not seen the opportunity for its functioning; because the technique for putting these theories and broad principles into concrete acts has not been sufficiently worked out. Indeed it has been worked out hardly at all. And here, clearly, the responsibility lies upon the industrial reformer to put his material in such shape as the case worker can use. His help along industrial lines should be similar to that of Dr. Cabot in medicine; he should put industrial knowledge and principles in a form which the social case worker can use. Household economists are helping the social worker in like ways in their field. But until the indutrial reformer acts, I think the case worker can hardly excuse himself from doing all in his power to see that the diagnosis of industrial cases which come before his committee have brought to bear upon them the largest possible grasp of sound industrial knowledge and principles.

Fortunately there is much that the case worker can do for himself toward this kind of equipment—important, among other things, being the familiarizing of himself, as he has opportunity, with the industries of his own city. In order to deal with industrial cases most intelligently, he should have as large a background as possible of information regarding hours of work, wages, the physical surroundings of workers, and so on in the localities where the families brought to his attention live and work.

Finally, in order to arrive at the wisest decisions in planning for industrially disabled families, and to lay down principles of procedure in treating cases, which will be seed of future industrial improvements, case workers need to be faithful to the industrial facts as they find them, no matter who or what the interests that are hit. If the truth is to be acted upon, if case work is to have its basis on something solid, then the facts must be looked at impersonally and interpreted disinterestedly. This, I believe, however, is a suggestion which social workers need less than any other single group. The vast majority of social case work agencies have shown great courage in the past, and are showing more and more of it as time goes on.

Other Opportunities for Teaching Industrial Facts These, then, are some of the ways in which case workers can apparently make their experience and knowledge count toward industrial improvement through contact with their case committees or case conferences. Their endeavors need not stop there, however. Several other avenues for teaching, still through the case method, which in the limited time available can be only touched upon, are open to them.

The first is the opportunity afforded through industrial and socialstudy classes. I know of at least one such class made up of enthusiastic young college women who induced the secretary of their associated charities to lead them in studying current social questions. It is hard to conceive of any better material for such an educational adventure than the active cases that come to the charitable agencies every day. Here was a chance, which was grasped, to set up an additional center in which live labor issues could be discussed and through which the principles of industrial justice could be made to radiate to the families and friends of the young women of the class. If such a class is profitable in one city, it should be in others.

A second opportunity is to be had through the regular practice which some case workers pursue of reporting to contributors regarding families in which the contributors are interested. There is more and more tendency, as I understand it, when writing such reports (or better, when making them in person) to be specific—not to say merely that Mr. Smith, or Mr. Brown and family are "doing nicely"; but to indicate specifically the treatment being given and the progress made. What a capital chance to go into fundamentals in presenting industrial cases and interpreting them in ways that will educate!

A third avenue is much like the second. It is to be found in the practice of many societies of reporting on the progress of case treatment to the person who referred a certain family to the agency.

A fourth chance for such educational work is through the general reporting of the social or agency. Most agencies issue annual reports which go not only to contributors but to many other interested persons and to the press. Each year some one phase of the society's work, the industrial side among others, could be interpreted through the case method in ways that would set people thinking beyond the actual cases in hand.

Fifth, the case worker may make use of the newspapers all the year round. Most social agencies are feeling an increasing need of interpreting their constructive work to the public. Too often they are thought of popularly as strictly relief-giving agencies. I dare say that few endeavorers could do more to correct this misconception than occasional interpretations of the agency's work by bringing before the public cases in which the treatment given was dictated by broad industrial considerations.

A sixth way of teaching is that afforded in the occasional requests coming to case workers to make public addresses. Wherever and whenever it appears at all timely, industrial lessons drawn out of concrete daily experiences might be set forth to advantage.

A seventh method of reform may be found in the occasional calls upon employers whose co-operation is needed in carrying out the plan of treatment decided upon. Not all employers, not all even of those responsible for the bad industrial conditions, are cruel or selfish; many are merely ignorant and are willing to learn. The case worker is in a particularly favorable position to approach the employer and to teach him, since he comes on an unselfish errand, speaks on behalf of one in whom the employer presumably is interested, and has a definite plan into which the co-operation of the employer will fit. Through the presentation of well analyzed cases, it is often possible to show employers that the wages of women, for example, are a matter of public concern.

An eighth avenue may sometimes be found in other case work agencies whose representatives from time to time sit upon our particular case committee. When this is taken advantage of, a new center of educational influence may often be established.

And, finally, a ninth avenue is that found in the families restored to normal living themselves. This is well illustrated in the success of many societies in securing the co-operation of parents in observing childlabor laws, a kind of industrial reform which is especially likely to fail unless parents believe in it. It means a great deal, moreover, in laying the foundations for labor advance, to show workers in concrete ways that lead poisoning and other occupational diseases, for example, are not inevitable visitations upon people grown accustomed to misfortune; that they are preventable, that there are precautions which workers can take, and that right-thinking citizens will rally behind a demand for the preventive measures which the employer should install. These restored families should form another group who can help the work along.

This, doubtless, seems like a long catalogue. I think it will be realized, however, that the suggestions made add no new items to the usual routine of case work. They merely have to do with ways in which that routine can be made to contribute to industrial reform. And, incidentally, those workers interested in getting down to fundamentals, a purpose which I have heard voiced so often and with which I heartily sympathize, will find enough in such a routine, if used to the full, to claim a great deal of their energy and at times to call into play about all the moral courage they can summon.

THE SOCIAL CASE WORKER AND THE ENFORCEMENT OF INDUSTRIAL LEGISLATION

Edith Abbott, Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy

I feel that I should begin by saying, apologetically, that the subject of this paper was not of my own choosing but was selected for me and telegraphed on to me by your chairman. I say this by way of introduction, for I fear that many of you here may think that I am telling you things which are so definitely an outgrowth of your own experience that it may all seem very obvious to you.

Just about this time last year I happened to be going West on the same train with my old friend and teacher, Dean Roscoe Pound, now of the Harvard Law School. I asked Dean Pound at this time what he considered the most interesting problem in social legislation. "In America," he replied quickly, "our most interesting problem is how to get the legislation on our statute books enforced." Now this was very interesting to me as a social worker, for social workers come very close as a group to the protective legislation that is designed to safeguard the interests of the weak and the poor—to save working women from overwork and children from the wasteful lives of premature wageearning. And it is in securing the enforcement of such laws that the social worker finds a great opportunity for constructive work if she is alert to seize it. It has been part of my work for the last ten years to discuss frequently with young college graduates and graduates of training schools for social work the problem of their future careers. Very often these young women say that they do not want to go into casework; they would like something constructive. I suppose that I have quoted Miss Richmond a great many hundred times as a basis for explaining that case-work offers the best kind of training for constructive work. The good social worker, says Miss Richmond, doesn't go on mechanically helping people out of a ditch. Pretty soon she begins to find out what ought to be done to get rid of the ditch.

Making the Ten-Hour Law Effective

It has been my privilege in Chicago to be associated with a number of different case-work agencies, and each of them from time to time affords interesting illustrations of what case-workers may do to make effective the protective legislation that is so laboriously won from our legislatures. One of the best examples of such legislation is our tenhour law in Illinois. You may remember that Mrs. Kelley and Miss Addams had persuaded our legislature to pass an eight-hour law for working women in 1893, which was declared unconstitutional by our conservative Supreme Court. So it was a great triumph, twenty years later, when the court sustained the new ten-hour law. Even a supreme court can change its mind in twenty years. This battle, however, was only half won. It was a difficult law to enforce, because the only witnesses of its violation were working girls afraid of losing their jobs if they testify against their employers. Great shrewdness, skill, and persistence were needed in the Department of Factory Inspection to enforce this law properly, and some years ago these qualities did not grow with profusion in that particular state department. The Immigrants' Protective League, an agency doing case-work among immigrant men and women, found evidence that this hardly won law was not being enforced in many places where immigrant girls were working. Specific complaints were made to the Factory Inspector's office, but it was not easy to find what was done about them. The League suspected that the Department was not interested in complaints about Polish girls and that the inspector found it difficult to work without the interpreters necessary to get evidence for prosecuting employers.

Finally the League adopted the policy of requesting that information be given of the results of the investigation of each complaint, but the Factory Inspector wrote to the director that the business of his office had grown to such proportions that he was unable to send out notices about the results of the investigations of complaints received, but that if someone would call at the office either "personally or by phone" three or four days after forwarding complaints, such reports would always be furnished. The League began the practice of sending a visitor to the office of the Factory Inspector to learn the result of each investigation. But the statement that "three or four days after forwarding the complaint," a report could be secured was found in be inaccurate. Usually three or four months—or three or four times three or four months— was necessary.

The following cases indicate the vigorous persistence with which one case-work agency pursued the violations of this law during the first year after it was put on the statute book:

On the twenty-third of March one of the downtown hotels was reported because the Polish scrub girls worked twelve hours a day. Three weeks later a representative of the League called at the offic of the Inspector and was informed that the case had not yet been assigned for investigation. Three days later there was still no report, but after another week it was learned that the inspector had visited the hotel and had found eleven violations. On May 20 nothing further eould be learned as to the outcome of the case. On the twenty-third the record showed that the proprietor had been prosecuted, and that the case was "pending." On August 31 the report on the case was not yet available; but ultimately on September 19, one hundred and eighty days after the filing of the complaint, the record was found completed, showing that the hotel had been fined $25 and costs as a penalty for the eleven violations.

I leave it to you to decide whether or not the hotel would have been fined if the social agency had not followed up its complaints instead of merely filing them.

Another case required a still longer time for its disposition.

A restaurant was reported on the 27th of February for violating the ten-hour law by requiring its Polish scrub girls to work twelve hours a day. A representative of the League called at the Factory Inspector's office on March 13, two weeks after, and the report on the investigation of the complaint had not yet been made. On March 16 they found a record that an inspection had been made but that only two violations were recorded. In order to follow through the case and to learn what had been done with the employer, another call was made a month later; but the clerk was not in, and nothing more could be learned. On May 24 the disposition of the case was described as pending in the Factory Inspector's office. August 31, the clerk could not find any record of the result of the case. September 19, the same. October 19, the same. November 13, the same. December 16, the same. But on December 19 papers were being made out to take the case to court. On December 30 a reinspection had been made and violations found. So after ten months' deliberation it was decided to prosecute the employer. On January 30 the case had been continued by the judge. On February 14 the League visitor was told that the restaurant had been reinspected on February 6 and was found to have changed hands and the proprietor was believed to be obeying the law, though why he should have been lead to believe that this was necessary from the experience of his predecessor was nof entirely clear.

The League also went back over some of the cases which were on the records in the Factory Inspector's office with the words "No violations." It was found that in some cases the girls had never been questioned as to their hours because the inspector was unable to speak Polish. Some of the inspectors had, as a matter of fact, recommended on their reports a reinvestigation because they knew the inadequacy of their report, but the recommendations had been entirely disregarded in the office.

Altogether the vigorous effort made by the case-workers of the League to find out what was being done with the violations of the ten