Charles P. Neill - Work

Work

President William Howard Taft reappointed Charles in 1909. Woodrow Wilson appointed him Commissioner of Labor Statistics in 1913 when the Department of Commerce and Labor was divided and the Bureau of Labor Statistics was established in the new Department of Labor. Neill provided federal mediation services in railroad labor disputes and he drafted the Newlands Labor Act in 1913. When Upton Sinclair wrote his book The Jungle, Roosevelt sent Neill to Chicago investigate the meat packing industry, when Neill returned he described the packing industries as being "revolting". This caused much controversy in society as the terrible unsanitary conditions were of meat products were being publicized. The Neill-Reynolds Report (which is what the investigation report was named) led to the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. The Pure Food and Drug Act, enacted on the same day in 1906, also gave the government broad jurisdiction over food in interstate commerce. In addition, his detailed report on child labor provided a basis for congressional legislation. his child labor report showed the injustices of the working condition for children as well as women. Many employers believed that getting women and children out of the farm and working in mills was actually better for them. However, this was proved untrue as reports were publicized about the bad ventilation in these factories and the unsanitary conditions in which they were put to work. Also, it was noted that they did not receive the same benefits as men and were often used as cheap labor. As a result, Charles helped pass an 8-hour hour maximum work day. Charles P. Neill also exposed the shocking working hours and conditions in the Bethlehem Steel Works company, as well as writing a report on the strike of textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912.

What Roosevelt has said about his work with Charles P. Neill:

Unfortunately, thoroughly efficient government servants often proved to be the prime offenders so far as the enforcement of the eight-hour law was concerned, because in their zeal to get good work done for the Government they became harsh taskmasters, and declined to consider the needs of their fellow-employees who served under them. The more I had studied the subject the more strongly I had become convinced that an eight-hour day under the conditions of labor in the United States was all that could, with wisdom and propriety, be required either by the Government or by private employers; that more than this meant, on the average, a decrease in the qualities that tell for good citizenship. I finally solved the problem, as far as Government employees were concerned, by calling in Charles P. Neill, the head of the Labor Bureau; and, acting on his advice, I speedily made the eight-hour law really effective. Any man who shirked his work, who dawdled and idled, received no mercy; slackness is even worse than harshness; for exactly as in battle mercy to the coward is cruelty to the brave man, so in civil life slackness towards the vicious and idle is harshness towards the honest and hard-working. We passed a good law protecting the lives and health of miners in the Territories, and other laws providing for the supervision of employment agencies in the District of Columbia, and protecting the health of motormen and conductors on street railways in the District. We practically started the Bureau of Mines. We provided for safeguarding factory employees in the District against accidents, and for the restriction of child labor therein. We passed a workmen's compensation law for the protection of Government employees; a law which did not go as far as I wished, but which was the best I could get, and which committed the Government to the right policy. We provided for an investigation of woman and child labor in the United States. We incorporated the National Child Labor Committee. Where we had most difficulty was with the railway companies engaged in inter-State business. We passed an act improving safety appliances on railway trains without much opposition, but we had more trouble with acts regulating the hours of labor of railway employees and making those railways that were engaged in inter-State commerce liable for injuries to or the death of their employees while on duty.