LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

STATE OF CONNECTICUT,

OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF BUREAU OF

LABOR STATISTICS.

HARTFORD, December 1, 1897.

To His Excellency, LORRIN A. COOKE,

Governor of Connecticut:

SIR In compliance with the provisions of the general statutes I have the honor to transmit herewith the Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Very respectfully,

SAMUEL B. HORNE, Commissioner.

WILLIAM W. IVES, Clerk.

INTRODUCTION.

IN this, the Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau, the scope of the investigations made by it have been somewhat enlarged, in so far as the inquiry regarding the conditions of workingmen is concerned, and in the absence of authority to compel individuals to furnish information it is a matter of congratulation that the people of the State have rendered such valuable aid in assisting the agents of the Bureau in procuring the desired facts for publication. This is particularly true of the manufacturers of the State who have shown a willingness to render all possible assistance in the gathering of the necessary material for the purposes desired, which could be reasonably required of them.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been recognized as a means eminently useful for the attainment of knowledge of facts and conditions necessary to effective legislation in all matters pertaining to the relations and reciprocal obligations of labor and capital. State Bureaus of Labor Statistics are now in existence in the States of Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia, besides which there is a National Bureau at Washington, D. C., under the direction of Hon. Carroll D. Wright. In process of time it is to be hoped that the other States will fall in line, especially the Southern States, where there have been great social and political changes in labor relations, and in which extraordinary industrial interests are in process of rapid development. The chiefs of the several Bureaus are in perfect accord in their general views, from whose concerted action,

including the interests of a vast population, the happiest results may be anticipated in the study of labor interests and the application of knowledge to the most beneficial results.

The purposes for which Bureaus of Labor have been established have been, and are, greatly misunderstood by many people, and that the aims and objects of the Departments of Labor and Industrial Statistics, which exist throughout the country, may be made clear, the following is quoted from an address made by United States Commissioner of Labor, Carroll D. Wright, at the thirteenth annual convention of the National Association of Officials of Bureaus of Labor, of which he is President. Colonel Wright said in part:

"The question is often asked, and we have answered it every year: What is the purpose of this chain of offices, reaching from Maine to California, and now numbering thirty-three in all, with a Federal Department of Labor whose general purposes and motives are the same as those which actuate the State offices? The impression generally prevails among those who have not come in close contact with the results of the work of these bureaus, that they are in some way connected with various propaganda or with labor agitation, that their purpose is to secure certain things in the way of legislative concessions to labor or to help make attacks upon capital. Nothing is farther from the truth than this impression. Our bureaus belong to the educational functions of the State. We have nothing to do with solutions, except in so far as facts properly and honestly collected and accurately and scientifically analyzed and published may help in the solution of some of the difficult problems which confront us everywhere in these closing years of the nineteenth century. The labor question occupies a different position each succeeding decade or generation. What it may have been once does not indicate what it is now. Formerly the labor question was a very narrow one, and consisted simply in the proposition, How can wages be raised or the working hours per day reduced? And the demand of the wage worker in former times was for an increase of wages or a decrease in the hours of labor, or both, with a view to elevating his standard of life. ***** So, when we speak of the labor question in the narrow sense it is because we do not comprehend it; but what our bureaus mean when they use the term 'labor question' is the physical, the moral, and the social condition of the great bulk of the people that make the world go after all. Therefore, when we contribute facts, when we investigate conditions, we are simply contributing something to help legislators, to help philosophers, economists, writers, and students everywhere to know better how to soften

these conditions, and how to help the common man to a higher and more elevated standard of living. Not to solve problems, because no one of them can be solved; there is no complete solution of the labor question in all its phases, and when a body of men find a solution for all of the existing problems of to-day I want to assure you that immediately after you will witness the death of industry and a stagnation of the community at large. There is a great deal of pathetic talk about unrest, about discontent, and there are several kinds of discontent which prevail; but the discontent that is legitimate is that which impels men, always and ever, to seek better conditions. That is what has brought millions across the stormy western ocean to settle in this land; that is what has made the United States what it is; that is what is building the South into a great industrial empire. Now, as facts are collected, classified, and systemized, we find that out of them all, which means the knowledge of conditions as they are, there is growing a new political economy. ***** There is a new political economy, then, and the facts which we are helping to collect are assisting in its creation. This new political economy seeks the co-ordination of ethical forces with economical forces. Now you see how difficult it is, if I am right in this position, to solve any problem. Our bureaus contribute the facts which show all there is in arbitration, and yet we all recognize that industrial arbitration is not a solution of the great labor problem itself, as has been contended. We contribute facts to show the relation of the alcoholic liquor traffic to crime, insanity, and pauperism, but we know well that the economic complications of this traffic cannot be removed at the present time. We know that however desirable it may be, that temperance principles should prevail, there are great economic difficulties in the way, one of which is that should you wipe alcohol from the face of the earth, you would turn 90,000,000 bushels of corn back on the farmer, throw millions out of employment, and destroy the activity of a billion dollars of capital. Can such a state of affairs be brought about instantaneously by legislation or any other process and not disturb the whole industrial equilibrium of the country? Our bureaus show the facts relating to employers' liability; they do not argue, but they show conditions, and thus our legislators are able to discuss with intelligence such a problem as that of employers' liability when it comes up. Our duty, then, whether as Commissioners of Labor, or in whatever capacity we may serve, is to help contribute to the sum of knowledge which shall ultimately soften this struggle without attempting to remove that divine discontent which makes the world what it is, and which gives us whatever civilization now exists. With these views our bureaus exist, and as the knowledge of their purposes and motives is better comprehended in States and in communities, we advance along true lines."