for this is no product of
his thinking or inventive faculty, but predetermined by
mechanical contrivances; and day by day he continues at
his task, wearisome to the spirit, earning a fixed rate of
payment, sufficient, usually, to supply his animal require-
219
The New Strain in Manufacture: Monotony.—Great Britain
ments, but holding out small prospect of escape from toil,
whilst he can perform it, or a coming period of com-
petency and enjoyment. (P.18). And, generally speak-
ing, it may be asserted of machinery that it calls for little
or no brain exertion on the part of those connected with
its operations, it arouses no interest, and is wearisome
by monotony. Machinery, consequently, has nothing in
it to quicken or brighten the intelligence, though it may
sharpen the sense of sight, and stimulate muscular ac-
tivity in some one limited direction.
... That some effect must follow upon the rapid
whirling of machines and the noise produced, is a reason-
able inference. The special senses so exposed are neces-
sarily subjected to a species of strain or overuse. Those
unaccustomed to machinery are dazed by its operations,
and willingly escape from its presence; and those regu-
larly occupied with it, in conducting and regulating its
action, and in intently watching its output, can only do so
at the expense of more or less wear and tear of nerve
function, and, indeed, of the whole nervous system. Their
fatigue is the fatigue of watching, not of working.
(Pp. 25-26.)
Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Frep-
ERICK Hneets. Translated by Florence Kelley.
London, Sonnenschein, 1892.
The supervision of machinery, the joining of broken
threads, is no activity which claims the operative’s think-
ing powers, yet it is of a sort which prevents him from
occupying his mind with other things. We have seen,
too, that this work affords the muscles no. opportunity
.for nhysical activity. Thus it is, properly speaking, not
work but tedium, the most deadening, wearing process
conceivable. The operative is condemned to let his physi-
cal and mental powers decay in this utter monotony. .. .
Moreover, he must not take a moment’s rest; the engine
moves unceasingly. ... This condemnation to be buried
alive in the mill, to give constant attention to the tireless
machine, is felt as the keenest torture by the operatives,
220
The New Strain in Manufacture: Monotony.—Great Britain
and its action upon mind and body is in the long run
stunting in the highest degree. (P. 177.)
The Effects of the Factory System. ALLEN Cuiarke. Lon-
don, Grant Richards, 1899.
And all these hours—10 hours a day, spinner and
weaver are on their feet, no sitting down, no resting; one
must keep up to the machinery though agonized with
headache, or troubled by any other complaint. While the
engine runs the workers must stand. . . . It will thus be
seen that this employment is a severe and ceaseless
mental strain that makes a tribe of toilers alert at their —
tasks, but weakens the physique, as does all narrow and
monotonous mental strain if continuous. (Pp. 51-52.)
No doubt the factory system, by the increased work
and worry, contributes a good share of imbeciles to the
asylums. It is well known that monotony is a cause of in-
sanity, and there is nothing more deadly monotonous
than factory work. (P. 66.)
A Handbook of Political Questions of the Day and the
Arguments of Either Side. Swnezy Buxton, M. P.
11th Edition. London, John Murray, 1903. Legal
Limitation of Hours.
The legal limitation of hours is supported on the
grounds:— ... 2. (a) That (eight) hours’ continuous
hard work is enough for any man. That especially is this
the case when the worker has no personal interest in the
results of his labor—... (b) That the processes under
which work, especially factory work, is now carried on,
with its minute sub-division of labor, monotonous and un-
interesting, but yet requiring perpetual attention; with
its incessant noise and unhealthy atmospheric conditions, |
1B ie . ever-increasing strain on the nervous system.
, 159,
British Medical Journal, I. 1904. The Physiology of
Fatigue. (Editorial.)
_ Extreme monotony of work may cause the same sensa-
tion of fatigue as is produced by prolonged hours of
221
The New Strain in Manufacture: Monotony.—Great Britain
labor; and it appears that we have on this account reached
in many industries a degree of specialization which, by
producing premature fatigue, does not secure the best
results. Monotonous work is arranged, because the work-
man thus engaged can work at a higher pace than if his
work were more varied. This policy may in some in-
stances over-reach itself. (P. 146.)
The Economic Journal. Vol. XVIII. London, 1908.
Gaps in our Factory Legislation. B. L. Hutcurns.
-The extreme monotony of factory work is in itself a
cause of strain. (P. 224.)
The Economic Journal. Vol. XIX. 1909. London.
Hours of Labor. Presidential Address to the
Economic Science and Statistics Section of the
British Association for the Advancement of
Science. S. J. Coapman.
Mechanical improvement proceeds by ‘‘specializing
out’’ mechanical tasks, the performance of which by hand
must be a dreary occupation, but each step in the march
of invention seems to create, as a rule, by its incomplete-
ness, tasks meaning a new and more concentrated
monotony, though no doubt it must generally result in an
appreciable reduction of the amount of dull employment
involved in the attainment of a given output. Any work
must be wearisome the pace of which is set by a machine
and kept absolutely steady. (P. 355.)
The Eight Hour M ovement. An address delivered before
the Brotherhood of United Labor at the Armory in
Chicago, February 22d, 1890. Jupver P. AvtcExp.
It is urged in favor of shorter hours: .. .
Sixth. That before the division of labor and the ex-
tensive introduction of machinery, each laborer, as a rule,
made an entire thing so that his mind was occupied and
the work was not so fatiguing. Now all is changed, he
works on a single process, frequently on a very minute
object, the effect of which on the mind is most unfavorable
222
The New Strain in Manufacture: Monotony.—United States
when long continued; the constant concentration of the
mind upon one thing in time narrows it to that thing, the
laborer becomes like the machine, his nervous system 1s
weakened, his mind dwarfed and his body stunted. That
when the laborer worked by hand he could rest when he.
was tired—quite an hour earlier if he was not well—
but now he must work while the machine works and that
this constant and regular draft on the nervous system
causes him to wear out with the machine and in many
eases sooner—for human muscle and nerve cannot com-
pete with steel unless given plenty of time to rest and re-
cuperate. (P. 4.)
Report of the United States Industrial Commission.
Final Report. Vol. XIX, 1902.
While the course of improvement tends to narrow the
range of necessary skill, and in some cases makes it pos-
sible to introduce a lower grade of workers, it often
aggravates the actual intensity and strain of the work.
There may be an actual increase of physical exertion.
The undercutting machines, which are being so rapidly
introduced in the bituminous coal mines, have to be held
steady by the miner, partly by the strength of his arms
and partly by the weight of his body. To hold one of
them is said to be far more exhausting than to handle
the pick, because of their violent and incessant jar. In
general, however, the strain whicl machinery imposes
is the strain of constant, unswerving and monotonous
attention. With every improvement of the mule and
the power loom the worker has taken charge of more
spindles and more shuttles, and the speed has been in-
creased; and the unanimous assertion of the workmen
is that the change has progressively increased the de-
mands of the work. The hand shoemaker, turning from
one operation to another as his work progressed, and
varying his task with sundry necessary preparations, had
a less exhausting day than the shoe-factory operative.
The clothing maker, who sits week after week and sews
a single seam on each of an endless succession of coats,
leads a more nerve-wearing life than the tailor who makes
a complete garment. (Pp. 823-824.)
223
The New Strain in Manufacture: Monotony.—United States
The National Cwic Federation Review. Vol. II, No. &.
Jan.-Feb., 1906. The First Annual Meeting of the
New England Cwic Federation. Boston, Jan. 11,
1906.
Marcus M. Marks, President of the National Associa-
tion of Clothing Manufacturers:
. . Labor asks for shorter hours . . . because
the ‘conditions of employment have been changed so much
in recent years that workers feel justly entitled to a
shortening of the day. They contend that the introduc-
tion of machinery has in a large degree replaced the
exercise of the muscles, by the use of the eye and mind.
This causes more strain on the system. They contend
further that specialization of labor has taken away the
restful variety and change of occupation which formerly
diversified the day’s employment, and has substituted a
regular monotony of daily labor which is much more
tiring. For, whilst a workman might contribute his
maximum efficiency in working to twelve hours per day
when strictly variegated effort was required, the greater
strain of the present so-called ‘‘improved’’ condition of
labor may now bring about the necessity for a reduction
of hours in order to preserve the same degree of effici-
ency. (P. 8.)
The Survey. Jan. 21, 1911. Hours in the Continuous
Industries, Tuomas Scuiytrer. (Match manu-
facturer. Norwegian Assoctation for Labor
Legislation.)
There are several factors in modern organization of
_ industry which make it more and more important and
even necessary, that society should regulate the hours of
work. The two principal are:
The increasing tendency towards work on a large
scale, each man being only a small cog in one of the smal
wheels of the enormous machine: and
The specialization of work, which is in itself in many
ways a great advantage, but. necessarily develops one-
224
The New Strain in Manufacture: Monotony.—Germany
sidedness unless sufficient leisure and opportunities be
given the man for developing other qualities than those
produced by his work. (P. 677.)
Inventors and Money-Makers. F. W. Tavssic, Harvard
University. New York, Macmillan, 1915.
- Yet it remains true that there is a difference of degree
between the tool and the machine; a lessened scope for
individual initiative and individual impress, and so a
lessened opportunity for the satisfaction of an instinct
like that of contrivance. True, the expert mechanics
needed by modern industry—a considerable part of the
labor force, even though not a large proportion—may
still be in the way of experiencing some such satisfaction.
Among the rank and file of factory operatives, also, the
possibility is not completely excluded; machines, however
perfect, depend in some degree on the operative’s care
and skill. Yet in general the minute partition of labor,
the extreme differentiation of machinery, the constant
effort to achieve automatic check and start and action,
the tendency to reduce the worker to a mere feeder and
watcher,—all these mean a loss in interest, in possible
variety, in the exercise of skill and contrivance. ...
Against the clear gain in quantitative output from ma-
chine industry, so much emphasized in economic litera-
ture, must be set some loss, even though not an unqualified
loss, as regards the scope and the attractiveness of the
work itself. (Pp. 63-64.)
Gesammelte Abhandlungen, Bd. III. [Complete Works,
Vol. IIl.] Die Volkswirthschaftliche Bedeutung
der Verkiirzung des Industriellen Arbeitstages.
[The Economic Significance of a Shorter Work-
mg Day.| Ernst Asse. Paper read before the
Economics Society at Jena, 1901. Jena, Fischer,
1906.
Our whole industrial labor nowadays is characterized
by what we call ‘‘Effects of the Division of Labor.’’
225
The New Strain in Manufacture: Monotony.—Germany
This division and subdivision has become a necessary
condition of progress, and, much as we may deplore its
effects in certain details, it is impossible to abandon it.
It stamps all work with uniformity. . . . With this
sameness and continually recurring monotony we also
get the continuous fatigue of the same organ,—of the
same group of muscles,—of the same nerve centres,—of
the same part of the brain,—because all that is to be done,
whether muscular or brain work, must be constantly
repeated in the same manner from morning to night, day
by day, and week by week. (P. 225.)
Fourteenth International Congress of Hygiene and Dem-
ography. Berlin, September, 1907. Vol. II, Sec.
IV. Ermidung durch Berufsarbeit. [Fatigue
Resulting from Occupation.] Dr. Emit Rorn,
Regierungsrat, Potsdam. Berlin, Hirschwald,
1908.
. With the progressive division of labor, work
has become more and more mechanical. . . . A definite
share of overfatigue and its sequels, especially neuras-
thenia, must be ascribed to this monotony,—to the ab-.
sence of spontaneity or joy in work. (P. 613.)
Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften. Bd. I.
[Compendium of Political Science. Vol. 1.]
Edited by Drs. J. Conran, Professor of Political
Science in Halle; L. Exster, Ober Reg. Rath in
Berlin; W. Lexis, Professor of Political Science
in Gottingen, and Ene. Lozntine, Professor of Law
im Halle. Arbeitszett. [Hours of Work.] Dr. H.
Herxner, Berlin. Jena, Fischer, 1909.
In modern industry the activity of the worker is usu-
ally confined to certain muscular groups alone. The
burden, therefore, rests upon a few overworked organs.
The same muscles, the same nervous tissues and the
same parts of the brain are continually at work. In this
way fatigue comes on much more rapidly than where an
alternation allows temporary use of various organs, thus
226
The New Strain in Manufacture: Monotony.—Germany
giving them time for rest. As, in monotonous muscular
work, muscular fatigue comes on quickly, so with mono-
tonous, one-sided mental work (for instance, long-con-
tinued addition) fatigue comes on very quickly. In gen-
eral, fatigue of the nerves approaches more slowly than
muscular fatigue; but, on the other hand, nervous repair
takes a much longer time. (P. 1215.)
Man realizes fatigue not only by the less satisfactory
results of work, but also by sensations of pain and aver-
sion. These are warning signals and protective devices
of nature, by whose help injury may be averted. But it
is possible that in the zeal of work these signals may be
ignored. The injurious effects will therefore, however,
not be avoided. Again, the signal may be noticed, but
cannot be heeded through the compulsion of circum-
stances. The day’s work must be finished, and work must
be kept up longer for the sake of the day’s wages. Then,
with the utmost strain of the will power, further activity
must be wrung from the wearied organism. (Pp. 1215-
1216.)
Proceedings of the First International Convention on
Industrial Diseases. Milan, 1906. Frenastenia e
delinquenza in rapporto a taluni ordinamenti del
_ lavoro, [Imbecility and Criminality in Relation
to Certain Forms of Labor.) Prof. CrisaFuttt.
To understand how cerebral fatigue can cause the
arrest of mental development in youths and criminal
actions in adults, we must bear in mind that the special
functions of the brain have separate centres, the founda-
tion of the psychic and motor-psychic life of individuals.
Thus, there is a centre for hearing, another for sight,
another for speaking, etc. When only one centre works
it becomes overfatigued much more easily than if the
functions were alternately performed by the varicus
centres.
Here, then, is another factor in overfatigue due to the
monotony of work, interrupted only at long intervals.
This monotony is the determining cause of local dis-
turbances and endangers the entire organism. (P. 150.)
997
ao
Cc. PIECE WORK.
All the evils of speed and monotony in industrial es-
tablishments are intensified by the abuses of piece work.
When each worker aims to work faster for the sake of a
slight increase in wages, a premium is put upon feverish
activity, regardless of the physical cost to the worker.
American Labor Legislation Review. Jan., 1911. Neur-
asthenia Among Garment Workers. Dr. Swwney
T. Scowas. St. Louis Unversity.
Medically, the piece-work system is perhaps the most
pernicious thing that could be devised to weaken what,
for a better term, might be described as the dynamic
efficiency of the nervous system. I am referring, of
course, to the unregulated piece-work system in which
there is no maXimum or average amount of work set
down to keep the worker from speeding beyond his ca-
pacity. The pay that the piece-worker obtains for his
labor is ingeniously devised, and subject to change in
amount, so that he must work at top speed to make it
worth while. With the increased efficiency of the piece-
worker, the price per piece of work turned out is com-
monly decreased, so that a greater and increasingly more
intense effort is necessary to reach the individual’s maxi-
mum reward for his labor. It needs no argument to
convince even a sturdy advocate of that new idol, called
efficiency, that such methods are bound, in the long run,
to use up the worker. (Pp. 32-3.)
I have in my clinical experience sufficient evidence,
I think, to suggest that the piece-work system is in some
instances a very direct cause in the production of a neu-
rasthenic condition in a worker. (Pp. 32-3.)
The American Magazine. Vol. 71. March, 1911. Old
Age at Forty. Joun A. Fircx.
The bonus system has made drivers out of the fore-
men—‘‘pushers’’ is the correct word in Pittsburg—but
208
The New Strain in Manufacture: Piecework.—United States
after all there is another element more important than
any of these. Every man whose energy or skill can have
the slightest effect on size of output is paid by the ton
of product. The others are paid by the day. In 1892
there began at Homestead a custom of judicious rate-
cutting. When this began, the men hurried a little more
and brought the tonnage up so that their earnings were
as large as before. Then the rate was cut again, and
again tonnage leaped. This is the keystone of the whole
system. A reduction in earnings means a sacrifice to any
man, whether the old rate was high or low, and he will
work harder to get back to the accustomed level than he
ever would have worked to raise it.
By these methods the steel workers have been speeded
as workmen seldom are. It is not entirely due to the
marvelous ingenuity of American engineers that steel pro-
duction has increased at such a remarkable pace. There
is a hunian element in large outputs that does not appear
in statistics of tonnage. The steel companies know just
the relation between this human element and the tables
of statistics, hence the ‘‘pushers,’’ and fostering the
foolish rivalries, the orgy of overtime in the *‘record
months,’’ the buying of men’s better judgment in the
bonus system, and the play upon human necessity in the
cutting of the tonnage rates. The result of it all is a
system of speeding, unceasing and relentless, seldom
equaled in any industry in any time. (Pp. 658-659.)
Diseases of Occupation and Vocational Hugiene. Edited
by Gores M. Kossr, M. D., Professor of Hygiene,
Georgetown University, and Witttan C. Hanson,
M. D., Massachusetts State Board of Health. P.
Blakiston’s Son & Co., Philadelphia, 1916. Fatigue
and Occupation. Frepreric 8. Lee, Vew York.
Piecework.—It might seem that industrial fatigue im-
posed by long hours might be obviated by paying
workers, not according to the time spent, but according
to the amount of work accomplished, and, indeed, the
229
The New Strain in Manufacture: Piecework.—Great Britain
piecework system has now become common in many
trades. From the standpoint of its theory this system is
to be commended, for instead of rewarding all workers
alike, whatever their grades of efficiency, it allows those
who are ambitious and capable to reap the benefits of
their greater powers of accomplishment. But in practice
it has developed abuses, for when the rapid worker be-
comes in the opinion of the unprincipled employer too
rapid, piece wages are lowered and further speeding-up
is thus demanded. Moreover, the rapid worker is often
called upon to set the pace for those who are physiologi-
cally slower, and thus they may be urged on at a dan-
gerous rate. The piecework system, as thus practised,
has become one of the frequent factors in the production
of excessive industrial fatigue and has been widely con-
demned. Its evils are most potent when it is combined
with long hours. (Pp. 264-5.)
British Medical Journal. I. 1904. The Physiology of
Fatigue. Editorial.
Another tendency of modern industry is to demand
more intense work. Such work is more dangerous than
less intense work, and produces a nervous irritability and
strain. It is true both physiologically and industrially
that the best work and the most profitable work, giving
a maximum production, from a permanent standpoint
is that which is carried out under strictly physiological
conditions. .. .
What has been said with respect to intensity of work
deserves serious consideration in relation to ‘‘piece-
work.’’ Every physician is familiar with the evils of
‘‘working against time.’’ Unless carefully regulated,
‘“piece-work’’ involves this deleterious form of work. It
may be urged that it is only thus that in many instances
a satisfactory output can be secured. Other means can,
however, be devised to secure this result; and, speaking
generally, the interests of master and worker in the long
run are identical, and can only be secured by insisting on
230
The New Strain in Manufacture: Piecework.—Germany
work being carried on under strictly physiological condi-
tions. (P. 146.)
Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, Nr. 21, 25. Ma.
Die Neurasthenie in Arbeiterkrewsen. [Neuras-
thenia m the Working Classes.] Dr. P. Lxv-
BuscHER and Dr. W. Bisrowicz, formerly of the
Beelitz Sanitarium of the State Old Age and In-
validity Department of Berlin. Berlin, 1905.
. Work has become very different! Piece work
has indeed obtained larger wages, but has developed an
impetus and speed and intensity of effort that used to be
unknown, and this invariably crushes the weaker workers,
those for whom all work is a heavier burden than for
the strong. Continuous anxiety is felt by these lest they
fall behind. Then sometimes voluntarily, sometimes
compulsorily, overtime is undertaken, and so it turns out
that the working hours, instead of being comparatively
shorter than the usual day, are really much longer, and,
by reason of the irregularity, far more exhausting. (P.
821.)
Fourteenth International Congress of Hygiene and Dem-
ography. Berlin, September, 1907. Vol. II, Sec.
IV. Ermidung durch Berufsarbeit. [Fatigue re-
sulttmg from Occupation.] Dr. Emit Rots, Re-
gierungsrat, Potsdam. Berlin, Hirschwald, 1908.
Of greater importance is the excessive overstrain of
piece work, which indeed pays better, but at the cost of a
speed and intensity of work which was formerly unknown.
That these injurious effects first assail the weaker part
cis working population is self-evident. (Pp. 614 and
231
The New Strain in Manufacture: Piecework.—Italy.
Il Ramazzini. Giornale Italiano Di Medicina Sociale.
Anno I, 10-11. [Italian Journal of Social Medi-
cine.] October-November, 1907. Le Stagiom,
giornt, le ore degli wnfortumi del lavoro. [Days,
Seasons, and Hours when Industrial Accidents
occur.) Prof. G. Preraccrni and Dr. R. Marret,
Head Physicians in the Royal Main Hospital of S.
M. Nuova, Florence, Italy.
Piece work, necessitating higher speed, tends both in
itself and together with the fatigue that ensues to favor
the occurrence of labor accidents. . . .
We should see to it . . . that, above all, piece work
should be condemned, preference being given to time
work, the honesty of the worker and the consciousness of
his own labor capacity regulating the speed of work.
(Pp. 593-594.)
232
2. Inzsurtous PuysicaL SURROUNDINGS.
@. BAD AIR, HUMIDITY, EXTREMES OF TEMPERATURE, ETC.
In practically all manufacturing industries, the physi-
eal environment of the workers may constitute a hazard
to health. Among these general industrial hazards the
most important and the most prevalent are bad air,
humidity, extremes of heat and cold, noise, bad lighting,
vibration, ete. Not all these injurious factors are ordi-
narily found in conjunction in the same workplace; but
one or the other is operative in nearly every manufac-
turing industry. They are not confined to the so-called
‘dangerous trades’? but are common to occupations
usually considered non-hazardous. Cotton manufac-
ture, for instance, is not usually held to be a ‘‘dangerous
trade’’; yet workers in cotton mills are subject not only
to the danger of inhaling injurious substances such as
cotton dust and fluff, but are subject also to combined
heat and humidity, great noise, lack of ventilation, vibra-
tion of machinery, and nauseating odors.
Investigation has proved that these general incidents
of factory life effectively predispose to the more rapid
onset of fatigue. They thus undermine the workers’
powers of resistance and are with fatigue concurring
causes of premature disease.
The Health of the Worker. C.-E. A. Winstow, Associate
Professor of Biology, College of the City of New
York, and Curator of Public Health, American
Museum of Natural History, New York. Printed
and Distributed by the Metropolitan Life Insur-
ance Company for the Use of its Policy Holders,
1913.
It is not only dust that gives people tuberculosis. Bad
air does the same thing more slowly, but almost as
233
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
surely. Only a few workers are in dusty trades, but a
great army suffer from bad air in factories and shops
and offices of a hundred different kinds. (P. 12.)
There is no mystery about the working of bad air.
It is not any poison from the breath that it takes a chemist
to detect. The main things that make bad air bad are
heat and dampness. You know how you feel on a dog-
day in August and how you feel on a bright cool morning
in October. There is just the same difference between a
well-ventilated and a badly ventilated room. The human
body is all the time giving off heat and moisture, and in
the factory there are all sorts of steampipes, stoves, fur-
naces, solder pots, mangles and other machines that heat
up the air. When the temperature gets over 70 degrees
we begin to feel it, and as it goes to 80 degrees and above
we feel it more and more. The blood all comes to the
skin and leaves the brain and the internal parts of the
body where it is needed. If the air is hot and dry the
body can cool off by evaporation of perspiration, but if
the air is damp as well as hot we feel the heat much more.
A hot, wet spinning-room is one of the worst places in
the factory.
The man who works under such conditions is not much
good to himself or to his employer. He feels tired and
dull and headachy. He works slowly and badly and spoils
a good deal of stock. He gradually gets weaker and less
efficient, till at last he may drop out with tuberculosis—
unless the shock of going out from the hot, damp shop
into the chill night air of winter gives him an attack that
carries him off more quickly.
A great many shops and factories are so hot and
stuffy that the workers are uncomfortable, their work is
badly done, and their health is being injured. In a study
of factories in New York State, in cool weather when the
outdoor temperature was not over 70 degrees, it was
found that 63 out of 215 workrooms had a temperature of
80 degrees or over. (Pp. 12-13.)
Moisture and heat together are worse than either one
alone. Wet spinning rooms and weaving sheds must be
kept damp because the work demands it. For years
234
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
manufacturers have known just how much dampness was
needed for yarn, but we have only lately begun to think
how much is good for people. In England the tempera-
ture and moisture for wet weaving are now limited by
law, and every effort should be made to keep rooms that
must be moist from getting overheated. .. .
Good light in the factory is almost as important as
good air. You cannot work well if you cannot see. Head-
ache and a general feeling of not being up to the mark
are often due to eye strain. Yet many workrooms are
dimly lighted, so that the workers have to strain to see
what they are doing. Work accidents are often due to
poor lighting, which makes a man take a misstep or go
too near a dangerous machine. (Pp. 14-15.)
Industrial Health-Hazards and Occupational Diseases
in Ohio. KE. R. Havuurst, A. M.; M. D.; Director,
Division of Occupational Diseases, Ohio State
Board of Health. 1915.
An industrial health-hazard may be defined as any
condition or manner of working that is unnatural to the
physiology of the human being so engaged. This physi-
ology is adaptable to quite wide variations in environ-
ment, but the rule holds absolute that the subjection to
conditions which are unnatural to the physiology and
habit of man results in pathology or disease. (P. 10.)
Dampness. It is obvious to most persons that work-
ing continually in a damp place, particularly if within
doors, is inimical to health. By dampness we mean not
only moist, but wet places, steamy atmospheres, or air
in which the humidity is maintained at a higher point than
65°. If, to such conditions, changes in temperature,
either up or down from 68° take piace, the risk to health
becomes greater. (P. 23.)
By far the vast majority of workshops and factories,
however, are afflicted with the opposite condition, Dry-
ness. An experiment made in almost any factory or
workshop room, office or store, during the months of arti-
ficial heating will show that the relative humidity, instead
of ranging between 60° and 70° for a temperature of 68°,
235
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
is very much below this. This applies to nearly all steam-
heated, hot-water heated, or hot-air heated quarters. The
dryness of the atmosphere also promotes disease, first
evinced as an irritation of the nose and throat, the glands
of which are forced to produce extra moisture in order
to enable these parts to perform their functions. In
time acute colds and contagions are easily acquired. Then
there are chronic coughs, and, from this on, a large
variety of disease conditions are possible. Humidifiers,
air exchangers, and especially fans to keep the air in mo-
tion are urgently needed almost everywhere in indoor
workrooms. (Pp. 24-25.)
Devitalizing Air. Bad air conditions in work places
may be due to (1) deoxidation (presence of flames, fur-
naces), (2) contamination (escaping gases, vapors,
fumes), (3) pollution (dust, smoke, moisture particles
from other persons’ breaths), (4) unnatural temperature-
humidity relations, and (5) stagnation. Of these, stag-
nation probably does the most damage to the largest num-
ber of persons, since quiet, still, ‘‘dead”’ air fails to pro-
mote evaporations from the surface of the skin, and to
stimulate the sensory nerve endings located in the skin;
both of which are necessary to maintain a good circula-
tion of the blood. This good circulation is especially
needed for a large class of workers while engaged in their
various trade processes. The essential difference between
indoor and outdoor air is that the former is usually still,
quiet, or ‘‘dead,’’ while the latter is in motion, is fresh
and ‘‘alive.’’ If to stagnation are added any of the other
four conditions above mentioned, as is often the case in
work places, the danger to health is much increased.
Probably, abnormal temperature-humidity relations
are next in hazard to stagnation as deleterious factors,
although the physiology of the human organism can
adapt itself to quite wide variations in these if the air
can be kept in motion. A person can exist (at least ex-
perimentally) in comparative comfort in a closed-up
closet for a considerable time if these last mentioned fea-
tures—temperature 68°, hwmidity (relative) 60°, and a
motion of the air, as by fans—are provided for. It has
been practically established that it is not the amount of
236
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
oxygen which persons use up in breathing, nor the amount
of carbon-dioxide they exhale, not the emanations from
the human body (except moisture particles from the
coughing, spitting or sneezing of diseased persons in
crowded quarters) which count for aught in vitiating the
air, except under the most unusual conditions of crowding
or confinement.
There is a difference between the air of many work
quarters, however, and that of homes, schools. offices,
stores, etc. In shops, factories, mills, and many other es-
tablishments there are the ever-present air vitiators such
as free flames without vents, gas heaters, salamanders,
furnaces, gases from tanks and vats, and chemical vapors
which are not confined or led away from the breathing
atmosphere. To these are multitudes of wage-earners
exposed as well as to air stagnation and temperature-
humidity factors. (Pp. 26-7.)
American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 2. No. 11, 1912.
The Effects of Temperature and Humidity on
Fatigue.” Frepertc 8. Lez, Ph.D. Dalton Pro-
fessor of Phystology, Columbia University.
The physiologist in his fondness for investigating
internal mechanism is prone to overlook the important
fact that the living body exists in the midst of a multi-
tude of external conditions. These conditions furnish
stimuli to the living tissues, augmenting or diminishing
their actions, and such stimuli play an important part in
determining the activities and correlations of the in-
ternal mechanisms. The organism as a whole in the
midst of its environmental conditions must establish for
itself at each successive moment a balance in the work
of its various parts. If one of the conditions is altered
this balance is by so much disturbed. Within limits, and
even wide limits for brief periods, such a disturbance is
borne with impunity: a readjustment to the altered situ-
ation occurs; a new balance is struck, and no harm
results. But if the limits be much or long surpassed the
*Read before section on Hygiene of Occupation, 15th International
Congress on Hygiene and Demography, Washington, 1912.
237
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
normal adaptation gives place to a pathological state
which is detrimental to the organism.
Of the two environmental conditions here in question,
the temperature and the humidity of the air, there exists
a certain medium range of variation within which the
human body is capable of performing its best work.
Even when adapted to this optimum it may be subjected
for a considerable period of time to a high temperature
or a low temperature, to a high humidity, without serious
disturbance of its organic balance. . . . But prolonged
exposure to extremes of these conditions does not con-
duce to the continuance of a normal physiological state.
(P. 863.)
We may observe these relations on many of the hot
and humid summer days in our American cities. We
may observe them when one who is adapted to a tem-
perate climate goes to live in the tropics. They are well
illustrated in various industrial occupations, such as
mining, baking, laundering and some varieties of cotton
weaving. The effects of exposure to the atmosphere of
these situations are many and various. The bodily me-
chanism for resisting external heat is at once brought
into action. The blood vessels of the skin become dilated
and charged with blood, the skin becomes heated, and
sweat glands become active. From the skin there occurs
a loss of bodily heat by radiation, conduction, convection
and the evaporation of perspiration. . . . In propor-
tion, however, as the temperature of the air approaches
or surpasses that of the body and the humidity of the
air is sufficient to prevent the evaporation of sweat, loss
of bodily heat by the customary channels becomes les-
sened. Without adequate means for eliminating the heat
that is being constantly produced within, the internal
temperature rises and a febrile condition results. Such
a state is reached the sooner, the more mechanical work
is performed and the more heat is thereby produced. Its
oncoming is favored also by a lack of movement in the
air. . . . (Pp. 863-864.)
A second striking effect of a combined high tempera-
ture and high humidity is a disinclination or actual ina-
bility to perform active muscular work. Beginning as a
238
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
mere inertness, accompanied by sleepiness, which may
readily be resisted for a time, it may pass into a genuine
condition of fatigue; and ultimately into the exhaustion
of heat stroke. (P. 865.)
From all the available evidence, therefore, it seems
probable that the actual physical basis of fatigue is pres-
ent in a body working in a hot and humid atmosphere. . .
When in a hot and humid atmosphere the blood ves-
sels of the skin are dilated and overcharged with blood,
the brain and spinal cord among other organs are
rendered correspondingly anemic. This is sufficient of
itself to account largely for the feeling of weariness, the
indifference and apathy toward laboring that are then
present. The changed bodily sensations and the general
bodily discomfort may also tend toward the same end.
But if the stage of elevated bodily temperature be
reached, the internal conditions are still more radically
changed. A febrile state, especially when pronounced
and long continued, affords unusually good chemical con-
ditions for the oncoming of fatigue. (Pp. 866-867.)
I think it probable that future research will greatly
‘extend our knowledge of the metabolic bases of fatigue.
Especially do I look for such a réle to the intermediate
metabolic products which may be present in abnormally
large quantities in various pathological states. Such a
conception, too, appears to me to afford the most prob-
able explanation of the fatigue that appears to be pres-
ent when the individual is endeavoring to labor in an
atmosphere at a high temperature and a high humidity.
Here he has to contend not only with his normal fatigue
substances, but with the pathological substances that
result from the peculiar conditions of his labor.
But there is a further factor to be considered. More
than a hundred years ago Alexander von Humboldt ob-
served that heat increases the action of various chemical
substances on various forms of living substance, such as
the heart and the motor nerves. This has since been
studied in many ways by many investigators. . . . and
it has become recognized as a general law, that the tem-
perature at which poisons act upon living substances is
a factor, as in other chemical phenomena, in determining
239
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
the degree of their action—at a higher temperature their
action is more intense. There seems to be no reason why
this law should not apply to the case under considera-
tion. This suggestion has indeed been made for normal
' fatigue substances by Patrizi to explain the ready fa-
tiguability of human muscles submitted to localized hot
baths. With even greater weight it can be applied to
the human being laboring under the disadvantageous
conditions of excessive temperature and excessive humid-
ity. Normal and pathological fatigue substances are
here present in solution in an overheated body. If they
are toxic at normal degrees of temperature, their toxi-
city is more pronounced at higher degrees, and in pro-
portion as mechanical work is performed and internal
temperature rises, the more is working power lessened.
I may, therefore, summarize my thoughts as follows:
When an individual is subjected to an atmosphere that
is charged with an excessively high temperature and
high humidity, his bodily temperature is raised, his
working power becomes limited, and there is an early on-
coming of fatigue. In addition to the normal fatigue
substances there are present other substances, products
of an abnormal metabolism, perhaps of increased protein
disintegration, which likewise act as fatigue substances.
Both the normal and the pathological fatigue substances
act toxically to diminish the activity of the tissues, and
such fatiguing action is rendered greater by reason of
the abnormally high internal temperature that is
present.
If these considerations, presented from a_ purely
scientific standpoint, are worthy, their significance ought
to be more than merely academic. Industrialism pre-
sents numerous instances in which human beings are
obliged to labor under the conditions here outlined.
Constant submission to these conditions is detrimental
to the wellbeing of the individual and ultimately of the
race. This is an unnecessary situation, which sooner or
later is bound to be relieved. It is the duty of men of
science not merely to discover the conditions under
which men labor, not merely to show how an environ-
ment is detrimental, but to use their influence to make of
240
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
labor a physiological, rather than a pathological, exer-
cise. (Pp. 869-870.)
American Labor Legislation Review. June, 1912.
Effects of Confined Air Upon the Health of
Workers. Gzorce M. Pricz, New York State Fac-
tory Investigating Commission.
In an examination of 4,850 establishments in New
York State no means of ventilation, except by windows,
was found in 88 per cent. of the shops. The air in all
these shops was confined and vitiated.
There is as yet a difference of opinion as to the exact
nature of the toxicity of confined air. There is, however,
no difference of opinion as to the dangers to health of a
continuous and constant inhalation of such air.
It is not difficult to study the effects of extreme varia-
tions of pressure, temperature, and humidity of the air
upon the health of workers in factories. Nor is it very
difficult to trace the effects of specific poisons, gases, or
fumes in the air, or to study the results of constant in-
halation of certain kinds of dust... .
Not so with the effect of ordinary air impurities,
which are understood by the term ‘‘confined air.’’ The
effects of confined air are less distinct, more difficult to
prove, less direct, and more insidious, although not less
deadly. Mortality statistics show that the death rate of
workers in indoor occupations is much higher than that
of workers in outdoor occupations. There is no doubt
that the chief cause of this higher rate of mortality
among indoor workers is the confined air of shops and
factories. ... (Pp. 312-13.)
Ibid. Temperature and Humidity in Factories. CO. BE. A.
Winstow, College of the City of New York.
It is beyond question, however, that the workers in a
factory where the temperature is over 70° are injured by
a lowering of their vitality that may lead to tuberculosis
and other serious diseases; and that they are working
241
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
below their normal standard of efficiency, so that both
’ they and their employer are the losers.
The New York State Department of Labor is the only
official body in this country, so far as I am aware, which
regularly carries out examinations of factory air and
publishes the results. From the reports of this depart-
ment for 1908, 1909, and 1910, it appears that two hun-
dred and fifteen workrooms were examined at seasons
when the outdoor temperature was 70° or less. Of these
workrooms one hundred and fifty-six, or 73 per cent. had
temperatures of 73° or over and sixty-three, or 29 per
cent. had temperatures of 80° or more. Ina recent study
of a mill village carried out by the Rhode Island Anti-
Tuberculosis Society, temperature and humidity readings
were taken three times a day inside and outside of a
weaving room. The outdoor temperature for the month
(September) averaged 65.5°. The temperature in the
weaving room averaged 75.8°, 10° higher. Is it not clear
that, aside from all debatable questions, there is a simple
and obvious condition here which directly menaces the
health of the workers and impairs the efficiency of in-
dustry? (Pp. 297-298.)
Industrial tuberculosis pervades not only the dusty
trades, but in less degree every industry from the largest
to the smallest. (P. 303.)
Efficiency methods have been applied to a hundred me-
chanical details of shop administration. That delicate
mechanism the human body is, however, the underlying
factor which is after all of most importance. Yet in many
a workshop, perhaps in most workshops, the human body
is being operated under conditions which preclude its
maximum effectiveness, and the work suffers while the
ay fill up with cases of industrial tuberculosis.
. 804.)
Ibid. Legal Protection for Workers in Unhealthful
Trades. Joun B. Anvrews, Secretary, American
Association for Labor Legislation.
In general, certain trades are unhealthful and require
regulation principally because the workrooms under or-
242
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
dinary conditions are likely to be poorly ventilated.
More specifically, the harmful conditions of employment ~
are frequently due to the presence of dusts, gases, vapors,
and fumes; to extremes of temperature, humidity, or den-
sity of the atmosphere; and to improper lighting and
overstrain.
The evil results of unhealthful conditions have long
been recognized, and in every industry there are humane
and intelligent employers who devote much time and
money to the elimination of unnecessary hazards... .
But only through the uniformity of regulation which legal
enactments alone can secure, can these more progressive
and humane employers be themselves protected from less
scrupulous competitors who would otherwise often fail
to go to the expense of providing adequate safeguards,
and only through some such compulsory uniformity can
the health of the employees of these competitors be pro-
tected. (Pp. 356-357.)
Bulletin of the United States. Bureau of Labor Sta-
tistics. No. 127. August 12,1913. Industrial Ac-
cidents and Hygiene Series: No. 3. Dangers to
Workers from Dusts and Fumes and Methods of
Protection.
A larger number of persons are employed in its [the
cotton industry’s] factories than in any other industry.
Associated with the cotton industry are dangers which
are direct and obvious in their effects upon the health of
the workers, and for this reason the manufacture of cot-
ton goods has been considered a dangerous trade. In
justice to the industry, however, and to those manufac-
turers who are progressively attacking from a commer-
cial point of view the very problems which go hand in
hand with improved hygienic conditions, more emphasis
may very properly be laid upon the avoidable dangers
which, if removed, will go far toward taking the cotton
industry from the list of dangerous trades.
The fact can not, of course, be overlooked that the
work of the cotton-mill employees involves more or less
constant confinement in a dusty atmosphere even in the
243
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
best regulated fine-grade goods mill, but a careful con-
sideration of other factors than cotton dust which affect
injuriously the health of the workers shows that too little
thought has been given to the evil consequences of poor
light (especially in certain departments), excessive heat,
nauseating odors, irritating gases, the products of gas
combustion, the lack of proper means of ventilation, the
failure to regulate properly the introduction of artificial
moisture, and want of cleanliness. (P. 9.)
Possibilities of Reducing Mortality at the Higher Age
Groups. Read before the Section on Vital Statis-
tics, American Public Health Association, Colorado
Springs, September, 1913. Louts J. Dusty, Pu. D.,
Statistician, Metropolitan Life Insurance Com-
pany, New York.
Apart from these subjective changes, which we believe
have occurred.as a result of the specialization of industry,
we must consider those objective phases of occupation
which are inseparable from present-day working condi-
tions. The presence of large numbers of workmen under
one roof brings about new and distinct problems of hy-
giene in industry. The large shop at once raises the ques-.
tion of the purity of the air supply, its temperature and
humidity, the adequacy of natural and artificial light,
the provision of lavatories and other sanitary facilities,
together with a host of minor details which in their en-
tirety markedly affect the health condition of the indi-
vidual workman. The effects of high temperatures and
humidity upon the health and longevity of work-people
are best illustrated by the disheartening conditions re-
vealed by Perry in his monograph on the cotton-mill op-
eratives. The extreme variations in temperature, as ob-
served in the steel mills, have long been known for their
disastrous effects upon the workmen engaged therein,
especially with regard to the high incidences of rheuma-
tism and pneumonia, both of which play a prominent part
in middle life mortality.
We must also consider the factors of dusts, fumes and
poisons which play a significant part in present. day occu-
244
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
pational mortality. The dusts, especially those of metal-
lic or mineral origin, are well known for their effects
upon the respiratory system. We should remember in
this connection that many who become incapacitated for
continued work at the dusty trades often enter other
and lighter work, dropping thus in the scale of economic
efficiency, and later succumb to other conditions of middle
life. The fumes and poisons, especially those which arise
in the refining and handling of lead, copper and arsenic,
in like manner, cripple thousands early in life, throwing
them on other industries for indifferent employment and
support. Middle age mortality returns, as they come
into our statistical laboratory for study, are loaded with
indications of occupational poisonings of one sort or
another in early life. In no other way can we explain
the large incidence of the degenerative diseases in those
cases of apparently negative occupations at death, which
on further inquiry reveal the previous employment in
trades like that of the painter, compositor or laborer in
paint, rubber and color works. (Pp. 8-9.)
Diseases of Occupation and Vocational Hygiene. Edited
by Guo. M. Koper, M. D., Professor of Hygiene,
Georgetown University, and Wm. C. Hanssen,
M. D., Massachusetts State Board of Health. P.
Blakiston’s Son & Co. Philadelphia, 1916. Fa-
tigue and Occupation. Frepsric S. Lez. New
York.
Ventilation —The evil effects of the crowding of
many human beings into confined spaces do not come
from the chemical vitiation of the air, for the consequent
diminution of oxygen and increase of carbon dioxide are
not sufficient in amount to produce evil effects, and the
hypothetical volatile organic poison of expired air does
not exist. These effects, it has now been demonstrated,
are due to the increase in the temperature and the humid-
ity of the air, aided by its lack of motion. Increase in
surrounding temperature makes it more difficult for the
body to throw off by radiation and conduction the excess
of heat which it is constantly producing; increase in
245
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
humidity adds to this difficulty by diminishing the cool-
ing evaporation of perspiration from the surface of the
body; while if the air be not in motion the hot humid en-
velope next the skin does not give place to a cooler drier
layer with its relieving quality. The result is an eleva-
tion of bodily temperature, a diminution of vasomotor
tone, a gorging of the skin with blood and its consequent
removal from the brain and elsewhere, increased per-
spiration, and the bodily discomfort, sleepiness, head-
ache, and other characteristic sensations of a ‘‘close”’
room. In such an environment there are sensations of
fatigue and less inclination to do either physical or men-
tal work, and under extreme conditions actual inability
to accomplish as much with the early oncoming of ex-
haustion. The following table gives the temperatures in
degrees Fahrenheit that have been observed in various
work places :—
Starching and ironing in laundries ......... 95
Tending electric furnaces 200 100-120
Vuleanizing and japanning ee 90
Evaporating rooms of sugar refineries. 110-115
Coppe® reduction 1 .ccs ee 100
Manufacture of OXY eM onc eecsecsccseneeeeee 100-120
Bakeries 90
(P. 265.)
Ibid. Etiology and Prophylaxis of Occupational Diseases.
Grorce M. Kossr, M.D.
Injurious Environments—There is abundant evi-
dence to show that the baneful effects attributed to occu-
pations are in large part caused by faulty environments
and working conditions and hence to a great extent
avoidable. ...
One of the chief dangers of indoor life is exposure to
vitiated air. The air of dwellings and workshops is
never as pure as the outer air, because it is polluted by
the products of respiration, combustion and decomposi-
tion. The presence of individuals also tends to vitiate
the air with dust, germs and organic matter, from the
skin, mouth, lungs and soiled clothing. Unless provision
246
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
is made for the dispersion of foul air, and the introduc-
tion of pure air, there is much reason for assuming that
these impurities play a more or less important role in
what has been designated as ‘‘crowd poisoning,’’ char-
acterized in the acute form by symptoms of oppression,
headache, dizziness and faintness, while the chronic
effects of deficient oxygenation and purification of the
blood are plainly evinced by pallor, anemia, impaired
appetite, and gradual loss of physical and mental vigor.
All of these effects are intensified by exposure to exces-
sive temperature and moisture, especially when human
beings are obliged to occupy a space with an air supply
insufficient for the proper oxygenation of the blood. As
a result of habitual exposure to vitiated air we note an
undue prevalence of consumption and pneumonia in
crowded workshops, dwellings, prisons, public institu-
tions, and formerly also in military barracks and battle-
ships. Overcrowding naturally favors contact and drop-
let infections from tuberculosis, pneumonia, influenza,
septic sore-throat, ete. The influence of over-crowding
on diseases of the air passages, amounting at times to
epidemics, was well illustrated on the Isthmus of Pana-
ma, and, as suggested by General Gorgas, accounts prob-
ably for the undue prevalence of these diseases among
the gold miners of the Transvaal. By scattering the
laborers on the Isthmus from large and crowded bar-
racks into single huts and small rooms, with not less
than 50 feet of floor space, the pneumonia rate was re-
duced in a single year from 18.4 per 1;000 to 2 per 1,000,
and in urging a similar procedure for the Rand he
predicts a like reduction. Another bad effect of indcor
occupations is that the work is usually performed in a
sedentary and stooped position, which, apart from inter-
fering in youthful workers with the full development of
the chest, limits expansion of the lungs and also causes
constipation, congestion of the portal circulation and
hemorrhoids.
The baneful effects of vitiated air are of course in-
tensified when the occupation is attended with the pro-
duction of dust and fumes, the foes of industrial life.
(Pp. 430-431.)
247
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—United States.
Report of the Illinois Commission on Occupational Dis-
eases. January, 1911.
The causes of disease found in various occupations
may be classified as follows*:
1.—Vitiation of the atmosphere due to (a) the prod-
ucts of breathing; (b) irritating and poisonous gases and
fumes; (c) irritating and poisonous dust; (d) infection
carried principally by dust in the atmosphere.
2.—Another group of causes may be traced to the na-
ture of the material which comes in contact with the.
bodies of the workmen apart from contamination of the
air, as irritating substances affecting the skin and pro-
ducing eruptions, etc.
3.—A third group of causes includes those due to the
nature and condition of the trade process, as (a) the
temperature of the shop, extremes of heat and cold; (b)
extremes of dryness and humidity; (c) defects in light-
ing; (d) abnormal atmospheric pressure; (e) injuries
from jarring, shaking and deafening noise; (f) danger
from overstrain, fatigue, hurtful postures and overexer-
cise of parts of the body. (P. 10.).
Ibid. Report of Drs. Guo. E. SHamsaucu and G. W. Boor
on Occupation Deafness.
Occupation may lead to injury to the organ of hear-
ing in the following ways: .
By exposure to noises.
It has been found that exposure to noise has a bad
effect on hearing, particularly if the noise be loud and
continued over a long time, and in a confined place. This
is particularly noticeable in boiler makers, locomotive
engineers, artillery men, spinners and weavers of jute,
riveters, telegraph operators, ete. (P. 152.)
*In the main the outline of J. Rambousek, Lehrbuch der Gewerbe-
Hygiene.
248
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—Great Britain.
United States Public Health Service. Weekly Public
Health Reports. Vol. 29. May 29, 1914. Indus-
trial Conditions. Their Relation to the Public
Health. B. S. Warren, Surgeon, United States
Public Health Service, and Sanitary Adviser,
United States Commission on Industrial Rela-
tions.
The sanitary conditions of the places of employment
have a distinct and direct bearing in the causation of dis-
ease through poor general conditions, poor lighting, heat-
ing and ventilation, overcrowding, excessive humidity
and special conditions of deleterious gases, fumes, dusts,
poisons, and the like. These conditions are so obviously
causing disease and are so prevalent in so many indus-
tries and causing so much direct injury to the workers
that the general public have come to consider these as the
full extent of the damages for which industrial conditions
are responsible. :
The occupational diseases are so directly due to the
employment that in many cases they could with little
modification of the law be made to come under the work-
men’s compensation acts. (P. 1353.)
Dangerous Trades. Edited by Tuomas Ottver, M. A.,
M. D., F. R. C. P., Medical Expert on the White
Lead, Dangerous Trades, Pottery and Lucifer
Match Committees of the Home Office. London,
’ Murray, 1902.
In considering the question of fatigue of working
people we must not overlook the nature of their employ-
ment, the rooms in which the labor is carried on, and the
number of hours daily spent in work. When the air
in a factory is close, and is not renewed frequently
enough, there is an impediment to the escape of carbonic
acid from the lungs, and when the air is over-heated
and moist, the natural cooling of the body through
respiration cannot occur. Labor carried on under these
conditions entails an additional tax upon the strength of
a no and burdens their system with impurities.
249
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—Great Britain.
British Sessional Papers. Report of the Chief Inspector
of Factories and Workshops for the year 1911.
Eaxcesswe noise and vibration, as affecting health,
has, occasionally, though surprisingly little, been com-
plained of to Inspectors in past years. In 1911 one such
case arose where women were employed in a room situ-
ate over a beetling shop and ‘‘were greatly annoyed with
the noise and shaking of the floor.’’ Miss Martindale
found herself that the noise and vibration were ‘‘almost
the maximum that could be endured,’’ and discovered
that the women were about to be transferred to an even
more severe spot where the floor rested on the beetling
machines. The manager agreed that without alterations
the room was not fit for their use and promised altera-
tions. (P. 151.)
Journal of State Medicine. Vol. 22. October, 1914. Lon-
don. Occupational Fatigue. Prorsessor Sir >
Tuomas Ouiver. University of Durham; late Medi-
cal. Expert Home Office Committee on Dangerous
Trades.
Hitherto physiologists have concerned themselves
mostly with young, healthy men performing muscular
exercises in the open air, but we cannot quite compare
the muscular work of these athletes with that of persons
shut up in factories all day long and breathing impure
air, since per se the increasing increments of carbon
dioxide in factories excite the respiratory centre, cause
the breathing to become quicker and thereby impose an
additional strain both upon the respiratory muscles and
upon the heart. Besides, towards the close of the work-
ing day, the impurities of the air weaken muscular ac-
tivity and oblige the workers to exert greater effort, so as
to spur the tired muscles to more frequent contraction.
(Pp. 342-343.)
In the spinning department of a large cotton mill in
Lancashire which I visited three months ago, I found
men working at a temperature of 84° F. (28.8° C.), and
superintending 1,360 spindles. To maintain supervision ©
of such a large number of spindles is a considerable
250
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—Great Britain.
strain. The men are constantly traversing the floor be-
tween the machines. There is not a minute of time to
rest. A century ago the wages of a Lancashire weaver
were 5s. 8d. per week. Thiry or forty years ago it was
considered a good piece of work for a man to look after
600 spindles, and for that he received 25s. per week, but
for the 1,360 spindles he now supervises he receives 55s.
per week. As indicating the severity of the strain which
the work entails, men after 60 years of age can no longer
be kept in this department, other work has to be found
for them in the factory. Nearly all of the work in the
cotton mills is carried on at temperatures varying from
84° F. in winter to 90° F. in summer, so that in the pro-
duction of fatigue the influence of high temperature must
not be lost sight of.
Quite apart from the speeding-up of machinery in
textile factories, the exhausting effects of working in
- warm, humid atmosphere deserves attention. Dr. Pem-
brey of Guy’s Hospital, and Dr. Collis of the Home
Office, have reported upon this subject. ‘‘In a warm,
moist atmosphere the pulse quickens, the skin becomes
flushed and warm, and the temperature of the mouth
rises approaching to the internal temperature which is
raised to a smaller extent.’’ At work, weavers in cotton
mills are on their feet all day; in watching the machines
they are obliged to cover a good bit of ground daily, but
this exercise is not sufficient to produce an unusual rise of
temperature. Warm, moist temperatures reduce the dif-
ferences between the internal temperature and that of
the peripheral parts, and tend to establish a more uniform
temperature of the body generally, and to throw a tax
upon the powers of accommodation, as witness the low
blood pressure. Muscular work raises the internal heat,
and up to a certain point this is an advantage to the
worker. But if the air is hot and moist, more blood is
sent to the skin to be cooled and unless perspiration can
take place there can be little or no reduction of tempera-
ture. This sending of more blood to the skin to be cooled,
_Imposes more work upon the heart and makes demands
upon the nervous system to regulate its distribution.
Carried on under good conditions, work improves the
So
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—Germany.
appetite and keeps the bodily functions healthy; but a
warm, moist skin in a humid atmosphere lessens the tone
of the muscles, lowers the exchange of material in the
body and depresses the appetite, hence the complaint of
many cotton weavers who are pale, slim and short in
stature, of loss of appetite, indigestion and fatigue. It
is prolonged exposure to warm and humid atmosphere
which creates the indisposition textile workers complain
of. It would hardly appear, therefore, as if to the fac-
tory worker training and experience gave anything like
the resistance which these give to the muscles, heart, and
nervous system of the athlete who is exercised in the
open air partly because, in the factory there are such
adverse circumstances in operation as impure air, moist,
warm atmosphere, noise and the speeding-up of machin-
ery....
A glance at the industrial progress of the second half
of last century shows that while the actual physical bur-
den imposed upon workers has in many instances been
lightened, the greater use of labor-saving machinery has
not only induced a degre2 of eye strain and of muscular
monotony, but has necessitated a fixation of mental at-
tention far beyond anything hitherto required. When to
these is also added the burden imposed upon the system
generally by breathing a vitiated atmosphere, there is
created a sense of fatigue of a deeper type than that
which followed the hard manual labor of a bygone age.
The nervous system is more profoundly affected. (P.
344.)
Staats- und sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen. Heft
138. [Researches in Political and Social Science.
Vol. 138.] Edited by Gustav ScHMoLLER and Max
Sering. Hohere Arbeitsintensitat bert kiurzerer
Arbeitszeit, ihre personalen und technisch-sachlich-
en Voraussetzungen. [Intensification of Work
in shorter Working-hours; its personal and tech-
nical basis.] Ernst Bernuarp. Leipzig, Duncker
& Humblot, 1909.
The tendency with shorter working hours to com-
press the process of production by minimizing lost time
252
Injurious Physical Surroundings.—Germany.
naturally leads to lessening, and even in part to abolish-
ing, the legitimate industrial pauses, the official times
of rest. From the hygienic and psychological point of
view, a pause for rest spent in the factory is less valuable
than the same time when the day’s work is over. Work-
shops for example as warm and dusty as those of the iron
industry offer very doubtful opportunity of physical re-
cuperation, to say nothing of mental. The iron rhythm
of the factory still vibrates in the nerves. Rooms never
free of the factory atmosphere cannot free the spirit from
the working-mood, and even during the time of rest have
a hold upon the mind. (P. 48.)
The advantage derived from cutting out ‘‘passive
fatigue’’ on the worker’s part is indirectly emphasized
by data which show the injuries arising from the mere
spending of time in the work-room. If one or two hours
spent in better air takes the place of an hour or two of
factory work, physical elasticity and total vitality are
considerably the gainers. Otherwise during this time
the organism would be exposed to injurious irritations
and influences, such as an atmosphere filled with particles
of smoke, dust, and oil, dryness and heat, wide variations
of temperature, or increased air-pressure, wetness and
damp in some trades, glaring light and heat-rays in
others. According to the industry these irritating fac-
tors work singly or in various combinations. All ad-
vances in industrial technique which tend to improve
conditions of hygiene lessen the wear and tear of un-
necessary pauses. In one weaving establishment there
was a marked increase in production after temperature
and humidity, which had risen to 29° C. and 80 per cent.
were lowered to a healthier level. (P. 75.)
253
b. EXPOSURE TO DUST, GASES, FUMES, POISONS, ETC.
Besides these general injurious factors mentioned
above, other dangers of environment are found to be
common to large numbers of trades. It was formerly
supposed that injurious substances such as mineral and
vegetable dusts, fluff, gases, fumes and industrial poisons
threatened the health of the workers in only a few dan-
gerous occupations. It is now known that so great 1s
the number of trades involving the presence of one or
the other of these injurious substances, that they not
only constitute hazards in a few special trades, but are
common to most important branches of manufacture.
Industrial Health-Hazards and Occupational Diseases
in Ohio, H.R. Havnurst, A. M.; M. D.; Director,
Division of Occupational Diseases, Ohio State
Board of Health. 1915.
The subjection to poisons is absolutely incompatible
with health and a normal span of life. It is commonly
thought, for instance, that a person can soon become
habituated to the inhalation of benzine fumes, so that the
intoxicating effects, producing giddiness, dizziness, a
feeling of elation and loquaciousness, experienced dur-
ing the first week or so of exposure, but which, as a rule,
pass off thereafter, have been ‘‘gotten used to.” This
is an erroneous idea. ... There is a vast difference be-
tween toleration and the physiologic normal. Toleration
lasts only so long as the extra powers, with which all
vital organs are endowed, can meet and compensate for
the oppression. For instance, it has been shown that as
little as 1-24th part of the normal amount of kidney sub-
stance will maintain life in the individual, and, in a sim- °
ilar way, other organs and parts of the body are super-
iorly equipped. But the utilization of physiological
functions to their limits of toleration is abnormal and
254
Exposure to Dust, etc-——United States
unnatural, and a transgression of natural laws is bound
to result in disaster. This is just as true of physiology
as it is of physics. Hence toleration of unnatural en-
vironmental conditions which many persons look upon as
‘‘oetting used to’’ situations is untenable, and will finally
result in disease, perhaps in invalidism, and most cer-
tainly in untimely death. (P. 12.)
Dust.—Dust may be inhaled, or ingested, or affect the
skin, the eyes and the ear canals. The daily subjection
to dust, for more than brief intervals at a time, is al-
ways damaging. The skin and the eyes may become
physiologically inured to it, but not so with the internal
organs. The least harmful dusts are those arising from
the natural earth itself, such as the farmer is subjected
to, although there are many exceptions to this in the
case of alkali, sandy, or stony earths, etc. White flour
and starch appear to be practically harmless to the
normal person, soapstone dust and tale may be placed
next in order, but a tuberculously-inclined person subject
to these, if they do no more than irritate the nose and
throat and promote coughing, is almost certain to see
an increment in his disease. Next in order of harmful-
ness come wood dust, bran dust, coal dust, clay dust, ore
dust, mineral dust and stone dust. It will be seen that
the organic dusts are the least harmful. Dusts in gen- |
eral produce a chronic catarrh of the respiratory and
digestive organs. This leads to a fibrosis, which is the
same process that is gradually brought about by old
age. These catarrhs and fibroses result in lowered resist-
ance of the damaged parts, and invite secondary diseases,
which are usually the cause of death. (Pp. 17-18.)
Dirt.—Dirt is put in as a health-hazard, not because
to the cultured it is undesirable, but because dirt and
disease co-exist. Dirt accumulating from trade processes
becomes dust. A dirty place is the first place in which
one is inclined to spit, hence dirt accumulations are very
liable to harbor disease germs. Dirt often contains poi-
sons accumulating from manufacturing processes, which
dry out and become dust. (Pp. 20-21.)
255
Exposure to Dust, etc.—United States
Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor. No. 79.
November, 1908. The Mortality from Consump-
tion im Dusty Trades. Freperick L. Horrman.
The importance of dust as a factor in occupation
mortality has attracted the attention of every authority
on occupation diseases from Ramazzini to Thomas Oliver.
It requires no extended consideration to prove that
human health is much influenced by the character of the
air breathed and that its purity is a matter of very con-
siderable sanitary and economic importance. Aside from
the risk of exposure to so-called air-borne diseases, the
pollution of the atmosphere by organic and inorganic
dust in unquestionably the cause of a vast amount of ill-
health and premature mortality, but chiefly among men
and women engaged in the many indispensable trades
and occupations that minister to human needs. The sani-
tary dangers of air contaminated by disease-breeding
germs are probably not so serious as generally assumed,
while the destructive effects of the dust-laden atmosphere
of factories and workshops are a decidedly serious men-
ace to health and life. While the investigations of Doc-
tor McFadden and Mr. Lunt seem to prove the paucity
of bacteria in very dusty air, the evidence otherwise
available is entirely conclusive that the risk to disease
~ infection is much greater indoors than out in the open,
where sunlight, rain and wind in combination go far to
purify the atmosphere by destroying the bacterial life
contained in minute particles of suspended matter.
Apart, however, from the transmission of disease through
a dust-contaminated atmosphere, dust in any form, when
inhaled continuously and in considerable quantities, is
prejudicial to health because of its inherent mechanical
properties, destructive to the delicate membrane of the
respiratory passages and the lungs. It has long been
known that those who live most of their time out of doors
have a decided advantage over those who, because of
their employment, are compelled to spend their working
hours inside the home, the office, the factory, or the work-
shop, and it is an accepted axiom of modern sanitary
science that measures and methods for the prevention
206
Exposure to Dust, etc.—United States
of dust are a first and preliminary essential considera-
tion in rational methods of sanitary reform. (Pp. 633-
634.)
The Health of the Worker. OC. E. A. Winstow, Asso-
ciate Professor of Biology, College of the City
of New York, and Curator of Public Health,
American Museum of Natural History, New York.
Printed and Distributed by the Metropolitan Life
Insurance Company for the use of its Policy-
holders, 1913.
Tuberculosis is caused by a germ which spreads from
one person to another by spitting, direct contact, or com-
mon drinking cups, and in many other ways. But the
strong, healthy man does not have tuberculosis even
when he gets the germ. The sound human body can take
care of tuberculosis germs and can destroy them. It is
generally the man whose lungs have been injured by
sharp bits of flying dust or whose general health has
been injured by living or working in hot stale air who
falls a victim. That is why tuberculosis is so often an
industrial disease. . . . (Pp. 3-4-5.)
I have a letter from an old doctor in a Massachu-
setts town about this disease which reads as follows:
“‘T have seen quite a number of cases of so-called
grinder’s consumption. The symptoms are excessive
shortness of breath on slight exertion, dry cough and
great prostration. The grinders are from the Polanders
and Finns for the past dozen years. The disease takes
hold of them more frequently, and is more rapidly fatal
than among the grinders of former years and of other
nationalities. When I came here 40 years ago I found
the victims among the Yankees who had ground some
20 years before. Those would grind 18 or 20 years be-
fore having to give it up. The French-Canadians were
then grinding. They could work 12 to 16 years. They
became frightened off, and the Swedes took up the work.
They would get the disease in 8 or 10 years. Now the
Finns and Polanders are at it, and they last only 3 to
5 years, and the disease is more common among them.’’
Exposure to Dust, etc.—United States
The most dangerous dusts are those from metal and
mineral grinding, polishing, sifting and handling. Some
of the animal dusts, like those of bone, mother-of-pearl
and the hair dust in the felt-hat industry, are almost as
bad as the stone and metal dusts. Others, like the dust
in boot and shoe making, are less serious, and most of
the vegetable dusts are softer and do less damage than
the bits of steel to which the grinders are exposed. All
of them, however, do more or less harm.
SOME OF THE DUSTY TRADES.
Baking and confectionery making.
Boot and shoe making.
Brass working.
Brush making.
Cabinet making.
Carpet and rug making.
Zelluloid making.
Cement working.
Core making.
Cotton-ginning.
Cotton textile manufacture.
Crushing (various metals and
minerals).
Diamond cutting.
Engraving.
File cutting.
Flax and linen manufacture.
Flour industry.
Fur handling and taxidermy.
Glass working.
Gold-leaf manufacture.
Grain handling.
Grinding (emery wheels, etc.).
Hatting.
Hemp and cordage manufacture.
Horn and bone working.
Hosiery and knitting industry.
Jute and jute goods manufacture.
Jewelry making.
Jewelry and lace making.
Leather industry.
Lithographing.
Marble working.
Mining.
Molding.
Paper making.
Pearl-button making.
Plastering and paper hanging.
Polishing.
Pottery and earthenware making.
Printing (including work of com-
positors and pressmen).
Rag industry.
Sand blasting.
Shoddy manufacture.
Sifting (metals and minerals).
Silk industry.
Spinning.
Starch refining.
Stone working,
Tobacco working.
Tool making.
Upholstery and hair-mattress mak-
ing.
Weaving.
Wood turning and carving.
Woolen and worsted manufacture.
(Pp. 5-6-7.)
258
Exposure to. Dust, etc.—United States
Diseases of Occupation and Vocational Hygiene. Edit-
ed by Gzrorce M. Kopsr, M. D., Professor of Hy-
giene, Georgetown University, ete., and Wittt1AM
C. Hanson, M. D., Massachusetts State Board of
Health, etc. Philadelphia, P. Blakiston’s Son &
Co., 1916. Mortality from Pulmonary Tubercu-
losis in Dusty Occupations. FRepertck L. Horr-
man, Newark, N. J.
Of the 44,130,000 American wage earners of both
sexes, as estimated for the year 1915, approximately at
least 5,600,000, or 12.7 per cent., work under conditions
more or less detrimental to health and life on account of
atmospheric pollution, or the relatively excessive pres-
ence of atmospheric impurities predisposing to, or ac-
celerating, the relative frequency of tubercular and res-
piratory diseases. The vast army of men and women
exposed to the risk of ill-health in industry on account
of atmospheric impurities caused by dust, fumes, or gas
approximately divides itself as follows:
Numser oF Persons Encacep 1x Occupations More or
Less Expostne to Insurtous Dusts, Gases on FuMEs, IN
THE Unitep Starss, 1915 (Acres 10 Years anp Over)*
Exposure to Males Females Persons
I Tae Es US “essed aay eevee 847,689 45,387 893,076
IMGT SE cccsccccsaccescsteecarce 756,459 16,424 772,883
Vegetable fiber dust 0. 152,999 22467 175,466
Animal and mixed fiber
CONUS Geis aero Terai slr 638,997 494,505 1,133,502
General organic dust 500,936 214,235 715,171
Moamitelpyal: Cites ces 702,251 180 = 702,431
Gas exposure, fumes, ete.....1,196,191 19,954 1,216,145
Ota) gee 4,795,522 813,152 5,608,674
* Estimate based upon the U. S. Census of 1910 and the rate of increase,
1900-1910, of all occupied males and all occupied females.
(P. 777)
259
Exposure to Dust, etc.—United States
Ibid. Etiology and Prophylaais of Occupational Diseases.
Grorce M. Kossr, M. D.
In view of the fact that, as a general rule, only able
bodied persons enter the ranks of industrial workers,
the question naturally arises, why should such a large
percentage of strong men and women fall victims to the
disease? This is not at all strange when we consider the
many unfavorable factors to which they are subjected,
such as crowded and insanitary workshops, long hours
in a bad air, overwork and fatigue, deficient light, damp-
ness, exposure to extremes of heat and cold, sudden
changes in temperature, and last but not least the inhala-
tion of dust, toxic fumes, etc. All of these factors are
calculated to lower the power of resistance and favor not
only the development but also the spread of the disease,
especially when some of the workmen are already af-
flicted and are careless in the disposition of their ex-
pectoration.
Perlen analyzed the histories of 1426 tuberculous
patients with reference to dust exposure and found that
30 per cent. had been exposed to metallic dust, 26 per
cent. to vegetable dust, 18 per cent. to mineral dust, 17
per cent. to mixed dust, and 8 per cent. to animal dust.
Sommerfeld’s statistics show that, with an average
tuberculosis death rate of 4.93 per 1000 of the popula-
tion in Berlin, the rate in non-dusty trades was 2.39 and
in dusty trades 5.42. In trades giving rise to metallic
dust, 5.84; in copper, 5.31; tron, 5.55; lead, 7.79. In trades.
giving rise to mimeral dusts, pottery workers, 14; masons,
4.26; stone cutters, 34.9. Organic dusts, leather, furs,
and feathers, 4.45; wool and cotton, 5.35; wood and paper,
5.96; tobacco dust, 8.47.
The amount of dust is perhaps less important than
the character and chemical composition of the particles
composing it. For this reason, no doubt, the hard, sharp,
and angular particles of iron, steel, and mineral dust are
more liable to produce injuries of the respiratory pas-
sages, thus favoring the invasion of bacilli or lighting
up latent lesions. (Pp. 426-428.)
Exposure to Dust, etc.—United States
Ahrens found the amount of dust per cubic meter of
_ air in different establishments as follows:
; Mg. Mg.
Horse-hair works ...........2.------ 10.0 abOratony aes ae 14
Sawmill Flour mill
Woolen factory Pouridry: 2.2..c:- snes a
Woolen factory with exhaust Foundry polishing room.......... 71.7
ventilation oo... e.ececceceessseeeeee 7.0 Felt-shoe factory ecco 175.0
Paper factory 2.0.0... 24.0 Cement works .......2.2-.:css0001o 224.0
Dr. Graham Rogers found 70 grains of dust per
million liters of air in a skirt factory, about the same
amount in a pearl button factory, and 75 grains in the air
of a brass foundry.
According to Schuler and Burkhardt, cited by Roth,
the morbidity per 1000 workers in dusty trades is as
follows:
Bookbinders Paper-factory employees. ........ 343
Silk weavers ee Mechanical industrial shops... 419
Cotton spinners 200.000. 250 Wood turners o....eecsccceceececeiee 427
‘Cotton weavers oo. 285 Rag sorters in paper mill.......... 429
‘Typefounders and typesetters.. 304
Dust, apart from its relation to respiratory diseases,
also plays an important réle in the diseases of the eye,
ear, nose and throat, as instanced by an undue prevalence
of chronic inflammatory conditions of these organs in
lime, cement and hair workers, and by the frequent oc-
currence of ulceration of the nasal septum in chrome,
chlorine and cement workers. It has also been shown
that even flour and sugar dust, usually considered quite
free from danger, may be converted into lactic acid in
the mouth and possibly increase the virulence of disease
germs, as evinced by an undue prevalence of caries and
pneumonia in flour and sugar workers. The dust gen-
erated in the manufacture of pearl buttons, from the
shells of certain mussels, is liable to produce a peculiar
form of osteomyelitis, involving especially the long bones
of youthful workers, and other affections noted under
mother of pearl workers. A combination of dust, sweat
and heat, also favors the development of skin diseases,
261
Exposure to Dust, etc.—Great Britain
as seen by the undue prevalence of furuncles and eczema
in persons exposed to mineral, metallic, sugar, flour, ani-
line and other dusts. Since dust and germs often go hand
in hand, there is little doubt that in many instances occu-
pational infections are conveyed by means of infected
dust. (Pp. 438-439.)
The Hygiene, Diseases, and Mortality of Occupation. J-
T. Aruincs, M. D., A. B., F. R. C. P. London,
Percival, 1892.
When labor is performed in factories and
shops with over-heated and impure air, where the work-
men are subjected to excessive heat, to steam and noxious
vapors and gases, to abounding dust, to industrial de-
tails involving strain upon the attention and mental wear,
then what may be called an artificial limit to the dura-
tion of labor is called for, inasmuch as muscular fatigue
has conjoined with it incidents which add an intensity to.
it as a health factor. (Pp. 49-50.)
Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor, No. 95..
July, 1911. Industrial Lead cae in Europe..
Str THomas Otrver, M. D., F. R. C. P
Increase of the hours of work has been found to be
associated with a rise in the number of cases of plumbism.
A change from six to eight-hour shifts of employment
was in a Scotch factory found to be the only explanation
of an outbreak of plumbism in a works which had hitherto-
been free. (P. 9.)
Handbuch der Arbeiterwohlfahrt. [Handbook of the
General Welfare of the Working Classes.] Edited
by Dr. Otto Dammuzr. Vol. II. Arbeiterschutz.
Ppoteclion of Working Men.] Dr. Ascumr. Stutt-
gart, Enke, 1902.
When we arrange the medical testimony given in re-
gard to the longer or shorter working time the following
262
Exposure to Dust, etc.—Germany
conclusion appears: in any or every trade when a sub-
stance injurious to health (poison) may possibly be taken
into the body tissues of the worker, the danger is lessened
by just so much as the time during which the worker is
so exposed, is shortened. The longer the period of rest
away from work, the greater the possibility of the in-
jurious material being eliminated from the body. The
same is true of mechanically irritant dust. Moritz and
Ropke found that, when workmen were exposed continu-
ously to breathe in the dust from polishing during a con-
siderable period of time, the sensitiveness of the mucous
membranes, larynx, and bronchi was so diminished that
the in-breathed dust could not be coughed up and, instead,
found lodging place on the delicate vocal cords.
Ibid. 1911.
As to the conditions of work—the pay, hours, and sur-
roundings—.hey must be described as very satisfactory.
The factory legislation of New Zealand is looked upon
as safeguarding the interests of the workers to a greater
extent than in any other part of the world. (P. VI.)
Ibid. 1912.
This year marks the attainment of the Department’s.
majority. For exactly twenty-one years the Department
has conducted its work, and it is fitting that at this junc-
ture a short historical review of its organization and
growth should be given. . . . Its chief work on estab-
lishment was to try to meet the unemployed difficulty. ...
Today this work is an important branch; but the duty of
administering what are generally known as the ‘‘labour’’
laws has formed the chief responsibility of the Depart-
ment. It is a matter of common knowledge that these
laws have been added to or amended from year to year
during the twenty-one years under review, and Acts.
thought to be merely experimental in the early years have
531
Benefit of Leisure and Recreation.—Australasia
been amended and improved, as experience appeared to
warrant, until they are now mostly looked upon by the
large majority of our citizens as essential for the smooth,
effective, and peaceful working of our growing indus-
tries. Some of the laws have served as models for other
countries to copy, and it is probable that in some respects
our legislation is more humane and far-reaching than any
yet adopted elsewhere. The Factories Act still stands as
one of the best-appreciated measures by all classes, whilst
the Workers’ Compensation Act has been of benefit to
hundreds of workers at a time when assistance is most
urgently needed. The Shops and Offices Act, too, is also
working smoothly, and, given some amendments, it should
prove one of the most humane and beneficial Acts admin-
istered by the Department. (P. iii.)
In surveying the twenty-one years’ history of the De-
partment I look back upon a record of great and lasting
work accomplished by the operation of the humanitarian
laws administered by the Department, and the outstand-
ing feature of all is the total abolition of ‘‘sweating’’ of
the workers, and a recognition, hard-won perhaps, from
both employers and workers that each has gained some
mutual benefit by the operation of the labour laws of
New Zealand. (P. iii.)
032
C. BENEFIT TO CITIZENSHIP.
1. PREPAREDNESS.
a. POLITICAL: THE CITIZEN AS VOTER.
The welfare and safety of democracy rests upon the
character and intelligence of its citizens. For the exer-
cise of the elective franchise is determined by the mental
and moral equipment of the voters. Under the condi-.
tions of modern industry, for the development of morals
and intelligence, leisure is needed. Hence leisure is a
prime requisite for good citizenship.
If a democracy is to flourish, the education of the citi-
zen must not end at the 14th birthday, when wage-earn-
ing ordinarily begins. It must be a continuous process,
to enable men to understand great issues as they arise,
to discuss them and reach decisions upon them.
In the interest of the state, therefore, industrial labor
must be limited: first, so that leisure may be pro-
vided outside of working hours; second, so that the work-
er shall not be too much exhausted to make use of his
leisure.
Massachusetts House Document, No. 44, 1867. Report
of Commissioners on the Hours of Labor.
It is certain that men may labor so severely and in-
eessantly, as in the long run to impair the vital energies,
and thus reduce the powers of production; and it may be
further true, that too great an amount of toil may not
only injure the physical powers, but depress or impair
the mental faculties, so that in this way the productive
capacity of a people may be greatly lessened. And still
further, not only the physical and mental, but the moral
nature of man may be imbruted by severe and unrea-
_ 533
Benefit to Citizenship—United States
sonably protracted toil. All this being apparent, the
question of the hours that should constitute a day’s
labor, is one deserving of a careful and candid examina-
tion. The great point to be aimed at in the culture of a
people, is to secure the highest production of wealth,
consistent with preserving intact all the natural powers
of the laborer, and advancing his best and highest in-
terests, his full and complete manhood. (Pp. 22-23.) ...
The desirableness and even the necessity for leisure,
however, increases with the increase of the responsibili-
ties of the citizen. A laborer in the United States needs
more leisure, or relief from toil, than one in the same
position in Europe, because he has the elective franchise,
and is a part of the government. If he is deficient in
intellectual training and moral culture, the State will
suffer. The American laborer must not only take care of
himself, but discharge his civil duties and fulfill his ob-
ligations to the interests of religion and morality. This
responsibility involves the necessity of intelligence and
culture, and these require leisure and opportunity. It
is not enough that the laborer have education in child-
hood; he must have the means of constant improvement
and progress in manhood. He must not only know some-
thing of the past, but be familiar with the events of the
present. New ideas, new discoveries, new issues are
made from day to day, and the laborer must have the
means of knowing what these are. All. this requires
time, and not only time, but rest from toil in such a
condition that the mind can engage with its full strength
in intellectual pursuits. Hence it follows that the hours
devoted to labor should not be so extended as not to
leave sufficient time and strength to engage in those pur-
suits which will qualify the laborer for the discharge of
his duties to himself, his family, and his government.
Great social movements are in continual progress—
these, the American laborer ought not only to be cogni-
zant of, but take a part in; yet whether he shall do so
efficiently and intelligently or not, must clearly depend
upon two conditions: first, that he has the necessary
leisure; and secondly, that he improves that leisure for
the desired purpose. The mechanics of Massachusetts,
oot
Benefit to Citizenship.—United States
as an almost universal fact, work ten hours per day.
If we allow two hours for the three meals of the day,
and eight hours for sleep, we have still four hours left.
Are these sufficient? and if so, is the laborer after ten
hours of continuous toil, in a condition of mind and body
adapted to the profitable improvement of these hours?
(Pp. 23-24.)
Report of the Committee of Stockholders of the United
States Steel Corporation. April 15, 1912.
To ascertain the number of employees of the Steel
Corporation working on a twelve-hour schedule (exclu-
sive of officers, managers and clerical forces), we have
examined the records of 175,715 men. Of this number we
find 45,248, or 2534 per cent., are at present working
twelve hours per day. ... The actual physical labor in-
volved in many of the positions is, to-day, much less than
in former years, this being especially true of the open
hearth and blast furnaces, where the intermittent charac-
ter of the work is such that there is less call for actual
expenditure of physical energy than in many of the eight
and ten hour positions.
Notwithstanding this fact, we are of the opinion that
a twelve-hour day of labor, followed continuously by any
group of men for any considerable number of years,
means a decreasing of the efficiency and lessening of the
vigor and virility of such men.
The question should be considered from a social as
well as a physical point of view. When it is remembered
that the twelve hours a day to the man in the mills means
approximately thirteen hours away from his home and
family—not for one day, but for all working days—it
leaves but scant time for self-improvement, for compan-
ionship with his family, for recreation and leisure. It is
important that any industry be considered in its rela-
tion to the home life of those engaged in it, as to whether
it tends to weaken or strengthen the normalness and sta-
bility of family life. By a reasonable conserving of the
strength of the working population of to-day may we
be best assured of a healthy, intelligent productive citi-
zenship in the future. (Survey. Vol. 28. Pp. 252-253.)
535
Benefit to Citizenship.—United States
From ‘‘The Pennsylvaman.’’ At time of Ten-Hour Law
passed by City of Philadelphia. Quoted from
Proceedings of the Government and Citizens of
Philadelphia on the Reduction of the Hours of
Labor and Increase of Wages. July, 1835.
Politically, it is of immense importance that a change
should be effected. Our institutions place all power in
the hands of the very men who are now in a great meas-
ure debarred from mental improvement, and shut out
from that cultivation which alone can render them capa-
ble of wielding their tremendous strength to the advan-
tage of our common country. (P. 7.)
A Documentary History of American Industrial Society.
Edited by Joun R. Commons, Utricu B. Puruuies,
Evucene A. Gitmore, Haven L. Summer and JoHn
B. Anprews. Vol. VIII. Labor Movement. Cleve-
land, The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1910. ‘‘New
York Weekly Tribune,’’ Oct. 16, 1847.
It concerns us all that our laboring people, the young
especially, have opportunity for improving their minds,
making themselves acquainted with the events and the
ideas of our time, so as to be qualified for discharging
faithfully their duties as freemen, citizens, electors, or
the mothers of such. Excessive toil, especially in youth,
unfits us for some of the most important duties and rela-
tions of life. If, therefore, a whole community grossly
ignorant of the laws of life and health could be tempted
by high wages or driven by want into working fifteen to
eighteen hours per day, it would be wrong in the State
to allow and right to forbid so destructive a course. (P.
198.)
536
Benefit to Citizenship.— United States
The Normal Workday of Eight Howrs. Memorial of the
Central Committee of the Furniture Workers’
Union of North America. New York, 1879. Let-
ter of forty-sic Furniture Manufacturers of Chi-
cago to the Manufacturers of Furniture of the
United States.
The American nation can glory of many achieve-
ments, but look at the steady decline of the integrity and
honor of our officials, high and low! See how our free
institutions are fast running to destruction! How the
marrow of our nation’s life is eaten up by the cancer of
corruption! Should we not lend our helping hand to bet-
ter this? It certainly is our plain duty, our duty as
citizens of this Republic!
But how? By introducing ‘‘eight hours as a day’s
labor!’’? Thereby our workingmen will find time to keep
and read their daily papers; they will learn to form
their own ideas concerning the questions of the day, and
no demagogue will then so easily. mislead them in the
movements of a political or social nature by appealing
to their passions. They also would gain time to educate
their children more properly, and thereby do their share
in the great problem of popular education. Verily! lit-
tle could be expected in this respect of a workingman
who was or is compelled to leave his home with the dawn
of early morning to return only after nightfall!
In the name of humanity, and as our small contribu-
tion to the political and moral regeneration of our Amer-
ican nation, let us then offer to our workingmen what be-
longs to them by right, and what will, at the same time,
prove to be beneficial to ourselves. (P. 7.)
The Economic and Social Importance of the Eight-Hour
Movement. Grorce Gunton. New York, Ameri-
can Federation of Labor, 1889.
The fact that the general reduction of the hours of
labor would, as experience and reason show, be an eco-
nomic advantage to all classes, to say nothing of its edu-
cational and moral effects upon the masses, is amply
537
Benefit to Citizenship—United States
sufficient to warrant the demand for its immediate adop-
tion. But the social and political necessity for it is more
imperative than its more sanguine friends have hitherto
realized, or its opponents have yet been able to under-
stand. It is a universal law in society that all social
and political institutions are finally based upon the char-
acter of the people. Restrictive laws are never made to
govern the most moral and orderly, but always the most
immoral and disorderly elements in society. The cul-
tured classes are thus compelled to endure the legal re-
strictions that are necessary to control the uncultured;
therefore, the social safety, prosperity and freedom of
the rich can only be permanently secured as the poverty,
ignorance and barbarism of the masses are diminished
and the opportunities for their social culture are in-
creased. It is a universal fact in civilization that all
forms of despotism move inversely with wages, increas-
ing as wages fall, and decreasing as wages rise. Since
the use of improved machinery and specialization of
labor tend to increase the physical and nervous exhaus-
tion of the laborer, unless the working time is corre-
spondingly reduced, the laborer’s susceptibility to the
refining and elevating influences of his social environ-
ment is lessened, and his leisure moments find him dull
and indifferent to all moral and political influences.
The inevitable tendency of these conditions is to cause
the laborer to gravitate toward the saloon rather than
toward the reading room, lecture hall, museum and
theatre for his instruction and entertainment. Persons
who have to be subject to long hours of continued toil
from childhood, amid the foul air of mines, and the
sweltering heat and stifling atmosphere of the mills and
factories for a bare existence cannot be expected to de-
velop the ambition and force of character necessary to
eis and elevate their domestic and social rela-
jons. . ..
The tendency of the modern industrial policy to thus
limit the social opportunity of the masses is necessarily
inimical to progress; but in no country is its evil influ-
ence so dangerous as in this. (1) Because the social
character of a large proportion of our laboring popula-
538
Benefit to Citizenship.—United States
tion is mainly determined by a lower civilization. (2)
Because the political machinery of the government is
more directly in the hands of the masses than in any
other country. (Pp. 21 and 22.)
Report of the New York Bureau of Labor Statistics
1900. 4
A little reflection upon these statements will convince
an unprejudiced mind of the real advantages possessed
in the long run by the shorter working day. Health and
vigor are of primary importance to any body of work-
ers, and whatever policy will promote the health of the
community will in the long run prove the best policy,
even if its adoption may temporarily cut down profits.
The Massachusetts cotton industry affords an excellent
example of the wisdom of this policy, notwithstanding
the dissatisfaction of a part of the employing classes.
For as a result of Massachusetts labor legislation and
the competition of Southern factories, Massachusetts
factory owners have been obliged to seek the latest in-
ventions and improved processes, to produce finer and
more attractive goods. . . . This has of course
called for more and more skill on the part of Massa-
chusetts operatives and has led to the establishment of
textile schools. The grand result is that Massachusetts
has a body of workmen who have leisure to appreciate
the public libraries scattered throughout the State; to
perfect their technical training as well as to acquire that
degree of culture and knowledge which makes an intel-
ligent citizenship and to discharge the duties imposed
by that citizenship. (Pp. 67-68.)
Industrial Conference under the Auspices of the National
Cwic Federation. New York, 1902. The Eight
Hour Day. Proressor Grorce Gunton, Institute
a Social Economics. Lecture Bulletin. Vol. VI.
0. 7.
The laborer’s importance now is, I repeat, as a con-
sumer. That means as a social factor, not as a physical
539
Benefit to Citizenship—United States
force. This fact recognized, the important question that
presents itself is how to expand the laborer as a con-
sumer.
In another phase of the matter, it has now become true
that our societary institutions depend on the laborer’s
growth as a citizen. Civilization is practically in the
laborer’s hands. Whether we shall have this form of
government or that, whether we shall have democracy
or despotism, whether we shall have intelligent and hon-
est government or corruption and jobbery; whether we
shall have political cleanliness or merely party demagogy
as the moving force in our public policy, depends upon
the intelligence and social character of the masses. It
does not depend any longer upon the opinions of the
well-to-do. It depends upon convincing the masses of
the wisdom of this or that policy. Now, their capacity
for intelligent conceptions and convictions, the under-
standing of the influence of this or that public policy,
depends upon social development. It depends upon the
growth of character, the capacity for forming and hav-
ing intelligent opinions upon public affairs.
This requires, just as any other development re-
quires, opportunity;... In this country the opportunity
for growth in these two lines, as consumers and citizens,
requires first of all release from the excessive pressure
upon the nervous and physical energies that the factory
system has developed. Opportunity now means leisure,
more time for touch with the educational, socializing
and civilizing elements in society. (P. 128.)
The Social Unrest. Joun Granam Brooks. New York
and London, The Macmillan Company, 1903.
Whenever machinery cannot be used except in condi-
tions that brutalize life, we call it an evil, even if a
necessary one. If the speed is so great that the average
man or woman cannot stand the strain beyond a half
of one’s natural life, it is an evil, and an evil far beyond
its effect on the individual, for it strikes at parenthood,
producing a devitalized offspring that constitutes the
chief horror of many industrial centres. (P. 186.)
540
Benefit to Citizenship—United States
We are half enslaved by a great deal of our own
mechanism. It means that we honestly care more for the
machine’s output in wealth than we care for manhood,
womanhood, and wholesome family life. It means that
we do not first and profoundly care for citizenship and
a reputable society. If these workers can keep their
animal strength and tend the machine, is it not enough?
The absolute requisitions of culture of any kind—a mini-
mum of unexhausted leisure, of real freshness of vody
and mind—would take at least two hours off every work-
ing day. It affronts our intelligence to say that the
average man can do that kind of work more than eight
hours daily, and have left over the leisure, the moral
and intellectual surplus of energy, for humanizing ob-
jects. The loss to good citizenship, to social peace and
safety, is an abiding threat to social peace. If we were
not the easy victims of wont and usage, accepting the
actual as natural, we should one and all revolt against
this awful waste of human values. That the future will
class it as a form of slavery, seems to me assured. (Pp.
187-188.)
American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 8. 1903. The
Social Effects of the Eight-Hour Day. Frank L.
McVey. University of Minnesota.
The wear and tear upon human life steadily in-
creases under modern methods of production. This
is the third reason urged for: the adoption of the
eight-hour day. If men are to stand as heads of families,
as electors, and even as operators of machines, they must
have time for rest, for education, and for family life.
The responsibility of government increasingly falls upon
the working classes in a democracy. Shorter hours of
labor alone can give the worker the leisure for careful
study of the present-day problems thrust more and more
upon the electorate for decision. (P. 523.)
Not, then, as a means of employing the ‘‘reserve army
of industry’’ as the unemployed are sometimes called, is
the eight-hour day to be advocated, but rather as a
means of giving to men a wider interest in life, the pos-
041
. Benefit to Citizenship.—United States
sibility of greater culture and the surety of education _
commensurate with the problems now forced upon our
democracy for solution. It is not, then, as a private
measure that this movement is acceptable, but as a public
necessity. (P. 526.)
Some Ethical Gaims Through Legislation. FuLorence
Keuizy, General Secretary of the National Con-
sumers’ League. New York and London, Macmil-
lan, 1905.
Obviously the characteristic feature of the industrial
life of the nineteenth century was the unprecedented in-
crease in the output of all branches of production... .
The fundamental ethical question of the century was, in
essence, the equitable distribution of these newly acquired
possessions of the human race.
More precious, perhaps, than any of those enumerated
is the immaterial, imponderable human by-product—
leisure... .
Assured daily leisure is an essential element of healthy
living. Without it childhood is blighted, perverted, de-
formed; manhood becomes ignoble and unworthy of citi-
zenship in the Republic. Self-help and self-education
among the wage-earners are as dependent upon daily
leisure as upon daily work. Excessive fatigue precludes
the possibility of well-conducted meetings of classes,
lodges, co-operative societies and all other forms of or-
ganized effort for ‘self-improvement. No experience of
residents in settlements in the congested districts of the
great cities is sadder than the disorganization which
- befalls their evening clubs and classes when Christmas
approaches and the ablest young people are detained for
overtime work, the study and effort of the other members
is disorganized, and failure of the whole undertaking
often follows. .
As machinery becomes increasingly automatic, and the
work of the machine-tender reduces itself more completely
to watching intently the wholly monotonous performance
of the one part confided to his care, leisure becomes indis-
pensable for him in order to counteract the deadening
7 542
Benefit to Citizenship—United States
r
effect upon his mind exercised by his daily work. Instead
of educating the worker, the breadwinning task of to-day
too often stupefies and deforms the mind; and leisure is
required to undo the damage wrought in the working-
hours, if the worker is to remain fit for citizenship in
the Republic. Without regular, organized leisure, there
can be no sustained intelligence in the voting constitu-
ency....
. a those occupations in which long hours of work
prevail, the employees are obliged to live near their
place of work, and that congestion is thus intensified,
which is one of the more unfortunate features of life in
large manufacturing cities. Shortening the hours of labor
gives to working people a wider range of selection in the
location of their homes, thus benefiting wives and children
as well as the operatives themselves. (Pp. 107-109.)
It may be fairly claimed, then, that the establishment
of regular daily leisure contributes to the health, intelli-
gence, morality, lengthened trade life, freer choice of
home surroundings, thrift, self-help and family life of
working people. Granted that not all workers make
equally valuable use of free time, just as members of
the leisure class vary in the uses to which they apply their
leisure, it remains true that, without free time, these
benefits are impossible. To be deprived of leisure is to
iP cbt of those things which make life worth living.
dd.
The Survey. Jan. 21,1910. Hours in the Continuous In-
dustries, THomas Scutytrer. (Match Manufac-
turer, Norwegian Association for Labor Legisla-
tron.)
Human beings are not intended to be mere machines
to work, and eat, and sleep.
Reform in this direction is important not only for
the sake of the happiness of the men involved, but so
that it may be possible for everybody to reach a certain
standard of intelligent citizenship for the sake of his
country, the destiny of which everyone influences for
good or for ill. (P. 680.)
543
Benefit to Citizenship.—United States
ies
United States Congress. Senate Report No. 601. Hours
of Daily Service of Laborers and Mechanics Upon
Government Contracts. Report by Mr. Bora#
from the Committee on Education and Labor.
Sixty-second Congress, Second Session, 1912.
According to the dividends paid, as shown by the re-
ports of the United States Steel Co., there was certainly
little reason for this exacting service. Every right-
thinking American citizen must take pride in the pros-
perity and the success of our business concerns, as their
prosperity is indispensable to the success and the pros-
perity of the people generally. But when such enormous
wealth is amassed, partly, at least, through such a cruel
and brutal system of industrial slavery this government
is bound in its own defense, for its citizenship is its life,
to interpose between the strong and the weak and exert
its influence both moral and legal to rescue its citizenship
from such conditions. No man can meet the obligations
and discharge the duties of citizenship in a free govern-
ment who is broken in spirit and racked in body through
such industrial peonage. Even in the strength of his
early manhood he has not the opportunity or time to pre-
pare himself for the duties of citizenship, and before he
has reached the prime of life under such conditions, sod-
den in mind and broken in health, he is cast off as a use-
less hulk—a burden and a curse to society and a menace
to the Government. It is just as much the duty of the
Government, when it can do so, to protect its citizens from
such outrageous treatment as it is to protect a citizen,
from the burglar or the highwayman. Everyone knows
and everyone is willing to discuss what the duty and ob-
ligations of the citizens are toward the Government. But
one of the propositions which can no longer be postponed
in this country is: What is the duty of the Government
toward the citizen? If these laws regulating the hours
of labor come, therefore, they come not simply because
laboring men ask for them; they come because conditions
in the industrial world make it impossible to ignore that
request. (P. 7.) "es
544
Benefit to Citizenship.—Great Britain
The Survey. Oct. 7, 1911. The Human Side of Large
Outputs. Steel and Steel Workers in Six American
Cities. I. Lackawanna—Swamp, Mill and Town.
Joun A. Fire.
Another Lackawanna man, summed up what many
steel workers, all over the country have told me when
he said, ‘‘I don’t take any pleasure in my work, nor the
other men don’t either. If we had eight hours it would
be a great job, with lots of excitement, one that I’d want
to get back to. But the way it is now, twelve hours a day
and sometimes seven days a week, I don’t get any pleas-
ure out of the job or out of life.’’
It is the effect of this working schedule upon everyday
life that is most important. The twelve-kour day and
seven-day week are . . . effectual burriers against
i social growth and good citizenship. (Pp. 939-
Constitutional Amendments Relating to Labor Legisla-
tion and Brief in Thetr Defense. Submitted to the
Constitutional Convention of New York State by
a Committee Organizea by the American Associa
tion for Labor Legislation. June 9, 1915.
The Effect on Society of Unregulated Conditions.
Excessive hours of labor, such as a 12-hour day even
if for six days in the week instead of seven, can have no
other effect ultimately than a breakdown of physical and
moral qualities, and consequently a destruction of ©
healthy citizenship. (P. 13.)
The Eight Hours Day. Stoney Wess and Harorp Cox,
B. A. London, Walter Scott, 1891.
_ he case of an eight hours day on acvount of physical
health is thus extremely strong. Even stronger is the
ease for rest from work for the sake of mental health.
... If the workers were actually chattel slaves these
545
Benefit to Citizenship.—Great Britain
things would be of little consequence. Make your helots
drunk and they will be less likely to rebel. But our helots
are citizens and voters. On them, ultimately, if they
choose to exert the power, rests the determination of the
whole policy of the community. It is surely not wise that
a large percentage of those potential despots should be
incapable of forming an opinion on the questions com-
mitted to their decision.
Nor is it wise that a large proportion of the fathers
and mothers in the country should not have leisure prop-
erly to discharge the responsibilities of fatherhood and
motherhood. Anti-Socialists are for ever denouncing the
growing interference of the State between child and
parent. But that interference is necessitated because
many parents literally have not time to look after their
children with proper care. (Pp. 145-146.)
The governing influence in the nation has virtually
asked every man in the kingdom to share in the work
of government. Whether wise or foolish, the step has
been taken, and cannot be recalled. But are the men who
have thus been called to rule capable of understanding
the task set before them? Undoubtedly a very large
number are not capable, and under present industrial
conditions cannot possibly become so. Their whole lives
are spent in an unending round of work, broken only by
a few intervals for feeding and sleeping, and an occasion-
al outburst of drinking. Such men cannot be competent
judges of any of the complicated questions that Parlia-
ment has to decide. And yet at an election the vote of
a man who rolls from the beer-shop to ballot-box counts
as much as that of the elector who has taken every pains
to form a conscientious opinion on the point at issue.
The remedy is not to restrict the suffrage, but to increase
the intelligence of the electorate. That can only be done
by giving more daily leisure to the bulk of the voters.
An Eight Hours Day will for the first time put into the
hands of thousands of working men an opportunity of
becoming competent for the duties of citizenship. (P.
151.)
546
Benefit to Citizenship.—Great Britain
National Conference on the Prevention of Destitution.
1912. Papers and Proceedings, London, King,
1912. The Limitation of Hours from the Inter-
national Point of View. Sopuy Sancer.
It would appear only reasonable that Governments,
of whatever party, should be anxiously desirous of giv-
ing the great mass of working-class electors the neces-
sary leisure for understanding the very complicated po-
litical and social problems on which they are expected
indirectly to vote. Each party believing itself right,
must necessarily desire greater intelligence on the part
of the working man, so that he may be able to see the
falsity of the doctrines of other parties. Humane peo-
ple, too, of whatever party politically, are concerned for
the happiness of overworked industrial toilers. But in
spite of this, and in spite of the fact that experience has
shown how greatly the behavior, as regards sobriety,
punctuality, regularity, etc., of the men improves when
hours are reduced to reasonable limits, we find the
economic objections of the employing class outweighing
all others. (P. 459.)
National Conference on the Prevention of Destitution.
1912. Papers and Proceedings. London, King,
1912. The Reduction of the Hours of Work and
the Limitation of Overtime. Discussion. Mr. H.
Barrass. (Edmonton Urban District Council.)
The Hight-hours’ system had given him the oppor-
tunity of taking an interest in public life, and had en-
abled him to sit on the Urban District Council of his dis-
trict. He would not have been able to do that if he had
continued working under the nine-hours system. It had
also enabled him to become a member of the Middlesex
County Council. The officials and the Government had
come to realize that it was necessary for workmen, even
if they had to lose time, to become members of those
bodies. At one time they were not allowed to lose time
in the day to attend those bodies, but owing to different
men becoming members of the Urban District Council
547
Benefit to Citizenship.—Great Britain
an order was issued that if any man was sitting on any
Local Authority he would be allowed time to attend
their meetings provided that he was prepared to lose
that time. After he had served on the Urban District
Council, the workmen had thought that he ought to go
a step further, and they elected him on to the Middlesex
County Council, and he applied for four and a half
hours in each week to attend to the duties. That appli-
cation was granted, although, of course, at his own loss
of time. Therefore, the eight-hours’ system, if it could
be brought about,—not that he believed it would solve
the problem of the unemployed, because they knew it
would not—would brighten the lives of the workers, and
would give them more opportunity for studying and
working for the emancipation of themselves and to
bring about better conditions and brighter lives.
(P. 463.)
Conditions in British Iron and Steel Works. A Speech
delivered to the Special Commission on Hours of
Labour, International Association for Labour Leg-
islation, June 11th, 1912. AupErMan P. Watts,
J.P,
When the question of eight hours was first raised, it
was argued that, if a man got shorter hours, it would
only mean more time for drinking, but the effect has
been exactly the opposite. We have had the eight-hour
shift over twenty-one years in one district in the North
of England, and over fourteen years in another, and the
moral effect is marvelous. The men take an interest
in social and economic problems, and are now citizens
in every sense of the term. They are in their allotment
gardens, out with the wives and children for a walk, or
out on their bicycles.
548
Benefit to Citizenship.—Great Britain
Rational Hours of Work. I. The Case for Reduction.
Shorter Hours and Greater Efficiency. A. H.
Crosrretp. Reprinted from the ‘‘Manchester
Guardian,’”’? June 27th, 1913.
From the mental point of view, what interest can a
man exhausted by these long hours and this excessive
strain be expected to take in study, culture, public life,
and so forth? It is to be noticed that the conversation
of men who become in this way mere working machines
tends to turn with weary repetition entirely upon the
monotonous details of daily routine. As for morality,
can anyone doubt the inevitably brutalising effects of
such conditions? Many men no doubt succeed, even un-
der these harsh and trying circumstances, in maintain-
ing the dignity and credit of British citizens. But is it
any wonder that others too often prove unable to re-
sist such demoralising influences, sinking back into sen-
suality and drunkenness as the only kind of change and.
respite from a life of toil which they are capable of en-
joying? (P..6.)
The Case for the National Minimum. With Preface by
Mrs. Siwney Wess. London, National Committee
for the Prevention of Destitution, 1913.
Lowering the Standard of Citizenship.—But the evil
results of excessively long hours of labour do not cease
with their depredations on the national health and the
national purse. The members of a modern state require
a constantly rising standard of mental efficiency to per-
form the duties of citizenship. At the National Confer-
ence on the Prevention of Destitution in June, 1912, the
workers’ representatives repeatedly emphasized this
point. Vast numbers of citizens are disfranchised by
their long hours of labour preventing the record of their
votes. The value of the votes actually given is diminished
by the absence of leisure to take an interest in the meas-
ures whose fortunes they decide. In such matters as
Trade Unionism, Co-operation, and Friendly Societies,
active participation is difficult or impossible to masses of
549
Benefit to Citizenship.—Great Britain
workers owing to the length of their working hours. In
the important sphere of local government, where repre-
sentative workers are in such demand, the path is closed
to all who are still actively working at their trades, save
where shorter hours have afforded the necessary oppor-
tunity. (P. 18.)
Work and Wealth: A Human Valuation. J. A. Hosson.
New York, The Macmillan Company, 1914.
More leisure is a prime essential of democratic gov-
ernment. There can be no really operative system of
popular self-government so long as the bulk of the people
do not possess the spare time and energy to equip them-
selves for effective participation in politics and to take
a regular part in deliberative and administrative work.
This is equally applicable to other modes of corporate
activity, the life of the churches, friendly societies, trade
unions, co-operative societies, clubs, musical and educa-
tional associations, which go to make up the social life
and institutions of a country. Leisure, demanded primar-
ily in the interests of the individual for his personal en-
joyment, will thus yield rich nutriment to the organic
life of society, because the individual will find himself
drawn by the social needs and desires embedded in his
personality to devote portions of his leisure to social
activities which contribute to the commonwealth as
surely as do the economic tasks imposed upon him in his
daily industry. (Pp. 248-249.)
590
b. SOCIAL: AMERICANIZATION OF THE FOREIGN-BORN.
In 1910 thirteen million Americans over 10 years of
age were foreign-born. Almost three millions, or one in
every four, could not speak English. There were be-
tween six and seven million foreign-born white males
over 21 years of age, of whom more than half (55%)
were not naturalized.
Between 1911 and 1914 the additional immigration
aggregated about three millions. A large proportion
of these millions are employed in industry, especially in
the great manufacturing establishments, such as the iron
and steel mills, munition plants, textile factories, etc.
Throughout the country there is increasing recog-
nition that the prime necessity for the immigrant is
Americanization, that is, opportunity for acquiring the
ability to speak and read the English language, and to
become acquainted with American institutions.
Americanization is the paramount need not alone for
the immigrant but for the very existence of the Republic.
Unless the millions of immigrants present and future are
made an integral part of the population, understanding
our institutions, sharing the standards and ideals of the
democracy, the nation itself is imperilled.
No man can become a naturalized citizen unless he
can speak English. Learning English is therefore the
key to citizenship. It is indispensable for the adoption of
American standards of living; for a participation in the
life of the community. Ignorance of the English language
is the greatest obstacle to industrial advancement. It
prevents the distribution of congested immigrant popula-
tions. It increases the dangers of industrial accidents,
551
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
injuries and occupational diseases, owing to the immi-
grants’ inability to understand orders or hygienic regula-
tions printed or orally given in industrial establishments.
The growing recognition of the need of Americaniza-
tion has resulted in a country-wide movement to provide
evening schools to teach English and give special instruc-
tion on American institutions. Federal, state and city
authorities are urging increased appropriations for these
special facilities.
Obviously this whole program of Americanization is
impossible unless sufficient leisure is provided after
working hours to enable the workers to take advantage
of the opportunities offered.
The task of teaching adult foreigners a new language
is rendered almost hopeless unless they can come to be
taught with some freshness of mind. The project of
Americanization is defeated when working hours are so
long that no evening leisure is left or the immigrant
workers are too much exhausted to make use of it.
New York State Department of Labor. Report of the
Commissioner of Labor. Third Annual Report of-
the Bureau of Industries and Immigration. 1913.
General Problems.—The importance of providing for
the welfare of our alien residents, for their own protec-
tion and health and for their intelligent and normal
assimilation cannot be overestimated. Over 2,700,000
persons, or nearly 30 per cent. of our total population,
are foreign born whites. Over 700,000 of the male resi-
dents of voting age are unnaturalized. In the last decade
nearly 840,000 new immigrants have settled in this State.
The dormant power for future good or evil of this addi-
552
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
tion to our population is enormous. Only in so far as
these prospective citizens receive protection in the early
stages of assimilation, will they respect our laws and
form of government when later the duties, powers and
obligations of citizenship are conferred upon them.
Credulous, simple-minded and impressionistic, their
open, plastic minds are permanently affected by their
early trials and tribulations. Their regard for our laws,
their understanding of the keynote of our nation that
‘all men are created free and equal’’ and their desire to
live according to their own standards of living, will de-
pend, to a large degree, on the helping hand the State
can give them on the rough road they must first travel.
To this vast internal problem of adjustment should be
added the fact that in 1912 over 750,000 aliens passed
through the Port of New York in going to or coming
from other States. (P. 4.)
Education of the Immigrant.—The educational needs
of the immigrant require special study and attention.
Only through his early familiarity with the English lan-
guage and a knowledge of our ideals of government can
he be properly assimilated. In a survey of educational
work bearing on the assimilation of adult aliens, the
North American Civic League, with the co-operation of
the Bureau, found that night schools where English was
taught to foreigners were maintained last year in thirty-
one cities and towns. The attendance at such English to
Foreigners’ classes for New York City was 14,334 and
for the rest of the State 6,660, making a total of 25,000
for the entire State. Approximately 300,000 adult immi-
grants entered the State during the same period of time,
so that only one in every twelve was entered in these
English night classes. Nineteen cities in the State .. .
with a population ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 and with
a foreign born population varying from 1,000 to 7,000
are without any public night classes where immigrants
can acquire the ability to speak the English language.
Seventeen other cities and towns with populations vary-
ing from 2,500 to 10,000 and foreign born populations in
excess of 1,000 also lack any night school facilities. . . .
593
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
In the thirty-one cities and towns throughout the
State where the local school authorities maintain evening
classes in English to foreigners, the average length of
the session is 60 nights for the year. . . . Evening
schools are generally maintained from October to March,
which is the period of lightest immigration and the
busiest months for general factory work. During the
spring and summer, when the hours of work in cities
and towns are shortest and immigration is usually
heaviest, the evening schools are generally closed. As a
result, the sessions do not approximate the heaviest
periods of immigration... .
The immigrant should receive special instruction to
meet his peculiar needs and limitations. Through the
study of English and civics his interest in our form of
government will be developed and he will be prepared
for thorough assimilation. The Bureau can aid by keep-
ing him in constant touch with all the State’s sources of
information, education, enlightenment and healthy en-
joyment. (Pp. 68-69.)
Massachusetts Senate Documents. No.1. 1874. Address
of Governor Wiliam B. Washburn to the Two
Branches of the Legislature, January 2, 1874.
Furthermore, the large majority of operatives in many
of our mills are of foreign birth. What is to be done
with them? How are we to protect ourselves from the
ignorance that is generally their misfortune rather than
their fault? How are we to educate them into unity of
aspiration and purpose with native-born citizens? Shall
we work them so many hours a day that they will have
neither strength, interest, nor time, for becoming ac-
quainted with our institutions or our aims as a people?
Or shall we, by shortening their hours of labor, and the
establishment of evening schools, if need be, educate them,
fit them for the duties of citizenship, and make them a
part of ourselves? Unless something of this sort is done,
while the census returns may show accumulation and en-
largement, there can be no increase of living power. If
504
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
we are to have in the future a healthful growth of the
body politic, all these different elements of population
must be blended into one harmonious whole. This will
be a work of time and patience, I very well know, but we
cannot go on indefinitely without some broader and deeper
consideration than we have yet given, as a community,
to the well-being of those among us from foreign parts.
(Pp. 34-35.)
Massachusetts House Docwments. No. 2300. 1914. Re-
port of the Commission on Immigration on the
Problem of Immigration in Massachusetts.
The problem of immigration presents two fundamen-
tal considerations—the welfare of the State and the wel-
fare of the immigrant. While that of the State is unques-
tionably paramount, the welfare and destiny of both are
linked inseparably. Throughout its investigations and
its report the attention of this commission has neces-
sarily been focussed on the immigrant, but the nature of
its investigations as well as its recommendations have
been determined primarily by the interest of the State.
The State being made up of individual units, it is
the moral, intellectual and physical stamina of these
vnits that determine its character and stability. There-
fore the healthful development of these units is of
supreme importance to the preservation of the Common-
wealth. The State must, at whatever cost, prevent the
lowering of its moral, mental and physical standards,—
the inevitable result of overwork, underpay, unregulated
housing in overcrowded tenements. By provision and
enforcement of an adequate plan of education it must
dispel the ignorance which begets prejudice, makes the
uninformed the victims of reckless agitation, and substi-
tutes violence for constitutional methods of securing
redress. If the State is unwilling to meet the cost of
thus safeguarding its own interests by promoting the
welfare of its immigrant population, then it is not diffi-
cult to forecast the overthrow of those democratic insti-
tutions which are the result of patient, persistent strug-
500
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
gle, century after century, by countless thousands, who
have devoted life and fortune to the achievement of lib-
erty under the law. (Pp. 13-14.)
Education.
Education is and must always be a most important
factor in the solution of the many difficulties and mis-
understandings that come with a highly complex popula-
tion... . For the most part, only through special instruc-
tion in the evening schools can the adult immigrant be
given the opportunity to learn English, to supplement his
inadequate training and to prepare for naturalization.
Knowledge of English a First Requisite.
To speak Hnglish and to understand it is the vital
need of the immigrant. Self-protection requires this;
social safety demands it; without it assimilation is im-
possible; upon it depends the realization of the obliga-
tions, privileges and rights of American citizenship... .
To the diffusion of this knowledge the Commonwealth
should address itself with promptness and energy. The
arrival of from 70,000 to 100,000 newcomers each year,
most of whom are unable to speak English, and conse-
quently—if neglected or ignored—are subject to the
abuses, the misdirection, the prejudices of exploiters and
irresponsible agitators—cannot but strain the social fab-
ric to the breaking point. (P. 114.)
The following table, compiled from the United States
Census reports, shows the number unable to read and
write in any language. These figures are based not on
tests given by the census enumerations, but on the state-
ment of the people themselves as to whether they were
able to read and write. It may therefore be assumed
that the census figures understate rather than overstate
the numbers.
556
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
Table 15.—Number and Per Cent. of Persons in Massa-
- chusetts Fifteen Years of Age and Over Unable to
Read and Write in Any Language in 1910, 1900 and
1890.
Per Cent. Unable
to Read and
Number of Persons Fif- Write of Total
teen Years of Age and Population Fif-
Over Unable to Read teen Years of
and Write. Age and Over.
1910 1900 1890 1910 1900 1890
All classes ........ eae s ties Bere Se 140,844 132,501 112,877 5.7 65 69
Native white of native parentage.. 3,302 3,759 4,052 4 5 5
Native white of foreign or mixed
parentage 2 :en.- secs. coveeas 5,523 6,523 5,107 2 4:3 1.6
Foreign-born white .............. 129,064 118,527 100,733 13.00 15.1 169
According to these figures the per cent. of those un-
able to read and write has decreased: among both the
native and the foreign-born, but there has been an abso-
lute increase from 132,501 unable to read and write in
1900 to 140,844 in 1910, for which the foreign-born are
entirely responsible. Ignorance of English on the part
of an increasingly large proportion of the foreign-born
has made this whole problem of illiteracy a much more
serious one, so that the fact that the number of foreign-
born whites in Massachusetts unable to speak the English
language increased from 24 per 1,000 population in 1890
to 27 per 1,000 in 1900, and 51 per 1,000 in 1910, is of
special significance.
How many have been added to this non-English speak-
ing group since 1910 can be estimated from the annual
reports of the United States Commissioner of Immigra-
tion. Of the immigrants who arrived during the year
ending June 30, 1911, and gave Massachusetts as their
destination, 53,635 belonged to the non-English speaking
races; during the next year the number was slightly
larger,—54,964—-while in the year ending June 30, 1913,
85,347 who belonged to the non-English speaking races
came to Massachusetts. According to these figures,
193,946 immigrants of non-English speaking races have
come to the State since 1910, when there were, according
to the census, 171,014 foreign-born white persons ten
557
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
years of age and over unable to speak English. How
rapidly this number of people, very few of whom knew
English on their arrival, will acquire the language can-
not be predicted. The investigations of the commission
showed that of 1,224 immigrants from whom personal
history schedules were secured, 504, or 41 per cent., had
learned to speak English, while of those who had been
here less than three years only 14.8 per cent. were able
fo do this. « « «
During the school year 1910-1911, when the report of
the United States Census and the report of the Commis-
sioner-General of Immigration showed more than 224,000
non-English speaking persons in Massachusetts, the an-
nual per capita expenditure for their education was less
than $1. With this wholly inadequate expenditure;
60,785 were enrolled in the evening schools, and the ac-
tual average attendance was 25,483. Of this pitifully
inadequate enrolment about one-third were in the evening
high school and industrial classes, so that, when approx1-
mately 224,000 represented the number of non-English
speaking persons in Massachusetts, the total enrolment
in the elementary evening classes was less than 45,000,
and the average attendance about 17,000.
During the year 1912-1913, of the 85,347 additional
non-English speaking immigrants who came to Massa-
chusetts, approximately 64,456 were over fourteen years
of age. During that year the increase in the evening
school enrolment was only 1,454, and the utterly inade-
quate expenditure of the previous year was decreased.
(Pp. 118-121.)
Report of the Commission of Immigration of the State
of New Jersey, 1914.
Of the States receiving the largest number of newly-
arrived immigrants each year, New Jersey ranks fifth;
those receiving larger numbers being New York, Pennsy!-
vania, Massachusetts and Illinois. About five per cent.
of the total immigration is destined to this State, al-
though New Jersey in point of area ranks among the
smaller States... .
558
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
New Jersey also ranks fifth in the number of foreign-
born whites at present residing in the State, New York,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Illinois having respec-
tively a larger foreign-born population. Rhode Island
leads the list of those States having the largest percen-
tage of foreign-born residents, its foreign-born popula-
tion being 32.8 per cent. of its total population, while
New Jersey is fifth in rank with a foreign population
of 26 per cent... . (P. 12.)
Passaic with 28,467 foreign-born whites, representing
52 per cent. of its total population, has the largest pro-
portion of foreign-born whites of all the principal cities
of the United States. Lawrence, Massachusetts, has the
second largest proportion with 48.1 per cent.; Perth
Amboy is third with 44.5 per cent. Throughout the en-
tire United States there are only twelve cities in which
the foreign-born whites constitute more than 40 per cent.
of the total population; two of these, holding first and
third place in rank are in New Jersey.* (P. 13.)
The relation of the alien to the industrial, political
and social interests of the State can no longer be ignored.
He has become more and more a force in our economic
life and an important element in our increasing indus-
trial activities. As soon as he arrives in the State, he
becomes a producer as well as a consumer.
His labor is needed on the farm, in the factory, in
construction of railroads, on public works and in mines.
The majority of aliens enter the country in the prime
of life and make their way with remarkable courage
and self-reliance.
One of the greatest needs in connection with present
immigration is intelligent and comprehensive systems of
distribution. While a large majority of immigrants com-
ing to this country are from rural districts, and are
therefore unfitted for working or living under existing
conditions in our large industrial centers, nevertheless
the agricultural interests have great difficulty in secur-
ing labor, and the industrial centers are overcrowded.
For this condition the State is largely to blame... .
* Federal Census of 1910.
509
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
With little or no knowledge of the English language,
the alien remains unacquainted with the legal and social
institutions of the State and is in constant danger of
breaking laws of which he is ignorant, and of being
exploited by the many individuals and agencies ready
to prey upon his ignorance.
With the prospect of a large number of immigrants
becoming citizens, the State should take a more active
and intelligent interest in their protection and prepara-
tion for citizenship. (Pp. 14-15.)
The ideal of the nation is to produce through free
and universal education a fairly homogeneous people
having a uniform standard of social customs and politi-
cal institutions. Unfortunately aliens coming to our
State, and especially those taking residence in cities, are
practically compelled to settle in colonies in congested
quarters, where they tend to perpetuate alien groups
which speak their native language, and which are fre-
quently uninfluenced by American customs and tradi-
tions. The process of assimilation is retarded in these
groups, and they are a hindrance to the full application
of democratic principles of government. As long as the
conditions exist which lead to this racial segregation, it
is of the utmost importance that opportunities for ac-
quiring a knowledge of the English language be placed
in the reach of all these aliens, to remove as quickly as
possible the inclination for continued segregation, and
at the same time to make assimilation possible through
contact with American thought and public opinion. (P.
111.)
As far as can be ascertained, only a very few pub-
lic evening schools offer regular courses in civics look-
ing toward citizenship. In some classes text-books in
history or civics are used, but generally whatever in-
formation the alien adult receives with regard to our
federal and municipal government or the requirements
necessary in order to become a citizen is obtained in a
more or less haphazard and superficial manner incidental
to his lessons in English. In addition to learning the
English language, the alien should have instruction in
560
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
matters which more or less affect his daily life. The
sooner he becomes familiar with the customs and the
institutions which bear an intimate relation to his needs,
the sooner he will be placed in an independent position
and become an asset rather than a liability to the com-
munity in which he is living.
It is of a primary importance for him to understand
the educational opportunities and the laws governing
compulsory education and child labor; the opportunities.
for work in various parts of the State; municipal ordi-
nances and the functions of the minor courts. It is also
of great importance that he know where he can best
keep his money or how it can be transmitted safely. No
better place than the schoolroom can be found to bring
this information to the ignorant foreigner. Before being
admitted to citizenship he should be fairly familiar with
the fundamental facts concerning the State and National.
government. (Pp. 124-125.) ,
First Annual Report of the Commission of Immigration
and Housing of Califorma. January 2, 1915.
This investigation showed great neglect in California
of the opportunity to acquire citizenship, and little ap-
preciation of its true value when acquired. The blame
for this situation rests not so much on the aliens as on
the State, for, while a few political and fraternal clubs
and certain evening schools maintain naturalization
classes, most of the instruction in citizenship comes from
private and doubtful sources. Certain alleged ‘‘lawyers”’
seem to have no other business than that of taking up
cases of enterprising aliens seeking citizenship. One
Italian, himself barely literate, operated a private class
for immigrants, charging a tuition fee of $25 and gave
a guarantee that citizenship would be obtained. The
survey proved that California continues the same care-
less methods of citizen making which obtain in most of
the big immigrant centers in the East. (P. 12.)
561
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
The Immigrant. An Asset and a Liability. Freperio J.
Haskin. New York, Fleming H. Revell Company,
19138.
No more important or far-reaching question con-
fronts the American people to-day than the problem of
our present immigration. Each year approximately a
million aliens swarm to our shores... . (Pp. 20-21.)
But, although the immigrant constitutes the great
American problem, he is also a great American asset.
The inquiries of the Immigration Commission show what
a tremendous factor he is and has been in our industrial
life. In the iron and steel industries he and his children
contribute seven-tenths of the labour. In the slaughter-
ing and meat packing industry they give three-fourths
of the labour required. They do seventy per cent. of the
work in the bituminous coal mines, and nearly three-
fifths of that of the glass factories. Seven-eighths of the
labour in woollen and worsted manufacturing is contrib-
uted by the immigrant and his children, and they pro-
duce nearly nine-tenths of the cotton goods, and nearly
nineteen-twentieths of the men’s and women’s clothing
of the country. They make more than half of America’s
shoes, nearly four-fifths of its furniture. Half of the
labour in making our collars, cuffs and shirts is con-
tributed by them, and five-sixths of the work in the
leather industry is placed to their credit. They make
half of our gloves, refine nearly nine-tenths of our oil,
and nearly nineteen-twentieths of our sugar. Also they
So nearly half of our tobacco and cigars, (Pp.
22-23,
The Immigration Problem. Jeremian W. JENKsS and
W. Jerr Lauck. New York and London, Funk &
Wagnalls, 1918.
Inability to speak English, as a matter of fact, is the
greatest obstacle to the proper distribution of the recent
immigration population. It causes segregation of the
immigrant races in industrial towns and large cities, and
prevents proper contact with American life and institu-
tions. Moreover, the recent immigrant until he has
acquired a knowledge of English must remain in the
562
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
ranks of unskilled labor, even if he has been a farmer
or has had technical training abroad. As soon as a
knowledge of English is obtained, not only standards of
living change, but there also occurs a distribution and
proper adjustment upon an industrial basis. This con-
dition of affairs is quite plainly seen among members
of races of southern and eastern Europe who have had
a long period of residence in this country. (Pp. 314-15.)
Progress and assimilation along all lines is condi-
. tioned more upon knowledge of our language than upon
any other factor. Congestion in large cities and indus-
trial localities, as well as the establishment of immigrant
colonies, arises largely from the inability of the southern
and eastern European to use English readily. .. . The
exploitation of the immigrant has its foundation upon
the same lack of English-speaking ability. On the other
hand, with a larger proportion of immigrants who can
speak the language, a much greater dissemination of the
foreign-born population may be expected, together with
its more rapid absorption and assimilation. Progress in
industry, in business, in the trades and professions and
in the accumulation of property are all primarily depend-
ent upon the development in the recent immigration
population of an English-speaking ability. (P. 316.)
The Education of the Immigrant. Frances A. KEiuor.
The Educational Review, New York, 1914.
‘*Tt is not alone the question of the school education
of children,’’ says Commissioner Claxton, ‘‘the millions
of adult men and women, and of children older than the
upper limit of the compulsory school attendance age
must be looked after; they must be prepared for Ameri-
can citizenship and for participation in our democratic,
industrial, social and religious life. The proper educa-
tion of these people is a duty which the nation owes to
itself and to them. It can neglect this duty only to their
hurt and its own peril.”? (Pp. 24-25.)
But, in themselves, as well as in their relation to their
children, adult immigrants have well justified the efforts
made to educate them. The’ Federal Immigration Com-
mission found that as soon as English is acquired, not
563
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
only do the immigrant’s standards of living change, but
distribution and proper adjustment in industrial ranks
occur. (P. 30.)
The night school men, like the children, are keenly
interested in geography... .Perhaps a night school stu-
dent would profit little by the task of learning the
capital of every State in the Union, but a knowledge of
its physical geography, of what are the industries of
various towns and cities, of what is raised in California
and what in New Jersey may concern him very directly
indeed. It has been proposed, in order to relieve the
congestion in our cities and to keep peasants and land-
lovers out of the sweat-shops, that the Division of Dis-
tribution in the Federal Department of Labor shall fur-
nish to the immigrant information about the various
agricultural districts and the demand in them for work-
men. Although the logical time to do this is at land-
ing, there is at least a possibility that immigrants dis-
satisfied with their beginning in the new country might,
through a study of the country in school, be able to make
elsewhere a start in a kind of life for which they are
better fitted. (P. 33.)
In this matter of helping the immigrant to find him-
self industrially, practically nothing has been done. Of
his need for instruction in civics, in the study of Ameri-
ean law and political conditions, there has been a readier
conception. The graded courses in civics that have been
outlined cover the general scheme and purpose of govern-
ment in its city, State and federal functions, and a study
of American history conveyed chiefly through its
dramatic personalities and struggles. (P. 33.)
Americanizing a City. The Campaign for the Detrotrt
Night Schools Conducted in August-September,
1915, by The Detroit Board of Commerce and
Board of Education, under the auspices of the
National Amertcanization Committee and the
Committee for Imanigrants in America.
If every city and town in the country to-day were to
provide night classes in which its non-English speaking
564
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
adult population could learn English and the first prin-
ciples of American citizenship, we should have the ma-
chinery for Americanization. For while Americaniza-
tion means much more than the English language and
civics, English is the indispensable key. A general pro-
vision for teaching it would be a tremendous achieve-
ment, for we have never had this before. We now have
facilities for perhaps one immigrant in ten in the best
equipped States, and for none at all in some States.
We have requirements for naturalization and—no facili-
ties for meeting them. We tell every immigrant that
to be a citizen and a competent resident of the United
States he must be able to use the English language and
show that he is ‘‘attached to the principles of the Con-
stitution.’’ But we have not thought it our responsibility
to provide the ways and means. And therefore if night
schools and classes on an adequate scale were now pro-
vided for in every community with a considerable for-
eign-born population, we should have at least an Ameri-
canization policy and program; and we should be in-
finitely further along on the road to national unity than
we now are.
.. We must have the night schools and classes as speed-
ily as possible. But behind every one that is established
we must have the social force of the particular com-
munity, all its agencies, all its resources, all its civic
sympathies, if the future of American citizenship is
really to be assured. No educational department can
carry the work through alone. These are some of the
reasons why it cannot:
_ (1) The immigrant population has not been in-
vited to go to school before; it will be distrustful
now.
(2) A good many immigrants. will never even
know about the night schools—where they are lo-
cated, when they are open, for whom they are in-
tended, what they will teach—unless special effort
is made to carry the news to them.
(3) Some of them work ten or twelve hours a
069
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
day. Some of them change their shifts every week
or every two weeks. They are not likely to think
that a night school from seven to nine for four nights
every week has much to do with them. If they finish
work at six o’clock, even those who know about the
schools and are interested are not likely to feel that
they could go home, get supper, wash and change
their clothes, and get to night school in time.
(4) Those in the lowest grade of American labor
—working for from $1.50 to $1.70 daily—perhaps
have long come to feel themselves cut off from the
ascending current of American industry. They are
not likely to feel that any civic opportunities are
intended for them, or that indeed there is any point
in trying to reach such opportunities.
The conclusion is this: As a result of our long-con-
tinued policy or lack of policy, getting immigrants into
night schools on a scale that covers the needs of any
community, has become a civic experiment taxing every
community resource.
It is the purpose of this sketch to show how this can
be done by outlining such an experiment recently con-
ducted in Detroit.
The end attained in this case was not only an wmcrease
of 153% in the actual registration in the night schools,
but the awakening of the city of Detroit to its vast immi-
gration problem, the assumption of definite responsibili-
ties by many employers and others, the socializing of
very varied community forces in co-operating to this one
end—the Americanization of a peculiarly heterogeneous
and unassimilated city.
What was done in Detroit can be done in every city
or town that has an unassimilated foreign population and
a night school. (P. 4.)
Detroit is a typical immigration laboratory of the
country. ...
In 1910, 33% of the population was foreign born, and
74% was either foreign born or of foreign-born paren-
tage. It is safe to assume that the 300,000 increase in
population since 1910 has not lessened these percentages.
566
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
The Detroit factories are placing the city high in
production, high in importance in America. They are
working out the type of American industry. But thou-
sands of them are not working out the type of American
citizenship or American workmen at all.
That, says the practical observer, 1s not the business
of industry. And this is true. It is not the business of
industry alone; nor of the public educational system
alone; nor of municipal government alone; nor of private
social organizations alone. It is the business of all of
these and it will require them all....
That ‘‘English first’’ is the rational first step in
Americanization is well illustrated by Detroit. Many
thousands of the foreign born of Detroit do not speak
English. In 1910 the non-English speaking numbered
38,038. In 1915, with a population increased by 300,000,
the number of those unable to read, write, speak or un-
derstand English must have been extraordinarily in-
creased. Last year 2,838 were enrolled in the public
night schools. Allowing for those learning English in
parochial schools or private classes, it is still evident
that although a very considerable percentage of Detroit’s
population was unable to manage its affairs through the
English language and to secure the approach to Ameri-
can institutions which only a knowledge of English can
guarantee, only a very small percentage of these was on
the road to learning English and preparing for American
citizenship. (Pp. 5-6.)
Many employers at once made it clear to their men
that from this time on the firm would prefer those men
that were attending night school and making a definite
effort to learn English.
But a considerable number of firms went much farther
than this. The Saxon Company made night school at-
tendance compulsory for its non-English speaking work-
men.
The Solvay Company proposed a wage increase of
two cents an hour to its employees who learned the Eng-
lish language.
567
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
‘‘T am convinced,’’ said the efficiency engineer of the
Semet-Solvay plant, ‘‘that only through employers offer-
ing a material inducement to the foreign laborer to learn
English will the public night schools for non-English-
speaking operatives be made a success. ... The foreigner
must be shown that it will be of material advantage to
him in his job to learn the English tongue. This the
employer can well afford to do, for the non-English
speaking laborer is a source of danger to himself and
everybody else about the plant. I should be afraid to
estimate the aggregate amount of waste each year to this
company through a non-English-speaking operative’s
failing to understand an order, with a resultant costly
blunder. I have known a single blunder to cost as much
as $2,000. Then there are thousands paid out for in-
juries, many of which may be traced directly to the
inability of the employee to understand English.’’
The Superintendent of the Board of Education met
every situation presented to him by industry. A number
of firms whose men changed from night to day shifts
every week or two weeks consulted him. He assured them
that special classes for such men would be arranged
wherever numbers made it at all possible. The Morgan
and Wright Company, employing hundreds of non-Eng-
lish speaking men have particularly late daily hours,
owing to the nature of their work. It would be impos-
sible for their men to reach the night school session in
time. The Board of Education guaranteed to furnish
ten regular teachers for classes to be held at night in
the Morgan and Wright plant, if they would equip ten
classrooms. By this arrangement between 700 and 800
men who must otherwise have been denied the night
school advantages could be included in its benefits. The
Board of Commerce in making the arrangement recom-
mended that part of the time thus spent in the class-
room be company time, that the men be able to get sup-
per in the factory, and that adequate facilities for re-
creation be included. (Pp. 10-12.)
568
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
New York State Department of Education. 1916. Cuti-
zenship Syllabus. Prepared by Research Depart-
ment of the Committee for Immigrants in
America. New York.’
Introductory Note.
The Federal government sets forth in its naturaliza-
tion laws two main educational requirements for citizen-
ship; first, a knowledge of the English language, and,
second, a familiarity with the fundamental principles of
American government. It is largely the responsibility
of evening schools for immigrants to furnish instruction
in these two lines.
The need for educational work in civics, and instruc-
tion in naturalization proceedings is obvious. More than
25 per cent. (6,646,817) of all the males of voting age
in the United States are foreign-born, and only 45 per
cent. are naturalized; the remaining 55 per cent. (3,-
612,700) give us concretely the ‘‘Naturalization Prob-
lem’’ of our country. Most of the three million who
have become citizens through the regular naturalization
procedure have had little or no training for such citizen-
ship and the other three and a half million are an un-
assimilated element which gives a great opportunity for
the promotion of civic training. Whenever there is in
a democracy a large male population of voting age who
have not a voice in the government, there is not pure
democracy, but often fertile soil for the seeds of anarchy
and violent socialism. These facts measure the problem
but do not indicate the extent of its human and personal
influence upon every American citizen.
The Immigrants in America Review. January, 1916.
Our only reliable statistics are five years old and are
very incomplete on many important points, but they in-
dicate the magnitude of the task before us. More than
one-fourth of our population is of foreign-born parent-
age or foreign born. . . . There were, in 1910, 6,500,000
569
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
foreign-born white males over 21 years of age, of whom
only 3,034,117 were naturalized, leaving 3,500,000 un-
Americanized. Out of a foreign-born population of about
- 13,000,000 over 10 years of age, about 3,000,000 were
unable to speak English. That means that about one
in four cannot speak English. There were 1,500,000
illiterates, and there are undoubtedly more now, as the
3,000,000 immigrants who have come since 1910, not
included in these figures, will more than counterbalance
the progress made since 1910 by those already here.
Our task thus becomes clear. We must put America
first in the hearts of every resident in America, ... and
make English the common language of all peoples in
America, because it is the key to American life. (P. 6.)
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Monthly Re-
view. Vol. II. No. 8. March, 1916.
Training of Immigrants for Citizenship.
Recent reports furnished by the Bureau of Natural-
zation show a very rapid development of its work for
the better education of candidates for citizenship, in the
principles of American life and government. The need
for such work is evident. Each year approximately
100,000 certificates of citizenship are issued. Many of
the candidates have only a minimum understanding of
the rights and duties attaching to their new status, and,
in any case, the great majority would vastly benefit by a
more thorough training in these matters.
To some extent the need for such training had been
met through the establishment of citizenship classes by
public schools, associations, and individuals. These
activities, however, covered only a small portion of the
field, and, in addition, it developed that a number of
them were not in good faith, being simply means for
the exploitation of the immigrant. te
About a year ago the Bureau of Naturalization, after
consultation with various school authorities, worked out
a comprehensive plan for the education of candidates for
e
570
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.—United States
citizenship. Under this plan the bureau arranges to
send to the public-school authorities of his community
a statement showing the name, address, and nationality
of each resident alien who has declared his intention to
become a citizen or of each petitioner to be naturalized.
At the same time it advises the declarant or petitioner
of its action and of the public-school advantages. It then
rests with the school authorities to encourage the pros-
pective citizens to enroll in the schools and, if necessary,
to establish special courses for their accommodation. |
During the fiscal year 1915 the Bureau of Naturaliza-
tion received approximately 350,000 applications for
citizenship. This number includes both declarations of
intention and petitions for naturalization, a declarant
having to wait two years before petitioning for naturali-
zation. It is estimated that not less than 150,000 of the
above applicants had wives, thus making a total of a half
million adult alien residents coming within the province
of the bureau as prospective citizens of this country.
Out of this number the bureau sent the names of ap-
proximately 122,000 to the public schools of the com-
munities where the various applicants resided. The ac-
companying statement shows the distribution of this
number among the States.
The public schools have shown an earnest spirit of
co-operation. With the opening of the present scholastic
year 50 cities and towns were co-operating. At the end
of December this number had grown to 450 and by the
end of January, 1916, to 566 cities and towns, represent-
ing 44 States. Hundreds of other localities have ex-
pressed their interest but have been deterred from co-
operation by local conditions which render such work
impracticable.
In addition to the class training indicated; the outline
also suggests a laboratory method of teaching civics.
This method calls for lectures by city officials upon the
functions of their respective offices and for the organiza-
tion of the students into mock governments, with nomi-
nations, elections, officers’ meetings, etc., for the practical
demonstration of governmental organization and pur-
O71
Americanization of the Foreign-Born.— United States
poses. It is also urged that graduates of the schools
form alumni classes for continued association and dis-
cussion.
The primary purpose of the plan outlined above is to
reach those resident aliens who are contemplating be-
- coming citizens. In addition, however; the effort is also
being made to reach all foreign-born residents, many of
whom have no immediate intention of becoming citizens,
but who are living in this country in various degrees of
ignorance as to its institutions and political organiza-
tions. Also, it has been found that there is a demand
and need for such training on the part of many native-
born persons.
The bureau has planned to hold a convention next
July in Washington, D. C., for the discussion of the vari-
ous questions in regard to citizenship schools and for
exhibiting the result of the work of various schools of
this character. (Pp. 9-11.)
572
@. MILITARY: THE CITIZEN AS SOLDIER.
The State is dependent upon the quality of its citi-
zens not only for its development in times of peace,
but in the last resort, for military defense. Industrial
conditions which result in physical degeneration of the
population are thus a menace to the very existence of the
State. In communities where excessive working hours
have long prevailed, progressive decline in stature,
strength, and efficiency becomes markedly evident. This
is conspicuously shown by the large percentage of re-
cruits necessarily rejected from military service for
physical unfitness.
Recruiting statistics from Germany are of most value
because they cover the entire male population and show
the results of the medical examination of all young men
of military age. They prove the physical superiority of
recruits from non-industrial regions. Between 1902 and
1907 the number of young men fit for service born in the
country and engaged in agriculture sank from 61 per cent.
to 58.7 while during the same period among those city-
born and engaged in industry the percentage sank from
54.7 to 49.9.
In spite of thirty years of social legislation in Ger-
many, it is apparent that industrial labor, together with
the strain of city life, have resulted in the highest per-
centage of rejections for physical unfitness among the
recruits.
573
The Citizen as Soldier.—Germany
58 Kongress der Deutschen Naturforscher und Arete.
Strassburg, 1886. Die Uberbirdung der Arbeiter-
mnen und Kinder in Fabriken. [‘Lhe Over-work
of Women and Children in Factories.] Dn.
Scuuter, Factory Inspector, Switzerland. Re-
printed in Vierteljahrsschrift fiir dffentliche Ges-
undhettpflege. Vol. XVIII. 1886.
General attention was directed to the factory work
of children in Switzerland by the shock received from
the statistics of the recruiting office.
Districts where there were few mills showed that only
14.3% to 18.9% of the recruits were temporarily refused
on account of imperfect physical development, while fac-
tory districts had from 19.7% to 23.3% of such temporary
rejections (rejected for 2 years).
Absolutely rejected as unsuitable for military service
there were, in rural districts 23.9-39.2% ; while in indus-
trial districts there were from 27.8-31.3% absolutely re-
jected.
It was then assumed that factory work delayed but
did not ruin the development of youth and it was also
believed that the better food resulting from the higher
wages of factory workers made up for disadvantages to
growing youth. But with later investigation it was
found that in the Canton of Zug, for example:
Cotton wool operatives had only 37% fit for service.
Handworkers (artisans) had 47 to 83%.
Farmworkers (agricultural) had 49%.
Further it was shown that the figures of the physi-
cally unfit were:
Factory hands (all kinds) 32 to 43%; other occupa-
tions 7 to 30%.
In another Canton the proportion was 34-39% for
the factory as against 12-23% for non-factory hands
P,. 134.
All Heke unfavorable results could hardly be ex-
plained otherwise than by the generally injurious effect
of factory life in the young growing person. It appeared
that special injuries were not so much in question, but
that the general conditions of life were not good for
children and young people. (P. 135.)
O74
The Citizen as Soldier.—Germany
Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags. 103. Siteung,
18. April. 1891. [Proceedings of the German
Reichstag. 103rd Session. Apri 18th, 1891.]
Representative Bebel: The one fact alone, that the
military recruiting offices all over Germany have found
that from decade to decade the number of physically fit
recruits in factory and manufacturing districts 1s dim-
inishing to an appalling extent, so that it is necessary to
draw more and more heavily upon the country regions—
shows clear and plainly what kind of process is at work
upou the development of the national physique, and the
more extensive our industry becomes, and the more it
invades the country regions, the more and more certainly
will it exhaust those sources of strength which are now
the only sources to look to for military defence.
For these reasons it is absolutely essential that the.
laws should promptly provide ample means for overcom-
ing this tendency to deterioration of race in every way.
(Pp. 2419-2420.)
Die Sociale Reform als Gebot des Wirthschaftlichen
Fortschrittes. [Social Reform as a Condition of
Socio-Political Progress.|_ Dr. Hzrnrich Herx-
NER. Leipzig, Duncker, 1891.
The results of excessive work, insufficient wages and
deficient nutrition appear with a distinctness that cannot
be ignored in the reports of the recruiting statistics. A
military examining physician of the empire (German)
reported from a factory region: ‘‘In the factory villages,
where everyone works from youth up-in the factories,
almost all recruits were unfit for service, and I believe
that, if this goes on, it will be useless to send recruiting
commissions to these communities.’’ (Page 4.) (Quoted
from Archiv fiir dffentliche Gesundheitspflege in Elsass-
Lothringen, VII, 107.) ,
0795
The Citizen as Soldier—Germany
/
Handbuch der Arbeiterwohlfahrt. [Handbook of Re-
ports on the Welfare of Workmen.] Edited by
Dr. Otto Dammer. Stuttgart, Enke, 1902.
Beschadigungen der Arbeiter bet der Arbeit.
[Injurtes incurred by Workmen at their Work. |
Dr, AscueEr, in Konigsberg.
The extent of injuries incurred through excessive
exertions, particularly by young people, seems to be
most clearly indicated in the course of, recruiting for
the army. Whereas in the German Empire at large some
50% (53-56%) are fit for military service, only 26%
were found fit during seven years in a hamlet in the dis-
trict of Schmalkalden, in which forging nails has been
the principal industry for a long time, and only 21%,
during seven years, in another hamlet where buckles
are made, in the homes of the workers—statistics which
I owe to the friendly co-operation of a local official who
has been interested in the situation for years. The
causes of unfitness in men otherwise strong and healthy
were: diseased blood-vessels, flat-foot, rupture, one-
sidedness. The statistics compiled by Dr. Schultes of
Jena, covering 1,255 examinations, corroborate these
statements. Dr. Schultes arrived at the following result,
dividing his subjects into four classes:
Number Number of
Type of Occupation. of men men with Per
examined. varicoseveins. Cent.
Class I (standing) ......-c:ccscessceecceesnesesscesesseseceeee 315 40 12.7-
Class II (standing and moving about)........ 887 38 4.0
Class III (seated most of the time) so 44 1 2.2
Class IV (seated all the time)... 111 0 0
1255 79
The singularly unfavorable report from the district
of Schmalkalden is explained by the fact that the main
industry there is forging, and hence the opportunities
for over-fatigue are exceptionally favorable; further-
more, the narrow scope of the work (only nails or
buckles are made) tends to enforce a mechanical posture
on the part of the workman, riveted as it were to the
576
The Citizen as Soldier—Germany
same spot, whereas in larger smithies, the more youthful
workers, particularly the apprentices, are compelled, by
their activity, to move about frequently, and thereby to
exercise their lower extremities.
The prevention of those injuries which constitute
a serious menace to the army and navy, hes in the
shortening of working hours, and in the employment of
free time for gymnastics—a proceeding which aims at a
more even development of all the muscles of the lower
extremities, but which will also benefit the lungs and
heart.
Just what effect is produced by serving at machines,
involving as it does the incessant shaking of the pelvis
and the over-exertion of the muscular system of the
a extremities as well, is not yet entirely clear. (P.
494.
Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften. Bd. I. Jena,
Fischer, 1909. [Compendium of Political Science,
Vol. I.] Edited by Drs. J. Conran, Professor of
Political Science in Halle; L. Exster, Ober Reg.
Rath in Berlin; W. Lexis, Professor of Political
Science in Gottmgen, and Epc. Lornine, Professor
of Law m Halle. Arbeitszett. [Hours of Work.]
Dr. H. Herxner, Berlin.
The state approaches the question of working time
from another standpoint than does the church. The
state is above all the organ of perception of national
interests. The bedrock of national strength is an able,
loyal, intelligent people. It is therefore important for
the state to see that this foundation is not shattered by
the prolongation of working hours. First of all, the
fatal influence of excessive hours of work came to light
in the inferior military fitness of the factory popula-
tion. .. . According as the proportion of the industrial
classes to the whole community is larger, so much more
urgently necessary does it become to lessen the serious
dangers to health which inhere in industrial as opposed
to agricultural occupations, by a wise limitation of the
hours of work.
ov7
The Citizen as Soldier. France
The state needs not only soldiers, but citizens capable
and ready to share in public life. Wage-earning must
leave some time free for such duties. (P. 1206.)
Rapports Présentés a M. le Ministre du Commerce de
V’Industrie des Postes et des Télégraphes. Paris,
Imprimerie Nationale, 1900. Par les Inspecteurs
Divisionnaires du Travail dans 1’Industrie, sur
La Question de VInterdiction du Travail de Nuit.
[Reports by Division Inspectors on the question of
night work.] Report of M. Lacarp, Division-
Inspector of the Tenth District of Marseilles.
We may state also, and rightly, that night work makes
a very large number of young workmen unfit for military
service, and therefore, for the defense of our country.
In certain localities where the more important indus-
tries are carried on (notably the manufacture of textiles)
the number of recruits dismissed has actually grown to
50 out of every hundred, when as in agricultural dis-
tricts the proportion of the unfit has never exceeded 25
per hundred. (Pp. 72-73.)
La Réduction dela Durée du Travail de l’Employé. [The
Reduction of Working Hours for Employees.]
VaLentin Viarp. Paris, Arthur Rousseaw, 1910.
The existing length of the working-day exhausts the
employees, makes them physically enfeebled members of
society, often incapable of fulfilling their military duties,
and capable if they marry of producing only sickly chil-
dren who will be a burden and not a help to the com-
munity. (P. 46.)
The reduction of working hours would be of great
benefit to the employee’s health. In the first place, from
the mere fact of his working shorter hours he would be
less long exposed to the possible contagions of the shop
and office. In the second place, he would be less fatigued,
less worn out, and consequently less susceptible to dis-
ease about him, for it is not work but overwork that
a8
The Citizen as Soldier.—Austria
lowers vitality, and he would no longer be overworked.
(Pp. 47-48.)
Eighth International Congress of Hygiene and Demo-
graphy, Budapest, 1894. Der physische Ruckgang
der Bevélkerung in den modernen Culturstaaten
mit besonderer Ricksicht auf Oesterreich-Un-
garn. [Lhe Physial Degeneration of the Popu-
lation in Modern Civilized Countries with Particu-
lar Reference to Austria-Hungary.) Dr. Jus
Doxartu, University of Budapest. Budapest, 1896.
The purpose of this discussion is to prove the physi-
cal degeneration within our own time of the people in
several of the modern civilized nations. The historical
period for which this assertion holds good, confirms the
belief that none of the above-named factors arising from
racial differences affect the situation; and the speed
with which this process of degeneration is going on in-
dicates with certainty that its cause is not an old cause
which has operated steadily throughout the ages, but
rather that it is of newer origin, and of very definite
nature. And this cause—I will state here and now—
lies in modern economic conditions. (P. 605.)
The fact should be noted that according to the law
of 1889 governing military service, the annual contin-
gent of recruits was raised from 95,474 men (for Hun-
gary 39,052) to 103,100 men (for Hungary 42, 711). But
particular notice is to be taken of the clause of this law
which raises the age of lability for military service from
20 to 21. This was done to avoid calling out the fourth
class of recruits, which had become necessary through
the increasing deterioration of the general physical con-
dition. Although this raising of the contingent required
an increased number of recruits, and though the age for
service was thus advanced, yet in Austria as well as in
Hungary, the percentage of those temporarily rejected
because of unfitness increased steadily and with extraor-
dinary rapidity between 1867 and 1892.
579
The Citizen as Soldier.—Austria
THE PERCENTAGE OF THOSE TEMPORARILY REJECTED BECAUSE OF
UNFITNESS IN THE FIRST 3 CLASSES. (EQUIVALENT IN NUMBER
TO 4 CLASSES.)
Temporarily rejected in the Temporarily rejected in the
sees : Pte ewe e Sie
Year. Per Cent. Per Cent. Year. Per Cent. Per Cent.
1867 21.56 40.33 1880 60.64 69.25
1868 22.01 29.26 1881 61.65 70.93
1869 Seng 43.76 1882 62.74 69.80
1870 33.64 47.04 1883 60.75 * 68.94
1871 37.95 49.55 1884 64.19 71.03
1872 38.27 090.51 1885 66.41 73.40
1873 42.94 56.34 1886 65.20 66.65
1874 50.67 50.09 1887 72.35 72.06
1875 92.35 61.62 1888 75.49 76.36
1876 55.09 63.40 1889 68.77 69.87
1877 57.63 65.53 1890 69.05 66.60
1878 08.79 67.82 1891 64.88 70.06
1879 59.61 68.72
Therefore the percentage of those temporarily re-
jected on account of unfitness between 1867 and 1888 in-
creased in Hungary from 21.56 to 75.49%, and in Austria
from 40.33 to 76.36%. From that time on a moderate
decline is apparent. How little consolation this affords
is indicated by the official Yearbook of Military Statis-
tics (Militar-Statistisches Jahrbuch) for the year 1892
which says: (page 12) ‘‘As is the case in general, the
military territorial districts of Vienna, Zara, Prague,
Josefstadt, Krakau, Lemberg and Pressburg also report
increasingly unfavorable conditions from year to year
between 1890 and 1892. The opposite condition is ob-
servable only in the military territorial districts of Inns-
briick and Hermannstadt during this period. As a mat-
ter of fact, only 22.3% in Hungary and in Austria only ©
19.4% of the men liable for service and examined by a
physician, were found fit. (Pp. 608-609.)
In France, as the following table shows, the number
of the unfit rises, with fluctuations, from 26.3% in the
580
The Citizen as Soldier.—France
year 1872 to 31.3% in the year 1885, and then drops
again. I also calculated the percentage of the tempo-
rarily rejected in addition to those enrolled as auxili-
aries; in the light of this set of figures the physical de-
generation is seen yet more clearly; for the percentage
rises from 16.2 in the year 1872 to 19.5 in the year
1888, despite the enormous increase in the French army,
the full strength of which was reckoned in the year 1891
at 5,564,000 men. ... The case appears in a still more
unfavorable light if we examine the ‘‘temporarily re-
jected’? men separately. For their number amounted
in 1872 to 21,022 out of 303,810 recruits of the first class
according to age,—or 6.9%—and climbed steadily to
39,231 out of 295,707 recruits, or 13.3% in 1888. The
number of those temporarily rejected is seen nearly to
have doubled in the course of 16 years!
Temporarily
Rejected or Temporarily
Date of Enlistment Unfit. Enrolled as Rejected
of Class I. Per cent. Auxiliaries. Per cent.
1Si2 26.3 16.2 6.9
1873 25.1 16.5 7.2
1874 - 24.9 14.3 6.9
1875 25.4 13.8 7.6
1876 24.8 14.1 8.0
1877 26.7 14.9 9.2
1878 26.1 14.7 9.4
1879 26.1 15.1 9.7
1880 26.2 14.9 10.1
1881 30.2 17.2 12.2
1882 29.7 17.3 12.3
1883 29.7 17.6 12.5
1884 30.0 17.8 12.4
1885 31.3 18.4 12.9
1886 31.0 19.5 13.6
1887 29.8 18.9 13.0
1888 29.9 19.5 13.3
(Pp. 611-612.)
581
The Citizen as Soldier.—Italy
In Italy the minimum height was reduced by a law
passed July 8, 1883, from 1.56 meters to 1.55; and accord-
ing to a law of June 29, 1882, the ‘‘weak’’ and those
afflicted with curable defects, as well as those who have
not attained the minimum height, may be temporarily
rejected for one or two years. In spite of all this, the
number of the unfit, after dropping from 49.4% to 36.7%
between 1871 and 1877, rises again to 47.5 in 1888 and
then drops somewhat again. The physical degeneration
is still more obvious if we examine the ‘‘temporarily
rejected’’* separately from the altogether unfit,t as we
did in the case of Austria, Hungary and France. I have
myself computed the two series of percentages on the
basis of the absolute figures.
—
Temporarily Temporarily
Rejected and Rejected and
Year of Altogether Temporarily Year of Altogether Temporarily
Enlistment of Tnfit. Rejected. Enlistment of Unfit. Rejected. -
Class I. Per Cent. Per Cent. Class I. Per Cent. Per Cent.
ES (dees 49.4. et 1882... 39.6 21.9
VST 2 ose es 47.6 8.7 B88 soc 40.6 20.3
1873... 47.0 8.5 1884.0... 42.3 21.1
1874... 42.9 11.0 1885... 43.4 22.1
VST Die 37.5 11.0 1886............ 43.4 21.8
TE 7 Osco, 37.1 10.7 1887... 43.3 20.5)
IS 4f soe 36.7 11.0 1888............ 47.5 26.3
A Ko fre eee 38.2 13.2 1889.03. 42.2 23.2
DET Oe 38.3 13.6 1890... 42.9 24.1
1880... 41.1 13.5 1GOT ee 41.8 23.2
1881... 46.0 13.1
In this table then we see the number of temporary
rejections rising steadily from 7.7 per cent. to 23.2 per
cent. between 1871 and 1891, and indeed, in the year 1888
reaching 26.3 per cent. (Pp. 612-613.) ;
I have cited in the foregoing pages a series of proofs
which I think, sufficiently established the fact that in mod-
ern civilized countries—and this may be shown particu-
* Rivedibili e Rimandati. + Riformati. + (Annuario Statistico Italiano,
1892.)
582
The Citizen as Soldier.—Austria
larly of the important military powers—the physical
condition of the population is deteriorating. Further-
more, it can no longer be doubted that, in view of the
rapidity of this deterioration, the cause must be of
comparatively recent origin. Even though the agricul-
tural occupations may be considered in general less in-
jurious to the health than the industrial, yet the recruit-
ing statistics of Austria-Hungary teach us that condi-
tions in Austria, where industries predominate, and m
Hungary, which is mainly agricultural, are equally unfa-
vorable and that generally speaking, the two countries
offer in this respect a striking parallel. Even if we give
due consideration to another series of injuries, such as
wrong principles in the education of the young and the
degenerating influences of luxury and the pursuit of
pleasure in the higher classes, yet the decisive factor in
the physical condition of the population is seen to be the
standard of living, and in general, the satisfaction of the
wants of the lower and numerically preponderant classes
in society. In a word, the physical condition of the popu-
lation is in the last analysis determined by economic
conditions. (P. 615.)
Professor V. Babes understood correctly that this
deep-seated evil of the physical degeneracy of the popu-
lation is not accessible to insignificant little bureaucratic
remedies, and in his profound address delivered in Rome
at the Eleventh International Medical Congress, he
voices these demands: Before all, a radical transforma-
tion of the state in the sense of an international and
social reform on a definite hygienic basis, with the view
first of establishing the principle that individual health
is inseparable from public health; that the health of one
class is essential to the health of the others; and finally,
that it is the health of the lower classes that is of the
highest economic value. . . .
The first and most important step to be taken by the
government under present conditions of production to.
check the deterioration of the nation’s vigor, is the short-
ening of working hours. . . . Unduly protracted work-
ing hours mean an intensive drain on human energies
and their rapid exhaustion. .
583
The Citizen as Soldier.—Great Britain
Not only is the reduction of working hours urgeutly
needed from the hygienic standpoint both for the pres-
ent generation and for posterity; it is also, thanks to our
great and incessant technical advances, feasible here and
now; and it is certain that in the course of time, work-
ing hours will admit of still further reduction. (P. 616.)
The Pioneer of Progress. Joun Dennis. London, Ham-
alton Adams, 1860.
There is a period in the history of a state when the
bodily strength of its members becomes a matter of high-
est moment, when not only dauntless courage, but muscu-
lar force may any day be called into requisition, when
its political status must be upheld by downright strength
of arm, and when physical degeneracy is the invariable
forerunner of national decline. (P. 56.)
... There can be no question that the health of the
country, and especially of the young men and women of
the next generation is assuredly a national interest. If
the national strength degenerate, it follows that the king-
dom will decline. (P. 60.)
Eight-Hour Movement. Verbatim Report of a Debate
Between H. M. Hynpman and C. BrapiauaGu.
London, Freethought Publishing Co. 1890.
If you take the condition of the workmen and work-
women, their physical strength is being deteriorated by
the present system. The height and the chest measure-
ment of recruits have fallen markedly since the Queen
came to the throne fifty years ago. Anyone who is ac-
quainted with the manufacturing districts, as I have
been since I was a boy, must see not only in the reports
of certifying surgeons and sanitary inspectors, but from
his own experience and under his own eye he can see
perfectly clearly that deterioration continually going
on. . . . I say that from any point of view whatsoever
a system which not only destroys the present generation,
but lays the foundation of weakness and debility for the
584
The Citizen as Soldier —Great Britain
next, cannot be profitable in any sense of the word, but
must be ruinous to the community at large. (Pp. 8-9.)
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XXXII, 1904. Report
of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical
Deterioration. Vol. I, Appendia I. Original
Memorandum Prepared by Surgeon-General Sir
Wim Tayvior, K. C. B., Derector-General,
Army Medical Service.
1. A deep interest has been aroused, both in the lay
and medical press, by the writings of Sir Frederick
Maurice and others, who have brought into prominence
certain observations pointing to the fact that there is an
alarming proportion of the young men of the country,
more especially among the urban population, who are
unfit for military service on account of defective phy-
sique.
The questions naturally arise as to whether this im-
peachment of the national health has a solid foundation
in fact, and as to whether the condition is true of the
population as a whole, or only of a certain section of it.
The teaching of public health statistics would appear to
show that progressive improvement of the national
health has steadily followed the improved conditions of
life which have been brought about by the advance of
sanitary knowledge and its practical application. It has
also been pointed out that athletic records are constantly
being broken for all sorts of feats of strength, agility,
and endurance, facts which would seem to indicate that
the physique of the well-to-do classes, at least, is improv-
ing rather than deteriorating. It is nevertheless true,
and the fact is a disturbing and disquieting one, that a
very large proportion of the men who offer themselves
for enlistment in the Army are found to be physically un-
fit for military service.
2. In an article on the National Health, which ap-
peared in a recent number of the Contemporary Review,
Sir Frederick Maurice states that, according to the best
estimate he had been able to arrive at, it has been for
many years the case that out of every five men who
585
The Citizen as Soldier.—Great Britain
wished to enlist, primarily offer themselves for enlist-
ment, you would find that at the end of two years’ service
there are only two men remaining in the Army as ef-
fective soldiers. Of the men who offer themselves, some
are rejected by the recruiting sergeant or recruiting
officer, some by the examining medical officers, and some,
though enlisted, are found after three months to be un-
likely to develop into effective soldiers and are sum-
marily discharged. According to General Maurice’s ex-
perience, at the end of two years not more than forty
per cent. of the men who wished to become soldiers will
be found serving; or, in other words, sixty per cent. of
the men offering themselves are physically unfit to serve
as soldiers. He points out that it is no good talking of
conscription or of any form of compulsory service if we
already have five men offering themselves for every two
men who are fit for the work; no one has suggested that
we should increase our Army in the proportion of two to
five, i. e., make it two and a half times as large as it is
now. He then goes on to say that no nation was ever yet
for any long time great and free, when the army it put
in the field no longer represented its own virility and
manhood.
3. But the want of physique, thus shown to exist
with regard to a large section of the community, is not
only serious from its military aspect, it is serious also
from its civil standpoint, for if these men are unfit for
military service, what are they good for? As Sir Lauder
Burnton says: ‘‘ Poor in physique as they all are, and poor
in mental capacity and power of application as many of
them must be, what becomes of them? Many of them
probably marry girls as weak as themselves, and have
children, some of whom go to swell the lists of infant
mortality, some to join the criminal classes, while others
grow up more weak and incompetent than their parents.”’ _
Inquiry is wanted, and it is vital for us to know the truth.
Whether part of the physical deterioration is the result
of unskilled labor flocking to the towns and there failing
to find means for properly rearing a family, or whether
it be on account of causes which are attackable, such as
early marriages and ignorance of motuers, the result is
086
The Citizen as Soldier.—Great Britain
that the rising generation of all below the artizan class
includes a vast number of men of a very low standard of
health and physique. (P. 95.)
5. Every year a table is published in the Army Medi-
cal Department Report, which classifies the recruits ex-
amined according to their previous occupations. .
(P. 95.)
6. Examination of a series of these annual tables
shows that the proportion of the different classes remains
remarkably constant from year to year, and the figures
indicate that the bulk of our soldiers are drawn from the
unskilled labor class and consequently from the stratum
of the population living in actual poverty or close to the
poverty line. As might be expected the highest ratio of
rejection is shown for men who have been following in-
door occupations.
8. In his annual report for 1902, just issued, the In-
spector-General for Recruiting remarks that the one sub-
ject which causes anxiety in the future as regards re-
cruiting is the gradual deterioration of the physique of
the working classes from whom the bulk of the recruits
must always be drawn, and, when it is remembered, that
recruiters are. instructed not to submit for medical ex-
amination candidates for enlistment unless they are rea-
sonably expected to be passed as fit, we cannot but be
struck by the percentage considered by the medical of-
ficers as unfit for the service. In the reports from all
the manufacturing districts, stress is invariably laid upon
the number of men medically rejected for bad teeth, flat
feet, and inferior physique. .
9. The following table has been compiled from in-
formation given in the Army Medical Department Re-
ports, supplemented in some particulars by data obtained
from the reports of the Inspector-General of Recruiting. .
A period of ten years (1893-1902) has been selected, as of
course, the greater the number of observations dealt
with, the nearer will be our approximation to the truth.
087
The Citizen as Soldier.—Great Britain
1. 2. 3. 4: 5. 6. 7.
Invalids
Number discharged
rejected during the
Number within 3 year
Year. Number rejected Months under 2 Ratio Ratio Ratio
of recruits on after years’ per per per
inspected inspection enlistment service cent. cent. cent.
(A. M. D. (A. M. D. (A. M.D. (1. G. R. column column column
Report.) Report.) Report.) Report.) 2 3 4
1893...64,110 25,999 342 962 406 05 15
1894.....61,985 24,705 369 770 399 06 1.2
1895.....55,698 22,548 368 952. 40.5 0.7 1,7
1896.....54,574 22,698 413 999 416 08 1.8
1897....59,986 22,370 575 997 37.3 10 17
1898.....66,502 22,983* 387 983 334.6 06 1.5
1899.....68,087 22,071 433 1,003 324 06 1.5
1900.....84,402 23,105 640 1,514 274 08 18
1901.....76,750 21,522* 1,014 3,825 280 13 4.9
1902....87,609 26,913" 1,308 2254 307 1.56 25
1502 4679,703 234,914 5,849 14,259 346 0.9 2.1
* Does not include men enlisted in 1902 and discharged under three
months’ service in 1903.
10. It will be observed that during this decennial
period the number of men medically examined for en-
listment was 679,703, and of those 234,914 were rejected
as medically unfit for service, giving a rejection ratio of
34.6 per cent; of the men passed fit, 5,849 broke down ©
within three months after enlistment, being at the rate of
9 per cent. for this class; while 14,259, or 2.1 per cent.
more, were discharged as invalids under two years’ ser-
vice. The smallness of the rate of the rejections within —
three months of enlistment varying as will be observed,
between .5 and 1.5 per cent. speaks well, I think for the
thoroughness of the primary medical examination of re-
eruits. But the rejection of one out of every three men
examined by the recruiting medical officer points clearly
to the poorness of the human material available for army
purposes, as a writer in the Lancet puts it. Adding to-
gether the rates for the three classes of rejections re-
ferred to in the table, we find that 37.6 per cent. of the
588
The Citizen as Soldier.—Great Britain
679,703 men examined during the decennial period proved
to be unfit for military service. The Inspector-General
of Recruiting states in his report for 1902, that it
must be borne in mind, when examining these to-
tals, that they do not represent anything like the total
number of rejections of candidates for enlistment into the
Army. A large number of men are rejected by recruiting
sergeants and recruiting officers and such men in conse-
quence are never medically inspected and do not appear
in any returns. In the decennial period under considera-
tion we have only been able to account for 37.6 per cent.
of rejections from official statistics; but according to Sir
Frederick Maurice’s estimate 60 per cent. of the men who
offer themselves are unfit for service. This indicates that
the number of men turned away by the recruiters them-
selves as unlikely to have any reasonable chance of pass-
ing the medical examination is an appallingly large cay
(P. 96.
12. It has already been stated that a large propor-
tion of the population live in towns, and this has been
estimated at 77 per cent., or 25,000,000. Of this town
population about 25 per cent. (probably at least 6,000,-
000), appear from trustworthy investigations, to be not
only poor, but living in actual poverty, so as to be unable
to rear their children under conditions favorable to health
and physical fitness. The bulk of the men who seek en-
-listment belong to this section of the population, and a
very large proportion (but probably not quite three out
of five as stated by General Maurice) of the men who
wish to join the Army prove physically unfit for military
service. (P. 97.)
Note.
To this impressive evidence and that of the witnesses
who follow, in regard to the declining physical efficiency
of urban laborers the Parliamentary Committee failed to
give much weight. This evidence subsequent events have
amply corroborated.
589
The Citizen as Soldier.—Great Britain
Ibid. Vol. 1. Report.
25. Both the Director-General and the late Inspector-
General of Recruiting were fain to admit, on being
pressed, that the real lesson of the recruiting figures was
the failure of the Army, under present conditions, to at-
tract a good type of recruits. Indeed, General Borrett
gives up the case for wide-spread deterioration when he
says ‘‘It is a pity that the physique of the recruit-giving
class 1s as poor as it is, so as to cause such a large per-
centage of rejections for the Army’’; and again when in
answer to a question whether ‘‘the men who want to be
soldiers’’ were not those people who have no opening in
life, or have no occupation, and who drift to the recruiter
in the vague hope that they may be passed, he replies,
“There are a great many of that kind, no doubt; I must
confess a great many are that way.’’ In another part of
his evidence he describes them as very largely ‘‘Rub-
bish,”* (P. 5,)
33. The evidence of Sir Frederick Maurice did not
modify the impression produced by that of the two pre-
ceding witnesses, nor could the Committee accept the
basis of the alarmist statement for which he is respon-
sible, that of those who wish to be soldiers only two out
of five are to be found in the ranks at the end of two
years. Sir Frederick obtains this result by taking the
34.6 percentage rejections by medical examiners, and 2.1
percentage of those cast before the completion of two
vears, and adding thereto a purely conjectural percen-
tage as to those previously rejected by the recruiters.
(P. 6.)
Testimony of Rt. Hon. Charles Booth, F.R.S.
970. Did your investigations produce the impression
that conditions unfavourable to the health of the commun-
ity were growing in intensity ?—I think I should not use
the word ‘‘intensity.’’ They are growing in amount in
connection with the increase of the urban conditions of
life. I could not say that the conditions have been more
intense, but they are more widespread.
590
The Citizen as Soldier.—Great Britain
1151. ... The evidence that I have in the matter is
the far greater physical force of those who come into the
city from the country. The country, whatever those who
are left may be, does send the finest men to the towns,
and from that one assumes that the country conditions,
which produce these men, are better than the conditions
of the towns, which cannot produce them.
Testimony of Mr. Harry James Wilson, Inspector of
Factories and Workshops in Newcastle-on-Tyne.
1913. How does the town-bred artisan compare with
the type you have taken?—Very unfavourably.
1914. Will you explain how?—Contrasted with this
class the town-bred artisans are, more especially in large
industrial centers, distinctly less both in height and
weight, and their general development inferior. Hven
shop assistants and clerks drawn from the families of
the lower middle classes compare very unfavourably with
these men, and their equal is only reached among the
upper middle classes where the individuals have been
trained to an outdoor life, or allowed sufficient exercise
and sleep during the period between leaving school and
attaining full growth.
1915. Where do you find most marked degeneracy ?—
The most marked degeneracy, in my opinion, is found
where the greatest number of adverse circumstances are
actively at work from birth to maturity, as for instance,
among the very poor in our old industrial centers, and
is especially noticeable in the case of poorly paid and
unskilled indoor workers, the women suffering about
equally with the men. This degeneracy can be best stud-
ied in certain textile industries, or wherever the remuner-
ae is so small as to attract the lowest in the social
scale.
Testimony of Mr. J. Gray, Secretary of the Anthropo-
metric Committee of the British Association for the
Investigation into the Physique of the Population.
3272-3. I mention the effect of the Franco-German
War in reducing the physique of the generation born dur-
091
The Citizen as Soldier.—Great Britain
ing the war. It was found that a much larger percentage
of the conscripts who came up twenty-one years after
the war had to be rejected. That was explained by the
assumption that the most vigorous men had gone to the
front and that the parents of the degenerate conscripts
of 1891 were the men who were rejected in 1870 for defec-
tive physical deterioration.
3343. -Progressive?—There are no statistics which
would enable anyone to prove that there is a progressive
deterioration of the whole population; one can only guess.
What statistics we have seem to show some slight im-
provement in the professional classes and a deterioration
in the lower classes. I strongly believe that there is a
great deterioration amongst the manufacturing classes in
large towns and amongst the poorer population in slum
districts in towns.
3344. Do you think that there is any evidence of dete-
rioration amongst the country-bred people?—No, I do
not think there is. :
3345. Do you think when country people migrate to
the towns that they deteriorate because of that migra-
tion?—I think so.
Testimony of Mr. Ralph K. Neville, K.C.
4728. Can you tell us what aspect of physical degen-
eration first attracted your attention to the subject?—
I practised what they call locally in Liverpool for eight
years, and when J went down I saw a great contrast
between the operatives from manufacturing districts and
men and women coming from agricultural districts; it
was very marked. I was startled by the appearance of
the former, and it was some time before I came across
the true Lancashire race. The agricultural parts of the
county of Lancashire certainly produce as fine a lot of
men as any county in England, and the contrast between
them and the men of the manufacturing districts was most
startling.
4730. What do you take then to be the principal
causes of the great physical difference that you have ob-
served?—I should think that the main cause was the
592
The Citizen as Soldier.—Great Britain
difference in the life. In the one case the people spend
the most of their time in the mills in a damp atmosphere
and under conditions probably not very healthy, although
they are quite as healthy as they possibly can be made,
and they come to those mills from cottages which are
situated in overcrowded districts where the streets are
too close together. ... ;
4737. What, from the physical point of view, is the
most desirable condition for the great bulk of the people?
—The most desirable condition is what we cannot get for
them, and that is open air to work in, but if we cannot
do that, we ought to try to get them open air when they
are not at work as long as possible. :
Testimony of Mr. T. C. Horsfall.
5574... . Speaking of the old township of Manchester
Dr. Tatham said, and his words apply to the district to-
day as fully as they did in 1893, ‘‘Here is a population of
nearly 150,000 persons paying a tax which must be reck-
oned, not in pounds, shillings and pence, but in years,
months, and days—a tax amounting on the average to
fully 30 per cent. of the lifetime of every member of the
community. Here are men and women entering the period
of decline at an age when they ought scarcely to have
passed the prime of life. And what is particularly dis-
tressing in this regard is the thought that although in
some respects the local conditions of life have improved
within the last half century, in other respects bad has
become even worse... .
‘‘The task which lies before us and our successors is
nothing less than that of restoring to every infant in the
Manchester township the twelve years of life-expectation
of which it has been defrauded by the evil surroundings
of its birth.’’ The extreme seriousness of the danger
caused to the Empire by the unhealthy condition of Man-
chester and our other large towns cannot be realized,
unless we remember that the difference between their
death rates and the death rates of the rural districts,
by which we chiefly judge of the unhealthiness of
the towns, is made much less than it would
593
The Citizen as Soldier.—Great Britain
otherwise be, by the constant movement into the
unwholesome towns, and from the wholesome coun-
try, of vast numbers of men and women of the
ages at which deaths are least numerous, whose re-
moval, therefore, leaves the country with a much larger
proportion than towns contain, of persons, very young
and old, of the ages at which deaths are most numerous,
and gives the towns a much larger proportion than the
country contains of persons of the ages at which deaths
are least numerous. Moreover, each of these young,
vigorous immigrants into the towns for a time raises the
average strength and the health of the mass of the urban
population, .and for the moment increases its power to
resist the causes of disease. Now that our urban popula-
tion forms more than 77%, and our rural population less
than 23%, of the whole population, the country can no
longer invigorate the town so largely as it has done
hitherto, and, unless towns are made much more whole-
some, they must have a much more marked effect on
causing physical degeneration in the near future even
than they have had in the near past. In spite of the
invigoration and ‘‘juvenation’’ of the urban population
at the cost of the rural population, the death rate in 1901
for England and Wales, excluding the 76 largest towns,
was only 15.03 per thousand, while that of the 76 towns,
including large areas of low mortality, was 17.7, that of
Manchester, in 1902, was 20, and that of Ancoats 25.28.
Those are the only figures on that point. The death rate
for Manchester in 1902 was 20 per thousand. That was
lower than in any previous year, of which we have a
record, except 1894. In England and Wales, excluding
76 great towns, it was only 15.31 in 1901. But we must
remember that this 20 per thousand is most misleading;
the terribly high death rates of many small districts are
swamped by the rate of the large district, which includes
areas with comparatively low death rates. Whilst the
death rate in Manchester was 20 per thousand, in Ancoats
it was 25.26 for the central part of the town.
5642. The type has deteriorated in Manchester and
its surroundings, do you think?—I have not the least
doubt that the children of immigrants into Manchester
oo4
The Citizen as Soldier.—Great Britain
deteriorate. There is no doubt about it at all that the
population in Manchester is inferior in physique to the
inhabitants of smaller towns and of the country. I should
not like to be understood to say that the people in the
worst parts of Manchester are as poor as the people
fifty years ago were there. I do not think that is the
case. The sanitary arrangements have been improved.
Ibid. Vol. II. Minutes of Evidence.
Testimony of Dr. Arthur Shadwell, M. A., M. D., M. RB.
GO. Pe
12259. ... The only thing which I thought might be of
use to you which you have not got (and it is positive
evidence as far as it goes) is the statistical evidence from
Germany. There the same process of urbanization has
been going on. ...
12261.... This process has been going on for a number
of years; it has not gone on so far anything like as it
has here, but it has attracted attention; I mean the prob-
able effect of the urbanization upon the physique of the
people, and it has been much discussed. With them it is
a vital question because of its bearing on military
strength.
12262. I take it their towns are much healthier than
ours?—They are in many respects. The excess of births
over deaths is very much greater there than it is here.
12263. Their towns are laid out with greater regard
to the conditions of health, open spaces, and so on?—I
do not know whether you can say that on the whole; they
are better in some respects but not in others. . . . They
discuss everything which arises in Germany very thor-
oughly, and they have proved that rural districts are more
healthy, and they have the recruiting returns. Of course
their recruiting returns are of the greatest value, be-
cause they cover the whole population; the whole male
population is medically examined on reaching the age of
twenty, year by year, and there is no doubt that from the
recruiting returns the physique of the rural population
is greatly superior to that of the urban. That is both in
general and in detail. Then there is a certain amount of
595
The Citizen as Soldier —Great Britain
evidence of deterioration since the urbanization began.
It does not amount to much. But the proportion of the
unfit has risen, and the proportion of the fit has fallen
slightly. It does not amount to much, but it is positive
evidence as far as it goes.
Ibid. Vol. II. Appendix XIV.
Table of Recruiting Returns in Germany, 1901.
Predominantly Percentage of Recruits Examined.
Agricultural Prospectively Un-
Districts. Fit. Fit. Less Fit. Unfit.i worthy.
East Prussia........ 68.6 11.3 13.3 6.6 0.2
a Sa gers ces es 67.6 14.1 Lee 6.5 0.1
West Prussia........ 65.1 13.7 14.0 6.9 0.3
Pomerania ............. 60.1 19.3 13.5 6.8 0.3
POSTE | doers 59.9 15.9 15.6 8.4 0.2
Predominantly
Industrial
Districts.
Rhineland .. 52.8 20.3 17.4 9.4 0.1
Saxony ac... (54.9 and 13.5 and 24.5and 6.8 and 0.3 and
150.7 13.6 28.4 7.0 0.3
Hannover ... 53.7 17.6 18.2 10.3 0.2
Silesia, 0. 49.2 15.6 24.7 10.1 0.4
Brand’nbrg 47.6 11.4 33.7 7.0 0.3
German
Empire ......... 55.2 16.7 19.7 8.1 0.4
Comparative Table of Recruiting Returns for the German
Empire in Years 1894 and 1901.
Prospectively Un-
Year. Fit. Fit. Less Fit. Unfit. worthy.
1694 ye er 56.2 16.7 20.0 6.8 0.3
TOO ccrreieams oes 55.2 16.7 19.7 8.1 0.3
The ‘‘Fit’’? have fallen 1 per cent. and the ‘‘Unfit”’
have risen 1.3 per cent.
596
The Citizen as Soldier.—Italy
The Case for the National Minimum. With Preface by
Mrs. Stipney Wess. London, National Committee
for the Prevention of Destitution, 1913.
Deterioration in Health and Efficiency.—The deterio-
ration of the national physique owing to overwork has
been a commonplace with the workers for over a century.
nation as a whole. In 1900, a year of unparalleled mili-
tary enthusiasm, when every grade of the industrial popu-
lation was contributing its quota to the army, 60 per cent.
of the persons offering themselves were unfit for mili-
tary service. The Committee of Inquiry which ensued
confirmed the impression as to the effect of over-fatigue
on physical deterioration. ... Its suggestion of further
- inquiry in this direction was not followed. Indeed, it
was hardly necessary. Numerous employers of labour,
including Lord Brassey, Sir John Brunner, Sir Alfred
Mond, Sir William Mather, and Mr. A. Crossfield, had
testified strongly to the detrimental effect of long hours
on the health of the workers. An even more authorita-
tive pronouncement has recently been made by a Commit-
But it needed the Boer War to impress this fact on the
tee of the United States Steel Corporation, the largest
employer of labour in the world. Its report, dated April,
1912, bears strong testimony to the decrease in vigour
and efficiency produced by continuous over-work. (Pp.
16-17.)
Fatigue. A. Mosso, Professor of Physiology in the Um-
versity of Turm. Translated by Margaret Drum-
mond, M. A., and W. B. Drummond, M. B., C. M.,
F.R.C.P. E., Extra Physician, Royal Hospital for
Sick Children, Edinburg. London. Swan Sonnen-
schem & Co., Ltd. New York, G. P. Putnam’s
Sons. 2nd Edition, 1906.
_ The ruin which the exhaustion of fatigue brings about
im man appears clearly in the degeneration of our race in
some parts of Italy. In the Province of Caltanisetta, for
example, in the four years between 1881 and 1884, out of
3,672 sulphur workers who presented themselves for ex-
597,
The Citizen as Soldier.—Italy
amination, only 203 were declared fit for military service;
1,634 were rejected ; 1,835 remanded for another examina-
tion; 1,249 were rejected as under the regulation height;
69 for deficiency of chest measurement; 64 for constitu-
tional weakness ; 25 for malformation of the chest; 43 for
hernia; 48 for spinal curvature; 20 for other physical
deformities ; 7 for varicocele; 18 for malarial cachexia;
18 for blindness; and 73 for various causes. Here then
1s a province under the lovely sky of Italy, with a fruitful
soil and in a land rich in natural talent, which out of
3,672 youths of twenty years of age, counts only 203 able
to bear arms. And when we think of our country, it is
with great sorrow and uneasiness that we read these
figures.
In the other provinces of Sicily at the same time,
about twelve per cent. were rejected for deficiency in
height. Out of 3,672 conscripts there would therefore be
about 440 rejected on this account, whereas in Caltanis-
setta there were 1,249, that is to say, about three times as
many.
The first time I went to Sicily I was sent thither in
the capacity of army surgeon, and the conduct of the
levy in the interior of the island was entrusted to me. I
still remember as if it had been today, a tiny church in
which close to the altar stood the inspectors, the lieuten-
ant of the carabineers, and the noisy crowd beyond the
balustrade. I went to see the conscripts behind the high
altar in the choir, and found there a line of youths, thin,
naked and blackened, and mingled with these, others who
were fat, plump and fair, as though they belonged to a
different race. These were the poor and the rich. Some-
times there passed before me all the conscripts of entire
communes, among whom not one could be found fit to bear
arms, so much had toil and fatigue deformed and weak-
ened the population.
The inspectors were humiliated by so much degrada-
tion. ‘‘They are carust,’’ they told me; that.is to say,
men who from childhood have worked as sulphur carriers.
(Pp. 158-159-160.)
598
The Citizen as Soldier—Germany
Die Naturwissenschaften. [The Natural Sciences]. Aw
gust 13, 1915. The Biological Influence of City
Infe. H. FEHLINGER.
The greater frequency of mental maladies in cities is
in part ascribed to the fact that people suffering from
them, even if they come from the country, are for the
most part placed in city institutions. Whether these
diseases occur more frequently among people born or
grown up in the city or in the country population has not
yet to my knowledge been proved. It is possible, how-
ever, and even probable, for in the strain of the city frail
mental constitutions must naturally break down more
easily than in the quiet of country life. This does not
mean, however, that city life is responsible for their low
power of resistance; rather it has made this apparent,
while in the country it would have remained concealed.
Moreover, it would have probably been transmitted to a
larger number of descendants, while the breakdown
which happens in the city usually occurs in the midst of
the active period of life and puts an end to further
transmission of the constitutional weakness. This is
true also not only of lower mental resistance, but quite
as much in regard to the inclination to other infirmities
or diseases which depend on defective heredity. . . -
(Pp. 429-430.)
The causes of the excess of mortality in cities are
probably primarily of a social nature. It is known that
the mortality among the urban laboring classes is by far
the greatest, and that ther suffer the most adverse con-
ditions. Moreover, it should be specially noted that it is
just among these that there are to be found a large num-
ber from the country who are not bred to city life, and
therefore more subject to selective urban influences than
natives. It is very striking, too, how industrial laborers
coming from the country to the city deteriorate in the
new surroundings. One involuntarily receives the im-
pression that the strong and healthy aspect of these
people is rather deceptive. The city man may look less
strong and blooming to begin with, yet may evince great-
er powers of resistance.
599
The Citizen as Soldier.—Germany
It is questionable whether country children come into
the world any stronger than city children. This is com-
monly said, but far from being proved. . . .
According to recruiting statistics, the country popula-
tion shows a stronger general physique at maturity than
that of the city—assuming, that is, that there is no tend-
ency to enlist the rural rather than the city people. Dr.
W. Claasen shows that the number of young men fit for
service born in the country and engaged in agriculture
sank from 61 per cent. in 1902 to 58.7 per cent. in 1907.
Among those country-born, but employed industrially, the
percentage fell at the same time from 60.2 to 57.5.
Among those city-born and engaged in agriculture the de-
crease was from 60.1 per cent. to 56.8 per cent; and amon
those city-born and engaged in industry it was from 54.
per cent. to 49.9 per cent. In considering these figures
it must be remembered that the strength of the army
remained unchanged while the number of recruits called
on for service was increased. .. . (P. 430.)
But even if the rural population is distinguished by
greater corporeal strength, this is no evidence of greater
biological resistance. Modern city Kultur is still very
recent, and from the biological standpoint it is not to be
regarded as possible that in the short time in which it has
been an influential factor it could have caused the de-
generation of the masses ascribed to it. Even if it be
admitted that through external conditions affecting the
nutrition of the germ-plasm an indirect influence is ex-
erted on inheritance, whose consequence might be that
in the offspring certain qualities are less developed than
are desirable for the welfare of the race, even then it is
quite improbable that the economic changes of the last
few decades could have occasioned a noticeable constitu-
tional impairment of the people.
The standard of living of the masses has especially
in the cities been decidedly improved; danger from trade
poisons is increasingly avoided; the consumption of alco-
hol is diminishing; and the war on disease, especially on
the social diseases has made great progress. . . . Who-
ever assumes an injury to the germ plasm from such
causes must admit that the dangers have been decreased.
600
The Citizen as Soldier.—Germany
But the fact remains that in cities the struggle for ex-
istence is as a rule keener than in the country, and that
therefore congenital defects sooner come to light... .
This would also explain the lower percentage of military
fitness in cities. (P. 481.)
Archiv fiir Rassen-und Gesellschaftsbiologie. Jahrgang
6, Heft 1, 1909. Die abnehmende Kriegstichtigkert
im Deutschen Reich in Stadt und Land von 1902
bis 1907. [The Decrease of Fitness for Military
Service in the German Empire in City and Coun-
try from 1902 to 1907.] Dr. W. CraasEn.
Since 1902, in connection with the national effort to
heighten our military efficiency, the fitness of the recruits
for military service has been established with special
reference to those from the city and from the country
and those engaged in industry and in agriculture.
General View of the German Empire.
Fit for Ser- Percentage of Fitness among those
Recruits Examined vice in line Examined
1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907
I. Country-born. :
a. engaged in ag-
riculture ...... 129,571 76,100 61.0 60.0 59.1 60.2 60.2 58.7
b. engaged in in-
e PGUBtIY scsi ois 185,772 106,783 60.2 59.2 58.2 58.5 58.3 57.5
II. City-born.
a. engaged in ag-
riculture ...... 15,624 8,874 60.1 57.9 58.0 57.8 586 568
b. engaged in in-
dustry ........ ~ 199,367 99,420 54.7 53.0 526 51.3 505 49.9
Summary for Ger- 4
MANY sasanvaniana 530,334 291,197 58.5 57.1 564 563 55.9 549
Difference between .
I-a and II-b..... 6.3 7.0 6.5 8.9 9.7 8.8
According to these figures the fitness for military
service has markedly decreased in the last five years.
. . . We must then assume that the physical efficiency
of the German population is still declining.
This decline involves both city and country popula-
tions, but the latter to only about one-half the same de-
gree. The main mass of the country population is
naturally country-born. There is no return movement
from city to country worth mentioning. The city-born
601
The Citizen as Soldier.—Germany
agricultural workers for the most part are born in small
towns with a considerable agricultural population. Re-
cruiting statistics define as cities all places with more
than 2,000 inhabitants. As we further see, country birth
acts steadily as a factor in the maintenance of strength.
In general we may see by the table, the percentage of
fitness declines with the degree of urbanisation. . . .
The city-born industrial population averaging the
years 1903-1907 is 8.1% less fit for service than the
eountry-born agricultural population. If we consider
specific parts of the country we see that this difference
is the more marked in proportion to the density of popu-
lation. sos <
The decline in military fitness which on many sides is
still contested, may be proved since 1893. The earlier
figures of the recruiting statistics are not comparable
with those since 1893. The percentage of men fit for ser-
vice in the line, not counting those who were fit but ex-
cused from service on account of personal affairs (1903-
1907: 1.7 of all recruits), averaged by five years were as
follows:
DOT sncencnatnanmeiamegnnnameas 50.8%
1898-1902...
TOUSEN steiireatssanecreat erecta inant
The decline then is slow but incontestable; apparently,
however, it is growing steadily faster. (Pp. 73-76.)
Archiv fiir Rassen-und Gesellschaftsbiologie. Jahrgang
6, Heft V. 1909. Stadt und Land als biologische
Umwelt. [City and Country as biological En-
vironment.| J. H. F. Konipruece.
It is true to be sure that to-day the city mortality is
in general higher than that in the country; but we must
take into account that the mortality in almost all cities
is falling; and we must give the cities time to adapt them-
selves to the increase of inhabitants before we pronounce
judgment on them. And judgment must primarily be
pronounced to-day not against city life as such but
against still defective sanitary or hygienic regulations.
602
The Citizen as Soldier—United States
Let us remark moreover that no one knows how the mor-
tality figures would stand for the country if all the fac-
tories in the cities were in the country. (P. 640.)
On the other hand we have to note, however, that
many investigations bear witness to the fact that life in
cities weakens the physique, that in cities for example
are found a large majority of men unfit for military ser-
vice, that rachitis, bad teeth, and narrow chests are
noticeable there much more often than in the country.
(P. 642.)
I will admit besides that the city-bred are in gen-
‘eral less healthy and strong than country people; that
moreover the expectation of life for men is less by four
years in cities than in the country, and it would be per-
haps still less, if there were not the constant drift from
the country. (P. 642.)
People v. Havnor, 149 N. Y., 195. (1896.)
It is to the interest of the State to have strong, ro-
bust, healthy citizens, capable of self-support, of bearing
arms and of adding to the resources of the country. Laws
to effect this purpose by protecting the citizen from over-
work, and requiring a general day of rest to restore his
strength and preserve his health have an obvious con-
nection with the public welfare. Independent of any
question relating to morals or religion, the physical wel-
fare of the citizen is a subject of such primary import-
ance to the State, and has such a direct relation to the
common good, as to make laws tending to promote that
object proper under the police power, and hence valid
under the constitution. . . . (P. 392.)
Increasing Organic Disease. The New Public Health
Problem. Address delivered before The Amert-
can Public Health Association, Rochester, Septem-
ber 9, 1915. E. E. Rirrennovuss, President Life
Extension Institute, Inc.
To sum up, the best available evidence shows that
American life waste from the degenerative diseases is
603
The Citizen as Soldier.—United States
excessive; that it is increasing rapidly, both in city and
in rural population, and among the native and foreign-
. born elements; that it is increasing in the younger age
groups, but in greater ratio in middle life and old age;
that this increased mortality has caused an increase in
the general death rate commencing with age group 40-50,
and that these increases do not occur in kindred nations
in Europe. In short, American vitality appears to be
declining. In view of this evidence may we not well con-
sider these questions:
Warships, guns, forts and munitions for national de-
fense are now subjects of serious public concern, and
properly so. But is it not time to give thought to the
physical efficiency of the men who are to handle these
defensive weapons now and in the future?
How much longer may we hope successfully to meet
the struggles of peace and war with the proportion of
inactive, flabby-muscled, low-powered Americans con-
stantly increasing?
How long can the nation endure with the physical fit-
ness of its producers and defenders steadily declining? |
This adverse trend is not only very marked but the
death rate from organic disease is very high. The life
waste from this cause is excessive. (Pp. 6-7.)
Our National Defense. The Patriotism of Peace. Grorcs
H. Maxweity. Rural Settlement Association.
Washington and New Orleans, 1915, University
Press, Cambridge.
If we are going to have a citizen soldiery in the
country, the first thing we had better set about is to
produce a soldierly citizenry. (P. 20.)
Industry will destroy humanity unless a national sys-
tem of life is universally adopted that will prevent racial
deterioration. (P. 123.) ; ;
Employers of labor are most directly responsible for
these evil conditions. They cannot shirk that responsi-
bility. They cannot evade the fact that the menace
’ against which we most need national defense arises from
604
The Citizen as Soldier.— United States
the degeneracy that we are breeding in our midst. If we
cannot do both, we had far better spend our national
energies and revenues in fighting the evils that are rotting
our citizenship, than in building forts and fortifications,
or maintaining a navy and an army for defense against
the remote possibility of attacks by other nations. (P.
124.)
Soldiers alone are not all that a nation needs for de-
fense, no matter how well they may be trained and
equipped, or drilled and officered, or supplemented by
naval strength or fortifications. The foundations on
which national defense must be built are social, economic
and human. The question involves every element of the
problem of preserving and perpetuating even-handed
justice to all, social stability, economic strength, inde-
pendence, a patriotic citizenship and a rugged, stalwart
and virile race. (P. 133.)
604a
war 3
The Citizen as Soldier.—United States.
Lhe Atlantic Monthly. April, 1916. Preparedness and
Democratic Discipline. | Gzorce W. Aucmr.
Ihave given . . . some statistics on the unfitness of
the English worker for service in the army. What are
the American statistics on the same subject? I have
before me as I write the statistics compiled by the United
States Marine Corps for the year 1915, showing the
number of applicants examined, those accepted for en-
listment, and the percentage accepted. For the whole
United States, the applicants were 41,168 in number. Of
these 3,833, or 9.31 per cent. were found physically fit
for the service; in other words, one man out of every
eleven examined. Eleven thousand and twelve men ap-
plied in New York City, and of these 316 were found
fit for service, or 2.869 per cent. Those who find them-
selves now suddenly interested in physical fitness as a
great element in military preparedness may profitably
consider these statistics. Industrial anarchy in peace
does not make for physical preparedness in war. (P.
483.)
The notion that preparedness is a mere military
thing, to be had by superimposing upon the most waste-
ful, extravagant, and inefficient army and navy estab-
lishment in the world a new mass of similar expenditures,
is a delusion. If we are so insistent upon preparation
for war, and if we are, as we say, still unprepared after
spending on such preparations over three billion dollars
in the last twenty years, exclusive of pensions, let us at
least in our preparation recognize an essential part of
its true basis. The power behind military Germany is
industrial Germany. The organization of German life
is doubtless extreme, but the current preparedness doc-
trines, however much they may differ on military or
naval estimates, agree at least in this: they ignore abso-
lutely every necessity for improving the industrial or-
ganization, the economic basis for national unity. Sweat-
shops, child-labor, industrial anarchy held in check by
martial law, the exploitation of the worker, lack of an
intelligent policy in handling the immigrant, industrial
accidents crippling and burdening the worker, indus-
604b
The Citizen as Soldier.—United States.
trial diseases unregulated and unprevented, the almost
total absence of effective labor legislation on the side of
inspection and regulation . . . all these and a hundred
others are true problems of preparedness which are to-
day ignored. . . . True preparedness calls, not merely
for an external, but for an internal and industrial pro-
gramme. (Pp. 485-486.)
605
IV. SHORTER HOURS THE ONLY POSSIBLE
PROTECTION.
A. OVERLONG HOURS MAKE LIGHTEST WORK
INJURIOUS.
The length of working hours, irrespective of the
nature of occupation, is in itself, a menace to health.
Industries not intrinsically dangerous and conducted
under good sanitary conditions may become harmful
through sheer lengthening of the working hours. Hven
the lightest work becomes totally exhausting when car-
ried on for an excessive length of time.
Moreover, the man who is employed 12 hours a day
is not allowed to leave the plant, except in rare instances,
even when the work is not continuous. He is thus on
duty and subject to orders more than three-quarters of
his waking hours.
United States Congress. Senate Document, No. 110. Re-
port on conditions of employment wm the Iron and
Steel Industry in the United States. Vol. I. Wages
and Hours of Labor. Sixty-second Congress. 1st
Session, 1911. Washington, 1911.
During the investigation those in charge of the plants
have in their discussions with representatives of the
Bureau frequently emphasized the fact that the men
working these very long hours are not kept busy all the
time. To a considerable extent this is perfectly true; but
the employees in question are on duty and subject to
orders during the entire period, and they are not, except
in rare instances, allowed to leave the plant. It should
not be overlooked that it is not simply the character or
the continuity of the work, but the fact that in the case
of the 12-hour-a-day man one-half of each 24 hours—more
than three-fourths of his waking hours—is spent on duty
in the mills, which is of significance to the worker and his
family. (P. 15.)
606
Overlong Hours Make Work Injurious.—United States
Hours of Labor in the Steel Industry. A Communication
to 15,000 Stockholders of the Umted States Steel
Corporation. Written after full investigation by
Joun A. Fircu, for Charles M. Cabot, 95 Milk
Street, Boston, a stockholder of the Steel Corpora-
tion, Boston, 1912.
But all these things are more or less beside the point.
Supposing it were true that the twelve-hour work is easy
and that there were no physical indications of overstrain.
The big fact, the only really vital and significant fact,
remains that a twelve-hour schedule denies a man all
true leisure. It isn’t leisure for a man to sit on a bench
in a steel mill waiting for his turn any more than it is for
a motorman at a street crossing, waiting for the signal
to proceed, or a machinist at his lathe, between times of
increasing the tension. .. .
It is the workman’s right to spend his leisure hours
outside the mill yard, and that is something that the
twelve-hour day denies him. (Pp. 11-12.)
aaa Cotton Ou Co. v. State, 60 Southern Rep., 775.
1918.)
The statute protects all employees in a designated
class without reference to the sanitary or unsanitary
condition of the establishment in which their work is
performed. The injurious consequences from which they
are protected are such as result from overwork of a cer-
tain character, and not such as result from unsanitary
surroundings. That it appears from the agreed state-
ment of facts ‘‘that the work in which these employees
were engaged in no manner impairs their health, physical
condition or moral nature, or that of the public,’”’ is also
immaterial, for the experience of mankind has demon-
strated that the contrary is the fact, when it is performed
daily for many consecutive hours.
Report of the Illinois Factory Inspectors. 1893.
The lightest occupations are rendered injurious by
long hours of labor. (P. 8.)
607
Overlong Hours Make Work Injurious.—Great Britain
Charities and the Commons, March 6, 1909. Vol. XXI.
No. 28. New York. Factory Inspection in Pitts-
burgh. Fuormnce Keurey, Secretary National
Consumers’ League; Former Chief Factory In-
spector, Illinois.
Injurious Conditions of Work.
Industries may be injurious by reason of the nature
of the machinery or of the material used (lead, sulphur,
acid, ete.) or of dust produced in the process (steel,
brass, cork, etc.) or of strain due to heat, cold, glare,
darkness, or speed. Finally, an industry not intrinsically
injurious may become so in a high degree by sheer
lengthening of working hours, particularly when the
workers are required to stand. (P. 1112.) —
Even where the . . . work was as simple as wrap-
ping caramels or packing crackers, the long hours ¢oin-
bined with enforced standing made'a harmless process
highly injurious. (P. 1115.) i
Evils of the Factory System. Demonstrated by Parlia-
mentary Evidence. CHARLES Wrna. London,
Saunders and Otley, 1887.
We must judge of the nature of an employment. by
its effects. Many employments require considerable
exertion of strength, and yet, from being less monoto-
nous, from requiring less of continued attentiveness, and
from being carried on in daylight and in the open air,
may be much less injurious than factory labour. But,
however light, however easy, however healthy an employ-
ment may be it may be so protracted as to become neither
light, nor easy, nor healthy, and that this has been: the
ease with the factory labour no one who reads the evi-
dence brought before the several committees that have
from time to time been appointed can for .a moment
doubt. (Pp. xxix-xxx.) . - i Lh a Fees Ser
: Tee eis a1 F2Re a le UY ge aR te
ihe “ho SEIT!
608
Overlong Hours Make Work Injurious.—Great Britain
The Eight Hours Day. Sipnexy Wess and Haroxp Cox.
London, Walter Scott, 1891.
The human body needs frequent change of surround-
ings, change of exercise, to keep it in perfect condition.
A man, and still more a woman, will suffer from pro-
tracted occupation at one particular task, even if that
task in itself is healthy enough. And of all the manual
work done in an advanced industrial community to-day,
how much is healthy in its nature or done under healthy
conditions? (Pp. 6-7.)
The arguments and facts which we have above
brought forward with regard to railway servants apply,
with only slight differences of detail, to the employes of
tramway and omnibus companies. The conditions of
labour of these most useful servants of the public are
about as bad as possible. The hours range from thirteen
to seventeen a day on tramears, and about the same on
omnibuses. In order not to overstate the case, however,
it may be admitted that anything beyond fourteen hours
a day is exceptional in the case of omnibuses. On tram-
ways it is to be feared that this limit is often overpassed,
and we have been informed, on the best authority, of
cases where a man is regularly kept at work seventeen
hours a day. Of course, too, it must be borne in mind
that trams and omnibuses run on Sundays as well as
week-days, and on many lines drivers and conductors
only get an occasional Sunday off. In one case reported
to us while collecting information on this subject, a tram-
car conductor had not had a single Sunday off for two
ears.
: It is impossible to speak too strongly about the bar-
barity of such a system as this. That the work of driv-
ing or conducting a tramcar is not in itself exhausting,
is no defense for such cruel prolongation. For however
light the work itself may be, it involves the loss of lib-
erty during the whole period over which it is continued.
A man who is tied fourteen or fifteen hours a day to a
moving car or ’bus has no liberty left him for reasonable
recreation, no liberty to see his wife and children and his
friends; no liberty ever for proper rest over his meals.
609
Overlong Hours Make Work Injurious.—Italy
He has only just enough spare time to get to his house
cle stow his supper inside him, and tumble into
ed.
Moreover, the actual work involved in a driver’s or
conductor’s occupation, though light enough for the first
half-hour or hour, or two hours, becomes a serious strain
towards the end of a long day... . (Pp. 81-82.)
About the unhealthiness of such conditions of life it
is hardly necessary to argue.
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XII. 1895. Report from
ae Select Committee on Shops (Early Closing)
al,
Witness, Dr. Percy Kidd, M. D., of University of Ox-
ford, Fellow of College of Physicians and Member of the
College of Surgeons. Attached to London Hospital and
Brompton Hospital.
5352. Would this be a fair way of putting it: it is
not the actual work of people in shops, but having to be
there and standing about and sitting about in bad air;
it is the long hours which is the injurious part of it?—
Quite so, the prolonged tension. (P. 218.)
British Sessional Papers. Vol. VI. 1901. Report from
the Select Committee of the House of Lords on
Early Closing of Shops.
Witness, Sir William S. Church, President of the
Royal College of Physicians:
2306. . . . The evils which arise, I think, in these
cases are those which arise rather from the long hours
of attendance than from the severity of the labour. (P.
108.)
Revue Internationale de Sociologie, Nov.-Dec., 1895. Le
Travail Humain et ses Lois. [The Laws of Human
Work.] Francesco 8. Nirri, University of
Naples. Paris, Giard et Briére, 1895.
But, says Lagrange, it is not solely the occupation
demanding great muscular exertion that produces ex-
610
Overlong Hours Make Work Injurious.—Germany
haustion, but it is often, and, in industrial life, almost
always, the occupation requiring a great number of
hours of work. In such cases, combustion is not very
active and its wastes have time to be eliminated; the
products of disassimilation do not necessarily accumu-
late in the organism and there is no auto-intoxication,
but what does happen is that much organic material is
used up and the organism suffers extensive losses. (P.
1034.)
Soziale Pathologie. Dr. AtrFrep Grotsaun. Berlin,
August Hirschwald, 1915.
Monotonous work is especially unhealthy. Modern
industry, unfortunately, with its division of labor to the
smallest detail, tends to replace the variety of hand work
with the monotony of the shop and factory. The result
is a more rapid fatigue of the worker, even in connection
with easy work.
Finally unduly prolonged working hours may in
themselves be injurious to health even if the work in it-
self is easy and healthful. We may say without exag-
geration that there is no work which hours prolonged to
the limit of the worker’s strength may not make a tor-
ment and a serious menace to health. On the other hand
many kinds of heavy and disagreeable work may be dis-
associated from many of their unhealthful features if
performed for a short time only or in alternation with
other kinds of work.
From these considerations it is clear that the regula-
tion of working hours is a matter of the highest concern
for the student of social hygiene as well as for the student
of political science. (P. 467.)
Jahresberichte der Gewerbe-Aufsichtsbeamten und Berg-
behorden fiir das Jahr 1907. Bd. III. [Reports
of the (German) Factory and Mine Inspectors for
1907. Vol. III.] Berlin, Decker, 1908.
Bremen.
While it is quite true that in most cases their work is,
by itself, not unreasonable in its demands upon their
611
Overlong Hours Make Work Injurious.—Germany
strength, yet when even easy tasks are performed in con-
nection with highly perfected, rapidly speeded machin-
ery, and are continued for hours and repeated thousands
of times, they then constitute work that makes very great
demands not only upon the physical endurance, but also
upon the nervous system. (P. 24, 4°.)
Proceedings of the Fifth Meeting of the International As-
sociation for Labor Legislation. Lucerne, 1908.
Jena, Fischer, 1909.
Factory Inspector Furst:
A celebrated hygienist of Germany, Prof. Sommer-
feld, says: ‘‘Overstrain may be either the result of un-
reasonably hard work, or of hours of work that are too
long even though the processes of work do not make spe-
cial demands upon muscular strength. In both cases the
same results appear in course of time, sooner, in propor-
tion as other dangers are involved in the occupation, or
the organism of the worker is younger and less resistant,
or the social conditions of the workers more wretched.
(Pp. 124-125.)
Die Krankheiten der Arbeiter. Bd. 2. [The Diseases of
Working People. Vol. 2.] Dr. Lupwiac Hrrr.
Leipzig, 1878.
In the second place the working time must be consid-
ered, because in this factor of work lies the greatest pos-
sibility of exhausting the strength by forced exertion.
(P. 266.)
No attitude of the body is harmful in itself; only in
prolonging it until it produces harmful results; all the
well-known disturbances, such as varicose veins, etc., etc.,
arise, not through sitting or standing, but through ex-
cessively prolonged sitting or standing. (P. 268.)
Verhandlungen des Retchstags, 101. Sitzwng, 16. April,
1891. [Proceedings of the (German) Reichstag,
101st Session, April 16, 1891.]
' Representative Grillenberger:
If I am told that the laws already protect men from
612
Overlong Hours Make Work Injurious——Germany
over-long hours in dangerous employments or those
which injure the health of the employee, I reply that
therein is a proof of our correctness in demanding a gen-
eral legal working day. The health of the worker is
bound to be injured by over-long hours in any line of
work, no matter what it is, and if the Bundesrath wishes
to be logical, then it must take the position that the prin-
ciple already acknowledged in that section of the law
must be extended uniformly. It will be more rational to
regulate conditions with foresight, by the law, than to
leave them to work themselves out by slower methods.
(P. 2364.)
Handbuch der Hygiene. Bd. &. [Handbook of Hygiene.
Vol. &.] Edited by Dr. THzoporr Wer. Allge-
meine Gewerbehygiene und Fabrikgesetzgebung.
[General Industrial Hygiene and Factory Legis-
lation.]. Dr. Emm Rotu. Jena, 1894.
When we take up the question of the effect of special
trades upon morbidity and mortality, it must be premised
that the idea of industrial diseases or occupational dis-
eases in the ordinary sense of the term is inaccurate, for
the specific so-called dangers of trades as such are not in-
separably bound up with those trades, as the special
hygiene of the factory proves daily. Only in so far as
the length of working time, and severity of physical or
mental labor are concerned in the various trades, or the
necessarily close crowding in closed rooms in one or
another occupation, can we speak of the different effects
3) different kinds of occupation upon the organism. (P.
Jahresberichte des Gewerbe-Aufsichtsbeamten im Kénig-
reich Wiirttemberg fiir das Jahr 1902. [Reports
of the Factory Inspectors in the Kingdom of Wiirt-
temberg for 1902.| Stuttgart, Lindemann, 1903.
. . . Reduction of hours does not keep pace with ad-
vances in technique . . . where there is an obvious tend-
ency to make use of human power to the fullest possible
613
Overlong Hours Make Work Injurious.—Germany
extent. This is especially true in the textile mills, where
certain older processes are modified by new contrivances.
The result now is that, while the wages of skilled spinners
(women) have risen about 12 or 13 per cent., the number
of spindles on which they must concentrate attention for
11 hours has been raised from 500 to 750, an increase of
50 per cent. This is not quite the same as saying that the
strain upon the spinners is 50 per cent. greater, since a
certain number of helpers are provided. Nevertheless
the attention and skill demanded are much greater than
was formerly the case. Such examples make it plain
that, with this increasing intensity of strain in work, the
hours of work must be correspondingly shortened if the
people are to be protected from ruin of their health.
(Pp. 74-5.)
Handbuch der Arbetterwohlfahrt. Bd. II. [Handbook
of the General Welfare of the Working Classes.
Vol. II.] Edited by Dr. Otto Dammuesr. Arbeiter-
schutz. [Protection of Working People.] Dr.
Ascuer. Stuttgart, Enke, 1902.
The long working hours also explain the well-known
fact that waiters and waitresses are ‘‘used up’’ at a com-
paratively early age. . . . The effect of work carried on
during long hours in badly ventilated places is also im-
portant... . It is clear that many of these evils can be
remedied only by shortening the working hours. (P. 70.)
Jahresberichte der Gewerbe-Aufsichtsbeamten im Konig-
reich Wiirttemberg fiir das Jahr 1903. [Reports
of the Factory Inspectors in the Kingdom of Wirt-
temberg, 1903.] Stuttgart, Lindemann, 1904.
This uncontested fact of rising claims upon the physi-
cal and mental capacity of the workman, which is more
or less strikingly evident in every department of labor,
has in recent years brought the question of shorter hours
to the front. The necessity of compensation through
shorter hours is not only recognized by the inspectors, but
by many employers as well. (P. 96.)
614
B. THE REMEDY: SHORTER HOURS.
A decrease of the intensity of exertion in industry is
not feasible. The needed protection, therefore, can be
afforded only through shortening the hours of labor.
Wealth and Progress. Grores Gunton. New York, Apple-
ton, 1887.
In proportion as the use of improved machinery is
extended, and the specialization of labor is increased, does
this labor become physically and nervously more ex-
hausting; and in proportion as this pressure increases,
unless the working time is correspondingly reduced, the
laborer’s susceptibility to the refining and elevating influ-
ences of his social environment is lessened and his leisure
moments find him dull and indifferent to all moral and po-
litical influences. (P. 359.)
Report of the United States Industrial Commission.
Final Report. Vol. XIX. 1902.
It is certain that any programme for reducing this
intensity of exertion must fail. The entire tendency of
industry is in the direction of an increased exertion. Any
restrictions on output must work to the disadvantage of
American industry, and the employers are often right in
their demand, usually successful, that such restrictions
be abandoned. This being true, there is but one alterna-
tive if the working population is to be protected in its
health and trade longevity, namely, a reduction of the
hours of labor. (P. 764.) __
So far as restriction of product is designed to avoid
excessive strain and to preserve the health and strength
of the workers, the object is legitimate, and the method
might be sanctioned if there were no better; but the same
end may be attained in another way, which is more ad-
vantageous to the worker himself and which offers less
ground for condemnation. Deliberate slackening of ac-
tivity seems directly contrary to the principles of indus-
try, and it alienates the sympathy of every one outside
the wage-earning class. Diminution of working hours
615
The Remedy: Shorter Hours.—Great Britain
brings as great physical relief to the worker, and it offers
social advantages which men of every class can appreci-
ate. The enjoyment of home, the opportunity for intel-
lectual cultivation, the possibility of stimulating new and
higher desires—these things are visible to all and ap-
proved by all. (P. 820.)
Industrial Conference under the Auspices of the National
Civic Federation. New York, 1902. The Eight-
hour Day. Prof. Gzorce Gunton, Institute of So-
cial Economics. New York, The Winthrop Press,
1903.
The factory system makes this (shortening hours)
more and more necessary in proportion as it is perfected
in its mechanism. It becomes all the time more and more
exacting. The greater the perfection of the machinery
or the method, the more attention is required. (P. 173.)
The remedy for this cannot be found in slackening up
on the demands for economic output and effectiveness in
the machinery. . . . The remedy for that must come on
the other side, shortening the day, not slackening the ef-
fort. The tension may not be lessened, but the hours may
be reduced. The exhaustion of the laborer must be
avoided, but it cannot be avoided by reducing production
... they must have relief by lessening the duration of
the pressure every day. (Pp. 174-175.)
The Eight Hours Day. Sidney Webb and Harold Coz.
London, Walter Scott, 1891.
In the large iron industries, again, constant alterna-
tions between fierce heat and the cold of the outer air
are trying even to the most robust constitutions. Num-
berless industries also have specially noxious features,
as, for example, the white lead industry, house painting,
plumbing, fur pulling, etc., etc. And so we might go on
through all the trades of the country showing the posi-
tive unhealthiness of the large majority of them. Doubt-
less in many cases a great deal of this unhealthiness
might be removed by a little care on the part of the men,
and a little expenditure on the part of the masters. But
616
The Remedy: Shorter Hours.—Austria
when all has been done in this direction that can be done,
the great bulk of the manual work of the country must
carry with it incidents of unhealthiness. Consequently
the only way to diminish the ill effect on the human body
is to diminish the period in each day during which the
body is exposed to these noxious incidents. (Pp. 140-
141.)
Canada Labor Gazette, August, 1903. Report of British
Columbia Royal Labor Commission. Dawson.
Ottawa.
The report concludes with a recommendation as to the
shortening of the hours of labor. ‘‘In these days,’’ say
the Commissioners, ‘‘when the human energies are
strained to their utmost amid whirling dust and machin-
ery, long hours are a crime against nature. The ma-
chine should be the servant of man, and not man the slave
of the machine. One of the most legitimate modes in
which a legislature can aid in improving the condition of
the workmen is by the shortening of hours.’’ (P. 136.)
Eighth International Congress of Hygiene and Demogra-
phy. Budapest, 1894. Vol. VI, Sec. V. Uber das
Verhdltmss der Dauer des Arbettstages zur Ge-
sundheit des Arbeiters und dessen Ewnfluss auf
die Offentliche Gesundheit. [The Length of the
Working Day wm its Relation to the Workman’s
Health and its Influence woon Public Health.)
Dr. E. R. J. Krescsr, Vice-Secretary of the Cham-
ber of Commerce in Budapest. Budapest, 1896.
In branches of industry where machinery is used, the
normal working day of which the worker is fully capable
is shorter in proportion as machinery is more complicated
and the demands made upon the intelligence, attention
and memory of the worker are more incessant.
Such workers expend both their mental and physical
strength in strenuous exertion, and thus their normal
energy is sooner exhausted and the injurious results of
overstrain become evident earlier than in simpler forms
of labor. (P. 326.)
617
The Remedy: Shorter Hours.—Germany
Archiv fiir Unfallhedkunde, Gewerbehygiene, und Gewer-
bekrankheiten. Bd. I. Uber den Gesundheits-
schutz der Gewerblichen Arbeiter. [Protection of
the Workingman’s Health.) Dr. Scuazrer. Stutt-
gart, Enke, 1896.
The more technic is perfected, the more complicated
the machine and the more rapid its speed, the greater
are the demands made upon the workman and the more
important it becomes to shorten his hours of work.
(P. 204.)
Die Pathologie wnd Therapie der Neurasthenie. [Patho-
logy and Therapeutics of Neurasthenia.] Dr. Orro
Bryswaneer, Professor of Psychiatry and Director
of the Psychiatric Hospital at Jena. Jena, Fischer,
1896.
General prophylaxis will find its most pressing duty
to lie in the protection of those members of society who
are still healthy, from immoderate demands upon their
strength. As, on account of the competition in all classes
of society, it is hardly possible to relax intensity of work
for any one individual without destroying his chances for
success, a general plan of hygienic regulation of work
must be adopted with a view to the preservation of racial
vigor, and the working energy demanded shall be re-
duced enough to allow rest and recreation in ample ex-
tent for every one. (P. 358.)
Amtliche Mittheilungen aus den Jahresberichten der
Gewerbe-Aufsichtsbeamten. XXII. 1897. [Of-
ficial Information from Reports of the (German)
Factory Inspectors.) Berlin, Bruer, 1898.
The demand for shorter hours of work is justified by
the hardships in which modern industry has plunged the
whole working class. In a comparatively short time, for
instance, machinery of much greater speed has been in-
stalled in a number of branches of industry. Even the
young, industrious workman must stretch every nerve to
keep up with the speeding process necessitated by ma-
chinery. (P. 156.)
618
The Remedy: Shorter Hours.—Germany
Machine work allows no time for rest and variety, the
workman’s nerves suffer, and when, as sometimes hap-
pens, his Sunday’s rest is taken from him, he breaks
down. Older workmen cannot accommodate themselves
to this pace, and the rapidity of development has been
such that a gradual adaptation to the altered conditions
is for them absolutely out of the question. The result is
that older people are excluded more and more from fac-
tory work. (P. 157). No unsatisfactory results appear.
to have followed in any instance where hours have been
shortened. (P. 158.)
Gesammelte Abhandlungen. Bd. III. [Complete works.
Vol. IJI] Iie Volkswirthschaftliche. Bedeutung
der Verkurzung des Industriellen Arbeitstages.
[The Economic Significance of a Shorter Working
Day.|. Ernst Asse. Paper read before the Eco-
nomic Society at Jena m 1901. Jena, Fischer,
1906.
On the one hand, it must be admitted that daily mo-
notonous labor has a stupefying influence; on the other,
that technical and scientific demands create a continu-
ous strain upon intelligence; hence there is only one way
to restore a balance:—by giving some opportunity for
natural intelligence to develop, by concentrating daily
toil into the shortest possible time and leaving the longest
possible time for rest and intellectual stimulus, that peo-
ple may not be made stupid, but, in spite of the monotony
of their daily tasks, may retain the capacity for interest
in other things. (Pp. 237-238.)
Jahresberichte der Gewerbe-Aufsichtsbeamten im Konig-
reich Wirttemberg fiir das Jahr 1902. [Reports
of the Factory Inspectors in the Kingdom of Wiirt-
temberg for 1902.] Stuttgart, Lindemann, 1908.
But this reduction of hours does not keep pace with
advances in technique ... where there is an obvious
tendency to make use of human power to the fullest pos-
sible extent. This is especially true in the textile mills,
where certain older processes are modified by new con-
619 .
The Remedy: Shorter Hours.—Germany
trivances. ... The result now is, that, while the wages of
skilled spinners (women) have risen about 12 or 13 per
cent., the number of spindles, on which they must concen-
trate attention for 11 hours, has been raised from 500
to 750—an increase of 50 per cent. This is not quite the
same as saying that the strain upon the spinners is 50
per cent. greater, since a certain number of helpers are
provided, nevertheless the attention and skill demanded
are much greater than was formerly the case. . . . Such
examples make it plain that, with this increasing intensity
of strain in work, the hours of work must be correspond-
ingly shortened if the people are to be protected from
ruin of health. (Pp. 74-75.)
Jahresberichte der Gewerbe-Aufsichtsbeamten im Konig-
reich Wirttemberg fiir das Jahr 1908. [Reports of
the Factory Inspectors in the Kingdom of Wirt-
temberg for 1903.|] Stuttgart, Lindemann, 1904.
To-day the technical development of industry leads to
ever and ever greater demands upon the intensity and
attention of the worker. When the speed of the machine
is greatest, then the workman has more given to him to
attend to. This uncontested fact of rising claims upon
the physical and mental capacity of the workman, which
is more or less strikingly evident in every department of
labor, has in recent years brought the question of shorter
hours to the front. The necessity of compensation
through shorter hours is not only recognized by the in-
spectors, but by many employers as well. (P. 96.)
Handwérterbuch der Staatswissenschaften. Bd. I. [Com-
pendium of Political Science. Vol. I.] Edited by
Drs. J. Conran, Professor of Political Science in
Halle; L. Ester, Ober Reg. Rath in Berlin; W.
Lexis, Professor of Political Science in Gottingen;
and Epa. Lornine, Professor of Law in Halle. Ar-
beitseeit. [Hours of Work.] Dr. H. Herxnsr,
Berlin. Jena, Fischer, 1909.
The workman sees in reduction of working hours the
surest remedy for all the dangers that arise from his
620
The Remedy: Shorter Hours.—Switzerland.
work, and that menace him with premature exhaustion
of his working power, his only capital. The more piece
work and speeding stimulate the intensity of production,
the more quickly a dangerous degree of fatigue is likely
to appear, resulting from the one-sided exertion of eer-
tain nerves or muscles (a feature of the subdivision of
labor). (P. 1204.)
Intensiveness of work means progress for the worker,
so long as the tempo keeps within customary bounds; that
is, while speed can be maintained without requiring con-
tinuous new impulses of will-power. If, in spite of shorter
hours, intensiveness of work leads to chrome over-fatigue,
then it is just as necessary to overcome that evil as the
over-fatigue resulting from overlong hours of less in-
tensity. (P. 1217.)
An das Schweiz. Industriedepartement, Bern, die Eid-
genossischen-Fabrikinspectoren. [Report of the
Swiss Factory Inspectors to the Swiss Department
of Labor on the Revision of the Factory Lais.]
Schaffhausen, 1904.
As technique becomes more developed, machinery
more complicated, and the pace swifter, so mueh more
insistent become the demands of the workers and the
claims of hygienists for a shorter work day as a physio-
logical necessity. (P. 23.)
When we consider the great. material advantages of
modern industry in being cnabled to ceonomize material
by the use of water power day and night, by keeping its
furnaces forever burning, and so on, it seems as if it
might well be in place to ceonomize also the strength of
the people by shortening their shifts of work. (Pp. 34-35.)
621
V. ECONOMIC ASPECT OF REDUCING HOURS.
A. GENERAL BENEFIT TO COMMERCIAL
PROSPERITY.
The experience of those manufacturing countries
which have longest had the short working day, shows
that commercial prosperity is not hampered by the cur-
tailment of hours. The increased efficiency of the work-
ers due to shorter working hours, together with the gen-
eral improvement of industrial communities in physique
and morals, reacts so favorably upon output that commer-
cial prosperity is heightened rather than impaired.
The Employment of Children in Manufactories. Letter
to the Earl of Liverpool. New Lanark. 1818.
Rosert Owen.
Is it or is it not the interest of the master manufac-
turers that their operatives should be employed longer
than ten hours per day?
The most substantial support to the trade, commerce,
and manufactures of this and of every country, are the
laboring classes of its population; and the real pros-
perity of any nation may be at all times accurately as-
certained by the amount of wages, or the extent of the
comforts, which the productive classes can obtain in re-
turn for their labor. It is evident that food must be pro-
cured by the working man and his family before ie can
purchase any other article. If therefore this class of
our population is so degraded and oppressed, that they
can only procure the bare necessaries of life, they are
lost as eustomers to the manufacturer; and it is to be rec-
ollected that at least two-thirds of the population of all
countries derive their immediate support from the wages
of labor, and in this country chiefly from trade and manu-
factures. When ignorance, overwork, and low wages
are combined, not only is the laborer in a wretched situa-
tion, but all the higher classes are essentially injured, al-
622
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity.—Great Britain
though none will suffer in consequence more severely
than the master manufacturer, for the reason which has
been before stated. Let your minds dwell a little longer
on this subject, and you will soon discover that it is most
obviously your interest that your operatives should be
well taught in infancy, and during their future lives
rendered healthy, and put in possession of the means of
being good customers to you. But they cannot be well
taught, healthy, or competent to spend moderate wages
advantageously for themselves, for you, and for the
country, if they enter into your employment at a pre-
mature age, and are afterwards compelled to exhaust
their physical powers by unreasonable labor, without
proper relaxation and leisure. By such short-sighted
practices you cut up your prosperity by the root, and
most effectually kill the goose from which you would oth-
erwise daily receive the golden egg.
I can have no motive to deceive you. My whole pe-
cuniary interest is embarked in the same cause with
you. I am one of yourselves, and should suffer more
than the majority of you by any measure that really in-
jured the manufacturing system. (Pp. 34-35.)
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XXIII. 1850. Reports
of Inspectors of Factories for the Half-year end-
ing April 30, 1850.
I am happy to be able to give some strong proofs
that the Ten Hours’ Act has not been productive of those
ruinous consequences to trade which some predicted
would inevitably follow, and that it has not had the effect
of deterring persons from entering into the business and
investing fresh capital in it, whether in building new
mills or in extending works already existing, from an
apprehension that ten hours’ work could not yield a
remunerative profit. There are many instances of addi-
tional machinery where there was previously unemployed
power, and numerous instances of a change in the firm,
implying also new investments of capital. And if we
take into account the vast increase since 1834, not only
623
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity.—Great Britain
of cotton mills, but of woolen, worsted, flax, and silk
factories, it may be confidently maintained that the legis-
lative restrictions imposed in that year and since, while
they have vastly improved the condition of the operatives
employed in them, cannot be charged with having thrown
impediments in the way of a steadily progressive im-
provement in all these branches of trade. (Pp. 5-6.)
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XL. 1852-1853. Reports
of Inspectors of Factories for Half-year ending
April 30, 1853.
If those who in 1833 predicted (and there were some
of great authority among our political economists who
did so) the ruin of our manufacturers if the then pro-
posed restrictions on factory labor were adopted, will
now fairly and candidly look at the results of this great
practical experiment in legislation, whether in relation
to the improved condition of the factory workers, or to
the increase of mills and to the fortunes since made in
every department of manufacture subject to the law, they
must, I think, admit that they have seen ground to make
them pause before they in future condemn measures for
elevating the moral and social condition of the humbler
classes by the regulation of their labor, as being opposed
to principle; for the factory legislation has been proved
to be in entire accordance with principle, even with that
of the production of wealth, when the term principle is
understood in an enlarged and comprehensive sense.
(P. 21)
British Sessional Papers. Vol XVIII. 1856. Report of
Inspector of Factories for Half-year Ending Oc-
tober 31, 1855.
All the branches subject to the law have pros-
pered and as regards cotton factories to an extent that
they have been multiplied by at least one-fourth since the
Act of 1833 came into operation. . . . The Factory
Act of 1833 set the bold example to other nations of a
624
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity.—Great Britain
great manufacturing country limiting in the face of for-
midable competitors the hours of labor in factories for
the manufacture of textile fabrics. The example of Eng-
land had followers on the continent. Other countries in
which the evils of unrestricted and excessive labor in
factories had become apparent, though the evils had be-
come apparent to the Governments under different cir-
cumstances from those which excited attention in Eng-
land, acknowledged that the limitation of the hours of
labor within moderate bounds was as necessary for the
welfare of the population as it had proved to be in Eng-
land, and might be carried out with as little risk to the
general prosperity of the manufacturer as it had been
in England. (P. 57.)
A vast number of the employers of labor assert the
soundness of the principle of limiting the duration of
labor and the development of the principle in this country
has certainly attracted followers rather than created op-
ponents. . . . The factory laws were enacted for the
benefit of the employed, but under the full persuasion that.
they would prove innocuous to the interests of the em-
ployers, that anticipation, I believe, has in the main been
verified; and in referring to the factory laws of France
and their operation, I speak as fully persuaded that the
uniform application of the principle of limited inter-
ference between employer and employed is advantageous
a ey and certainly not mischievous to the former. (Pp.
-77.
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XII. 1859. Report of
Inspector of Factories for Half-year ending 31st
October, 1858.
It is most satisfactory to reflect that the experience of
nearly a quarter of a century has proved the wisdom of
Parliament in this humane legislation; that while the
condition of persons employed in factories has been
greatly improved by their protection from excessive
labour, the restrictions have in no degree interfered with
the prosperity of those branches of trade to which the
625
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity.—Great Britain
Acts apply, as I shall presently show by the clearest evi-
dence.... It has been repeatedly said to me by mill
owners and other persons living in the manufacturing
districts that the Factory Acts have immensely improved
the character, manners and general condition of the op-
eratives. That they have in no way interfered with the
progress and improvement of the branches of trade to
which they apply is demonstrated by the following facts.
In 22 years the number of cotton mills is nearly
doubled and the persons employed therein more than
doubled; that the number of woolen and worsted mills
has considerably decreased, but that the number of per-
sons employed therein has more than doubled, showing
that the larger mills have extinguished a considerable
proportion of the smaller ones; that the same thing may
be observed, although in a less degree, with regard to
the flax mills; and that the number of silk mills has been .
doubled and the number of persons employed in them
nearly so. (Pp. 8-9.)
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XXXIV. 1860. Report
of Inspectors of Factories for Half-year ending
October 31, 1859.
With regard to production, an analysis of the value
of our exports in 1858 shows an increase of £21,231,032
over 1844, when the amended Factory Act came into
operation. Of course I am not claiming this large in-
crease on account of the Factory Acts, far from it, I only
quote it to show that production has not been interfered
with by them. (P. 53.)
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XXIV. 1866. Reports
of Inspectors of Factories for Half-year ending
81st October, 1865.
Moreover, to assume that so to limit the hours of la-
bour would be to destroy any branch of a particular
trade is to assume that we have arrived at the end of
mechanical and chemical science, and that there remains
626
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity.—Great Britain
no more capital to be expended. . . . In no trade
already under restriction from the longest possible
hours to 60 hours’ work a week, has production been di-
minished, or have the interests of the masters been in-
juriously affected; whilst it has become an axiom that
overwork is never good work, seldom profitable, and al-
ways prejudicial to the physical and moral condition of
the workers. (P. 82.)
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XIV. 1868-1869. Re-
ports of Inspectors of Factories.
In conclusion we think we may point with satisfac-
tion to the results of past legislation in this direction,
seeing that in spite of the opposition, and deterring
predictions hurled against it, our commercial intercourse
-and prosperity is extending with a corresponding in-
erease of national wealth. (P. 314.)
The case for an Eight-Hours’ Bil. London: Published
for the Fabian Society by Joun Heywoop, 1891.
(Fabian Tracts, No. 23).
Will shorter hours ruin our commerce? The capi-
talists and newspapers say so; but they ignore, as they
have always ignored, the industrial advantages of the
improved health and increased intelligence which fol-
low upon the enjoyment of adequate daily leisure. Sev-
enty-five years ago our cotton mills commonly worked
ninety and one hundred hours per week. By successive
stages these hours have been brought down to fifty-six
and a half. At every stage it has been conclusively
‘‘nroved’”’ by the manufacturers that the proposed new
restriction of hours would deprive them of all margin
of profit, would raise the price of the commodity, lower
the wages of the workers, and destroy the export trade.
Yet the result has over and over again shown that man-
ufacturers and theorists alike were wrong; the hours of
work have been successively reduced, without diminu-
tion of production, fall of wages, rise of prices, or slack-
ening of trade. (P. 10.)
627
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity.—Great Britain
The E.ght Hours Day. Swney Wess and Haron Cox,
B. A. London, Walter Scott, 1891.
As regards the effect upon prices and the export
trade, the following table is conclusive.
EXPORT OF BRITISH COTTON GOODS.
Quantities in
Millions. Per Inhabitant.
‘ Yards Lbs. Value Yards Lbs. Value
Average of Ten of of in of of in
Years. Cloth, Yarn. Thousands. Cloth. Yarn. Shillings.
1821-30 .............. 340 39 £17,210 15 2 15
TBBT40 wacccccccese 589 90 21,390 23 4 16
Factory Acts,
1831, 1833,
1841-50 ...... 965 137 24,215 35 a i7
Factory Acts,
1844, 1847,
1850, 1851-60 1,988 171 38,030 70 6 27
Factory Acts,
1852, 1856,
TS6I-70 sisccnes 2,444 136 59,620 81 4 40
Factory Acts,
1861, 1863,
1864, 1867,
1870, 1871- :
BO) rei ccecsteceeeets 3,693 222 71,930 110 7 43
Factory Acts,
1874, 1878...
(Pp. 96-97.)
Shorter Working Day. R. A. Haprretp, of Hadfield’s
Steel Foundry Co., Sheffield, and H. ve B. Grs-
pins, M. A. London, Methuen, 1892.
There are two very important sets of facts to be ob-
tained upon this question of the previous effects of a re-
duction of working hours, and these facts come, not from
Australia or any other country whose conditions we
might grant were different from our own, but from Eng-
land itself. We refer to the results shown in the work-
ing of the Factory Acts which reduced the hours of la-
bour not by one or two, but by three, four, and even six
hours per day, and which nevertheless, as everybody
628
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity.—Great Britain
now admits, have been of immense benefit, not only to
the working classes, but to the nation at large, and have
caused no decline whatever in the rate of production.
e% During the successive reductions of working
hours the price of cotton yarn has fallen from 25.71
pence per pound in 1821 to 12.82 pence per pound in
1884. (Pp. 102-103.)
As it is found that where labour is best paid that
there are the best and, with certain qualifications, the
cheapest products, so also will it probably be as regards
reduced hours. (P. 114.)
Eight Hours for Work. Jonnw Raz, M. A. London and
New York, Macmillan & Co., 1894.
But the antecedent opinions of even the largest and
most experienced employers cannot be set in the scale
against actual experiment, and the teaching of experi-
ment, as far as it has yet gone, seems certainly to indi-
cate that an eight-hours day will strengthen us against
foreign competition rather than otherwise, because it
will strengthen that precise factor in production by
which our industrial supremacy has been principally
maintained, and on which apparently it must altogether
depend in the future—viz., the high industrial energy
of our workpeople.
The industrial competition of the nations is fast be-
coming a mere contest in the personal productive capa-
city of their labourers. The other conditions of the
strife are getting equalized. . . . Improved machin-
ery is no sooner made in one country than it is imported
or imitated in another; and as the material elements of
the competition are growing equal, the supremacy must
obviously go to the nation that can turn these elements
to most account—the nation with the most vigorous, the
most intelligent, the most productive working class.
It is a great mistake, as I have already had an op-
portunity of showing, to imagine that the introduction
of machinery has in any degree diminished the import-
ance of the influence which differences in the personal
efficiency of the labour of rival nations are capable of
629 ©
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity Great Britain
exerting on the results of the production of these na-
tions and on their fortunes in mutual competition. Per-
sonal efficiency plays as decisive and controlling a part
Hoe machinery as it does in hand labour. (Pp. 144
This national characteristic of high productive en-
ergy, which has given us the superiority over Continen-
tal countries in the industrial competition, is itself the
product of those high wages and short hours which are
so commonly supposed to handicap us heavily for the
race. (P. 150.)
Hours and Wages in Relation to Production.. Luso
Brentano. Translated by Mrs. William Arnold.
London, Sonnenschein, 1894.
... Asa matter of fact, high wages and short hours
are a cause of England’s advance, while it is the contrary
that causes our backwardness; and the same holds good
of our relations to America and to Australia. (P. 72.)
How is it that it is not the countries which have the
most perfect factory legislation, the shortest working-day,
and the highest wages, that raise the cry that their com-
peting power is threatened, but those in which the hours
are longest and the wages lowest?
The experience: of all nations teaches us that it is
just those bad conditions of labour which they were anx-
lous to retain that have caused their backwardness.
Those conditions have acted like a prohibitive duty, check-
ing technical advance, while on the other hand, high
wages and short hours have conduced the leading coun-
tries to that advance which could only be attained with
well-paid, strenuous workmen, in other words, with work-
men whose standard of living was a high one; and this
applies to all industries, not only to the textile ones.
(Pp. 73-74.) :
Schoenhof is no less right in saying that in the New
World it is only the fittest who survive in the struggle
to exist; in the Old it is hard to shake off the tenacious
hold of the unfittest upon the industries in which they
630
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity.—Great Britain
have once established themselves. For, in fact, low wages
and long hours bring about a vicious circle from which,
once one is within it, it is very hard to extricate oneself.
For so long as labour is cheap, no technical progress
seems necessary. It is bad labour conditions which are
the main cause of the maintenance of inferior and long
since antiquated methods. Then the employer appeals to
the capital locked up in inferior processes of production
and to the ruin with which he is threatened, in order to
evade an improvement in the conditions of labour which
would necessitate improved technique. (Pp. 74-75.)
A History of Factory Legislation. B. L. Hutcuins and
A. Harrison. Second Edition. London, King,
1911.
... Accurate knowledge of the conditions prevailing
in an industry is an indispensable condition of legal regu-
lation. For this reason the cotton trade was the easiest to
control, and having once established the principle of regu-
lating hours and conditions of work in this trade, the
Government had it continually before their eyes as a
point of departure for further legislation. If it could
be shown that this regulated industry, far from suffering
in competition with others, went ahead, improved its
machinery, and developed a higher standard of comfort
than its rivals, then, although the improvement might not
be due to the legislation, there would be, at all events, a
strong presumption that good, and not harm, had been
done. And this is what has taken place. No one has
ever been able to get up in Parliament or out and say:
‘Here is your miserable textile industry, your deplorable
cotton trade, drooping and ruined all because of Factory
Acts—let us repeal them forthwith.’? What they had to
say was that the improvement in the regulated industry
was clear and conspicuous, whilst the irregularities in
others remained a crying scandal. Gradually the convic-
tion begins to appear in the utterances of public men that
the evils of excessive labour and insanitary conditions,
far from being peculiar to one or two industries, were,
631
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity.—United States
except under specially favourable circumstances, inciden-
tal to them all. (P. 121.)
The Case for the National Minimum. With Preface by
Mrs. Sipney Wess. London, National Committee
for the Prevention of Destitution, 1913.
Reduced Hours and Foreign Competition.—It follows
that if production can be maintained as cheaply and as
efficiently with reduced hours of labour, the bogey of
foreign competition need not be raised. Indeed, Mr.
A. H. Crosfield claims that in certain large and impor-
tant branches of British industry the manufacturers have
gained so largely by the introduction of the Hight Hours’
Day that they consider they will lose if their foreign
competitors adopt the same system. This view is sup-
ported by the experience of the Tinplate and Chain and
Anchor industries where the hours of work average forty-
eight and forty-seven hours per week respectively. Yet
these industries, with their short working hours, are the
most successful of any British industries in their aggres-
sive resistance to foreign competition, forcing their prod-
ucts beyond the most hostile tariffs specially constructed
to exclude them. (Pp. 20-21.)
Report of Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor.
1881.
It is apparent that Massachusetts with ten hours pro-
duces as much per man per loom or per spindle, equal
grades being considered, as other States with eleven
or more hours; and also that wages here rule as high,
if not higher, than in the States where the mills run
longer time. (P. 457.)
Report of the Connecticut Bureaw of Labor Statistics.
1886.
Down to a certain point, the nations who work short-
er hours not merely do better work, but more work than
632
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity.— United States
their competitors. In Russia the hands work twelve
hours a day: in Germany and France, eleven: in Eng-
land, nine. Yet nine hours a day of English work mean
more than twelve hours of Russian work.
The laborer receives better wages, and at the same
time the manufacturer gets a larger product—so much
larger that it is the Russian, the German, or the French-
man who requires protection against his English com-
petitor in spite of the longer hours and lower day’s wag-
es. (Pp. 16-17.)
Report of the New York Factory Inspector. 1894.
New York has about doubled its manufacturing re-
sources and capacity in the decade referred to (1S8S0-
1890), notwithstanding the many laws which have been
passed regulating the employment of the weaker ele-
ments of factory employees. To say that the passage
of such laws and their strict enforcement injures trade
or industry is a patent absurdity in the face of the facts
shown, and is contrary to the history of all States and
countries. . . . The gauge of the States’ progres-
siveness and prosperity is not the wealth of its richest
citizen, but rather the poverty of its poorest industrious
laborer is a fairer test. When the conditions under
which the latter strive are improved, the entire mass of
citizens is benefited. Therefore, it is a reasonable pro-
position that factory laws, instead of being a detriment
and a check to business, are in reality promoters of en-
ergy and productive of a greater earning and competing
capacity. (P. 14.)
Report of the New York Bureau of Labor Statistics.
1900.
Fortunately, statistics are at hand which afford sim-
ple but fairly effective tests of the assertion that Massa-
chusetts industries are threatened with ruin by restric- .
tive labor legislation. In the first place, Massachusetts’
cotton industry, the business chiefly affected by short-
633
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity.—Germany
hour laws, has fully kept pace with that of rival States
in the North. (P. 54.)
Certain facts appear with distinctness, one of which
is that the cotton industry of Massachusetts has not only
grown steadily throughout the period of short-hour leg-
islation, but—what is far more impressive—has made
larger gains than are shown by the adjacent States with
less radical short-hour laws. In 1870, four years before
the enactment of the ten-hour law, Massachusetts had
39.5 per cent. of all the cotton spindles in the North At-
lantic States; six years after the passage of that law
Massachusetts’ proportion was 45 per cent.; in 1890 it
was 47.5 per cent., and in 1900 53.5 per cent. It is diffi-
cult to see what clearer proof could be demanded of the
beneficial results of the Massachusetts short-hour laws
of 1874 (sixty hours a week) and 1892 (fifty-eight
hours). (P. 55.)
“Report of the United States Industrial Commission.
Final Report. Vol. XIX. 1902.
Such progress as has already been made in the devel-
opment of foreign trade has been made in spite of higher
wages in this country, and as a result of the cheaper cost
of production which has followed upon the possession of
a more intelligent, better paid, and more energetic class
of labor. The industries where the highest wages and
fewest hours prevail are those in which the United States
excels in marketing its products in foreign markets. A
further reduction in hours will increase the efficiency of
this labor and raise its intelligence. (Pp. 775-776.)
International Conference in Relation to Labor Legisia-
tion. Berl, 1890.
Alone, the nations hesitate to reduce the hours of
work for fear of competition, although, with modern ma-
chinery, experience has abundantly proved that the coun-
tries with the shortest working day attain the maximum
634
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity.—Germany
of production. These are the countries that produce un-
der good conditions most cheaply; that are most pros-
perous, and most feared as competitors in the world’s
markets. (P. 88.)
Le Travail de Nuit des Femmes dans l’Industrie. Rap-
ports sur son importance et sa réglementation
légale. Préface par Ev1ENNE Baver. [Night Work
of Women in Industry. Reports on tts importance
and legal regulation. Preface by Ettenne Baver.]
Dr. Fuchs, Factory Inspector, Baden:
No fact indicates that industry suffered any under
the new régime. The production which had in some in-
dustries been slightly checked at first quickly recovered
ground, thanks to the greater zeal of the workmen. The
figures of the following table, taken from the statistics
of German exports, do not in any case allow the asser-
tion that the legislation exercised a paralyzing influence ,
on the industry.
Value of Exports in Millions of Marks
Kind of Goods 1890 1891 1893 1894 1899 1900
Cotton goods 146.7 154.3 144.8 206.1 244.7
Woollens 0... 8 227.8 217.9 186.7 217.2 235.8
Silks 146.5 152.6 103.9 142.7 139.5
Vestments, lingerie, etc. 2. 121.3 67.6 61.7 604 92.3 - 996
Silver plate jewelry 2... 386.1 31.3 23.9 25.4 48.7 73.5
TOYS: esse en tele 28.4 30.3 29.4 43.0 534
Sdgar: 2 2) couse ccc Ae tates 0 227.8 221.2 209.2 203.6 216.3
There resulted only certain difficulties and certain
temporary disadvantages for some industries. .
The limitation of the hours of work is especially felt
by the export houses, though it is not possible to state
that an industry has been injured. (Pp. 12-13.)
635
General Benefit to Commercial Prosperity Germany
Staats-und sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen. Heft
138. [Researches in Political and Social Science.
Vol. 138.] Edited by Gustave ScHmouuEr and Max
Serine. Hohere Arbeitsintensitat bet Kurzerer
Arbeitszeit, thre personalen und technisch-sach-
lichen Voraussetzungen. [Intensification of
Work in shorter Working-hours: its personal and
technical basis.| Ernst Bernhard. Leiperg,
Duncker & Humblot, 1909.
Thus every reduction of the working day may raise
the economic and intellectual forces of the nation. The
gain in energy on the part of the individual sets itseif
against his exhaustion through labor; it strengthens
power of resistance and lengthens life. The working-
man can repay the economic costs of his bringing up by
increased production. The industries save in coal, light,
heat, wear on machines, polish and oil. Abbe, on the as-
sumption that working-time is reduced from ten to
eight hours, estimates this saving for Germany alone at
30-40 millions of marks.—Most important however is
the moral and intellectual advantage of a shorter work-
ing-day. The intelligence of the people represents pro-
ductive powers of the first rank, ‘‘a capital which for the
most part lies fallow because conditions do not exist un-
der which this intelligence could have full play.’’
(Abbe). Above all does a technically developing indus-
try, suited to a people of higher mental and moral de-
velopment, have need of this capital. (P. 78.)
636
B. EFFECT ON PRODUCTION.
1. Exampuezs oF SuPERIOR OuTPUT IN SHORTER Hours.
The universal testimony of manufacturing countries
tends to prove that the shortening of the workday acts
favorably upon output. The introduction of a shorter
workday does not result in lessened output.
Whenever reliable statistics of output have been kept,
before and after the introduction of a shorter workday,
‘they show that with rare exceptions the aggregate pro-
duction under shorter hours has either equalled that of
the long day, or risen above it.
These conclusions were long supposed to be true only
of single individual manufacturing industries, such as
the textile trade, in which the shorter workday was first
established, over 70 years ago. The most recent investi-
gations have confirmed the facts, and have shown that
what was true of a single industry applies to practically
all industries, and is thus not a special but a general
rule.
a. SOME RECENT INSTANCES,
The Iron Age. New York, October 3, 1912. The Twelve-
Hour Shift in the Steel Foundry. Results of its
Abandonment in the Commonwealth Steel Com-
pany’s Open-Hearth Department and the Substi-
tution of an Eight-Hour Shift. R. A. Buu.
Hourly Wage Rate Higher for Eight-Hour Shifts.
The company with which I am associated some time
ago inaugurated three eight-hour shifts as applying to
the furnace and boiler crews, both of which had pre-
viously worked 12-hour turns. It had been my opinion
and that of my immediate superior that such a revision of
our working schedules in these departments would be
accompanied with so much more efficient handling of the
637
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—United States
furnaces that if the rates per hour were reasonably in-
creased to remove the natural disinclination of the men
to receiving only two-thirds of their former monthly in-
come, the final result would show economy. This was the
purely business side of the question, whose humanitarian
aspects received our first consideration. A careful ad-
justment of wages was planned which yielded an increase
per hour of 22 per cent. to the first helpers, 18 per cent.
to the second helpers and 16 per cent. to the third helpers.
Even the door boy was included in the scheme, and was
to receive an advance of 19 per cent. per hour. The boiler
firemen were to be increased 19 per cent. per hour and
the coalpassers 14 per cent. It should be borne in mind
that none of the men affected had asked for a change in
the shift hours, or an increase of wages, nor had any
plant in our vicinity any such change in contemplation.
Permission of our principal executive officers was ob-
tained to inaugurate the new plan, and when it was put.
into effect it came as a glad surprise to the various crews.
No inducements were offered to them to render more ef-
ficient service, nor was any suggestion made that we
proposed to keep comparative data. But it was an easy
matter to make comparisons because we had a meter
registering within 14 of 1 per cent. of accuracy by care-
ful test, on each open-hearth furnace line to record the
fuel oil consumption, a magnetic recorder to indicate
the frequency with which the furnace burners were re-
versed, a system by means of which all extra pig iron
used in each heat was weighed and recorded, a recording
pressure gauge to show the steam pressure maintained
in the boiler room, and finally the chemical analyses and
physical tests enstomarily made for every heat to de-
termine the relative qualities of the product.
Conditions of the Comparison Made.
. . The first four weeks prior to the change and
the first four weeks following were taken as_those best
for comparison, because working conditions for these two
periods were as nearly identical as could readily be found
in our plant. The melting stock, the fuel oil and the boil-
638
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—United States
f
er coal were of uniform quality throughout, so far as
the same grades or brands of these materials may pos-
sibly be. The demand made upon each 250-hp. boiler
under fire was practically the same in each case, the air
load being steady, but the electrical load extremely in-
termittent for the entire eight weeks, a chronic condition
which in our case militates greatly against a desired uni-
formity of 125 lb. of steam pressure. The practice on the
open-hearth platform had obtained for years of reversing
the burners every 20 minutes when a furnace was charged
and every 30 minutes when empty. It was, of course,
the object to make the least possible additions to the
percentage of pig iron charged, and the furnacemen were
required to exercise such judgment in this respect as
would keep the amount of extra pig within reasonable
bounds and as low as possible. Naturally they were also
expected to keep the burners nicely adjusted and to main-
tain the proper temperature of the bath at the lowest
possible oil consumption. The furnaces were basic and
47,000 Ib. of metal was charged per heat. The shift
hours under the old plan had been from 6 to 6; under
the new arrangement they are from 7 A. M. to 3 P. M,,
3 P.M. to 11 P. M., and 11 P. M. to 7 A. M, these being
the most convenient because of local conditions. The
crews change their shifts the first day of each week, thus
‘giving every three weeks the full daylight turn to each
crew. Having made the above points clear, I refer you
to the comparative record.
wn Improvement Under the Short Shift.
Tt will be readily understood that we were greatly
gratified at the comparison, which indicates fally a more
economical and efficient manipulation ot both open-
hearth and boiler furnaces. It will be observed that the
differences in most cases are slight, but the pleasing and
important feature is that the essential ones are in favor
of the short shift.
' Tt was not to be expected that the greatest improve-
ment would take place immediately after the change, and
had all working conditions been some months after-
639
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—United States
wards practically the same as they were previous to the
adoption of the eight-hour shift, there could have been
made a fairer comparison. Certain important working
conditions have changed, it was advisable to compare
periods as indicated. But it is interesting to know that
in those instances where conditions remained constant
there was a noticeable improvement the second month
as compared with the first month after the new schedule
was in force, as, for example, the reduction in, the aver-
age amount of extra pig iron charged per heat, from 424
lb, to 137 Ib.
Eight-hour Turn More Economical.
I do not know if any such comparisons as those made
the basis of this paper have heretofore been made in a
similar fashion. It is quite possible that the idea has
~ some degree of novelty in certain of its details, for, not-
withstanding the criticisms recently directed against the
_ 12-hour shift, its prevalence is still almost universal in
furnace operation in this country. And I feel satisfied
that any careful comparison along the lines indicated by
the record herein shown would convince any steel manu-
facturer of the wisdom of operating with three eight-hour
shifts, purely from an economic standpoint. Speaking
for the people with whom I am associated, we are greatly
pleased over the change. And I can speak for the men
in the same terms, for our furnacemen are enthusiastic
in their praise concerning the new plan. And there is
no small amount of inward satisfaction in the knowledge
that we have done a humane thing. . . .
Therefore, viewed from any conceivable angle, I
claim the change is justifiable and you will do well to
make it so far as your open-hearth furnaces are con-
cerned. As to your boiler firemen, each operating head
-must decide for himself. In our particular case it ap-
peared to be, and finally proved to be, advisable from
every standpoint. Conditions in certain other boiler
rooms are very different from ours, practically the entire
evaporation taking place during the daylight hours in
many of them. Since the results are of some interest,
640
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—United States
however, I have included the comparisons made in our
power plant. Reverting finally to consideration of the
steel-maker, whose performance under both schedules is
made the burden of this argument, the basic principle
is absolutely sound and rests on the incontrovertible fact
that you cannot expect any man to give you the best that
is in him when you keep him employed without intermis-
sion for 12 hours per day, seven days per week, at work
making a, heavy demand upon his mental and physical
powers, under conditions of high temperature such as
obtain on a furnace floor. To expect the best results
under such circumstances is folly and to continue op-
erating under them spells, not the title of this paper, but
the costly side of the 12-hour shift. (Pp. 808-809.)
641
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—United States
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642
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—United States
As employers of labor we must look this question
squarely in the face, realizing, if we do not understand
as well as a layman may, the nature of work we require
of men for 12 hours per day for seven days of the week,
it is high time that we fully inform ourselves, and further,
that having ascertained those facts, we will by no means
benefit ourselves by attempting to disguise conditions.
Trying Conditions of Steel Furnace Work.
The question of the long shift, so far as the American
Foundrymen’s Association is concerned, crystallizes into
a consideration of the melter and his furnace helpers, and
has to do with the steel foundry. ... Briefly, however, for
the benefit of all others who may be interested in the sub-
ject, the work is distinctly arduous, physically and men-
tally, carries a responsibility which puts. a man’s ner-
vous system in frequent high tension, and is especially
trying on the physical system during the summer months.
It can, however, be truthfully stated that the difficulties
of the work are not constant but periodic, also that the
Sunday shift in the steel foundry (not necessarily in the
steel mill) is a very easy one. A furnaceman may have a
considerable interval of comparative relaxation, when
his furnace and heat respond nicely to his manipulation,
and weather conditions prevail which do not make the
working temperature a hardship. And again, he may, in
spite of all the experience and skill at his command, have
about as trying and exhaustive a day’s work, without
intermission and for several days in succession, as one
can readily imagine. This latter fact being admitted, one
can understand why our legislators are putting the fur-
naceman’s occupation under scrutiny, in the interest of
humanity. ...
Injustice of the Long Turn on the Furnace Platform.
This paper does not purport to deal with the humani-
tarian side of the issue. But without stating in brief my
own convictions, it might be claimed that I evade that
phase of the question. . . . I do not hesitate to state my
belief in the absolute injustice, humanely speaking, of
643
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—Great Britain
the 12-hour shift on the furnace platform. I trust that
I shall not be classified as a Socialist for having such a
conviction. The question must be decided neither from
the viewpoint of the plutocrat nor that of the walking
delegate, and I claim to have formed my conclusions
after consideration of the question from a conservative
standpoint, and after many years of personal observation
of working conditions surrounding the furnaceman’s
work. Furthermore, to offset any suggestion of bias, let
me say that I do not now hold, and never have held, a
union ecard, active or honorary, issued by any labor or-
ganization. (P. 808.)
British Association for the Advancement of Sctence.
Section F.—Manchester, 1915. The Question of
Fatigue from the Economic Standpoimt.—Interim
Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor
J. M. Muirhead (Chairman), Miss B. L. Hut-
chins (Secretary), Mr. P. Sargant Florence (Or-
ganizing Secretary), Miss A. M. Anderson, Pro-
fessor Bainbridge, Mr. E. C. Cadbury, Professor
Chapman, Professor Stanley Kent, Dr. Maitland,
Miss M. C. Matheson, Mrs. Meredith, Dr. C. 8S.
Myers, Mr. C. K. Ogden, Mr. J. W. Ramsbottam,
and Dr. J. Jenkins Robb. (Report drawn up by
Mr. P. Sarcant FLORENCE.)
If we define fatigue in general as a ‘‘diminution of
the capacity of work which follows excess of work or
lack of rest, and which is recognized on the subjective
side by a characteristic malaise,’’ we at one and the same
time put forward its most familiar symptom and its
main external cause. (P. 2.)
That . . . the output of work may be expected
to vary and to vary inversely with fatigue is suggested
by the very definition of fatigue as a diminution in the
capacity for work. (P. 17.)
Our figures agree with one another to such an extent,
... that we are justified in speaking of a ‘‘normal’’
time-distribution of output. . . . The shape of the
644
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—Great Britain.
output . . . curves for a five-hour spell may for
purposes of illustration be summarized as follows:
Hour of Spell Output
1st : ; small
2nd. ; . very great
3rd : ‘ great
4th. : « tear
5th ‘ ‘ *small
In seeking an explanation of this ‘normal’ time-dis-
tribution of the . . . output in a spell of manufac-
turing work, let us concentrate on the illustrative table.
Here we find the four same degrees: very great, great,
fair and small, succeeding one another. . . . Now
both output and accident immunity vary inversely to
fatigue; these four decreasing degrees, therefore, may
well be measuring an increase in fatigue. (P. 29.)
In the case of output there is in every table an in-
crease of the second over the first hour of the spell ex-
cept for a very slight decrease (Machine Sewing) in the
afternoon. This almost general increase is as much as
from 24 to 38 in soldering, Table III. and from 85 to
106 in Hand Chocolate-covering, Table II.
After the second hour of each spell there is generally
a gradual decrease till the last hour, though in the third
ee Le output may be yet higher than in the second.
* Where there are only four hours in the spell, strike out the last out-
put . . . hour. 3
645
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—Great Britain.
Table II.—Chocolate-covering Output.
Messrs. Cadbury, Bournville.
10 wane and 4 individuals for 10 days, in September,
Conditions.——Normal. Dinners supplied at cost price.
Workers.—Girls over eighteen... .
The Process.—Apparatus work (in couples): Handwork
(singly)... .
Relative Hourly Variation
Average of hour’s output—100:
_ Hour of Day
Time Apparatus Hand Hour of Spell
9-10 88.3 (1) 85.5 (2) Dil S1
10-11 93.9 106.5 D2 S2
11-12 106.35 98.6 D3 $3
12-12.30 118.4 (4) 88.6 (5) D3 838%
1.30-2 96 (2) 101 (3) D4 S%
2-3 98.55 107.6 D5 S1%
3-4 94.4 107.4 D6 S21%
4.5 oT 103.2 D7 $314
Notres.—Here (1) 15 mins., (2) 10 mins., (3). 5 mins. spent in “prepara-
tions” are averaged; and (4) 10 mins. (5) 5 mins. spent in clearing up
are averaged. No clearing up included in the 4-5 figures since work ends at
5.30.
Table III.—Small Tin-box Soldering Output.
W. & RB. Jacob & Co., Dub- Cadbury Bros., Bourn-
lin. 10 workers for 10 ville. 7 workers for 1
. days. Sept., 1914. day. Feb., 1915.
Workers.—Girls aged 17- Boys aged 1514.
25,
Work.—Standing up. Sitting down.
646
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—Great Britain.
Average rate of tins per hour per day.
Clock Working Hour Cad-
Time Jacob’s (D of Day,S of Spell) bury’s ClockTime
8-9 24.3 (*) D1 Si 46.8 7.45-8.45
9-10 38.42 D2 82 52.4t 8.45-9.30
10-11 35.29 D3 83 47.1 9.30-10.30
11-12 35.03 D4 S84 44.4 10.30-11.30
12-1 29.74 D5 S865 43.7 —11.30-12.30
2-3 26.62 D6 Sil 45.1 1.30-2.30
3-4 37.39 D7 S82 48.7 2.30-3.30
4-5 37.06 Ds 83 42.9 3.30-4.30
5-6 34.93 (t+) D9 S4 40.8 4.30-5.30
Notrs.—(*) 7 minutes averaged for preparation. (7) 6 minutes aver-
aged for clearing up. (t) Averages to the hour. (P. 42.)
The afternoon’s output is somewhat less than the
morning’s, but in both spells the maximum output oc-
curs in the second, or, where the first period recorded is
half an hour, as at Peek, Frean’s (Table V.), in the
first hour and a half, or second hour and a half. After
this there is the gradual decrease of output, till the last
hour’s output may only total about 80 per cent. of the
maximum for the spell, less if it is the fifth hour (as
general in the morning), more if it is the fourth hour
(as general in the afternoon). The total of the records
of output of the three examples of soldering tins re-
corded at three different factories (Tables III. and V.,
Col. 3) is as follows :*
Hour of Spell Morning Hour of Spell Afternoon
SEs 114.06 tins ist? soe 119.43 tins -
ONE siscoenes 167.44 * Qn wees 165.42 ‘
SLO: nec tenes 159.59 * Br) cn. 163.23. **
A Gli esses: 157.27 *é 4th ou... 155.95 ‘
thio cece: 138.96 <é
and the average hourly outputs added together of the
three examples of hand-labelling of tins recorded at two
different factories (Table V. and VI.) is as follows:+
* Weighted roughly in proportion to numbers and days at work; #. ¢.,
Cadbury’s +5, Peek, Frean’s 1, Jacob’s X 3.
tTable VI. Col. 1 is reduced to average per girl, but there is no other
“weighting,” since numbers X days at work are not very different in each
case, 7. é., 8, 20, and 18.
647
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—Great Britain.
Hour of Spell Morning Hour of Spell Afternoon
MSU tyaitherns 593.7 tins Sy 28 wots 602.6 tins
QI oeeeeecceeee 669.0 NG. sevce ge 620.9
BI wane 687.9 << Br 611.0 <‘
BO teers 624.7 < 4th (not given in one
SEE at ae 574.3“ case)
(Pp. 34-35.)
Table V.—Processes at Peek, Frean & Co. April to
June, 1915.
W ork.—9 lb. Tin. Tin. 4 & 9 Ib. Tin. Biscuit, Cream
Straightening.* Labelling. : Soldering. Stencilling and
Sandwiching. _
Numbers.—6 for 3 couples, 6 days. 6 for 6 days. 6 couples for 6
6 days. days.
Workers — Girls Girls 20-28 yrs. Girls 17-24 yrs. Girls.
21-24 years,
Pay.— Piece- Piece-Bonus. Piece-Bonus. Piece-Bonus.
Bonus.
Surroundings. — Normal. Normal. Normal.
Normal.
Average rate per hour per day per individual:
Of tins. Of trays”
——, of biscuits.
8:00- 8:30.00. 151 148.4 31.8 3.50
8:30- 9:30.00. 170.4 165.2 41.7 3.99
9 :30-10 :30. 171.25 162.7 44.3 3.92
10 :30-11 :30.. 168.75 156.3 43.3 3.95
11 :30-12 :30..0 138.6 147.3 41.0 3.62
Dinner.
1:30- 2:30.00. 160.6 144 39.55 3.63
2:30- 3:30.00. 170.9 157 43.51 3.78
3:30- 4:30.00... 165.4 150.2 43.47 3.87
4:30- 5:30.00... 149.7 150.7 43.0
5:30— 6:00 33.97
*Each tin had different-sized dents differently placed, all to be ham-
mered straight with mallet and wooden anvil.
648
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—Great Britain.
Table VI.—Output. Hand-Labelling of Tin-Boxes.
Report of Mr. Greenwood to the Fatigue Committee,
1914.
Total. Average.
8 girls. 4 girls.
Hours of Day. One day. Average of 5 days.
7 180— 8:80 Lecce 2,032 191.3
8 130— 9:30 cee 2,123 238.4
9 :30-10 :30. 2,282” 240
10 :30-11 330.0. 1,922 228.2
11 :30-12 33000 nn. .1,663 219.1
1:30-— 2:30 1,921 218.5
°2:30- 3:30....... 1,956 221.5
3:30- 4:30 1,938 218.6
As BOD sce atone 11,4804
(P. 46.)
The following would be the psycho-physical diagnosis
of a spell of factory work considered chronologically.
First hour: Fingers, arms, body and mind after their
rest are working slow, but sure. To increase the pace
and even perhaps to concentrate attention is uphill work
and a fight against subjective feelings of sloth. In an
emergency, however, muscles could be perfectly con-
trolled.
Second hour: Body and mind getting into their stride
again, are working very fast, but not perhaps so exactly.
Feelings of sloth are conquered, but there is a terrible
long prospect of work ahead. However, as work is run-
ning easily, the mind may think of pleasanter things:
attention scatters.
Third or third and fourth hour: Body and mind run-
ning on, but attention lost. If any sudden danger
threatens or emergency arises, it may not be quickly
enough perceived, and when perceived muscles may not
be quick enough to prevent an accident; they can con-
*Ten minutes (10-10.10) spent at lunch is average.
+ For 4 days average.
} Rate per hour.
649
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—Great Britain.
tinue rhythmically and automatically at the same work,
but for any change of movement that may be suddenly
called, there is insufficient control.
Last hour (fourth or fifth): Body no longer running
automatically with the same ease, an effort of the will
required (spurt) to keep speed up; but the end is ahead,
with food and rest; the attention awakes and control over
the muscles is braced up—danger is better perceived and
more quickly avoided. At the very end, however, even
this new attention and control may tire, as indeed the
Pay is tired, and only a rest can bring recovery.
The New Statesman. Vol. V. No. 129. Sept. 25, 1915.
Men as Machines.
It is one of the most unfortunate characteristics of
modern industry that the machine is no longer the imple-
ment or the instrument of the man, but the man is only
an appendage or extension of the machine.
The unfortunate results of this development were well
brought out in a report on ‘‘Fatigue from the Economic
Standpoint’’ presented to the British Association and in
the discussion upon it at Manchester. You may quite
easily convert a human being into an extension of the
feeding apparatus of a machine which stamps soap, and
you will see him for a wage of some twenty shillings a
week repeat the operations of inserting a cake of soap,
pulling down a lever, and removing the cake of soap for
eight or ten hours a day. But unfortunately, despite the
efforts of employers and politicians to ignore the fact,
the man obstinately remains a human being and not a
machine. For it is characteristic of the human being
that, unlike the cogwheel and the lever, in him repeated
work, mental or physical produces fatigue. (P. 583.)
It is almost incredible that politicians, employers, and
even economists should still believe that longer hours
necessarily mean greater production. They believe
it simply because they have come to regard the
manual worker either as a machine or as an
650
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—Great Britain.
economic abstraction. But even statistics show
that he remains a human being. The statistics
are of two kinds, those relating to output and those relat-
ing to accidents. As regards the first, the most striking
are those which show the difference of output in the dif-
ferent hours of spells of work. In nearly all industrial
processes where investigations have been conducted the
same phenomena are observed. If the work is divided
into a morning and an afternoon spell of four or five
hours each, then in the first hour of the spell a man’s or
a woman’s output will be low, in the second hour it
bounds up and usually attains its maximum, after the
second hour there is a steady decrease in output until the
last hour, in which sometimes there is again a slight in-
crease. These facts show the exaggeration in much of
the talk about the deliberate limitation of output by
workers. They are found to exist when men and women
are on piecework—that is to say, where the incentive to
work is the same in the last hour as in any of the others.
If, then, there was any very extensive deliberate limita-
tion, one would expect to find no regular variations in the
output of the different hours, because all through the
spell the man would be producing deliberately less than
he was able to produce.
But the true explanation of this regularity of varia-
tion is that the most important factor in limiting output
is fatigue, which is scientifically defined as ‘‘a diminution
of the capacity for work which follows excess of work or
lack of rest.’? The smaller output of the first hour is due
to the worker not being warmed up to his work; his
muscles are stiff and he has not got into the swing of it,
mind and body are working slow. In the second hour
mind and body have got into their stride, the work is done
easily and automatically, and the output is large; but
after the second hour fatigue begins more and more to
exercise its influence, and mind and body begin to work
more and more slowly. But perhaps the most interesting
fact of all is the cause of that increase of output in the
last hour of a spell of work. It has two curious charac-
teristics; it is frequently found in men’s work, rarely in
651
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—Great Britain.
women’s, and it can often be analyzed into a marked in-
crease in the first half-hour of the last hour and a marked
decrease in the last half-hour. The explanation is that
a feeling of pleasurable excitement comes with the last
hour of work: it is due to the thought of food and rest
ahead; the consequence is that for a time the feelings of
fatigue are thrown off, but very often this new and facti-
tious strength does not last out the full hour and before
the end of the spell fatigue reasserts itself with redoubled
power. (P. 584.)
These facts suggest certain conclusions. In the first
place, to treat the human being as a piece of iron or steel
does not make even for industrial efficiency if that effici-
ency is measured by output. The amount of rest required
if aman is to attain his maximum output has hardly been
studied at all by employers, but where it has been studied
the results were remarkable. There was a famous
‘‘Scientific Management’’ case at the Bethlehem Steel
Works, in which by making a man rest for stated inter-
vals during the day his output was increased by 60 per
cent. In fact, there is good reason for saying that, if you
want to increase production, you should tell the workers
not to work more, but to rest more. Moreover, as Pro-
fessor Benjamin Moore pointed out in the discussion at
Manchester, at the present time people talk about the
industrial slacker and ‘‘pay little attention to the man
doing 70 hours a week.’’ You get more work done in
three eight-hour shifts than in two twelve-hour shifts.
And men and women worked at high pressure for these
long hours day after day inevitably break down, because
“there is a physiological limit to which a man can be
speeded up without injuring him.’’ That, of course, did
not matter very much to the employer when his human
‘machine was cheap and plentiful, but it is hardly good
policy, when Mr. Lloyd George is crying aloud for work-
ers, by long hours and speeding up to lose those we have
through an ‘‘accident due to fatigue’’ or merely because,
unlike the machines, they have passed the ‘‘physiologica]
‘limit.’’? (P. 584.)
652
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—Great Britain.
Engineering, Vol. C. No. 2599. London, October 22, 1915.
Work-Weariness and a Three-Shift System. A
Letter from Joun EH. Grant.
Some months ago, before the war, I substituted a
three-shift system in place of a two-shift system on ac-
count of shortage of some special machinery. It was so
successful that it was retained and extended.
The original two-shift system was made up as fol-
lows:
A day shift from 7 a. m. to 5 p. m., with an hour’s
break—12 noon to 1 p.m. On Saturdays the week ended
at 12 noon, and the total normal day-shift week was fifty
hours. The night-shift ran from 6 p. m. until 7 a. m.
next morning. There was a supper hour from 10 p. m.
until 11 p. m., and a breakfast half hour from 3 a. m.
to 3:30 a. m. The total night-shift week was normally
5714 hours. Also shop production was paid for on piece-
work and bonus plan, and it was found that the output
per man per hour on night-shift was 15 per cent. to 20
per cent. less than on the day-shift. The three-shift
system which displaced the two-shift system was made
up as follows: ‘‘A’’ shift from 7:30 a. m. until 4 p. m.,
with meal half-hour from 12 noon to 12:30 p. m.; ‘‘B’’
shift from 3:30 p. m. until 12 midnight, with meal half-
hour from 7:30 p.m. to 8 p. m.; “C” shift from 11:30
p. m. until 8 a. m. next day, with meal half-hour from
3 a.m. to 3:30 a.m. The shifts for the week finish:
‘*A’’ shift, 4 p. m. Saturday.
‘*B”’ shift, 12 midnight Saturday.
Cy? Bitte & ay mi. Sunday.
Any worker may obtain leave away on Saturday
afternoons by obtaining a substitute willing to take his
place from one of the other shifts, and we have no trouble
ae what appears at first sight to be a formidable ob-
stacle.
There are thus three-shift weeks of 48 hours each, a
total of 144 hours, compared with the two-shift weeks of
50 hours and 5714 hours—a total of 10714 hours; or, in
other words, we obtain an increase in the normal weekly
working hours of 34 percent. In actual fact it is worth
693
Superior Output in Shorter Hours.—Great Britain.
more than this, as the output per man-hour is greater,
and we soon found that each man in his 48-hour week was
doing as much as he did before in the 50-hour day-shift
week, and the output has increased 50 per cent. in view
of the better value obtained from the night hours.
In the three-shift system we have each shift lapping
over the other to the extent of half an hour, or equal
to the meal half-hour. The half-hour is occupied in this
way. During the first 15 minutes the incoming worker
gets all his work and tools ready and clears up all ob-
scurities before he begins. He then takes over the ma-
chine, and for the remaining 15 minutes of the half-hour
the outgoing worker books in his work and attends to
the various small duties necessary to be done before he
leaves.
In changing the shifts at the end of every week, ‘‘A”’
shift becomes ‘‘C”’ shift, ‘‘B’’ shift becomes ‘‘A’’ shift,
and ‘‘C’’ shift becomes ‘‘B”’ shift.
The shift itself therefore is run at high pressure, and
the machine is kept running every possible minute.
There is no time to think of weariness, and the workers
are cheerful and energetic. . . .
Apart from the benefit of increased output, there is
also a gain in economy, due to lesser overhead charges,
even when increased maintenance cost, because of more
machine hours per week, is taken into account. (P. 430.)
64
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles——Great Britain.
b. TEXTILE TRADES: COTTON, WOOL, LINEN, JUTE, ETC.
British Sessional Papers. Vol. III. 1816. Report from
the Select Committee on the State of the Children
Employed in the Manufactories of the Umited
Kingdom. Minutes of Evidence. 25 April-18 June,
1816.
Testimony of Robert Owen:
You say you have tried the experiment, since the first
of January, of only ten hours and three quarters per
day; what was the result of that experiment?—The result
of the experiment, with regard to the persons employed
has been most favorable in every way; the result to the
proprietors is much less unfavorable, under the most un-
favorable circumstances which it could be tried, than
could be supposed. The difference between our former
time of working and the present, is an hour per day;
for many years prévious to the first of January last, the
hours of work at New Lanark were eleven and three-
quarters per day, exclusive of the time allowed for meals;
since the first of January last the hours of work have
been ten and three-quarters; and I find by actual prac-
tice, made from very accurate calculation, that the dif-
ference to the proprietors, taking every circumstance in
the most unfavorable way in which they can be taken,
will not be more than one farthing per yard upon the
goods manufactured from the yarn spun at that manufac-
tory; and I have every reason to believe, from the pro-
gressive increase in the quantity which has taken place
regularly every month since this change took place, that
before the end of the year the yarn will be manufactured
as cheap, working ten hours and three quarters per day,
as ever we manufactured it, working eleven hours and
three-quarters per day. The present loss is not more
than one farthing in twenty-pence. Nay, so convinced
am I, from the very accurate calculations that have been
made upon the subject, and viewing the consequences in ©
the most extensive manner, which with all my experience
I could view them, I do not hesitate now to say, that al-
though no bill should be passed, although no restrictions
should take place with regard to hours, or the limitation
1-4-4
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles—Great Britain.
of the children being admitted into the works, in a pe-
cuniary view only, I would not again alter the hours of
the New Lanark establishment. (P. 90.)
You have expressed your opinion, that before the
end of the year the loss of a farthing in twenty-pence,
which you mentioned as accruing from the alteration in
the hours of work, would vanish; from what did you
form that opinion? On the increased strength and ac-
tivity, and improved spirits, of the individuals, in conse-
quence of being employed a shorter time in the day.
Have you found that cause already operates in les-
sening the loss which at first happened from the change
of hours? Regularly every month, from the first of
January last. (P. 93.)
Then the Committee is not to understand that the in-
creased quantity stated to have been produced, in: pro-
portion to the hours of working, is solely to be attributed
to a diminution of the hours of work? I believe, in the
present instance, it is solely to be attributed to the dif-
ference in the hours of work, because I do not know that
there has been the smallest alteration in any of the other
circumstances; it is the same machinery, and, I believe,
the same quality of raw material. (P. 93.)
Do you, as an experienced spinner, or a spinner of any
kind, mean to inform the Committee, that the machines
that you employ for throstle and water spinning can
produce an additional quantity from any other cause
whatever but the quickening of the motion of the ma-
chine? Yes, as an experienced spinner, I do say that it
may.
Have the goodness to state from what cause it can
proceed? From saving breakage, from the superior at-
tention of the people to all their operations, from not
losing a moment when the work commences, or when it
ceases, and from the individuals in the previous process
paying much more attention in the preparatory stages
of the manufacture. (P. 94.)
If, therefore, the velocity of the machine has not been
increased, how do you account for the produce per spindle
being anything different from the proportion that would
arise from the difference of the hours of labor? I have
606
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles——Great Britain.
endeavored to explain those causes which I conceive
would produce a difference. In addition, I can merely
state, that I have before me a comparative statement of
produce and prime cost, simply asked for by me from
the clerk, who has been long in the habit of giving me
these calculations; and these are the results, without. I
believe, the smallest difference in this statement from
any other statement which I have received for the last
fifteen or sixteen years. It is far from my wish to de-
ceive the Committee in any respect; and none of these
papers have been made for any particular purpose.
(P. 94.)
Eight Hours for Work. Joun Rat. London and New
York. Macmillan & Co. 1894.
The first great general reduction of hours was the
reduction in the English textile trades by the Ten Hours’
Act of 1847, and it was regarded, not merely by employ-
ers, but by many even of its warmest promoters, with con-
siderable trepidation as a leap in the dark. It is true
that a whole generation before, the experiment of short-
ening hours on a very substantial scale had been tried
with signal success by Robert Owen, the Socialist, in that
great seedplot of fruitful social reforms, the famous cot-
ton mills of New Lanark. He ran those mills 1014 hours
a day for the twelve years from 1816 to 1828. The hours
there seem to have been 16 at one time, and to have been
121% about the date of his new semi-philanthropic part-
nership with Jeremy Bentham and William Allen in 1814.
They were first reduced from 1214 to 1114, and then
finally from 1114 to 1014 in 1816. And what was the re-
sult? One of Owen’s own work-people, John Alexander,
said to the Factories Inquiries Commission, that to his
surprise the quantity produced after the reduction of
1816 did not sensibly fall off from the quantity produced
previously, and that this was due entirely to the greater
personal exertions spontaneously elicited from the opera-
tives, among whom a general increase of cheerfulness
and alacrity was very observable at the time, though, he
added, it was not so great as the similar increase that
occurred when the hours had been on a former occasion
697
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles—Great Britain.
reduced from 1214 to 1114*. He makes no mention of
any improvement or speeding of machinery, but at-
tributes the whole result to the improvement in personal
efficiency. Lanarkshire cannot stand the competition of
Lancashire to-day though the hours are the same, but
during those twelve years Owen successfully competed
with all rivals, though he wrought two, three, or even
four hours less in the day. He tells us himself that when
he was in France in 1818, he was invited by the Duc de la
Rochefoucauld to visit and inspect a cotton-spinning fac-
tory the duke had erected on his estate, and he examined
the whole administration of the business. ‘‘I found by
this investigation,’’ says Owen, ‘‘that I was manufactur-
ing the same numbers of fineness of yarn or thread, but
of much better quality, at the New Lanark establish-
ment in Scotland at 4d. per lb. cheaper than the duke.
One penny per lb. upon the annual produce at that time
at New Lanark was £8,000 Sterling, which when multi-
plied by four gives a gain upon the same quantity over
the duke’s of £32,000 a year.’’+ The New Lanark mills
continued to yield high profits. Bentham is said to have
declared that that was the only successful speculation he
ever embarked in, and Owen himself carried away from.
the place a considerable fortune, of which he lost £40,000
in his ill-fated attempt to found a community at New
Harmony. If he conducted a profitable business not
merely without the aid of ‘‘the last hour,’’ from which
other employers alleged all their profit accrued, but with-
out the aid of the two last or even the three last hours, it
must manifestly have been because there lay no real ad-
vantage in the long hours elsewhere prevalent, and be-
cause, as Mr. Alexander intimates, his work-people ac-
tually did as much in their short hours as the others did,
or as they had done formerly themselves, in the longer
day. Yet the world never seems to have discovered this
remarkable fact, in spite of the extraordinary attention
it then paid to the New Lanark institutions, and it kept
on prating about ‘‘the last hour’’ for nearly a half cen-
tury longer. (Pp. 15-18.)
* First Report, p. 96. ;
+ Life of Robert Owen, by himself, p. 169.
658
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles.—Great Britain.
Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates. Vol. 74. 1844.
Lord Ashley:
“Tt is a mistaken notion,’’ writes this gentleman, ‘‘to
suppose that the produce of yarn or cloth from machin-
ery, would be curtailed in an arithmetical proportion to
the proposed reduction of working hours from 12 to 10,
because in very many instances the workman can produce
much or little during the day, as he feels disposed, or as
his strength enables him; and in my own trade in which
we employ at least 1200 hands, I have proved beyond a
doubt, that whenever we have reduced the hours for work-
ing from 12 to 10 per day, which is equal to one-sixth
the quantity of work produced has not fallen below one-
tenth or even one-twelfth. . . . All men will be able to
work much harder for 10 hours than they can for 12.”’
(Pp. 901-902.)
The countervailing advantages of reduced time are so
great, as compared with a reduction of wages, that they
readily accept the loss, and find their interest in the im-
provement of health of body and mind; in social and
domestic comfort; in the practice of household economy ;
and especially in the prolongation, by 3 or 4 years, of
their working life, of their physical capacities to obtain a
livelihood. (Pp. 904-905.)
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XXV. 1845. Reports
of Inspectors of Factories from 1st October, 1844,
to 30th April, 1845. Rosert Garpner, Mill-owner.
. . . Lam quite satisfied that both as much yarn and
power-loom cloth may be produced at quite as low a cost
in 11 as in 12 hours per day; at least, that it has been so
the last 12 months, in my mills at Preston. . . . It is
my present intention to make a further reduction of time
to 101% hours, without the slightest fear of suffering loss
by it. I find the hands work with greater energy and
spirit; they are more cheerful, and apparently more
happy. All the arguments I have heard in favour of long
time appear based on an arithmetical question,—if 11
659
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles.—Great Britain.
produce so much, what will 12, 13, or even 15 hours pro-
duce? This is correct, as far as the steam engine is
concerned ; whatever it will produce in 11 hours, it will
produce double the quantity in 22. But try this on the
animal horse, and you will soon find he cannot compete
with the engine, as he requires both time to rest and
feed. (P. 27.)
. . . Itis, I believe, a fact not questioned, that there
is more bad work made the last 1 or 2 hours of the day,
than the whole of the first 9 or 10 hours. There can be no
doubt but 11 hours are quite sufficient for any one to ex-
haust the whole of his or her strength in any one occu-
pation, situation, or atmosphere, although the work is not
laborious.
It can be no small gratification to any employer of a
large number of hands to see them healthy and happy,
with an opportunity of improving their minds. I beg to
state that about 20 years ago we had many orders for a
style of goods much wanted. To increase the quantity of
the work, I requested they (his employees) would work,
instead of 11, 12 hours. At the end of the week I found
they had got a trifle more work done; but supposing there
was some incidental cause for this, I requested they would
work 13 hours the following week, at the end of which
they had produced less instead of more work. The over-
looker told me the hours were too long, and invited me to
be in the room with them the last hour of the day. I saw
they were exhausted, drowsy, and making bad work and
little of it, I therefore reduced their time 2 hours, as be-
fore. Since that time I have been an advocate for shorter
hours of labour. (P. 27.)
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XXIII. 1851. Reports
of Inspectors of Factories for Half-year ending
31st October, 1850.
The unexpected and gratifying result mentioned in
former reports of the amount of work turned off in 10
hours, having kept up so much nearer to the product of
12 hours than was conceived by any one to be possible,
660
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles—Great Britain.
has been confirmed by many instances stated to me during
the last half-year. This is accomplished partly by an in-
creased speed of the machinery, but chiefly by the closer
attention which the people give to their work, and are
enabled to give by the shortened duration of the daily
strain upon their physical powers. (P. 5.)
It is also worthy of note, that during a portion of th
last period the greatest amount of restriction ever con-
templated, either as to ages or as to hours of work, has
been in operation. . . . the power of production has
increased beyond that of any other period. (P. 65.)
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XL. 1852-1853. Reports
of Inspectors of Factories for half-year ending
30th April, 1853. Letter to Leonard Horner from
William Grant, concerning the effect of the ten-
hour day.
We employ nearly 600 hands, and out of that num-
ber I have no hesitation in saying there is not one person
would prefer to work even one hour per week longer than
they do at present. By extra attention, knowing that
their hours are shorter than formerly, and a little in-
crease to the speed, they make quite as much money as
ever they did. (Pp. 20-21.)
British Sessional Papers. Vol. XXX. 1876. Factory and
Workshops Acts Commission.
Witness, Phillip Grant, representing operatives:
8582. During the agitation for the ten-hours bill in
the year 1844 or 1845 he (a cotton-spinner at Preston)
reduced his time voluntarily to eleven hours instead of
twelve, and at the end of twelve months he reported, as
Mr. Hugh Mason did, that he had got a better quality
of work and more of it in the eleven hours than he had
in the twelve, and that is obvious to anybody who under-
stands the process of following a machine. (P. 418.)
661
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles—Great Britain.
Lectures on the Labor Question. The Nine Hours Move-
ment. Tomas Brassey. London, Longmans, 1878.
A reduction in the hours of labor does not necessarily
involve a corresponding reduction in the amount of work
performed. ... A few years ago M. Dolfuss, the great
manufacturer of Miihlhausen, offered to reduce the work-
ing hours in his establishment to the extent of one hour
a day, without reduction of pay, provided his work-people
would undertake to do an equal amount of work in the
shorter day. In a month after the offer was made the:
hands in the employ of M. Dolfuss had succeeded in mak-
ing the production of the shorter day equal in amount to
the production of their former longer hours. (Pp. 9-10.)
Overwork is equally undesirable from a moral and an
industrial point of view. Adam Smith has said truly
that the man who works so moderately as to be able to
work constantly, not only preserves his health the long-
est, but in the course of the year, executes the greatest
quantity of work. (P. 12.)
The Eight Hours Day. Stoney Wess and Harotp Cox.
London, Walter Scott, 1891.
The reduction in the hours of labor in the textile mills,
which may be said to have begun in the United Kingdom
from about 1817, has been continuous and considerable.
Seventy-five years ago men commonly worked 90 and 100
hours per week. By successive stages these hours
have been brought down to 561%. At every stage
it has been conclusively ‘‘proved’’ by the manufac-
turers that the proposed new restriction of hours
would deprive them of all margin of profit, would
raise the price of the commodity, lower the wages
of the workers, and destroy the export trade. Cele-
brated economists were found to demonstrate that
the whole economic advantage of the running of the mill
at all lay conclusively in the ‘‘Jast hour,’’ and that its
prohibition would involve, accordingly, the cessation of
the industry. Yet the result has over and over again
shown that manufacturers and theorists alike were
662
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles—Great Britain.
wrong; the hours of work have been successively reduced,
without diminution of production, fall of wages, rise of
~ prices, or slackening of trade. (Pp. 94-95.)
British Sessional Papers, 1913. Report of the Chief In-
spector of Factories and Workshops for the year
1918.
Mr. Wilson (Glasgow): ‘‘Many textile factories now
start at 8 o’clock, and manufacturers inform me that bet-
ter time is kept, and that there is less wastage and better
work with the shorter hours, while the decrease in output
is fractional only and in certain cases there is no reduc-
tion whatever.’’ (P. 60.)
The most remarkable instance of a reduction of hours
comes from Dunfermline, where an 814-hours day has
been established in all the linen-weaving sheds. Mr.
Williams, after referring to a reduction of hours, which
took place some years ago in some of the large textile
mills in Scotland, gives the following quotation from the
report of Mr. Sumner (Dundee):
An important change was made last July in the hours
of labor of the Dunfermline linen trade, where there are
ten factories employing between 4,000 and 5,000 workers,
chiefly women. Dunfermline has a population of only a
little over 28,000, and the linen manufacturers have to
draw their labor from the surrounding districts. In some
cases, workers were living seven or more miles from their
factory, and owing to the bad train and tram service at
that early hour had to leave home some time after 4 a.m.
to get to work at 6. In consequence of a general request
by the workers for a day of nine hours, divided into three
working periods of three hours each, the occupiers as a
body compromised to the extent of granting a day of eight
and a half hours, namely, from 8 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., with
only one break, from 12.30 to 1.30 for dinner. The
weekly total of working hours was thus reduced 15 per
cent. At the same time a 5 per cent. rise was allowed in
the piecework rates, and the time workers were given the
same weekly wages, although they had 15 per cent. less
working time. From the workers’ point of view the
663
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles—United States
change has been an unqualified success. At first there
was some grumbling by the pieceworkers because of the
reduction in the total wages earned. The best and most
industrious, who had worked hard under the old system,
lost about 10 per cent.; the less industrious ones, however,
found little change in their weekly total,.as with the help
of the 5 per cent. rise and a little better application they
could earn the same wages as previously. Now that they
_ have had longer experience of the new hours, and the
winter weather has come, no one would like to revert to
the previous conditions, and some say they would not go
back to the longer hours even if they had the 5 per cent.
rise in wages continued. There is not the same unani-
mity among the occupiers; some were favorable, others
more dubious. One firm said they had increased their
wage bill by nearly 12 per cent. and their turnover by 6.7
per cent., and instead of having to take any labor that
offered they were getting all they wanted and of a better
and more permanent class. They had less sickness, much
less lost time, and better work, besides less expense of
coal and gas. (Pp. 59-60.)
Report of the Massachusetts Bureaw of Statistics of
Labor. 1870-1871.
A man can work ten hours in the mill, and working
with a will, and with the object of gaining one hour for —
himself, he will make a machine produce in ten hours as
much as it will in eleven. He would be more attentive and
try to make as much pay as in eleven hours. I think it
will be found that much of the cloth made during the
eleventh hour is of poorer quality than the rest, and that
the necessity of looking it over the next day and fixing it
all right, lessens the product of that next day. If we
were to suppose two sets of operatives in the same busi-
ness, one working 11 hours and one working 10 a day,
other things being equal, there is no doubt that the 10-
hour set would hold out more years than the 11-hour set.
I certainly believe that the productive capacity of a set
of work-people may be lessened by increasing the hours
of their daily labor. (Pp. 499-500.)
664
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles—United States
Argument of Hon. Wiut1am Gray on Petitions for Ten-
hour Law before the Massachusetts Committee on
Labor. February 13,1873. Boston.
There are facts which . .. will show you...
the actual result of the introduction of ten hours nearly
six years ago. This corporation entered upon that change
in June, 1867. (P. 17.)
The speed of the looms was increased about 4 per
cent. the first month, and other machinery in about the
same ratio. All work which could be made job work was
so made . . . and the first month after the change
showed these results.
Observe the time had been reduced from 1034 hours
to 10 hours; the product was reduced 4 to 5 per cent.; the
cost of labor was increased 234 per cent.; the wages paid
were not essentially changed. In three years and a half
from the time of the change, the product of ten hours was
fully equal to the product of 1034 hours at the previous
date. . . . With no material change in machinery, the
following results appeared. .. .
First. We saw an improvement in the operatives
directly after adopting ten hours—which improvement
has been going on; and we have now the best set of work-
ers that have been in the mill for fifteen years. .
Second. We have had more continuous and uninter-
rupted work throughout the year than before. (P. 18.)
Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of
Labor. 18723.
The overseer (of Pemberton Mills, Lawrence) in-
formed us that they took the result of every half-hour’s
work, and upon inquiring the relative product of the dif-
ferent hours, he assured us that invariably the last hour
was the least productive. (P. 246.)
Hon. William Gray, Treasurer of the Atlantic Mills.
Lawrence, began the ten-hour experiment with the opera-
tives in his employ, June, 1867, and his testimony con-
cerning its practical and financial success may be re-
garded as nearly, if not quite, authoritative and decisive.
665
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles.—United States
Massachusetts Senate Documents, No. 33. 1874.
The Committee on the Labor Question to whom was
referred so much of the Governor’s address as relates to
Labor Reform, having considered so much thereof as per-
tains to the enactment of a ten-hour law, and having also
considered the petition of Wendell Phillips and others
for the passage of such a law, report: ... Your Com-
mittee find that the manufacturers of Fall River volun-
tarily adopted ten hours as the length of time their opera-
tives should work, and continued on this basis for twenty-
one months. They ceased only because the other manu-
facturers in the State would not adopt the same regula-
tion. They find further, that the Atlantic Mills, in Law-
rence, have long been run on these hours, and in both
these instances the corporations have paid large divi-
dends. Your Committee, therefore, are of the opinion
that while the lessening of the hours of labor as contem-
plated may reduce the profits, it will not diminish them
so much as to prevent a fair and honorable return for the
capital invested. (P. 2.)
Report of Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor.
1881,
It is apparent that Massachusetts with ten hours pro-
duces as much per man or per loom or per spindle, equal
grades being considered, as other States with eleven and
more hours; and also that wages here rule as high, if not
ie than in the States where the mills run longer time.
P. 457.)
But perhaps the most emphatic testimony is that of
another carpet mill employing about twelve hundred per-
sons. This mill, which has been running but ten hours
for several years, and has during this period tried the
experiment of running overtime, gives the following
results. The manager said: ‘‘I believe, with proper
management and supervision, the same help will produce
as many goods, and of superior quality, in ten hours as
they will in eleven. I judge so from the fact that during
certain seasons, being pushed for goods, we have run up
666
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles.—United States
to nine o’clock, and for the first month the production was
increased materially. After this, however, the help would
grow listless, and the production would fall off and the
quality of the goods deteriorate.’’ (Pp. 460-461.)
The reason is, the flesh and blood of the operatives
have only so much work in them, and it was all got out in
ten hours, and no more could be got out in twelve; and
what was got extra in the first month was taken right out
of the life of the operatives. (P. 461.)
Report of the Chief of Massachusetts District Police for
the year ending December 31, 1883.
It has been stated by those who have specially watched
the operation of the ten-hour law that ‘‘its enforcement
has increased production and advanced the wages and
moral standing of the masses.’’ (Pp. 17-18.)
Ibid. for the year ending Dec. 31, 1886.
One manufacturer stated to me a short time ago that
he had run his mill 66 hours per week, supposing that by
so doing he increased the production nearly one-eleventh,
but was persuaded last January to reduce his running
time to 60 hours per week, and at the end of six months
found that the production of his mill had increased nearly
ten per cent., while the quality of the work done was
more perfect. He also stated that no amount of argu-
ment could have convinced him that the results would be
as they have proven. This shows that an operative can
perform only a certain amount of labor though seem-
ingly light when such labor is required every working
day in the year. (Pp. 71-72.)
Report of the New York State Factory Inspector. 1887.
. . . Asarule, at the end of a year, they would not
have so much working time to their credit as those who
were not so overworked. It can be deduced from this that
it does not pay even the employer to insist upon exces-
sive hours of toil, and, indeed, the invariable testimony
667
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles—Germany
of the proprietors of those mills which, before the present
law was passed, ran eleven hours a day, is to the effect
that their product was not decreased by the reduction to
ten hours, but that the quality of the work was superior,
the employees worked more steadily, and were less inter-
fered with by sickness. (P. 28.)
Fifteenth Annual Report of the National Consumers’
League. New York, 1916. Some Practical Ex-
pertences in Shortening Hours of Labor. Address
by Mr. Frepertck R. Hazarp, President Solvay
Process Company, Syracuse, New York, Cleveland,
Ohio, November 4, 1915.
I took occasion to inquire about the changes in hours
at a woolen manufacturing establishment, and I found
that their results were slightly more favorable after re-
ducing their number of hours from eleven to nine and a
half in some departments, ten in others. They got as much
piece-work from weavers, for instance, in the shorter
time, as they did in the longer time; and in the other
departments ... they found that they had increased
the speed of the shafting which controlled the spinning,
the carding, the combing and the other preparatory opera-
tions, so that they actually got as much work in the
shorter time as they did in the longer time. The woolen
industry is not upon an eight-hour basis, so far as I
know, anywhere. The particular mill at which I made
my inquiry is working on exactly as favorable conditions
as any other woolen mill, but I think that industry could,
in many ways, take advantage of the shorter hours, and
I believe that it could be worked out to be an advan-
tage.
Amtliche Mitteilungen aus den Jahresberichten der
Gewerbe-Aufsichtsbeamten XVIII. 1895. [Official
Information from Reports of the (German) Fac-
tory Inspectors.] Berlin, 1896.
The reports of amount and value of the work done
in the reduced working day are also of interest. The fact
668
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Textiles—Germany
that the value of the work is not in proportion to the
hours of work is but slowly understood. A wool factory
reduced their working day by one hour, in accordance
with the law of June 1, 1891; subtracting the rest periods,
it now amounts to ten and one-half hours. The owners
assert that the amount and value of work done by both
males and females remain the same, while calls upon the
sick fund have greatly diminished. (P. 370.)
Ibid. for the year 1898.
In a jute spinning and weaving factory in Cassel the
ten-hour day was provisionally introduced at the re-
quest of the hands in September. Thus far it has worked
ie ee nes the shorter day will probably be retained.
P. 106.
Jahresberichte der Gewerbe-Aufsichtsbeamten und Berg-
behdrden fiir das Jahr, 1904. Bd. II. Baden. [Re-
ports of the (German) Factory and Mine Inspec-
tors for the year 1904, Vol. II. Baden.| Berlin,
Decker, 1905.
It is satisfactory to find that many employers, instead
of returning to the longer hours usual before the (recent)
business depression, are keeping the shorter day perma-
nently, because they have come to see that the longer hours
formerly the rule do not mean a correspondingly larger
output. So, for instance, a large textile manufacturer of
the Oberland is retaining the 10 hours day, and it is so
much the more noteworthy because he is doing it in di-
rect opposition to most of his confréres, who all assert
emphatically that every reduction of working time under
11 hours must, in the textile industries, involve a cor-
responding loss in output. (Pp. 5-41.)
669
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Metals.—Great Britain
C. METAL TRADES: IRON AND STEEL; TIN PLATE.
A Shorter Working Day. R. A. Haprintp of Hadfield’s
Steel Foundry Co., Sheffield, and H. vz B. Gissins
M. A. Methuen & Co., London, 1892.
Asked whether he adopted the eight hours system as
an experiment or from conviction that it would be an ulti-
mate success, Mr. Allan* said: ‘‘I adopted the eight hours
first because, under the old system, where the men
started work at six o’clock and worked till 8:30 in the
morning, or what is called a quarter, this short morning
division of the day, as I would call it, was so much taken
advantage of by the men and the lads for ‘sleeping in’
that the actual time wrought throughout the week by men
and boys, on a fair average, was something like forty-
six to forty-eight hours per week. . . . Thinking over the
whole question and the best mode of overcoming these
irregularities and losses, I came to the conclusion that
an eight hours day would be more satisfactory to myself
as well as to the men. Besides, I had also in view the
fact that by an eight hours day, commencing at 7:30 in
the morning, it would be more beneficial to the men and
the lads on physical grounds. Men who worked over-
time could not be expected to keep regular time in the
morning. Growing lads who went to night-classes or
places of amusement could not be expected to turn out
in the early morning. Hence it seemed to me the only
successful way to ensure regularity in time-keeping, less
possibility of loss, and better physical conditions for men
and lads was to commence at 7:30 in the morning, and
have only one break in the day, thus getting a ful! forty-
eight hours’ work in the week. For those reasons I was
induced, with the approval of the men, to commence an
eight hours day, agreeing with them that if the experi-
ment proved itself a success in six months the wages
which they agreed to forego—5 per cent.—should be re-
turned to them at the end of that time.”’
* Allan & Co. Scotia Engine Works, Sunderland.
’
670
‘Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Metals.—Great Britain
How It Has Worked.
‘Tt must be borne in mind that in the management of
an engineering factory, if the books are properly kept,
the cost of each detail of an engine, and an engine as a
whole, can be had at any moment, and be compared with
other engines whether finished under a ten, nine, or eight
hours day. Hence six months’ trial was long enough
to determine the labour cost of the engine finished under
the new system as against the old. Therefore, from our
costs, taken out very carefully and compared with sim-
ilar engines fitted under the ten, nine and eight hours
day, we found, much to our surprise, and paradoxical as
it may seem, that the cost of the engines was in no way
increased, in fact, if anything, rather decreased. It be-
came, therefore, a duty to return to the men the wages
which they sacrificed at the initiation of the system, as
there has been no diminution of output in the slightest
degree—rather the contrary. Our reason for that is
simply this: that the men and lads are in better physical
condition, and they lose no time now, while the machines
are kept constantly going by the same men for a straight
spin of 834 hours for four days of the week, 814 hours
another day and 414 hours on Saturdays, overtime, un-
less in special instances, being thus dispensed with.’’
(Pp. 172-174.)
Mr. Harrison, the manager of the works, gave some
useful, practical information as to the success of the
eight hours system. A certain quantity of work, he said,
used to be turned out by each machine in a day’s work
under the nine hours system. Incredible as it may seem
to some, he states that the same amount of work is turned
out by the same machine while worked for eight hours
only. He has only one explanation for this new state
of things, namely, that much time that was formerly
wasted is now utilized, and that the men go into their
work with much greater enthusiasm. It is a very easy
thing, he states, for men to do an additional hour’s work
in a day, for the men stick to their work instead of wast-
ing five minutes here and there as formerly. (P. 179.)
671
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Metals.—Great Britain
The Eight Hours Day. Report on a Year’s Work with a
Forty-eight Hours Week in the Salford Iron
Works, Manchester. (Mather and Platt, Ltd.)
Wiuiram Marner, M. P. Manchester, Guardian
Printing Works, 1894. Statistical Results.
Piecework.—Piecework from the first has been a
matter of considerable interest.
It was at the outset—perhaps naturally—assumed
that men on piecework were already doing their best, and
if their period of work were shortened, their earnings
would be diminished in a corresponding degree.
This anticipation has not been realized; for, although
there is a falling-off in the percentage earned by piece-
workers over and above what they would have received
as day wages, it is slight in comparison with the reduc-
tion in the time, and particularly so in the later portion
of the year.
In order to judge better of the working out of the
system as regards piecework, the year has been divided
into three parts of approximately equal lengths.
In the first period the surplus over day-work rates
was 1.76 per cent. less than the standard piecework
wages; in the-second period 1.58 per cent. less than the
standard piecework wages; in the third period 0.78 per
cent. less than the standard piecework wages; the aver-
age for the twelve months coming out 1.41 per cent. less
than the standard.
These figures show that as the year advanced there
was a steady adaptation to the altered conditions; and
it is reasonable to expect that the small difference re-
maining at the end of the year will soon disappear.
It must also be noted that in no single instance dur-
ing the year were piece-work rates advanced. In fact,
some reductions were made in a few special cases where
the rates were admittedly too high. Had these few
changes not been made, the difference between the two
periods would have been 0.5 per cent. only, instead of
1.41 per cent., a difference which is not at all unusual
between two years, as slight fluctuations in piecework
earnings have occurred from one year to another under
the old system. (Pp. 19-20.)
672
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Metals.—Great Britain |
Conditions in British Iron and Steel Works. I. A Speech
delivered to the Special Commission on Hours of
Labour, International Association for Labour
Legislation, June 11th, 1912. Joun Hones, M. P.
As the result of negotiations between ourselves and
the management of Bell Brothers, Port Clarence Works,
Middlesbrough (this firm were members of the Employ-
ers’ Association), it was necessary, after an agreement
had been come to, that the consent of their Association
should be obtained. The Employers’ Association, how-
ever, absolutely refused to grant the permission. The
management, however, were convinced that an eight-hour
day was a necessity, and would be of very great advan-
tage to the firm as well as to the men. It may be stated,
in this connection, that this firm had introduced a hot-
metal process: the pig iron from the blast furnaces, in-
stead of being cast into pig, being transferred to the open-
hearth furnaces in a liquid state; the work of the men
was very laborious in this process, as all the other materi-
als had to be handled without the aid of any machin-
ery. In consequence of the refusal of the Employers’
Association to grant permission, the firm resigned their
membership, put the eight-hour shift in operation, and
it is worthy of note that the change was successful.
So anxious were the workmen to obtain an eight-hour
day in these works that the higher-paid men came to the
determination, so as to remove every argument of the
employers, that they would pay a percentage out of their
own wages so as to give the lower-paid classes of labour
an eight-hour day with themselves, and so get rid of the
argument of increased cost of production; but added to
this was a proviso that the average output of the melt-
ing shop should be ascertained, and such taken as a basis,
and for every extra ton of output over that average a
bonus should be given to the higher-paid men, so that
what they had given to the lower-paid men would come
back to them in greater volume as the output increased.
To-day, I believe, the contribution of the higher-paid men
is very small, if not entirely wiped out, as a result of
increased output. (Pp. 2-3.)
: 673
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Metals.—Great Britain
In the Tin Plate trade of South Wales—and they have
an enormous foreign export trade—the eight-hour day
is universal. In the Sheet Mill trade in South Wales the
eight-hour day is also in operation. That probably paved
the way for us to a considerable extent, as in our agitation
for an eight-hour day in that district with the Steel
Makers, we have met with less opposition from the em-
ployers than has been the case in other districts; in fact,
I might say a much more generous consideration than
that shown by the employers in any other district. This
will be evident as I go on.
_ Some six or seven years ago I discussed this question
with Mr. Herbert Eccles, of Briton Ferry. Although the
subject had been discussed many times previously, this
time we came to an arrangement whereby he instituted
an eight-hour shift on his Open-Hearth plant. The men
whom this embraced were the smelters, the men who
make the gas, the men in the casting-pit, and the crane-
drivers, as well as the men who make up the ladles. Mr.
Eccles made:a concession of some extra wages to the
ladle-men, so that the lower-paid men should not suffer,
while he asked nothing from the higher-paid men to make
up these wages. The experiment was to last for one year.
Some six weeks before the expiration of the year, in an
interview I had with Mr. Eccles, he stated that he was
not quite satisfied of the success of the experiment, but
he was not prepared to say it had been a failure, and he
desired that we should enter into a new agreement for a
second year, and that we agreed to do. Before six months
had expired Mr. Eccles had arranged for an eight-hour
day for every employee in his works.
Up to this point we had always been working for an
eight-hour day without extra cost to the employer. Mr.
Eccles, however, said this was impossible, as it would
make certain men, such as engine-men, crane-men, and
boiler-firemen such a low wage when divided by three,
that he would not be able to retain the type of men he
desired, and that in their case it would mean less than a
living wage. He had prepared a scheme for the men in
the rolling mills which, when totalled up, showed an esti-
mated extra wages expenditure per annum of £586. My
674
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Metals.—Great Britain
observations upon this acceptance by him of the universal
eight-hour day are, that that experimental period had
demonstrated that, if he had gained nothing from the
change, he had lost nothing. In fact, I go further, and say
that, if he had not been convinced that better results
would accrue from the change, he would never have
agreed to an addition to his wages bill.
Shortly after the establishment of the eight-hour day
in these works, we asked for a conference with the Steel
Makers of South Wales, which was held at Swansea some
five years ago. Mr. Eccles was the Chairman of the Em-
ployers’ Association, and, after a discussion upon the
merits of the proposed change, as well as a discussion as
to its effect upon the life, the health, and the physique
of the workmen, the employers unanimously accepted the
principle of an eight-hour day. (Pp. 3-4.)
Report of the Special Commission on Hours of Labour
in Continuous Industries to the Seventh Delegates’
Meeting of the International Association for
Labour Legislation. Zurich, 1912. London. The
Pioneer Press, Ltd., July, 1912.
In the United Kingdom there has been of late years |
in the iron and steel trade a marked tendency towards the
eight-hour system.
Mr. J. Hodge, M. P., reported to the Commission on
progress in the tin plate and steel industry. The British
Steel Smelters’ Amalgamated Society started a campaign
in favour of an eight-hour day about 25 years ago. Asa
result all rolling mills (with 9,500 men) in the tin plate
and steel sheet industry in South Wales now work eight-
hour shifts. As regards the steel works of South Wales,
the system was adopted in principle by the Employers’
Association about five years ago, but they stipulated that
it must be introduced gradually. It is now practically
universal in the district. In the tin plate and steel works,
work ceases at the week-end, and the average working
week in South Wales ranges from 4124 to 4414 hours. In
England, the eight-hour system is not yet so general, but
a few months ago the men had a conference with the em-
ployers (England and Scotland), who have now asked
675
Superior Output in Shorter Hours: Metals.—Great Britain
the Society to draw up a practical plan for every indi-
vidual firm in the Employers’ Association, so devised
that costs shall not be increased. The Society is accord-
ingly now at work on a plan, which they are hopeful will
be accepted. In the few steel mills where the eight-hour
day is already in operation in England the average week
is 4624 hours.
Mr. P. Walls, J. P., representing the blast furnace-
men, informed the Commission that there are about 8,000
men in the continuous processes working on the eight-
hour system (which is general in the North of England),
and about 7,000 still on the 12-hour shift (mostly in the
Midlands, Scotland, and South Wales). These latter
work seven days a week, and 24 hours on end when the
shifts are changed. The eight-hour system has been in
operation in one district in the North of England for over
21 years, and in another for over 14 years, with excellent
results. (Pp. 4-5.)
The reports and speeches of Mr. A. H. Crosfield, Mr.
John Hodge, M. P., and Mr. Patrick Walls, J. P., contain
evidence to the effect that within a comparatively short
time after adopting shorter hours production has been
found to increase to such an extent, on account of the
more effective and accurate work of the men, that with-
out any increase in the piece rates, the same weekly earn-
ings were reached as had been received before with the
longer day. (P. 10.)
Rational Hours of Work. I. The Case for Reduction.
Shorter Hours and Greater Efficiency. e o
No. of| em- ployees earning {customarily working | Ga >
plants | ployees| aad
Branches of Industry Un- | Un- 25 84 72 60 OES
der der | cents] hrs. | hrs. | hrs. | ‘62 =
16 18 and | and | and | and |,03 wo
cents | cents | over | over | over | under | &® &
* * *
Blast furnaces....... 156 | 31,354] 31.70] 65.96} 7.70] 62.79} 68.55) 10.71
*
©
=
0
©
Steel works and rolling
mills:
Bessemer converters 24 5,618] 18.88] 47.03] 26.36] 18.08] 65.61] 17.84; 24.07
Open-hearth fur-
NAceB........... 80 | 14,618} 20.04] 48.80] 23.75] 23.65) 76.29) 8.07; 30.20
Puddling mills and :
crucible furnaces. 58 7,489| 17.53] 27.89) 51.46 i -65| 3.85] 72.47] 1.42
Rolling mills...... 212 | 43,631) 15.88] 40.25} 32.45) 8.28) 40.68] 31.23) 10.00
Tube mills........ 12 4,252] 8.77] 47.81) 11.71} 1.55| 3.71) 65.85) 1.93
Total, steel works t +t +t +
and rolling mills| 212 | 75,608] 16.30) 41.61) 31.03] 10.85) 43.69) 31.79) 13.65.
Power, mechanical :
and yard force.....| 168 | 65,744] 18.45] 51.22| 22.64) 11.70) 28.94) 55.56) 19.34
§ §
Grand total..... * aa8 172,706 ied 49.69] 23.60] 20.59) 42.58) 37.02) 29.28
*Not including 31 employees who worked 2 days only, and 2 employees who worked
three days only.
+Net including 2 employees who worked 1 day only. | :
tActual number of plants. The total number of plants can not be obtained by simple
addition of the number of plants having the specified departments, as many plants have
two or more departments. For example, many plants with blast furnaces have also steel
works and rolling mills.
§Not ivetuting 2 employees who worked 1 day only, 31 employees who worked 2
days only, and 2 employees who worked 3 days only. (Page xvii.)
The fact that stands out most strikingly in any study
of the labor conditions in the iron and steel industry: in
the United States is the unusually long schedule of work-
ing hours to which the larger number of the employees
in this industry are subject.
946
The Need of Legislation United States
During May, 1910, the period covered by this investi-
gation, 50,000, or 29 per cent., of the 173,000 employees
of blast furnaces and steel works and rolling mills cov-
ered by this report customarily worked 7 days per week,
and 20 ner cent. of them worked 84 hours or more per
week, which, in effect, means a 12-hour working day
every day in the week, including Sunday. The evil of
7-day work was particularly accentuated by the fact de-
veloped in the investigation, that the 7-day working week
was not confined to the blast furnace department where
there is a metallurgical necessity for continuous opera-
tion, and in which department 88 per cent. of the em-
ployees worked 7 days a week; but it was also found
that, to a considerable extent in other departments where
no such metallurgical necessity can be claimed, produc-
tive work was carried on on Sunday just as on other
days of the week. For example, in some establishments
the Bessemer converters, the open-hearth furnaces, and
blooming rail, and structural mills were found operating
7 days a week for commercial reasons only.
The hardship of a 12-hour day and a 7-day week is
still further increased by the fact that every week or
two weeks, as the case may be, when the employees on
the day shift are transferred to the night shift, and vice
versa, employees remain on duty without relief either 18
or 24 consecutive hours, according to the practice adopted
for the change of shift. The most common plan to effect
this change of shift is to work one shift of employees on
the day of change through the entire 24 hours, the suc-
ceeding shift working the regular 12 hours when it comes
on duty. In some instances the change is effected by
having one shift remain on duty 18 hours and the suc-
ceeding shift work 18 hours. During the time that one
shift is on duty, of course, the employees on the other
shift have the same number of hours of relief from duty.
(P. XIV.)
Since the beginning of the present investigation, how-
ever, this matter of abolishing 7-day work for the indi-
vidual employees in the blast furnaces, as well as in other
departments of the industry, has received the attention
of the American Iron and Steel Institute, and through a
947
The Need of Legislation. — United States
committee of that organization a plan has been pro-
posed which gives each employee one day of rest each
week. A number of the plants throughout the coun-
try have, at the instance of the Institute, adopted this
plan or some modification of it, and have successfully
operated it for several months. .. .
Nothing has been done by the manufacturers nor have
any proposals been made to lessen the proportion of men
working 72 hours or more per week. It was found in
this investigation that nearly 43 per cent. of the 173,000
employees in the iron and steel industry were working
at least 72 hours per week, or 12 hours per day for 6
days a week. This proportion remains unchanged, being
unaffected by the plan to give the men who were work-
ing 84 hours per week one day of rest inseven. (P. XV.)
Hours of Labor.
Customary working hours per full week were reported
for 24,689 employees in special occupations in 156 blast-
furnace plants. For 67.11 per cent. of the 24,689 em-
ployees the customary working time was 84 hours or
more per week. This means at least a 12-hour day for
every day in the week, including Sunday. It will be
shown later, however, that a far larger proportion work
7 days per week than would be suggested by this table.
It may be noted that 93.35 per cent. of these employees
fall in two groups—60 and under 72 hours and 84 hours
and over per week. The customary working hours for
only 1 per cent. of the 24,689 employees were less than
60 per week.
The following table shows the classified customary
working hours per week for each district and for the
total of all districts:
948
The Need of Legislation United States -
Per Cent. of Employees Customarily Working Hach
Classified Number of Hours Per Week, by Districts—
Blast Furnaces.
Per cent of employees whose cus-
Average tomary working hours
customary per week were:
Normal working
number of hours 60and 72and &tand
Districts employees per week Under 60 over over over
New England ............ 328 76.9 4.27 36.59 1.22 57.93
Fiastern oo... esssseceeene 4,232 78.4 189 26.47 Tek 64.53
Pittsburgh ~.............. *9 555 78.7 .87 26.21 8.38 64,54
Gt. Lakes & Middle
West. isscudeae a 6,290 79.4 68 24.99 a2 71.21
Southern oe 4.284 79.4 65 27.12 2.15 70.07
Total, all districts *24,689 78.9 1.00 26.24 5.55 67.11
* Not including 31 employees who worked 2 days only and 2 employees who
worked 3 days only.
The proportion of employees whose customary work-
ing time per week was 84 hours and over is approximately
the same in the Great Lakes and Middle West district
and in the Southern district, the percentages being 71.21
and 70.07, respectively. The proportion is somewhat
lower in the Pittsburgh district and in the Eastern dis-
trict, the percentages in those two districts being 64.54
and 64.53, respectively, and considerably lower in the
New England district, where the percentage is 57.93.
Only 328 employes are included, however, in the New
England district.
A further combination shows that the customary
working time is 72 hours per week or over for 74.33 per
cent. of the 6,290 employees in the Great Lakes and Mid-
dle West district, for 72.92 per cent. of the 9,555 em-
ployees in the Pittsburgh district, for 72.22 per cent. of
the 4,284 employees in the Southern district, 71.64 per
cent. of the 4,232 employees in the Eastern district, and
for 59.15 per cent. of the 328 employees in the New Eng-
land district.
Days Per Week.
Seven days or turns per week was the customary
working time for 22,531, or 91.26 per cent. of the 24,689
949
The Need of Legislation.—United States
employees in the special occupations in the 156 blast-
furnace plants. Six days per week was the customary
working time for 2,136 employees, or 8.65 per cent. of
the total. In the case of the 15 employees reported as
working 5 days per week, this probably represents the
time which they were employed at the specific occupa-
tion in which they were reported, they being employed
at other work for the remainder of the week.
_ The proportion of employees whose customary work-
ing time per week was 7 days in each of the 5 districts was
as follows:
Per Cent. of Employees Whose Customary Working
Time Was 7 Days Per Week, By Districts—Blast
Furnaces.
Per cent. of em-
ployees whose
customary work-
Normal number ing time was 7
Districts. of employees. days per week.
New England ; 328 96.65
Western nce 2 4,232 - 87.36
SS AS a see ec tee *9,555 89.95
Gt. Lakes and Middle West...... 6,290 93.28
SOMO geecaict aecrslecceeeescscnie 4,284 94.65
* Not including 31 employees who worked 2 days only and 2 employees
_who worked 3 days only.
In general it may be said that in May, 1910, all the
employees directly connected with the operation of blast
furnaces were working 7 days or turns per week, the
small number working 6 days being employed in such
occupations as yard laborers or stockers, whose services
can be dispensed with on 1 day without interfering with
the operation of the furnaces. (Pp. 11, 12 & 13.)
950
The Need of Legislation United States
Ibid. Vol. III. Working Conditions and the Relations
of Employers and Employees. 62nd Congress, 1st
Session, 1911. Washington, 1913.
Working Hours in 1912.
For the greater part of the workmen in the iron and
steel industry the condition as regards working time
may be briefly stated as the combination of a schedule of
unusually long hours of labor with an alternation of day
and night work and with frequent extended periods of
overtime. Approximately one-half of the employees in
the iron and steel industry have a regular working-day of
12 hours, usually from 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. when on the day
shift and from 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. when on the night shift.
Every week or two weeks practically all of these 12-hour
workmen change from the day shift to the night shift, or
vice versa, and must consequently accustom themselves
to the changed conditions of eating and sleeping. Apart
from the difficulty of making this periodic readjustment
of habits, to which all of the workmen interviewed testi-
fied, there is in the case of the married employees the
added hardship of almost complete separation from their
wives and children. Furthermore, at the end of the 12-
hour day, whether on the day shift or the night shift, the
workmen are, as is shown elsewhere, liable to be called
upon to work 12 hours more in place of absent workmen,
or to work for several hours until some repair job is
completed. Many cases were encountered in the investi-
gation where workmen were on duty continuously for 36
hours, often without an hour’s sleep or rest and some-
times without even hot food. Moreover, a large number
of the employees work every day in the week, including
Sunday, and, at the time the shifts are changed from day
to night, these workmen are on duty continuously for
either 18 or 24 hours. In May, 1910, 30 per cent. of the
employees worked 7 days a week, but during the past
year (1911-12) a number of companies have made such
arrangements that none of their employees is permitted
to work more than 6 days per week. Between 40 and 50
per cent. of the employees formerly working 7 days per
week have been affected by these arrangements for 6-
951
The Need of Legislation—United States
day work, but this still (August, 1912) leaves more than
15 per cent. of the employees in the industry generally
and more than 50 per cent. of the blast-furnace workmen
on a regular schedule of 7 days a week with a long turn
of 18 or 24 hours at the change of shift.
Such a schedule of working hours is now recognized
by the leading steel manufacturers and the public, as
well as by the workmen, to be undesirable socially and
productive of industrial inefficiency. The 7-day week has
been particularly condemned and certain steps for its
elimination have already been taken. The 12-hour day
has likewise come to be regarded as undesirable and cer-
tain definite recommendations for its abolition have been
made. (Pp. 159 and 160.)
Hours of Labor in the Steel Industry. A Communica-
tion to 15,000 Stockholders of the United States
Steel Corporation. Written, after full investiga-
tion by Joun A. Fircu, for Charles M. Cabot, 95
Milk Street, Boston, a stockholder of the Steel
Corporation. Boston, 1912.
In Pittsburgh in 1907, I talked with men who had
worked in repairing break-downs in steel mills thirty-
six and forty-eight hours continuously, without rest or
sleep, and who expected to have to do it again. Such
periods of overwork were not regular. They did not
come every week or every month. Yet, most of the ten-
hour machinists that I met had at different times worked
anywhere from twenty-four to forty-eight hours at a
stretch. In McKeesport I accidentally met a man on
the street one day and walked a block with him, and he
told me that he had worked thirty-six consecutive hours
at the steel mill the week before. Since 1907, I have met
steel workers in all parts of the United States who have
at times been obliged to put in just such terrific periods
of overtime. :
A twelve-hour man, you would naturally think, would
be relieved by a man on the other shift at the end of his
twelve hours. He generally is. But I have talked in
the last year with twelve-hour steel workers who have
952
The Need of Legislation—United States
been obliged to work thirty-six hours at a stretch be-
cause the other man did not relieve them. Such cases
occurred not in any emergency, not because of a break-
down, but in the regular routine of events in the running
of the mill. It is all very simple. Jones goes to work
in the morning and works until night—twelve hours.
Smith should take his place at that time, but Smith’s
wife is sick and he doesn’t come out. The mill doesn’t
stop when Smith’s wife is sick. It needs a man in a cer-
tain position, and what are the odds whether his name
be Smith or Jones? Jones stays and works the night
shift. Next morning his own day shift begins again; so
he works that, too, before he goes home, making a total
of thirty-six hours on duty.
Let me be more specific. It was a man in Lackawanna,
N. Y., an employe of the Lackawanna Steel Company,
who had had several times exactly the experience de-
scribed here, who told me about his working schedule
just the week before I saw him. On Saturday, October
9, 1910, this man went to work at six in the morning and
worked continuously until two o’clock Sunday afternoon,
thirty-two hours. Monday should regularly have been
his day off, but the man on the other shift for some rea-
son could not work that day, so he went out again at six
in the morning and did the other man’s regular work.
Monday night he worked his own shift again, finishing his
twenty-four hour stretch Tuesday morning. From Satur-
day morning to Tuesday morning there is a total of
seventy-two hours. This man worked fifty-six of the
seventy-two—a period out of which a brick-layer, a
plumber, or a compositor would have worked twelve
hours, four of them on Saturday and eight on Monday.
If these statements seem incredible, turn to the de-
cision of the Supreme Court of the State of Indiana in
the case of Republic Iron and Steel Company vs. Ohler.*
The facts of the case are reviewed in the opinion of the
Court. Ohler got hurt at four o’clock in the morning of
December 20, 1899, while working in a rolling mill af
Frankton, Ind., a plant that has since been abandoned.
* 161 Indiana—393.
953
The Need of Legislation.—United States
He had begun the shift that ended so disastrously in the
morning of December 18, forty-eight hours before. And
he ltad worked, repairing a break-down, all of these
forty-eight hours. At the end of the thirty-sixth hour,
he had told the foreman that he didn’t believe that he
could stand it any longer. The foreman told him that
he must stay until the job was finished, as he wanted to
start the mill the next morning at six o’clock. Ohler
remembered that when, a few months previously he had
refused to work on a Sunday, he had been discharged by
this same foreman; so he stayed on and worked twelve
hours longer and then he got hurt. (Pp. 5-6.)
Half the steel workers in America have a regular
twelve-hour day. A third of those actually engaged in
manufacturing processes, the United States Bureau of
Labor says, worked in 1910 not only twelve hours a day
but seven days a week; thousands of ten-hour men also
worked a seven-day week. Fifty thousand or more
throughout the country faced at intervals varying from
two weeks to a month a solid stretch of work eighteen
or twenty-four hours long. Ten-hour men may at any
time be called upon to work twelve hours as a regular
thing, while before all of the workers, whether listed in
the ten- or the twelve-hour class, there looms the ever
imminent possibility of the stretching of a six-day week
to seven days, of seven days to eight, and the drawing out
of a single shift to lengths that approach and occasionally
even reach the limit of a whole weeks’ work in other
and more favored crafts. (P. 9.)
Republic Iron & Steel Co. v. Ohler, 68 N. E. Reporter, 901
(1903) :
At the time the plaintiff sustained the injury alleged,
he had been working continuously, at the instance and
request of the defendant, in the said factory, for a period
of forty-eight hours, without any sleep; and when he
was ordered by said foreman to hold the rod, by reason
of his continuous work, without sleep, he did not realize
or appreciate the danger to which he was being sub-
954
The Need of Legislation.—United States
jected. . . . It is disclosed that after he had worked
continuously some thirty-six hours in turning the rod,
he informed Kelley, the foreman, that he did not believe
he could endure the labor any longer; but the latter in-
formed him that he must continue at work until the rod
was finished. It is not reasonable to assert that a man
who has labored continuously for a period of forty-eight
hours without sleep, or for even a much shorter time, is
in his normal condition, or that he, under the circum-
stances, can properly exercise all of the faculties or
senses with which he is endowed. . . . A human being
deprived of sleep for the period which appellee was, be-
comes dull in intellect and apprehension, and necessarily
must be more or less unmindful of his surroundings. ...
The jury had the right at least to consider this feature
of the case, as bearing upon the question whether, under
all of the circumstances, appellee apprehended and ap-
preciated the danger to which he was subjected.
The Steel Workers. Joun A. Fitcw. The Pittsburgh
Survey. Russell Sage Foundation Publication.
New York. Charities Publication Committee.
1910.
A comparison with European practice is illuminating.
A recent writer on the subject of American industrial
conditions reports more overtime and Sunday work in
America than in either Germany or England, and fewer
holidays. The working day is longer in America than
in England, and less time is allowed for meals. The
eight-hour day has been developed much farther in Eng-
land than in America, and it has, he states, been very
successful. America has not a single blast furnace with
an eight-hour work day, but furnaces in the north of
Eade have the eight-hour day in successful opera-
10n.
The open-hearth furnaces are operated on the twelve-
hour basis in Allegheny County, and as far as I have
been able to learn, on this basis everywhere else in the
United States. With a few exceptions they have always
been operated on that basis. In Wales, on the contrary,
955
The Need of Legislation—United States
there are a number of open-hearth plants where an
eight-hour day is established. John Hodge, M. P., sec-
retary of the British Steel Smelters, Mill and Tin Plate
Workers, is authority for the statement that there are
seven establishments in Wales and two in England where
the three-shift system is in operation. . . .
In England the system is reported by Mr. Hodge as
satisfactory, and the eight-hour work day is growing in
popularity. (Pp. 177-178.)
American Labor Legislation Review. March, 1914.
Working Hours in Continuous Industries. Long
. Hours m Railroading. Austin B. Garrerson,
President, Order of Railway Conductors.
If we go back before there was any effort to regulate
hours of labor in this service, before there were organi-
zations in existence strong enough to voice the determin-
ation of the men that they would have amelioration of
their conditions, twenty-four, thirty-six, fifty, seventy or
even 100 hours were not uncommon in continuous service
with no opportunity for rest, and slight opportunity for
food. More than twenty times in my own career as a
freight conductor I have been on duty for seventy-two .
hours. (P. 122.)
It would probably excite doubt if I told you what
was the limit of service J have ever known performed
by men continuously, but I am not making a statement
that is not capable of absolute demonstration. I have
known one case in which a train crew put in only two
time slips in one calendar month, and were continuously
on duty except for one interval of a day and a half be-
tween the two trips, and the end of the month did not
finish the second trip. The general manager of the
railway upon which it happened, when I produced the
time slips forty days after that, in a collective deal where
ten general managers were representing forty-nine rail-
ways, identified the slips without my giving the name of
the road, and added, ‘‘By heaven, I don’t know whether
they are in yet!’’ (Pp. 124-5.) :
For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1913, a total of
956
The Need of Legislation —United States
261,332 men are recorded as exceeding sixteen hours.
But that does not tell you much unless you get the sub-
divisions of that 261,000. Seventy-one thousand of these
cases were between sixteen and seventeen hours; 70,000
more between seventeen and eighteen hours; 40, 000 above
eighteen hours and less than nineteen hours; 15,000 above
twenty and less than twenty-one hours. Then they run
in the thousands until there were 1,095 cases above
twenty-seven hours and less than twenty-eight hours.
Then they run in hundreds until, when we get up to over
forty hours and less than sixty-five hours, there were
less than twenty-five instances in the year. And from
sixty-five hours and upwards—they took the limit off—
there were 213 instances. And they call this a civilized
country! . . . Probably one-third of the men engaged
in train and engine service work in excess of ten or
twelve hours. (P. 126.)
Constitutional Amendments Relating to Labor Legisla-
tion and Brief in Their Defense. Submitted to the
Constitutional Convention of New York State by
a Committee organized by the American Assocta-
tron for Labor Legislation. June 9, 1915.
| Need of Regulation of Hours of Labor for Adult Males.
Existing Conditions.
Unregulated hours of labor mean overwork. There
is a general belief that the tendency in this country is
everywhere toward shorter hours of labor. A study of
the situation demonstrates that this belief is not justified
by the facts. While there is a marked tendency in cer-
tain industries and in certain localities toward an eight-
hour day, that tendency is not universal and there are
large and important industries, some of the most im-
portant of them being largely represented in New York,
in which there is no movement whatever toward a shorter
work day but instead the standards of fifty years ago
are maintained.
Extent of the Evil.
The two tables reproduced as Appendix II of this
Brief are compiled from Volume X of the 1910 Census
957
The Need of Legislation.—United States
Reports. Table I shows the industries where a con-
siderable proportion of the employees are working re-
spectively 60 hours, 60 to 72 hours, and 72 hours and
over per week. (P. 14.)
SPECIFIED NUMBER OF HOURS PER WEEK, BY INDUSTRIES.
TABLE I.
NUMBER OF U. S. WAGE-EARNERS, AND PER CENT. OF TOTAL, WORKING
‘Total Hours per week.
Wage
Earn- Per
Industry. ers : 72 Cent.
Em- Bet. hrs. 60
ployed we ao a oo and at ne.
rs. en ent. over ent. an
over
Gotton <5 susnases aussie 378,880] 119,226] 31.4 |64,687| 17.0 | 215] ... | 48.6
Hosiery and Knit Goods...| 129,275] 49,934) 38.6 had see | 4,927] 3.8 42.4
Woolen Goods..........-- 168,722 45,300 26.8 1,075} 6 | 2. we, 27-4
Sills et anette neeinene 99, p : nae eh : ‘
di and Twine, Jute
eee Lien Spice cad ae 25,820! 6,023| 23.3 | 667] 2.5 25.9
Dyei nd Twisting Tex-
OMe od Senna tea 44,046] 12,6391 28.6 | 1,628] 3.6] ...| ... | 32.2
QOilcloth and Linoleum..... ‘ 2,727| 52.4 ae alee Ph Si sii 52.4
Blast Furnaces...... Rites 38,429] 1,149] 2.9 | 4,057] 10.5 |33,033] 86.9 | 99.5
ks and olling
Orillia sedensnetsine rod Ws 240,076 82,130 34.2 30,267| 12.5 | 52,318] 21.7 68.6
Wire... 0... eee ee ee eects 18,084] 10, . eee tte are ae a
lectrical Machinery, Ap-
P eaite and Supplies “| 87,256 5,874] 6.7 | ... 40 6.7
1 ildi includin: 02
Oe are Cae 40,506 14,038 346} at] + “4 34.6
i Implements.... $ e ie . a
Sete toon 89/728| 64,776| 72.1 638| ... 494 73.4
Butter, Cheese and Milk...} 18,431 6,379] 34.6 | 6,825) 37.0 932 76.6
Flurl nd Gro MAL) S| aE] et | ie) bs |staaa] M2) ast
Glucose and Stareh.!.11...] “a\773] 1.261) 26-2 | ““672) 14a 2,760) 87.8 | 98
Galt... ci) dee egy te cies Fae 4, ; 5. ‘ 4 2
De ota a ade 4127| .2.. |... | ss | «+: | 3,920] 95.0 | 95.0
Eueg fia breenens. 89,968 142,908 71-5 onan 3 2,495 4.1 80.5
ec caipettcas 695,01 ; ; : : ;
rarer Tocmuteate alas 38,020| 10,789] 28.2| ... | ...| -.. | .. 28.2
Cheynitalassces os.uacadeos 23,714 6,581 21.7 2,050 8.6 4,707| 15.6 86.2
IPOSs a aioe aaa danes 6,274| 5,8 : x Seek pee :
ee sd siascceoes Sat 18,310 14,502 79.2 1,408 76 1,189 8-4 93-4
tal. Oildvgscnccncewe 29 : ( : :
ee vem ks 14,240| 3,440] 24.1 67]... 463]... | 27.8
ede: fe chee ee # ee 2,252 555| 24.6 446| 19.8 997 88.7
Gaee es sani Deasdomuaceoteh 29'273| 11,629| 39.7 | 3,904| 13.3 | 3,280 64.2
PateoleuMi goes na cae eaninns 13,929 "894 13.5 673 ... | 2,588 37.0
Soap..... cee ee eee eee 12,999 4,7 s ee ae aoe
rat edsssimas? 37,215| 5,806| 15.6 | 5,786] 15.5 |21, :
fou Paundnes COS aE 109,484| 36,884] 33.6 598] «5 147 34.3
Turpentine and Rosin...... 9,511) 19,607] 49.8 997| ... 1 “ ee
Boots and Shoes.......- een een aaa oe a sinks uz ee
eee Wien 02 | aaad| Uita| 88 |e | ee, | ae a8
Paper and Wood Pulp...... 75,978| 22,941) 30.1 14,882 19. 1 on ks
Printing and Publishing... .| 258,434 ea ok ons 1407 ab
atoriobilee toc aod ge'gge| 27'771| 39.7 | 406] "6 5 40.3
Carriages and Wagons..... epeil 10764 fe6 | 3,423; 4.9 | 4,183 : 265
Glass. site 1 121L1IT!| 760528] 60,613] 66.1 | 1,979) 2.5 | 493] 6 | 69.8
Cotta and}. f i
Fae rie *56,168| 21,909] 39.1'} 967 434 416
Carpets and Rugs......... 33/3071 12.084! 36.21 ... ES i
958
The Need of Legislation.—United States
It appears from these figures that 85 per cent. of all
employees in blast furnaces in 1909 worked 72 hours or
more per week. The same schedule of hours was fol-
lowed by 21 per cent. of the steel workers, 18 per cent. of
the workers in flour mills, 65 per cent. of those engaged
in ice manufacturing, 57 per cent. of those in glucose
and starch factories, 95 per cent. of the workers in sugar
refineries, 15 per cent. of those in chemical plants, 44 per
cent. of the workers in acid factories, 18 per cent. of the
petroleum workers, 57 per cent. of the gas workers and
21 per cent. of the paper workers.
These are but a fraction of those working 60 hours
or more per week. Taking only those industries where
the hours of labor ran 60 hours or more for at least 50
per cent. of the working force, we have oilcloth and
linoleum 52 per cent., blast-furnaces 99 per cent., steel
works and rolling mills 68 per cent., wire 56 per cent.,
slaughtering 73 per cent., butter, cheese and milk 76
per cent., flour mills 79 per cent., ice 90 per cent., glucose
and starch 98 per cent., salt 83 per cent., sugar 95 per
eent., canning and preserving 80 per cent., lumber 80 per
cent., chemicals 56 per cent., explosives 87 per cent., fer-
tilizer 93 per cent., essential oils 74 per cent., acids 88
per cent., coke 64 per cent., gas 88 per cent., turpentine
52 per cent., paper 71 per cent., brick and tile 69 per
cent.
These figures, limited to manufacturing plants alone,
indicate that there is a vast amount of employment in-
volving 10 hours a day and over. The column ‘‘72 hours
and over’’ leaves room for speculation as to the maxi-
mum limits of the working day. A 60-hour week of
course means 10 hours a day and a 72-hour week means
a 12-hour working day.
In this list the transportation industries are not in-
cluded. Sixteen hours a day is the maximum that a
railroad employee engaged in the operation of trains
can legally be employed. The record of actions brought
by the Interstate Commerce Commission against rail-
roads for exceeding this 16-hour limit indicates the ex-
tent of inhuman hours of labor in that field. Hours of
labor on street car lines extend to enormous periods of
959
The Need of Legislation—United States
overtime by the swing run system which employs a man
for a few hours during the rush hour in the morning and
then lays him off to wait until the rush hour in the
evening, when he is to complete his working day. There
is nothing that he can do in the interim. He must be on
eall. Usually he cannot go home. His actual working
day extends from the time he starts work in the morn-
on he is through with his last trip at night. (Pp.
The tables quoted are inadequate because they stop
at 72 hours a week. There is no intimation given of the
84-hour week which marks the continuous industries.
Eighty-four hours means 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Industries where the 7-day week prevails to a greater or
less extent are blast furnaces and steel mills, ice fac-
tories, sugar refineries, chemical factories, coke ovens,
paper and pulp mills and gas plants. (P. 17.)
Most of the work done in steel works and rolling
mills has no technical requirements necessitating seven-
day labor. Nevertheless, such labor is often required.
A report made to the Senate by the United States Bureau
of Labor on Conditions in the Bethlehem Steel Works in
1910 (Senate Document No. 521, 61st Congress, Second
Session) showed that out of 9,184 men on the pay roll in
January, 1910, 4,041, or 43 per cent. of the entire pay
roll, worked 7 days a week. A majority of these men
were in departments which were thus operating for com-
mercial reasons alone, that is, to facilitate the production
_ of steel. (P. 17.)
APPENDIX
HOURS OF LABOR AND REALISM
IN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
BY
FELIX FRANKFURTER
[REPRINTED FROM THE Harvarp Law Review, VoL. XXIX., No. 4]
- Copyright, 1916,
By THe Harvarp Law REviEw ASSOCIATION
962
HOURS OF LABOR AND REALISM IN CONSTITU-
TIONAL LAW*
TT HE Massachusetts Supreme Court was called upon
recently to consider the constitutionality of the fol-
lowing statute:
‘‘Eimployees in and about steam railroad stations in
this Commonwealth designated as baggage men, labor-
ers, crossing tenders and the like, shall not be employed
for more than nine working hours in ten hours’ time; the
additional hour to be allowed as a lay off.’’
The increasing demand for shorter hours of labor
throughout the industrial world, the likelihood that such
demand will receive legislative recognition, the nation-
wide importance of the attitude of the judiciary toward
such legislation; conversely, the attitude of public opin-
ion upon the continued exercise by the courts of their
traditional power under the American constitutional sys-
tem—all these considerations, and more, justify a con-
stant critique within the profession of the point of view,
no less than the explicit factors, which control judicial
decisions upon social and industrial legislation.
The question before the Massachusetts Supreme
Court was not a new question. Necessarily, therefore,
the court had to consider the applicable precedents, and
the legal thinking which was embodied therein.2 What
* For laborious help in the preparation of this article I am indebted to
one of my students, Mr. Howard F. Burns,
*Valuable contributions have. been made in recent years which will be
referred to later, particularly the admirable papers of Professor Ernst
Freund, “Limitation of Hours of Labor and the Federal Supreme Court,”
17 Green Bac 411; Judge Learned Hand, “Due Process of Law and the
Eight Hour Day,” 21 Harv. L. Rev. 495; and Professor Roscoe Pound,
“Liberty of Contract,” 18 YALE L. J. 454.
? This paper will concern itself wholly with the validity of the regula-
tion of hours of labor as a problem in what Mr. Justice Holmes calls the
“apologetics of the police power.” ‘Therefore, objections to the specific
statute under consideration because (1) it fails to make provision for emer-
gencies. (2) it is a denial of the equal protection of the laws by reason
of arbitrary classification, and (3) it interferes with a field taken over
by Congress in the Hours of Service Act of March 4, 1907, or special
arguments in its favor, based (a) on the power to amend corporate charters,
and (b) on the fact that a special obligation may be imposed on public-
service companies, are all put on one side.
963
then was the legal background? It will be serviceable
perhaps briefly to summarize the state of the authorities
dealing with regulation of the hours of labor. Such a
summary will tell a useful tale of legal history; it will
do more—it may guide us not a little in the solution of
present-day constitutional problems.
For the purpose of legal analysis, these cases fall into
three groups :* (a) regulation of the labor of women and
children; (b) regulation of labor in dangerous or pecu-
liarly unhealthful employments; and (c) regulation of
labor in industry generally.
(a@)—Recutation or Lasor or WoMEN AND CHILDREN
1876 Commonwealth v. Hamilton Mfg. Co., 120 Mass.
383, sustained a law prohibiting the labor of women and
children for more than sixty hours per week in manufac-
turing establishments. The statute was sustained as a
matter of course. No reference whatever was made to
the Fourteenth Amendment and counsel was apparently
unable to ‘‘refer to any particular clause of the [Massa-
chusetts] Constitution to which this provision is repug-
nant’’ (p. 384).
1895 Ritchie v. People, 155 Tl. 98, invalidated an
eight-hour law for women as ‘‘a purely arbitrary restric-
tion upon the fundamental right of the citizen to control
his or her own time and faculties’’ (p. 108).
1902 Wenham v. State, 65 Neb. 394,° sustained a sixty-
hour per week law for women on the ground that
‘‘women and children have always, to a certain extent,
been wards of the state’’; and that while ‘‘the employer
and the laborer are practically on an equal footing
these observations do not apply to women and children’?
(p. 405).
® Cases involving the validity of legislation as to hours of labor upon
public works or work done for the public are not considered. All recent
important authorities now sustain such legislation, not as an exercise of
the police power, but as an assertion by the state of its right to regulate
the conditions under which public work shall be done. Atkin v. United
States, 191 U. S. 207 (1903); People v. Crane, 214 N. Y. 154, 108 N. E.
427 (1915), affirmed, 239 U. S. 195 (1915) ; Heim v. McCall, 214 N. Y. 629,
108 N. E. 1095 (1915), affirmed, 239 U. S. 175 (1915).
“40 N. E. 454. *91 N. W. 421.
964
1902 State v. Buchanan, 29 Wash. 602,° sustained a
ten-hour law for women in mechanical and mercantile
establishments.
“Tt is a matter of universal knowledge with all rea-
sonably intelligent people of the present age that con-
tinuous standing on the feet by women for a great many
consecutive hours is deleterious to their health.... |
While the principles of justice are immutable, changing
conditions of society and the evolution of employment
make a change in the application of principles absolutely
necessary to an intelligent administration of govern-
ment. In the early history of the law, when employments
were few and simple; the relative conditions of the citizen
and the state were different, and many employments
and uses which were then considered inalienable rights
have since, from the very necessity of changed condi-
tions, been subjected to legislative control, restriction,
and restraint’’ (p. 610).
1907 People v. Williams, 189 N. Y. 131,’ declared in-
valid a statute prohibiting night work of women because
‘it is, certainly, discriminative against female citizens,
in denying to them equal rights with men in the same
pursuit’’ (p. 135).
1907 Burcher v. People, 41 Colo. 495,8 nullified an
eight-hour law for women and children because (1)
under the Colorado Constitution the legislature must
specifically designate what pursuits are unhealthful; and
(2) even if the court had power to pass on the issue ‘‘the
laundry business must be considered healthful; for coun-
sel themselves, in their stipulation of facts, on which the
record shows the cause was decided, are in accord that
such occupation is healthful’’ (p. 504).
1908 Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412, sustained the
constitutionality of a ten-hour law for women in any
mechanical establishment or factory or laundry.
‘“‘The legislation and opinions referred to... may
not be, technically speaking, authorities, and in them is
*70 Pac. 52. *93 Pac. 14.
™g1 N. E. 778.
965
little or no discussion of the constitutional question pre-
sented to us for determination, yet they are significant
of a widespread belief that woman’s physical structure,
and the functions she performs in consequence thereof,
Justify special legislation restricting or qualifying the
Coo under which she should be permitted to toil’’
p. 420).
‘‘The limitations which this statute places upon her
contractual powers, upon her right to agree with her
employer as to the time she shall labor, are not imposed
solely for her benefit, but also largely for the benefit of
all’’ (p. 422).
1910 Ritchie & Co. v. Wayman, 244 TIl. 509,° sustained
a ten-hour law for women in any mechanical establish-
ment, factory or laundry. ?
How could such a result have been reached?
(1) The case was inadequately presented. The court
was not called upon to pass on the validity of the statute
as such, but upon an agreed statement of facts under the
statute to the effect that there is nothing inherently
unhealthy about the work which the employee did, as it
was half performed in the open air and was not ardu-
ous.°? The assumption back of such a statement is that
where work is not inherently unhealthy it is immaterial
how long such work is pursued. Thus a wholly unscien-
tific concession of fact-was made, and therefore a wholly
unscientific issue was presented to the court. But even
such an issue was not supported by the available body of
scientific facts. No attempt was made to bring to the
attention of the court a detailed, painstaking, thoroughly
marshaled array of facts to explain and to fortify the
experience and theory back of labor legislation. In other
words, the case was not argued in the way in which the
decisions in the Muller case, the second Ritchie case, the
Hawley case, the Miller case, the Bosley case, and the
Schweinler case demanded that it should be argued.
(2) One can therefore understand why the court
found the case ‘‘governed’’ by the Lochner case, supra.54
Nevertheless, one is compelled to conclude that the illum-
ination that has been cast upon the Lochner case during
the past decade does not leave to that case any principle
which ipso facto controls the validity of specific meas-
( ee oe v. Klinck Packing Co., 214 N. Y. 121, 127, 108 N. E. 278, 280
1915).
™ Price v. Illinois, 238 U. S. 446, 452 (1915).
” Commonwealth v. Boston & M. R. R., 110 N. E. (Mass.) 264 (1915).
* Commonwealth v. Boston & M. R. R., 110 N. E. (Mass.) 264 (1915).
“Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45 (1905).
981
ures regulating hours of labor. The principle of the
Lochner case is simple enough: that arbitrary restriction
of men’s activities, unrelated in reason to the ‘‘public
welfare,’’ offends the Fourteenth Amendment. As to
the principle, there is no dispute. But the principle is
the beginning and not the end of the inquiry. The field
of contention is in its application. The Lochner case,
judged by its history and by more recent decisions of the
Supreme Court, does not in itself furnish the yardstick
for its application.
(a) It is now clearly enough recognized that each
case presents a distinct issue; that each case must be
determined by the facts relevant to it; that we are deal-
ing, in truth, not with a question of law but the applica-
tion of an undisputed formula to a constantly changing
and growing variety of economic and social facts.5> Hach
case, therefore, calls for a new and distinct considera-
tion, not only of the general facts of industry but the
specific facts in regard to the employment in question
and the specific exigencies which called for the specific
statute.
(b) The groundwork of the Lochner case has by this
time been cut from under. The majority opinion was
based upon ‘‘a common understanding’’ as to the effect
of work in bakeshops upon the public and upon those en-
gaged in it. ‘‘Common understanding’’ has ceased to
be the reliance in matters calling for essentially scien-
tific determination. ‘‘Has not the progress of sanitary
science shown,’’ Professor Freund pertinently inquires,
‘‘that common understanding is often equivalent to pop-
ular ignorance and fallacy?’** On the particular issue
involved in the Lochner case ‘‘study of the facts has
shown that the legislature was right and the court was
wrong.’>? Hither because matters as to which the court
of its own knowledge cannot know, or, because not know-
5% See People v. Schweinler Press, 214 N. Y. 395, 411-412, 108 N. E. 639,
643 (1915) ; Bosley v. McLaughlin, 236 U.S. 385, 392 et seq. (1915) ; Miller
v. Wilson, 236 U. S. 373, 382 (1915); McLean v. Arkansas, 211 U. Ss.
539, 549-550 (1908).
47 GREEN Bac 411, 416.
"Professor Roscoe Pound, “Liberty of Contract,” 18 Yate L. J. 454,
480, and n. 123.
982
ing, it cannot assume the non-existence of facts, con-
tested legislative action should be resolved in favor of
rationality rather than capricious oppression. Happily
the fundamental constitutional doctrine of the assump-
tion of rightness of legislative conduct, where the court
is uninformed, is again rigorously being enforced by the
United States Supreme Court.*®
(c) So far as the general flavor of the Lochner opin-
ion goes, it surely is no longer ‘‘controlling.’’ If the
body of professional opinion counts for anything in the
appraisal of authority of a decision (itself decided by
a divided court, and since departed from in effect in an
important series of cases), it has been impressively ar-
rayed against this decision. If ever an opinion has been
subjected to the weightiest professional criticism it is
the opinion in the Lochner case. Judge Andrew Bruce,
Professor Ernst Freund, Judge Learned Hand, Profes-
sor Roscoe Pound—to mention no others—surely speak
with high competence upon this subject. Nevertheless,
the body of persuasive authority which their writings
present was not brought to the court’s attention and
failed to be considered in the disposition of the case.*®
The circumstances which resulted in this decision re-
veal anew a situation of far-reaching importance. For
it affects the very bases on which constitutional decisions
are reached and, therefore, affects vitally the most sensi-
tive point of contact: between the courts and the people.
* Thus, in one of its latest opinions, the Supreme Court refused to upset
a “police measure” with the following language:
“Petitioner makes his contention depend upon disputable considerations
of classification and upon a comparison of conditions of which there is no
means of judicial determination and upon which nevertheless we are ex-
pected to reverse legislative action... . 7’ Hadachek v. Sebastian, 239 U. S.
394, 413 (Dec. 20, 1915).
Here, as elsewhere in the law, Mr. Justice Holmes long ago put the
matter with acute finality: “I cannot pronounce the legislation [prohibiting
fines against weavers for defective workmanship] void, as based on a false
assumption, since I know nothing about the matter one way or the other.”
Commonwealth v. Perry, 155 Mass. 117, 124-125, 28 N. E. 1126, 1127
(1891). As to the reasonableness of the legislature’s belief that a system
of fines affords dangerous temptations for oppressive use see R. H. Taw-
NEY, Minimum RATES IN THE TarLortnc INpustRY, pp. 60 and 95.
% A. A. Bruce, “The Illinois Ten Hour Labor Law for Women,” 8
Micu. L. Rev. 1; G. S. Corwin, “I'he Supreme Court and the Fourteenth
Amendment,” 7 Micu. L. Rev. 643; Ernst Freund, “Limitation of Hours
983
The statute under discussion may well have been of no
particular social import. The decision which nullified
it, one may be sure, offers no intrinsic obstruction to
needed legislation, and in itself has merely ephemeral
vitality. But, unfortunately, the evil that decisions do
lives after them. Such a decision deeply impairs that
public confidence upon which the healthy exercise of ju-
dicial power must rest.
_ Under the present-day stress of judicial work it is
inevitable that courts, on the whole, can only decide spe-
cific cases as presented to them.*° In other words, the
substantial dependence upon the facts and briefs pre-
sented by counsel throws the decision of the courts
largely upon those chances which determine the selection
of counsel. These are, of course, necessary human draw-
backs, and the practice works out well enough in contro-
versies where purely individual interests are represented
by counsel. This is not the situation in cases such as the
one before the Massachusetts court. The issue submit-
ted to the court in fact was the issue as determined by
the District Attorney of Worcester and counsel for the
Boston and Maine Railroad. In truth, the issue was be-
tween the Court and the Legislature. In such a case
either the legislative judgment should be sustained if
there is ‘‘no means of judicial determination”’ that the
legislature is indisputably wrong,*! or the court should
demand that the legislative judgment be supported by
of Labor and the Federal Supreme Court,” 17 Green Bac 411, “Constitu-
tional Limitations and Labor Legislation,” 4 Inn. L. Rev. 609; L. N. Greeley,
“The Changing Attitude of the Courts toward Social Legislation,” 5 Iz.
L. Rev. 222; Learned Hand, “Due Process of Law and the Fight Hour
Day,” 21 Harv. L. Rev. 495; Sir Frederick Pollock, “The New York Labor
Law and the Fourteenth Amendment,” 21 L. Quart. Rev. 211; Roscoe
Pound, “Liberty of Contract,” 18 Yare L. J. 480. Cf. Mr. Wigmore’s
comment on “The Qualities of Current Judicial Decisions,” 9 Inu. L. Rev.
529, 530-1.
But see Atkins v. Grey Eagle Coal Co., 84 S. E. 906 (1915), where the
Court of Appeals of West Virginia sustained a truck act, in effect over-
ruling the decision in State v. Goodwill, 33 W. Va. 179 (1889), and cited
among its authorities Professor Pound’s article, “Liberty of Contract,” 18
Yas, L. J. 480. ; .
© See Mr. Justice Swayze in “The Growing Law,” 20 Yate, L. J. 1,
18-19. People v. Schweinler Press, 214 N. Y. 395, 411, 108 N. E. 639, 643
(1915). .
© Fadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394, 413 (1915). Price v. Illinois,
238 U. S. 446, 452 (1915). :
984
available proof.®? It would seem clear that courts have
inherent power to accomplish this by indicating the kind
of argument needed to reach a just result; or even by
calling for argument from members of the bar—officers
of the court—of particular equipment to assist in a given
problem.®** If legislation be necessary New York fur-
nishes an example in its recent enactment authorizing
the courts to request the attendance of the attorney
_ general in support of an act of the legislature when its
constitutionality is brought into question.®*
These, after all, are only expedients. Fundamental
is the need that the profession realize the true nature of
the issues involved in these constitutional questions and
the limited scope of the reviewing power of the courts.*
With the recognition that these questions raise, substan-
tially, disputed questions of fact must come the invention
of some machinery by which knowledge of the facts,
which are the foundation of the legal judgment, may be
at the service of the courts as a regular form of the ju-
dicial process. This need has been voiced alike by jurists
and judges.®° Once the need shall be felt as the common
longing of the profession the inventive powers of our
law will find the means for its satisfaction.
Felia Frankfurter.
Harvarp Law ScuHoot.
“ Professor Ernst Freund, “Constitutional Limitations and Labor Legis-
lation,” 4 Int. L. Rev. 609, 622.
It is interesting to note that the chief arguments in the series of cases
beginning with the Muller case were made by an amicus curiae, Mr. Louis
D. Brandeis, in behalf of the National Consumers’ League.
“New York Laws, 1913, ch. 442, p. 919.
* See 28 Harv. L. REv. 790.
* Professor Roscoe Pound, in “Legislation as a Social Function.” 7
Pub. Am. Soc. Soc’y, 148, 161: “In the immediate past the social facts
required for the exercise of the judicial function of law-making have been
arrived at by means which may fairly be called mechanical. It is not one
of the least problems of the sociological jurist to discover a rational mode
of advising the court of facts of which it is supposed to take judicial notice.”
So (in dealing with a somewhat similar problem) Judge Learned Hand,
in Parke Davis & Co. v. Mulford & Co., 189 Fed. 95, 115: “How long we
shall continue to blunder along without the aid of unpartisan and authori-
tative scientific assistance in the administration of justice, no one knows;
but all fair persons not conventionalized by provincial legal habits of mind
ought, I should think, unite to effect some such advance.” Cf. also,
Pa v. Great Northern Ry., 69 Minn. 353, 377, 72 N. W. 713, 716
1897).
985
APPENDIX II
LIST OF SOURCES QUOTED
986
I. PUBLIC DOCUMENTS
United States
Federal
BuREAU OF THE CENSUS PAGE
Principal Causes of Death. Summary of the Statis-
tics for the Registration Area in 1914. Jan. 16,
1916 14
Bureau oF Lazor
11th Special Report of the Commissioner. 1904.
Regulation and Restriction of Output ccc 728
Bulletins
No. 75. March, 1908. Industrial Hygiene. es
MKober MoD. Tote, Disa hee ee 65
No. 77. July, 1908. Wages and Hours of Labor in
Manufacturing Industries, 1890 tO 1907 .reccece- . 9O2
No. 79. November, 1908. The Mortality from Con-
sumption in Dusty Trades. Frederick L. Hoff-
man 255, 435
No. 80. January, 1909. Woman and Child Wage-
earners in Great Britain. Victor S. Clark,
Ph, D, 854, 879, 895
No. 95. July, 1911. Industrial Lead Poisoning in
Europe. Sir Thomas Oliver, M. D., F. R. C. Pi. 261
BuREAU OF LaAzBor STATISTICS
Bulletins
No. 118. April, 1913. Ten Hour Maximum Work--
ing-Day for Women and Young Persone............. 822, 856
No. 127. August 12,1913. Industrial Accidents and
Hygiene Series: No. 3. Dangers to Workers
from Dusts and Fumes and Methods of Protection 242
No. 128. 1913. Wages and Hours of Labor in the
Cotton, Woolen and Silk Industries, 1890 to
IQI2
No. 129. 1913. Wages and Hours of Labor in the
Lumber, Millwork and Furniture Industries.
1890 to 1912 909
987
List of Sources.—Public Documents.
No. 137. 1913. Wages and Hours of Labor in the
Building and Repairing of Steam Railroad Cars.
1890 to 1912
No. 153. 1914. Wages and Hours of Labor in the
Lumber, Millwork and Furniture Industries.
1907 to 1913 QI5
No. 154. 1914. Wages and Hours of Labor in the
Boot and Shoe and Hosiery and Underwear In-
dustries. 1907 to 1913 922
No. 161. 1914. Wages and Hours of Labor in the
Clothing and Cigar Industries. 1911 to 1973.......... g20
No. 163. 1914. Wages and Hours of Labor in the
Building and Repairing of Steam Railroad Cars.
1907 to 1913 919
No. 177. 1915. Wages and Hours of Labor in the
Hosiery and Underwear Industry. 1907 to 1914... 925
No. 178. 1915. Wages and Hours of Labor in the
Boot and Shoe Industry. 1907 tO TQ U4 ..cceccsccnccmeneeneen 927
919
Monthly Reviews
Vol. IT, No. 4. October, LOTS .eececccsecceseccseceseresnceteneecsstestsssuet
Vol. II, No. 2. February, 1916.
Vol. II, No. 3. ‘March, 1916
CHILDREN’S BUREAU
Third Annual Report. 1915. Julia C. Lathrop... 975
INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION. 1900.
On the Relations and Conditions of Capital and
Labor Employed in Manufactures and General
Business.
Vol. VII. 1900 ‘ 503
Vol. XIV. QOL eccne ithe RRL GS Klaas eacra 677, 894
Vol. XIX. 1902. Final Report....196, 222, 457, 487
614, 633, 684, 727, 746, 784, 854
INTERSTATE COMMERCE CoMMISSION
18th Annual Report. 1904-1905 ------c---e 378
19th Annual Report. 1905-1QO6 meen 379
988
List of Sources.—Public Documents.
Pusiic HEALTH SERVICE __
Weekly Public Health Reports. May 29, 1914.
Industrial Conditions. Their Relation to the Pub-
lic Health. B.S. Warren, Surgeon, U.S. Public
Health Service 70, 248, 478
Supplement No. 24. May 7, 1915. Exercise and
Health. Frederick Charles Smith, Passed As-
sistant Surgeon, U. S. Public Health Service. be
Bulletin No. 71. May, 1915. Studies in Vocational
Diseases. I. The Health of Garment Workers.
J. W. Schereschewsky, Surgeon, U. S. Public
Health Service
Weekly Reports. Oct. 1, 1915. Industrial Hygiene.
A Plan for Education in the Avoidance of Occu-
pational Diseases and Injuries. J. W. Schere-
schewsky, Surgeon, U. S. Public Health Service...
SENATE REPoRTS AND DocUMENTS
Document No. 141. Eight hours for Laborers on
Government Work. 57th Congress, Ist Session.
IQOI-1902
Report No. 2321. The Eight-Hour Law. 57th Con-
gress. 2nd Session. 1902-1903... se
Document No. 521. Report on Strike at Bethlehem
Steel Works. 61st Congress. 2nd Session. 1909-
I9IO
Document No. 110. Report on Conditions of Em-
ployment in the Iron and Steel Industry in the
United States. 62nd Congress. Ist Session. IQII.
38
90
36
486
595
200
Vol. I. Wages and Hours of Labor. 605, 945
Vol. III. Working Conditions and the Rela-
tions of Employers and Employees. 62nd
Congress, rst Session, 191T....461, 750, 801, 880, 950
Document No. 645. Report on Condition of Woman
and Child Wage-Earners in the United States,
Vol. XI. Employment of Women in the Metal
Trades. 61st Congress. 2nd Session, IQ1I.....W.—
Report No. 601. Hours of Daily Service of Laborers
and Mechanics upon Government Contracts.
62nd Congress, 2nd Session, 1912.49,
372
543
989
List of Sources.—Public Documents.
Document No. 1124. The Eight-Hour Day. Vari-
ous Articles, Arguments, and Bills relating to
the Eight Hour Law. 62nd Congress. 3rd Ses-
sion. 1913. (Letter from William J. Crawford,
President, William J. Crawford & Co., Inc., to
Mr. James Duncan, International President Gran-
ite Cutters’ International Association. December
19, 1912) 690
House or REPRESENTATIVES
Report No. 1793. Hours of Laborers on Public
Works of the United States. 57th Congress, Ist
S@SSIOM, LQOT-1QO 2. ececrcsnrntntntctne 196, 472, 505, 746, 853
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
Vol. XXI. Part X. Pages 9,300-9,301, August 28,
1890. Remarks of Mr. McKinley upon the Eight-
hour Bill 484
California
Commission of Immigration and Housing. ist An-
mural Report. Jartary 2, 1Q15 .e-cccocscsscsecsecsntentenceeneeeenennente 560
Connecticut
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Report, 1886... 631
Georgia
Hennington v. The State, 90 Ga., 396 (1892) nnncncnnncnmene 508
Illinois
Factory Inspectors. Report, 1893.-—--—----— 606, 878
Commission on Occupational Diseases. Report, Janu-
ary, IQII 51, 247
Ibid. Drs. George E. Shambaugh and G. W. Boot.
Report on Occupational Deafmess.neeeeeeennennnnnnnnan 247
Indiana
Republic Iron and Steel Co. v. Ohler, 161 Ind. 393, 68
N. E. Reporter, 901. (UO 5 iain 953
Maine
Senate Document No. 19. 1848. Report on Petition
Praying Passage of Law making 10 Hours Legal
Day’s Work cn 742
Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics. Report,
1892 194, 410
sangre
List of Sources.—Public Documents.
Massachusetts
House DocuMENTS
No. 153. 1850. Minority Report of the Special Com-
mittee Re Limitation of Hours of Work.
132, 408, 453, 742, 850, 878
No. 80. 1855. Report on Ten-Hour Petition.......... - 893
No. 98. 1866. Report of the Special Commission on
the Hours of Labor and the Condition and Pros-
pects of the Industrial Classes 133, 455
No. 44. 1867. Report of Commissioners on the
Hours of Labor 409, 532
No. 44. 1867. Report of Commissioners on the
Hours of Labor. Minority Report. Edward H.
Rogers 480
No. 2300. 1914. Report of the Commission on Immi- ~
gration on the Problem of Immigration in Massa-
chusetts 554
SENATE DocUMENTS
No. 1. 1874. Address of Governor William B. Wash-
burn to the two Branches of the Legislature. Jaru-
ary 8, 1874 134, 553
No. 33. 1874. Report of the Committee on the Labor
Question 416, 665
Evimpence Submitted to the Legislature in Favor of the
Enactment of a Ten-hour Law. Lawrence, 1870.
410, 415, 500
ARGUMENT of Hon. William Gray on Petitions for Ten-
Hour Law Before the Committee on Labor. February
13, 1873 664
” Bureau oF STATISTICS OF LABor
Reports
1870 ae : 410, 482
1871 co 416, 663, 819, 848
1872 482
1873 664
LOOT: Sis het eae Mes ceria nance Se ms 631, 665, 743, 848, 893
DOL
List of Sources.—Public Documents.
Cuiger or District Pouce
Reports
1883 .. 666
1885 .820
1886 666
1899 483, 726
STATE BoarD oF HEALTH
Reports
1873 429
1906. Report on the Sanitary Conditions of Factories,
Workshops, and other Establishments... ceccscuncen 166
Michigan ;
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Report, 18Q8ececsccceccececeeee 431
Mississippi
Buckeye Cotton Oil Co. v. The State, 60 Southern Rep.,
- 775. (Miss., 1913) 606
Nebraska
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Report, 1887-1888... 482
Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics. Report, 1907-
1908 822
New Hampshire
House Journal. June, 1847. Report recommending
Shortening Hours of Labor, Regulating Child Labor,
and Establishing 10-Hour Day ecccccccrceneeennnunnnmnnnnnne 131
New Jersey
BurEAU OF STATISTICS OF LABOR AND INDUSTRY
Reports
1886 851
1905. The Eight-hour Movement: How reducing
the Hours of Labor has affected the cost of Pro-
duction 717
CoMMISSION OF IMMIGRATION
Report
a 557
992
List of Sources.—Public Documents.
New York
State Factory INSPECTOR
Reports
1887 666
1894 632, 725, 852
1899 4II
1890 744
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Report on Factory Inspectiom., LQOD.icceccecececeeen 2 727
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Report, 1900.
48, 195, 416, 457, 485, 526, 538, 632, 745, 852
Bureau of Industries and Immigration. Report, 1913 551
State Factory INVESTIGATING ‘COMMISSION
Ath Report, Feb. 15, UQU 5 ccccccecscceccevecvscsecesenttstnenetne 316, 797
Lecat DECISIONS
People v. Havnor, 149 N. Y., 195 (1896) nce 602
People vw. Klinck Packing Co., 214 N.Y., 121 (1915)... 507
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
Monthly Bulletin, May, 1915.
Controlling the Diseases of Adult Life. C. E. A.
Winslow 12
Diseases of Adult Life and Middle Age. Eugene
Lyman Fisk, M. D., Director of Hygiene, Life
Extension Institute, New York... aevaerans BO
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH OF THE City oF NEw York
No. 18. Reprint Series. June, 1914. The Next
Step in Preventive Medicine. S. S. Goldwater,
M. D., Commissioner of Health cece 31
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ;
1916 Citizenship Syllabus. Prepared by Research
Department of the Committee for Immigrants in
America 568
Pennsylvania
Proceedings of the Government and Citizens of
. Philadelphia on the Reduction of the Hours of
Labor and Increase of Wages. July, 1835.............. - 479
993
List of Sources.—Public Documents.
Bureau or INpustRIAL STATISTICS
Reports
1880-1881 457
TOI3-1914. The Henry Ford Plamen cscnnonsemenecnencene 857
Factory INSPECTOR
Report
1895 725
Wisconsin
BurEAvU oF Lapor AND INDUSTRIAL STATISTICS
Reports
1903-1904 458, 488, 785
1907-1908. Part III. Industrial Hygiene and the
Police Power. Henry Baird Favill, M. D..WW..... 434
Part VII. Women Workers in Milwaukee Tanner-
ies. Trene Osgood, Special Agent ocecececmcmcerecnecenennntee 879
Great Britain
British Sessional Papers
Reports
Vol. III. 1816. Report from the Select Committee
on the State of the Children Employed in the
Manufactories of the United Kingdom. Minutes
of Evidence, 25 April, 18 June, 1816. Testimony
of Robert Owen 464, 654
Vol. XXI. 1833. and Report of . . . the Commis-
sioners for inquiring into the Employment of
Children in Factories and . . . Reports by the
Medical Commissioner --eccescnevscversectsncntneneenetttinenntntnnenae 420
Vol. X. 1840. 1st Report from Select Committee
on the Act for the Regulation of Mills and Fac-
tories 858
Vol. XIII. 1843. Children’s Employment Commis-
sion 823
Reports of Inspectors of Factories
Vol. XXII. 1842. For Half Year Ending 30th
June, 1842 wee 405
Vol. XXV. 1845. For Half Year Ending 30th
April, 1845. Robert Gardner, Mill-owner....... 658
994
List of Sources.—Public Documents.
Vol. XXVI. 1847-1848. For Half Year Ending
April 30, 1848
Vol. XXII. 1849. For Half Year Ending 31st
October, 1848 510
Vol. XXII. 1849. Appendix. Evidence of the
Opinions of Persons Employed in Factories, Re-
specting the Ten Hours’ Act, collected in Sep-
tember, October and November, 1848........... 511, 869, 896
Vol. XXII. 1849. For Half Year Ending 30th
896
April, 1849 859
Vol. XXIII. 1850. For Half Year Ending 31st
October, 1849 511
Vol. XXIII. 1850. For Half Year Ending April
30, 1850 622, 761
Vol. XXIII. 1851. For Half year Ending 31st
October, 1850 659
Vol. XL. 1852-1853. For Half Year Ending 30th
April, 1853 623, 660
Vol. XVIII. 1856. For Half Year Ending October
31, 1855 623
Vol. XII. 1859. For Half Year Ending 31st Octo-
ber, 1858 624, 785
Vol. XXXIV. 1860. For Half Year Ending 31st
October, 1859 625, 862
Vol. XXIV. 1866. For Half Year Ending 31st
October, 1865 625
Vol. XVI. 1867. For Half Year Ending 31st Octo-
ber, 1866 896
Vol. XIV. 1868-1869. For Half Year Ending 30th
April, 1868 513, 626
Vol. XIV. 1868-1869. For Half Year Ending Oc-
tober 31, 1868 897
Vol. XV. 1870. For Half Year Ending 30th April,
1870 420, 492
Vol. XXIII. 1877. For Half Year Ending April
30, 1877 826
Cuter INSPECTOR OF FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS
Reports
Vol. XVIT. 1893. For’ 1892. ecececsecsecvcesesnertntnnerntte tala 788
Vol. XX. 1894. For 1893 .te-cccsecsocececeececseeectete 494, 827, 899
995
List of Sources.—Public Documents.
Vol. XIX. 1895. For Ma aap este oatee
Wolly 90%, “Bot 1000 .locogiesless esp oes 830
Vol, AIT. 1902, For 100 fcc. oe
Vol MTT: 1903. FOF $OG2 ooo osunncice een 421, 794,
Vol. X. 1905. For 1904
Wol NVs 1612-1978. POY LOT Bois cecsscsecmusnenn
For 1913 622,
For 1914
Factory AND WorxksHors Acts ComMISSION
Vol. XXIX-XXX. 1876.
Vol, RAT. REPO eee 217, 883,
Appendix E. Report of Conference of Members
of Women’s Trade Unions on the Foundry and
Worksiips ets, G66 coi heeasicrars
Vol. XXX 660,
RoyaL ComMMIssIon oN LABOUR
Wools OXI Ve W802i ead ete ere 688, 765,
Vol. XXXVI. 1892
Testimony of Mr. Patrick Walls, National Associa-
tion of Blast-Furmacemen 0. ccecseeeccnetnennnmeennte
Vol. XXXII. 1893
Vol. XXXIV. 1893 421,
Appendix CXXIX. Group C. Summary of Evi-
dence of Mr. C. B. Bowling, Inspector of Fac-
tories
Vol. XXXVI. 1893
Vol XXXITX, 1803 hee ee 147, 790, 865, 884,
Vol. XXXV. 1894. Fifth and Final Report. Part
I. General Review of the Evidence............. 148, 465,
Minority Report by Mr. William Abraham, Mr.
Michael Austin, Mr. James Mawdsley, and Mr.
Tom Mann
SeLect CoMMITTEE ON SHops. Earty CLosinc BILL
Vol. VI, r901. Report
Setect CoxwMITTEE OF THE House or Lorps on Earty
CLOSING OF SHOPS
Vol. VI. TQOT, Reporte ececeecsecennneeenennnterensenene 72, 407,
goo
886
249
722
835
898
882
826
863
808
864
864
789
688
899
790
148
609
609
996
List of Sources.—Public Documents.
INTER-DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON PuysicaL DeE-
TERIORATION
Vol. I, II, I. 1904. :
Vol. I. Report 422, 589
Appendix I. Original Memorandum Prepared by
Surgeon-General Sir William Taylor, K. C. B.,
Director-General, Army Medical Service... 584
Vol. II. Minutes of Evidence. eens BOF
Vol. III. Appendix XIV 595
HANSARD’S PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES
Vol. 73. 1844 420, 824
Vol. 74. 1844 439, 658, 825
Vol. 92. 1847 .. 825
Boarp OF TRADE LABOUR GAZETTE
July, 1915. Eight-Hour Day in Government Work-
shops 815
BritisH Home OFFICE
Interim Report on an Investigation of Industrial
Fatigue by Physiological Methods, by A. F. Stan-
ley Kent, M. A., D. Sc. (Oxon), Henry Overton
Wills Professor of Physiology in University of
Bristol, London, TOUS eeccceecmscmsceeccrnerceeneenee 170, 180, 276, 293
Canada
INSPECTORS OF FACTORIES FOR THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO
Reports
1894 212
1895 213
1896 213
British CotumBiA RoyaLt Lasour CommMISSION
Report
Canada Labour Gazette, AUgust, 1003 .-cnmeecccnccnccceme 616
997
List of Sources.—Public Documents.
Australasia
New ZEALAND DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Reports
1893 527
1895 527, 891
1900 527
1903 : 528
1904 528
1905 529
1908 529
IQII 530
IgI2 530
New SourH Wates LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
Report of the Working of the Factories and Shops’
Act. 1904 213
Germany
GERMAN Factory INSPECTORS: OFFICIAL ABSTRACTS OF
REPORTS
Vol. XVIII. 1893 715
Vol. XVIII. 1895 667
Vood, NXT D. 187 en evennenenern ener enernennennnnnn 105, 156, 617
1898 668
German Factory AND MINE INSPECTORS
Reports :
1903. Vol. I. 717
1903. Vol. III 841
1904. Vol. I 692, 716, 817
1904. Vol. IT 668
1904. Vol. III 718, 842
1905. Vol. I 683, 723
1906. Vol. II 157, 722
1907. Vol. I 424
1907. Vol. III 610, 718
998
List of Sources.—Public Documents.
Factory INSPECTORS OF THE KINGDOM OF WURTTEMBERG
Reports
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