Page:EB1922 - Volume 32.djvu/68

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PENNSYLVANIA, UNIVERSITY OF

ness, three-fifths of the electors of the municipality having first to give their assent to the increase. On Nov. 2 1915 the people voted on four proposed amendments and adopted three of them. The first and the most important prepared the way for workmen's compen- sation. The second enabled Philadelphia to increase its borrowing capacity under conditions similar to those set forth in the amend- ment of 1913. The third enabled the general assembly to enact laws providing a system of registering, transferring, insuring and guaran- teeing land titles by the state or the counties. Amendments passed by the Legislature in 1915 and 1917 were approved by the voters in 1918, one enabling the state to issue bonds to the amount of $50,- 000,000 for the improvement of highways, and the other enlarging Philadelphia's borrowing capacity by removing the previous re- strictions which confined its increased indebtedness to the construc- tion or acquisition of waterworks, subways, etc. An amendment approved at (he general election in 1920 enabled the assembly to levy " graded or progressive taxes." The result of these numerous amendments was manifest in the session of 1919, when a bill was passed authorizing the governor to appoint a commission to study the constitution with an eye either to general revision or to amendment by sections. This commission hela public hearings during 1920 and prepared a report to be placed before the session of 192 1 .

Legislation. The number of boards, commissions, etc., function- ing under the state government was greatly increased between 1919 and 1920. The Legislature in 1911 created a Bureau of Professional Education under the State Department of Public Instruction, its purpose being to regulate the education of physicians, dentists and pharmacists. The same year a State Board of Education was cre- ated, composed of six members, to report and recommend legislation needed to increase the efficiency and usefulness of the public-school system, to equalize educational advantages in all sections of the state, to inspect schools supported in part or in whole by the state, to encourage vocational training, to improve sanitary conditions and to promote physical and moral welfare. A Bureau of Medical Education and Liccnsure, under the Department of Public Instruc- tion, was also created by Act of 1911, to examine into conditions in the medical schools and conduct the examination of students apply- ing for state licences. In 1911 the office of state fire marshal was created, with general powers of investigation over all fires in the state and means of fire prevention. Another important change of 1911 was the reorganization by legislative enactment of the State High- way Department and the undertaking of an extensive system of highways to be built and maintained entirely from state funds.

In 1913 the Department of Labor and Industry was created, with the power to enforce the " laws relating to the safety, health and prosperity of employees and the industries." Under it were formed the bureaus of Inspection, Hygiene and Engineering, Statis- tics and Information, Mediation and Arbitration, Employment, and also an Industrial Board. A Workmen's Compensation Board was created, the state was divided into districts and the administration of compensation carried on through referees and members of the board. A State Workmen's Insurance Board was created the same year for the purpose of administering the insurance fund provided in the Workmen's Compensation Act. In the meanwhile the Legis- lature in 1913 did away with the old State Railway Commission and substituted a Public Service Commission, with powers far greater than those of its predecessor, and having jurisdiction over " alt railroad, canal, street railway, stage line, express, pipe line, ferry, common carriers," etc., companies " doing business within the state."

The year 1915 saw the reorganization of the Department of Agriculture with the creation of a Commission on Agriculture to appoint all officers and employees of the department and prepare the budgets of the department and of the State Live Stock Sanitary Board. Other new boards of that year were the one on vocational training under the Department of Public Instruction; the Board of Censors, upon all motion pictures; the Prison Labor Commission, to supervise the manufacturing industries of inmates of penal institu- tions; and the Veterinary Medical Examining Board. The Bureau of Municipalities under the .Department of Labor and Industry was a development of 1917 intended to classify and make available statis- tics and other information tending to improve the government of municipalities. Five boards were created the same year: the State Military Board which has the power to grant pensions not exceeding $12 per month to widows or minor children of national guardsmen killed on active duty while under the direction of the governor; the Board of Pharmacy ; the Board of Optometrical Education, Exami- nation and Licensure ; the Board of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and the Public School Employees' Retirement Board. The Legislature of 1917 also created a Commission on Public Safety and Defense, to which was appropriated $2,000,000 and which functioned during the two years of American participation in the World War, partly independently and partly through the State Committee of Public Safety and Council of National Defense. The Commission on Public Safety and Defense was succeeded in 1919 by the Commission on Public Welfare, which received an appro- priation of $500,000 to carry on the work of reconstruction, Ameri- canization, and collection of the records of the state's part in the World War. The session of 1919 also created a Bureau of Statistics and Information under the State Department of Internal Affairs, transferred the Bureau of Municipalities from the Department of

Labor and Industry to the Department of Internal Affairs, and created a Bureau of Rehabilitation under the Department of Labor and Industry. The year 1919 witnessed the adoption of two Federal amendments, Pennsylvania ratifying the prohibition amendment, as the forty-fifth state, on Feb. 25, and the woman suffrage amend- ment, as the seventh state, on June 24.

More recent governors were John K. Tener, Republican, 1911-5; Martin G. Brumbaugh, Republican, 1915-9; William C. Sproul, Republican, 1919- .

War Period. Pennsylvania sent 297,891 men into the U.S. army, of whom 53,419 were regulars, 21,350 national guardsmen, and 223,122 drafted. There were 31,063 Pennsylvanians in the navy, 16,872 of whom enlisted in the naval reserve, 13,772 in the regular navy, and 419 in the national naval volunteers. The state was represented by 5,422 men in the marine corps, making a total of 334,376 men and women in the national armed forces. In addition it had 1,600 Y. M.C.A. workers, 147 Knights of Columbus secretaries, and 129 welfare workers under the Society of Friends. In the army Pennsylvania suffered 35,042 casualties, of which 7,898 were deaths. Financially, 559>936 Pennsylvanians subscribed $315,834,950 to the First Liberty Loan; 881,207 subscribed $549,963,700 to the Second Loan; 2,026,973 subscribed $467,758,550 to the Third Loan; 2,349,252 subscribed $812,217,400 to the Fourth Loan; and 1,289,764 subscribed $564,173,200 to the Victory Loan, making a total of $2,709,947,800 for the five loans, a per capita of $312.92 as compared with the per capita throughout the United States of $232.31. The war taxes of the state were: 1917, $589,056,143.20; 1918, $446,811,191. The American Red Cross in its two campaigns in Pennsylvania raised $27,283,990.90 or 10% of the total for the whole country. The Red Cross member- ship in the state at the close of 1918 was 1,669,758 adults and 1,451,057 juniors, the latter being 86-12% of the school popula- tion. Pennsylvania gave approximately $3,000,000 to the war welfare work of the Knights of Columbus. The two Y.M.C.A. drives in the state netted $6,562,516.23.

More than 85,000 men and women were employed in the six Pennsylvania shipyards on the Delaware river in 1918. The Hog I. plant near Philadelphia built no cargo vessels of 7,500 dead-weight tons apiece and 12 transports of 8,000 tons. The Harriman yard at Bristol, of the Merchants' Shipbuilding Corp., built 32 cargo vessels of 9,000 tons apiece; William Cramp & Sons at Philadelphia built four tankers of 10,000 tons apiece and nine steel ships, all but one of which were of more than 9,000 tons. Likewise it launched 35 destroyers during the war period and 13 subsequently. The Chester yard of the Merchants' Shipbuilding Corp. built 28 cargo ships and tankers averaging 8,000 tons apiece and several small naval vessels. The Sun Shipbuilding Co. at Chester built 14 ships averaging 11,000 tons apiece and four cargo ships of 10,000 tons apiece. It also constructed nine mine- sweepers for the navy. The yard for wooden ships of the Traylor plant at Cornwells Heights built eight vessels of 3,500 tons each. The Federal Government spent $46,396,266.80 in housing war workers in the state, $23,021,000 being spent by the Emergency Fleet Corp. for shipbuilders, and $23,375,266.80 by the U.S. Housing Commission.

The Remington Arms Co. at Eddystone manufactured 1,181,908 rifles up to two days before the Armistice, or 47 % of the American rifles supplied to troops at home and abroad. The Baldwin Locomotive Works at Philadelphia and Eddystone contracted for 470 steam locomotives for the U.S. Railroad Administration and nearly 4,000 steam locomotives for the A.E.F. and the Allies. The Aluminum Co. of America, at Pittsburgh, manufactured 3,385,955 meat cans for mess kits, or two-fifths of the total made in America. The Edward G. Budd Co., Philadelphia, pressed and stamped 1,150,775 steel helmets, while a total of 2,707,237 helmets were painted and assembled in the Ford Motor Co. plant in Philadelphia. The entire cannon-forging output of the country during the war was 8,440 before Armistice Day, and Pennsylvania's contribution was 2,960, or almost two-fifths. One of the three American powderbag loading plants was located at Tullytown, Pa. ; it employed 7,000 persons and had reached a capacity of 40,000 bags a day at the date of the Armistice. The Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. at Pittsburgh had a total output of 81,845 optical lenses when the end of the war caused a general cancellation of contracts. (A. E. McK.)


PENNSYLVANIA, UNIVERSITY OF (see 21.114). In 191 the Henry Phipps Institute for the study, treatment and preven-