Q. I merely asked of you, have you come to any conclusion on that point, or have you given it any consideration? A. Yes, I have.

Q. Would you care to state now what your conclusion is? A. Yes, if you wish me to.

Q. I think that would be interesting. A. I think that where the people are able to look after themselves there is no necessity for this sort of work, but where you have a trade that is composed very largely of women and children and where there is no organization, then these people are powerless to present a united front.

Q. But they are not powerless to organize? A. But they are powerless to organize because of their character.

Q. What do you mean by their character? A. I mean that these people are young and inexperienced; that they are women and children; that they are foreigners. It is hard in the first place to get them together. In the second place the objection of the manufacturers to organization and the pressure of want at home makes them fear to lose their jobs and they do not dare to get together.

By Mr. BLOOMINGDALE:

Q. Are you stating this in the industries or mercantile? A. Both.

Q. Mainly aren't the industries organized? A. No, these industries are not.

By Commissioner MCGUIRE:

Q. You would not make that as a general statement, applicable in all cases, that they fear to organize? A. No, but certainly the organization of employees is looked upon with great disfavor by many of the employers. In fact so much so that one of our cards which had a question with regard to the union whether a member of a union or not we were requested by one group of employers to completely eliminate. They feared lest the subject be mentioned.

Q. But the manufacturers generally are not entirely opposed to organized labor? They co-operate to advantage frequently? A. Sometimes.

By Mr. ELKUS:

Q. Do you understand that the trades investigated were not at all organized or entirely unorganized? A. I would reply by saying that they were scarcely organized at all. There is a struggling union in the paper box trade. There is the beginning of one in the stores. I can find only vestiges of one in the confectionery and remnants of one in the shirt trade.

Q. Have there been times when there has been contention between employees and employers in the candy and paper box trades in which all the employees joined on one side as against the manufacturers; I ask that for information, I don't know? A. I am unable to give you the information.

By Mrs. FREDERICK NATHAN:

Q. Doctor Woolston said that he did not find that there was opposition to organization in the stores? A. I didn't mean to say it. I said there was in some of them.

Q. Have you found that in the mercantile establishments they have objected? A. There is a bit of history that is rather amusing in that regard. You were not here Mrs. Nathan when I began by saying that employers in the mercantile lines requested that the names and addresses of the employees should not be entered upon the cards, because before that time union agitation had been active in the city and they feared that these names and addresses might fall into the hands of organizers.

Commissioner DREIER: I would like to say for the benefit of Commissioner McGuire that after working for about eight years. in this field that I know the great majority of employers are opposed to trade union organization and I think that ought to go down as a statement from some one who does know something about it.

By Miss ROSE SCHNEIDERMAN:

Q. May I ask Dr. Woolston what becomes of the women who go in and out of the trade, who are discharged in the paper box trade, or resign their positions in the stores, or the shirt trade,what happens to them; aren't they the underbidders in organized trades coming in and wanting to work for less at times of strikes?

A. I cannot say with regard to times of strikes specifically, but I believe this floating element does do just what you say,— underbid those now in one occupation or another. Mrs. Andrews will have to-morrow a very comprehensive statement on the rise and fall of the different trades and what happens to the people that are pushed in and out. She will answer much better than I can, Miss Schneiderman.

By Commissioner PHILLIPS:

Q. These trades are practically all non-skilled? A. Some occupations are skilled.

Q. It does not take long to acquire knowledge of the business? A. No, except that shirt cutting is relatively skilled work. Hand dipping in the confectionery trade takes considerable practice. I wouldn't call them unskilled lines, but they are not the most highly skilled trades.

Q. The percentage of hand dippers in the candy business is small. Aren't they using forks more than they used to? A. Both hand and fork dipping are increasing. The proportion of machine and fork dipping is increasing very rapidly.

Q. The proportion of hand dipping is increasing? A. Yes, sir.

Mr. ELKUS: Do you wish to explain what the charts are?

Dr. WOOLSTON: I wish we could get the people to study the charts. I think the charts would speak for themselves.

Commissioner MCGUIRE: I might say for the record that Mr. Gompers, who is perhaps best qualified to speak on the labor organization question, unfortunately is not here to-day. He will be here to-morrow and then perhaps we could take up that question from a little different standpoint.

Mr. ELKUS: Dr. Woolston will be here to-morrow.

Dr. ARTHUR D. DEAN, addressed the Commission.

By Mr. ELKUS:

Q. Doctor will you give your full name? A. Arthur D. Dean.

Q. And are you connected with the Department of Education of the State of New York? A. Yes, sir.

Q. In what capacity? A. Chief of the Division of Vocational Schools.

Q. Doctor Dean has Dr. Finley the President of the University of the State of New York, and your superior in the Education Department prepared a statement for the Commission? A. Yes he has, and he regrets exceedingly he can not be here to-day, but the three assistant commissioners are away and the law requires that some one be at the department who is in authority. He worked up a statement on Sunday and sent it to you, I believe.

Q. Have you a copy? A. Yes, sir.

Q. Will you present it to the Commission? A. Yes, sir.

Q. Then I understand you yourself have made a study of the subject under discussion? A. Yes, sir.

Q. We will be very glad to hear from you? A. Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission, the question has interested us a good deal at Albany on this matter of minimum wage and the Factory Commission investigation and the relation it might bear to vocational education. The minimum wage matters, while I do not claim to be in any sense of the word an expert on it, it strikes me oftentimes as though we were legislating for eggs, so to speak, legislating for wages while we might legislate for efficiency.

I was at Cornell a short time ago looking over their poultry plant and there they so to speak legislate for eggs but not directly. They legislate for a better hen, which means better housing conditions, a better educated hen, a better fed hen, and the result is more eggs. Now an average hen, I believe, they tell us, a good hen at least ought to lay 180 eggs a year. Poor ones lay fifty. Supposing at the agricultural department at Cornell this 50-egg hen ought to lay 180 eggs and so they will put under her 130 eggs, they will buy them somewhere and put them under her, that would be legislating for eggs. Instead of that they breed hens and they feed hens, and they house hens in other words they educate hens in such a way that hens will lay 180 eggs a

year.

Now I realize and we all realize that wages are not high enough perhaps to live on-particularly for our women-I do not see why we should except the men any more than the women in this matter, but to pay extra wages through some form of legislation when they may not when these wages may not be earned or when the work that these people do is not the kind of work that they should be doing any how some of it is cheap work at cheap pay, it is nothing but cheap work anyhow, it might as well be legislated out, some of this feather making work in these tenements but instead of legislating as I say for eggs, for wages alone, couldn't we legislate for the opportunities to get efficiency through education. That is the State is concerning itself, it strikes some of us in Albany at the educational department, concerning itself a great deal with repair jobs rather than with constructive jobs. For example, the farm bureau work is to take care of the adult worker, the adult farmer, who is not a scientific man because he has not been to a country school that taught scientific agriculture. He did not go to school very long, but only occasionally, and the length of time he did go was devoted largely to things unrelated to the business of farming. He is an unscientific fellow, and the farm bureau is trying its best to work on his unscientific mind and develop an adult so that he can develop his farm better. If the State put this money into educating the youth of the State it seems to us, to some of us, that that would be a constructive job rather than a repair job. This workmen's compensaion law I would not for a moment say anything disparaging in reference to, but I would like you to think of this, that we are going to compensate workingmen tor injuries in factories, etc., and we are going to forget possibly that this State contains over 400,000 adult illitrates who can not read and write, and it seems to me the constructive job would be to take the adult illiterates and teach them to understand the directions given in the factory in connection with the work, as well as the repair work of paying those that are injured.

Q. Where are the 400,000 illiterates? A. 281,000 are in New York City and the rest are up-State.

Q. Where abouts up-State? A. In labor camps, lumber camps, construction work and some on the unskilled factory work. That