The welfare work and the many incidents going to show the company's solicitude for its employees' health, pleasure and comfort would fill a volume. On the threshold of the present year the company turned over to its employees a completely equipped clubhouse, containing 14,000 square feet of floor space and equipped as well as most country clubs throughout the country. It was turned over without a "string" to the workers to own and enjoy as they saw fit and to conduct as suited themselves within reasonable bounds, regardless of the company. The building is attractive architecturally, situated on the great rolling tract previously turned over by the company for sports and other recreation, and it contains all the requisites for sane pleasure. Not only are there bowling-alleys, gymnasium, showerbaths and many other facilities for social and athletic enjoyment, but there are cozy quarters for the women employees where they may bring their sewing, read, or engage in any of those indoor or outdoor pleasures so dear to the feminine heart.

The building is under the care of the athletic association board of directors. The association now contains about 2000 members who pay but a dollar a year for

A CORNER OF THE RESTAURANT

the full enjoyment of the house and the attendant athletic sports. The company knowing that in a community like Beverly, where men employed in other walks of life would like to be with their friends of the big factory in their sports and other pleasures, have made a rule permitting persons not employees to belong to the athletic association. The safeguard to prevent outsiders gaining control is a by-law stipulating that at no time may the outside membership exceed 25 per cent.

The clubhouse is now the centre for the baseball division, which includes not only players but those intimately concerned with the playing of the team and its management, the soccer football division, the gun club (who also have a private shootingFox and range at a remote corner of the grounds), the basketball adherents, the cricketers and the motor-boat section. These are the principal sports,

A GLIMPSE OF THE HOSPITAL

but the members are at liberty to form any other division of any sport they desire. Each section has its own officers, but are subject to the main governing body. The athletic grounds are so great in extent that at one time all of the various sports may be going on without any interference. Checkers, pool and billiard tournaments, chess and other indoor pastimes are at the service of the members. Then each year there is the annual field day when members and their friends gather for a grand, good time in the open air, where all sorts of sport are participated in and excellent prizes offered.

The employees have a relief association, which is a model of its kind. From the date of its inception in April, 1906, it has paid out $32,499.69 in sick and accident benefits and for deaths among the members. Each member upon becoming ill receives after his first week's absence from work sums ranging from $1.50 to 25 cents per day for thirteen weeks, according to the grade of the worker, for even the boy or girl receiving the minimum wage is intitled to share in the benefits of the association. In case of death an assessment of twenty-five cents each is levied and $200 is paid to the family of the deceased. After the thirteen weeks has elapsed and the person is still ill a special fund, accrued from the excellent concerts and amateur performances presented by the employees during the winter months,

Within the factory there are shower-baths and similar facilities for both male and female employees. The women have a dainty recreation room with large reading

THE GUN STAND

table and comfortable chairs, where the girls of the office and the girls in the factory share the benefits equally. Furthermore, there is a rule compelling the girls to either leave the factory for their homes, or go to the lunchroom, which can seat 600 and where individual tables may be utilized, or to the recreation room, during their lunch hour, as the enforced hour away from their work freshens them up and prevents nervousness. Furthermore, they are not compelled to enter the plant until ten minutes after the male employees and leave ten minutes before. A matron is in charge of their recreation room and baths, and so eagerly do the young women take advantage of the showers that long after the hour of closing Saturday noon the showers are in demand. As most of the girls are children of men employed in the factory, there is a spirit of chivalrous guardianship permeating the sections of the plant where the girls. work, which makes their lot decidedly pleasant and accounts for the excellent type of female employee. In the factory the men have equally well-equipped bathing and recreation quarters.

State statistics show that the employees of the factory receive the highest average wage in the State as the result of the working out of a highly efficient piece-work system. In connection with this point it is interesting to note that it was at this factory that the savings bank insurance laws were first taken advantage of by workmen. Of the 2521 policies issued in the State, 402 are held by employees in this plant and the individual amount is close to the maximum of $500 permitted by law. It is significant that most of the premiums are paid annually, showing a high degree of thrift.

In the main building the company has established an emergency hospital in charge of a trained attendant, where all accident cases are instantly treated. The hospital contains an operating table, a bed, a complete outfit of emergency medicines, oxygen, ether, bandages and what some hospitals much larger do not possess-an X-ray apparatus.

Furthermore, through the assistance of the company many of the employees have come into possession of beautiful homes, which were constructed by the company

beauty and sold to the workers under the most advantageous conditions. Then the company allows all who desire to take advantage of it, the use of plots of land about 50 feet square for kitchen gardens. The plowing, harrowing, fertilizing and providing of the seed are done by the company, and the workmen provide their own tables and often have some to dispose of to the company for the restaurant in the factory, where the best of food is furnished the patrons at the cost price.

Perhaps one of the most important phases of the welfare work is the trade school for machinists conducted jointly by the Beverly school department and the United Shoe Machinery Company. Seventy boys are receiving education in industrial efficiency, alternating in groups of thirty-five each between the factory and the Beverly High School. The company furnishes all of the materials, keeps the accounts and purchases at established prices the machine parts made by the boys. The company makes up the deficit between the earnings of the practice shop and the cost of maintenance, including the salary of the instructors while in the shop.

The prospectus of the school best describes this excellent industrial education arrangement:

Independent management, but having access to the facilities of the High School laboratories and the factory of the United Shoe Machinery Company.

Enrollment, seventy young men in two divisions, A and B.

One week alternately at the school and at the factory. School days, eight hours; Saturday holiday; no home lessons. Factory hours and discipline the same as for employees.

Machinist-instructor teaches his division in both

factory and school. Part-time specialists teach science, business practice and civics.

Machinery manufactures, inspected by regular factory inspectors, go into regular stock of the United Shoe Machinery Company.

One-half regular piece-price for all his product that passes inspection is paid each pupil.

The course of study includes at the factory: Operation of different machine tools on various classes of work, and specializing on machine tools for which special aptitude is shown. Each pupil makes a freehand mechanical sketch and writes a description in notebook of the various articles manufactured by him.

At the school: (a) Drawing: mechanical sketching with all necessary dimensions, working drawings, perspective, industrial design, machine design. (b) Shop mathematics: arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry with shop tables and the use of instruments of precision. (c) Machinist's literature, current and historical, and modern machine-shop practice. (d) Science: mechanics, electricity as applied to machinery, chemistry of materials and their manipulation. Business and social forms and practices, and personal, social and civic duties.

Seattle Spirit and Portland Statistics

66

(e)

The Pacific Northwest Commerce, the official monthly publication of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, sends the Oregonian a proof-sheet of its February issue containing the Record of Progress Made by Pacific Coast Cities as Told by Their Commercial Statistics." This record presents elaborate statistics of the Pacific Coast cities and, we are assured by the publication that stands sponsor for them, the showing" is favorable to each and every one of them." The Oregonian has no definite knowledge regarding the accuracy of the figures for other coast cities than Portland. The figures purporting to show the growth and condition of Portland are such gross and palpable misrepresentations of actual facts that their presentation can by no possible means be excused.

In the matter of bank clearings the New York Financial Chronicle, Dun's and Bradstreet's Reviews and every other authority on such matters early in January printed and sent broadcast throughout the country the statement that Portland's bank clearings for 1910 were $517,171,867, compared with $391,028,890 for 1909. The organ of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce gives the correct total for 1909, but places the total of the 1910 clearings at $428,228,098, or about $90,000,000 less than the actual figures. Equally inexcusable are the figures regarding postoffice receipts. These statistics are issued only by the United States Government, and any change from the actual figures must be the result of deliberate misrepresentation. The Government reported postal receipts at Portland for 1910 amounting to $925,164.52, compared with $778,853.73 for 1909. The official organ of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce changed these official statistics so that Portland was credited with 1910 postal receipts of but $818,383.75, or more than $100,000 less than the total reported by the Government and circulated throughout the country weeks before the appearance of the Seattle publication. The assessed valuation of Portland property is placed at $274,396,620, although the 1910 assessment roll shows a total of $301,825,649, compared with $205,262,448 for 1909.

Portland's bank deposits appear in the Seattle publication as $43,521,465, although there is not a banker of any importance in Seattle who is in ignorance of the fact that the deposits in the Portland banks at the close of 1910 were more than $65,000,000. In building permits Seattle is credited with a total nearly $3,000,000 greater than was shown by the American Contractor in its review of the year's business. Portland's total of more than $20,000,000 of building permits is followed by an asterisk, and an accompanying footnote informs the reader that "Portland went under a stricter building ordinance January 1, 1911. The result was that something more than $4,000,000 worth of projected buildings

were 'permitted' during the closing month of the year 1910 to swell the total, which really do not belong in the record, as no report was made on them during the year."

No asterisk calls the reader's attention to the fact that the forty-two-story Smith building in Seattle, for which a permit was taken out last autumn, is not yet under construction and probably never will be. As for Portland's December permits, those for the Multnomah Hotel and two apartment-houses, all well under way in December, exceeded in value of the permits the total volume reported by Seattle for that month. Deliberate misrepresentation of this nature displays a very small spirit, even though it be the Seattle spirit.-Portland, Ore., Oregonian.

British Trade Magazine for
Latin America

A magazine is about to be published which is to be circulated free of cost for the purpose of endeavoring to increase the sale of British manufactures in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina. If the enterprise is successful, other Central and South American countries will be included.

The magazine will be printed in Spanish and prices quoted in the currency of the country where sales are sought to be effected. The financial support of the magazine will come solely from advertisement fees and voluntary contributions. Steamship and railroad companies interested in the development and traffic of Central and South America have contributed generously to the undertaking.

The editor of the magazine informed me that circular advertisements and catalogues printed in English with prices given in pounds, shillings, and pence are of little value in Spanish-speaking countries.

The broad purpose of the magazine will be to suggest and to meet them as far as possible through the British the trade requirements of Central and South America, manufacturer. The first issue of the magazine, which is to be a monthly publication, will be of 1000 copies. This number, it is hoped, will be increased to 5000 copies within two years.

Care is being taken to secure only the advertisements of responsible individuals, firms, and companies. There will be a certain amount of reading matter, and through this medium the needs and possibilities of Central and South American commerce will be brought home to the English manufacturer.

The magazine is a further indication of a new spirit which seems to pervade England at the present time in its determination to secure, if it can, a still further share of the world's markets for its own manufactured

products.-Consular Reports.

Conclusions of Board of Education

"Finally, it appears that farming in Massachusetts, viewed from the standpoint of both its present status and its prospects, is a calling the successful pursuit of which requires a knowledge of the science that lies back of the practice of agriculture as a handicraft; that, in order to secure a widespread productive and profitable agriculture, it is necessary that vocational schools supported and controlled by the public should train the youth in the best methods of farming."

ON 23; 19 United Statet tandemere

N February 23, 1911, the Interstate Commerce

what the New York Sun calls the most important decision. ever rendered by that tribunal. It disapproved the whole list of advances in freight-rates proposed by the railroad companies in both the eastern and western territory. The principal part of the case, and the part which vitally concerned Worcester, was that involving forty-one railroad companies in what is known as official classification territory," being the northeastern part of the United States, in which the proposed advances would have cost shippers therein more than $27,000,000 annually, according to figures submitted by the railroad companies. Increases were made on all classes of rates; and on those of the first, second and third classes, from twenty to twenty-nine per cent., these classes being the most productive of revenue.

The fight was made in behalf of the eastern shippers by the Association of Eastern Business Organizations, consisting of about thirty of the leading chambers of commerce and boards of trade from Maine to Virginia. Preparations for this struggle have been going on ever since the beginning of the association in November, 1909, and especially since the announcement of the proposed increases in the spring of 1910. The work was early delegated to the following committee, which has held many meetings in New York and Boston, and has made plans and raised all the funds with which to carry on the case: Chairman, D. O. Ives, Boston Chamber of Commerce; Charles T. Tatman, Worcester Board of Trade; George H. Scranton, New Haven Chamber of Commerce; Albert Plaut, New York Chamber of Commerce; S. C. Mead, New York Merchants' Association; Norman B. Kelly, Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce; A E. Beck, Baltimore Merchants and Manufacturers' Association; and E. S. Goodman, Richmond Chamber of Commerce.

This committee secured Louis D. Brandeis, Esq., of Boston, as attorney to conduct the case in behalf of the eastern shippers. Mr. Brandeis contributed his talents and his labors gratis, and is entitled to the warmest praise and gratitude of all people in the East for his great service splendidly rendered to them.

Prolonged hearings were had before the commission. in Washington, and many witnesses testified, both on the side of the railroads and on the side of the shippers. Among the important witnesses were two expert traffic men from Worcester, both of them members of the Committee on Railroads and Transportation of the Worcester Board of Trade.

The argument on the part of the railroads was that they needed the money to pay for improvements and increased wages, and especially to put them in such a financial condition as to make proposed new issues of stocks and bonds attractive to investors. The reply The reply on behalf of the eastern shippers was two-fold: that the railroads ought to get their money through savings by economical and scientific management; and that the enormous increases proposed would tend to tax eastern industries out of existence, thus killing the goose that lays the golden egg for the railroads.

The opinions delivered by members of the commission in deciding the case upheld both of these contentions of the shippers, and said that the railroads had failed to sustain the burden of proof which was placed upon them by the act of Congress of 1910, to show the necessity of raising rates. If was pointed out that in the last ten years the net operating revenues of the railroad companies in the United States have increased 33 per cent. per mile, while the gain during the last year alone was $109,000,000.

The decision was received by the railroad companies with many gloomy expressions as to what the effect would be upon their organizations. But the sober second thought of financiers and of the press is that the result is a happy one for all concerned. As pointed out by the New York Journal of Commerce: "The status quo has not been upset; the railroad companies have merely been denied certain additional advantages which they sought to gain.' they sought to gain." A leading metropolitan daily wisely observes: "Politically this decision is of no less importance than it is economically. It checks the movement toward Socialism. It halts the agitation for government ownership of railroads by proving that there can be effective government regulation for the protection of shippers and the public."

The important point for Worcester is that our industries will not be still further handicapped in the keen competition which already exists in the struggle for the markets of the West. Developments since the decision was handed down seem to show that projected railroad improvements will go on just the same, and the money will be found without taking it out of the pockets of the people in general. It is to be remembered that the railroads live on the country, and not the country upon the railroads. And however large buyers the railroad companies may be, they are subordinate to the country as a whole. Eastern manufacturers and merchants, all their employees, and the eastern people as a whole, are relieved by this decision from a well-grounded fear of future stagnation, if not annihilation of their business interests. It is to be remembered, however, that the decision is no bar to future advances in rates in instances where such increases can be shown by the railroads to be necessary.

An Interesting Booklet.

The three halftone views of South American scenery, used in illustrating the article on the Pan-American Conference in this number of the Worcester Magazine, were secured through the courtesy of the Lamport and Holt Line, which operates a fleet of forty-one steamers touching at important South American ports. These halftones form a part of a series of fine illustrations in a booklet, issued by this steamship company, largely devoted to the commercial aspects of the southern continent and filled with terse descriptions of the important seaboard cities, their commercial life, imports and exports.

Current Events

Jan. 22. Capt. E. C. Noyes of Chemical 2, Foster Street, injured at a small fire in boiler-room of J. W. Bishop Co.

22. Railroad employees, numbering 700, from all parts of New England, meet at A. Ö. H. Hall to discuss the relation of freight rates to the wages of employees.

22.

Gethsemane Swedish Lutheran Church receives gift of stained glass windows valued at $4000; name of donor withheld. 22. Worcester Reform Club celebrates the 35th anniversary of the organization.

23.

Rev. Dr. Henry Stiles Bradley of Piedmont Church declines call to Central Congregational Church of Atlanta, Ga.

23. Frank L. Coes succeeds late George D. Webb as President of Commonwealth Club.

24. Capt. William A. Adams, ladder truck 3, Mercantile Street, seriously injured by fall from truck.

25. Compromise effected by which Riker-Jaynes Drug Co. will occupy Harrington corner portion of D. H. Eames Co. store. 25. Catholic Woman's Club has annual dinner at clubhouse with Rev. Dr. John J. McCoy and Rev. Gioacchino Maffei as speakers. 25. Order for investigation of Worcester and Fitchburg houses of correction adopted by House of Representatives.

26. Annual dinner of Life Underwriters' Association held at Putnam & Thurston's restaurant; E. P. Crerie elected President, to succeed O. D. Arnold.

27. Rev. Herman Gronlund, pastor of Swedish-Finnish Congregational Church, becomes temporarily insane and leaps through window. Removed to hospital.

27. Frank H. Mason, clerk of the United States Circuit Court at Boston, resumes office, having been acquitted of charges of larceny and embezzlement.

27. Everett J. Harrington resigns as organist at First Baptist Church to accept same position at Old South Church.

27. Postmaster James W. Hunt reappointed by President William H. Taft for third term.

29. Lake View Methodist Church votes to waive existence as an independent church and becomes mission, charge of Trinity Church.

31. Mrs. Minnie Rice Prior, three years contralto soloist at Old South Church, declines re-engagement.

31. Annual banquet of Worcester Merchants Association at Bay State House; James P. Munroe and Hon. Samuel L. Powers of Boston, principal speakers.

Feb. 1. Elliot A. Santon resigns as organist at Adams Square Congregational Church to accept similar position at First Unitarian Church.

1. Board of Trade holds public meeting to discuss parcels post: James L. Cowles, New York, and Charles L. Underhill, Somerville, principal speakers.