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Regulation No. 1. In all factory buildings less than five stories in height in which more than twenty-five persons are employed above the ground floor, or in which, regardless of the number of persons employed, articles, goods, wares, merchandise or products of combustible material are stored, packed, manufactured or in the process of manufacture, all interior stairways serving as required means of exit, and the landings, platforms, and passageways connected therewith, shall be enclosed on all sides by partitions of fire-resisting material extending continuously from the basement. Where the stairway extends to the top floor of the building such partitions shall extend to three feet above the roof. All openings in such partitions shall be provided with self-closing doors constructed of fire-resisting material, except where such openings are in the exterior wall of the building. The bottom of the enclosure shall be of fireproof material at least four inches thick, unless the fire-resisting partitions extend to the cellar bottom.
Such enclosure of stairways shall not be required in factory buildings in which there is an exterior enclosed fireproof stairway or a horizontal exit serving as a required means of exit, as defined in Section 79f, Subdivisions 8 and 9 of the labor law. Where approved automatic sprinklers are installed throughout such buildings, such enclosure of stairways shall not be required unless more than eighty persons are employed above the ground floor.
Regulation No. 2. In all factory buildings no articles or wares of a combustible nature shall be kept or stored inside the limits of any stairway enclosure, or unenclosed stairway, or on the landings, platforms, or passageways connected therewith, nor shall such articles or wares be kept or stored under any stairway unless such stairway and any partitions or doors thereunder are constructed of, or covered with, incombustible material.
Both rules become effective October 1, 1913. The labor law specifically provides for the enclosure of stairways in buildings over four stories.
The attorney-general’s opinion was asked by the Industrial Board in this case, for the purpose of determining at the beginning of its work the question of its powers not only in relation to matters not covered by legislation but also to those covered in part by law. The essential part of the opinion follows:
“It seems to me to be entirely beyond question that the industrial board has power to adopt rules and regulations upon subjects of which the statute already treats. The statute itself makes mandatory provisions for many safeguards and then makes provisions that additional safeguards may be required by the industrial board. There is nothing in the letter of the statute nor in its manifest intent to confine the jurisdiction of the industrial board to such few subjects only as are not expressly legislated upon by the statute itself. Such an extensive limitation upon its powers would be manifestly absurd and far foreign to the evident purpose of the Legislature in enacting additional legislation for the protection of the lives and health of employes in factories.”
The attorney-general’s opinion further states that the legislation does not offend any constitutional provisions.
The Public Health Service, under the direction of Surgeon-General Rupert Blue, has undertaken a “sanitary survey” of the streams which feed into the Ohio river. It is proposed to test the waters of these streams in order to determine scientifically to what distances the contamination of sewage is carried by flowing water. The object of the survey is to establish standards of pollution beyond which no community will be permitted by the federal government to trespass in dumping sewage into streams.
This is the first time that the federal government has ventured to invade the local police powers of municipalities, except in times of great extremity, such as during the yellow fever epidemics along the gulf coast.
The survey of the Ohio Valley will probably result in the erection by the government of “purification plants.” It has been suggested that such legislation will be deemed constitutional under the law prohibiting the transportation of disease germs in interstate commerce.
The Industrial Welfare Commission which was created by the last Legislature to determine and enforce reasonable wages, hours and conditions of work among women and minor employes in Oregon began work June 3 with Bertha Moores representing the employes, Amedee Smith, a retired manufacturer, representing the employers and Edwin V. O’Hara, chairman of the committee of the Consumers’ League which secured the passage of the act, representing the public and chairman of the commission. Caroline J. Gleason, whose investigation of the wages and conditions of women workers in Oregon furnished the chief data in the campaign which resulted in the passage of the law under which the commission operates, is paid secretary.
At the beginning of its work the commission was asked to adjust a strike among the women employes of the Oregon Packing Company at Portland, which employs about 200 girls and women during the summer season. It had no power to make a legal ruling effective in less than 90 days and by that time the packing season would be over for this summer, so its office could be one of conciliation merely. Investigation revealed that with the piece rate in force a large number of the workers were earning as low as fifty to ninety cents a day. The commission succeeded in getting the company to sign an agreement pending the setting of a legal minimum, which fixed one dollar a day as a minimum for all workers except those “old or crippled” who may secure a special permit. Piece rate prices were re-arranged so that the worker of “average ordinary ability” would earn $1 a day, thus enabling the better workers to make more.
Two “conferences” of nine members each have been organized by the commission, one to consider questions relating to mercantile establishments, the other to deal with factory problems. The commission is engaged in forming conferences to deal with laundries, telephone companies and hotels and restaurants.
Interesting recommendations have been made by the conferences already established. The mercantile conference reported that forty dollars a month is required for the decent maintenance of women workers in that occupation. The factory conference has recommended $8.60 a week pay as a minimum for factory workers, and a nine-hour work day. The present legal maximum is ten hours a day. Investigation has shown that one-half of the department store girls receive less than forty dollars a month at present and about the same proportion of factory girls get less than $8.60 a week. If the commission, after holding a public hearing as provided by law, decides to enforce these recommendations, its decision will directly affect the wages of fully one-half the women workers in department stores and factories in Portland.
The commission has authority to regulate the employment of minors without calling a conference, though it holds the usual public hearing. It favors restricting night work of girls under eighteen in all industries, its chief opponents being the department stores.
Motion pictures are bringing the scenes and events of distant lands and even of other ages vividly to the eyes. The Durbar, the coronation, the Scott antarctic expedition, the story of “Quo Vadis,” as shown by the “movies,” not to mention a thousand and one travel subjects from a railway trip in the Andes to street scenes in China, are playing a growing part in popular education. Films are being used increasingly to spread information and enlist public co-operation in the struggle against tuberculosis, dirty milk, flies and other menaces to health. And now, as described in THE SURVEY of September 6, Mr. Edison himself is enlisted in the problem of adapting motion pictures to school training.
All this development of course hangs on improvement in the mechanism by which motion pictures are projected on the screen. A new method is announced designed to eliminate all flicker which is clearly one of the serious problems in its strain upon children’s eyes. The inventor of the machine, called the vanoscope, is Lewis C. Van Riper and he essays to show continuous action by having each picture dissolve into the next instead of projecting a series of entirely distinct pictures on the screen. Col. S. S. McClure has been so impressed with the especial adaptability of this new method for educational purposes, that he is now on a trip to Europe to gain what he can for its wide use in this field.
In the prevalent method of motion picture projection, the film movement is in the nature of a series of quick jerks, each taking about one-half of the time given to each picture. Nearly 50 per cent of the time is taken up in moving the pictures forward and 50 per cent in projecting them upon the screen. Hence the flicker and the chance of eye strain.
The principle underlying this present method of projection is that the persistence of vision in the human eye is about one-tenth of a second. It has been found that a speed in projection of from 16 to 17 pictures per second is necessary to enable the eyes to retain the image of one picture until the next is projected upon the screen and to overcome or partially overcome annoyance to the eyes caused by the intervals. This is the rate of projection now used throughout the world on all standard machines for monochrome pictures and photographs for such use have had to be taken at a speed of at least 16 per second in order to appear natural.
Some of the advantages claimed for the new method are that there are no intervals between successive pictures, but each succeeding picture dissolves into the one preceding it in exact proportion as the volume of light shifts from one to the other; that there is no flicker; and less danger of fire because the projecting light does not reach the film directly, but is reflected by the mirrors; and that the front seats in an assembly room would be made as desirable as any other seats.
Perhaps in no field of social work are the factors less adjusted, the issues more baffling, than in that relating to unmarried mothers. It has become not only desirable, but positively imperative, to a wise pulling together for the workers in Boston dealing with problems related to illegitimacy to unite in some sort of permanent group for free discussion of aims and means.
The Conference of Workers on Problems of Illegitimacy which was organized in Boston last year has had a fruitful year of discussion. Each month some general question has been up for consideration, the question always being precipitated by the detailed story of some puzzling specific case. In this way have been thrashed out the following questions:
What shall we do with unmarried mothers who are unfitted for housework?
Is it ever advisable to separate the child from a normal mother?
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