them and they must be adopted if we are to continue and develop as a nation of sound and virile men and women.

I recommend the passage of legislation to lift labor out of the category of commodities or articles of commerce.

CHILD LABOR

When and wherever children are permitted to work, they should be surrounded with adequate protection as to hours and tasks which they may be permitted to undertake. No children should be allowed in any occupation injurious to health, and the provision requiring physical examination of children should be extended to all employments in which they are engaged.

MINIMUM WAGE COMMISSION

I recommend the establishment of a Minimum Wage Commission of three members, who shall serve without compensation. Appointments to the Commission shall be so made that the views of employers, employees and the public, will be properly reflected. Acting through wage boards appointed for a given industry the Commission should have the power to fix the living wage to be paid to women and minors. Such a law was recommended in this State a number of years ago after a careful investigation by an official Legislative Commission. A similar law is in successful operation in other countries and in many states in our own country. The justice and necessity of a law of this kind are manifest. It is just as cruel to underpay a woman as to overwork her, and just as harmful and wasteful from the standpoint of the State.

If you believe that the future mothers of this State are a resource that we should conserve, you will give this legislation your most earnest and careful consideration.

MILK

The present high cost of milk is a public menace. It is unnecessary to describe the misery, disease and death that follow an inadequate milk supply.

Thousands of poor people and especially children, are deprived of sufficient nourishment on account of the high cost of milk. Honest differences of opinion exist between many people as to

the reason for this condition. One fact is certain. There are three parties at interest; the producer, the distributer and the consumer. Each is entitled to have his interests safeguarded but not at the expense of the others. I propose to appoint a commission composed of fair-minded representatives of these three interests to investigate the methods of handling this important commodity and the whole milk situation and to speedily make recommendations as to possible legislation with the object of reducing costs of production and distribution so as to correspondingly reduce the cost to the ultimate consumer.

FEEBLE MINDED

There was created by Chapter 197 of the Laws of 1918, a State Commission on feeble minded. Section 485 detailed the general powers and duties of the Commission. Among other things, it provides that they shall prepare and recommend to the Legislature on or before February 1, 1919, a general commitment law for feeble minded persons in the State of New York. The whole question of the care and treatment of the feeble minded is one of immense importance to the State of New York.

I would ask a careful study by your Body of the act creating the Commission as well as its report when received, and I will communicate with you in greater detail after February 1st.

EXTENSION OF THE LABOR LAW

The Labor Law should be extended to protect women who have entered new industries because of the war. I refer particularly to the employment of women on our surface, subway and elevated railroads, and in the operation of elevators. Such employment is to-day unregulated, and the women do not receive the protection and safeguard that the law throws around their work in industrial pursuits generally.

HEALTH AND MATERNITY INSURANCE

Nothing is so devastating in the life of the worker's family as sickness. The incapacity of the wage earner because of illness is one of the underlying causes of poverty. Now the worker and his family bear this burden alone. The enactment of a Health Insurance Law which I strongly urge, will remedy this

unfair condition. Moreover, it will result in greater precautions being taken to prevent illness and disease, and to eliminate the consequent waste to the State therefrom. It will lead to the adoption of wider measures of public health and hygiene, and it will operate to conserve human life. The large percentage of physical disability disclosed by the draft, shows how deeply concerned the State is in this matter. Proper provision also should be made for Maternity Insurance in the interest of posterity and of the race. Other countries are far ahead of us in this respect, and their experience has demonstrated the practical value and economic soundness of these principles.

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION LAW

The provision of the State Constitution under which the Compensation Law was enacted, authorized a statute for the payment of compensation resulting from "injuries." The intent of this constitutional provision has been limited by defining “injuries” in the Compensation Law as meaning "accidental injuries." This limitation deprives the Commission from jurisdiction to award compensation for disability resulting from occupational diseases and occupational injuries.

I recommend that the law be amended in keeping with the constitutional provision, to the end that occupational diseases and injuries may be subject to its provisions. This will entail a very small increase in cost in comparison with the resulting benefit.

I am making an investigation to determine the cost of workmen's compensation to the industries of the State as compared with the amount actually received by injured workmen and their dependents. I am also inquiring into the working of the law itself, and I will at a later date address a communication to your Honorable Body.

STATE HOSPITALS

The State Hospitals for the Insane have suffered severely during the war. The great demand for physicians and nurses in the military service has taken away one-third of the men from the medical staffs and hundreds of nurses and ward attendants. The

war stopped all deportations of the alien insane with the result that approximately a thousand alien patients are being cared for by the State of New York.

Shell shock and other forms of nervous and mental disease have already brought several hundred New York State soldiers to the State Hospitals for treatment and will bring hundreds more. The rapidly rising cost of building materials and labor has made new construction increasingly difficult during the past two or three years, consequently very little progress has been made in reducing the serious overcrowding which on September 1, 1918, amounted to 22.6 per cent or 6,546 patients in excess of the total certified capacity of the thirteen State Hospitals for the Insane. The increase in patients averages approximately nine hundred per year. The heaviest overcrowding and the greatest need for additional accommodations is in the metropolitan district. These facts and figures were supplied to me by the State Hospital Commission. I give them to you for your earnest and careful consideration.

AGRICULTURE

The people are fed and clothed from the land. The persons whose privilege it is to farm the land must be contented and prosperous in their work not only for their own sake but for the good of the public at large. It is a first concern of any government to see that the land continues to produce its supplies. The State is under obligation to make it possible for the farming people to do their best without waiting for them to take action in their own behalf. Whatever improves the farming and the rural life also contributes directly to the welfare of all the people, and is not in the interest of a class.

It is the farming people themselves who must improve the agriculture of the State. We should provide them fair opportunities and remove the impediments. They must have knowledge, and they must be well taught. We must continue to give substantial encouragement to the teaching of agriculture in the schools. The special schools, the experiment station, the colleges, are to be well supported. The State College of Agriculture at

Cornell, set up by the State as its agency for higher education and for extension teaching, should have its plan carried to completion as rapidly as possible.

The farmer must have sufficient returns to make his work attractive and worth while. The particular need is better and more direct processes of putting produce in the hands of the consumer, and returning to the producer an adequate part of the proceeds. The producer and consumer, the city and the farm, should work together for the accomplishment of this end. The State should adopt a line of action developed from the careful study of trained persons, and not rely on ready-made schemes which at best are likely to be experimental. The distribution and marketing problem is so complex and difficult that the solutions must be developed as the result of a well considered continuing policy of progress and correction. The marketing situation is involved with the agricultural situation and the two should be worked out together.

The Agricultural Law is to be thoroughly applied and the police powers of the State extended to the protection and encouragement of agriculture.

The agricultural agencies are many. They have grown up piece by piece. The functions of these instrumentalities should be clarified by definition to prevent duplication and loss of effort.

The agricultural welfare should be one of the major enterprises of government, ranking in dignity with public health and education, and the State's efforts in its behalf should be kept above partisan considerations. While the State should be liberal with appropriations for the encouragement of agriculture, all the processes should be simple, clear and economical.

STATE MILITIA

New York welcomes the return of the members of the former National Guard who have upheld its traditions and the glory of our Nation and State on the battlefields of France and Flanders. These men in the famous 165th United States Infantry and the 27th Division have earned the eternal gratitude of our people. The problem of the reinstatement of these former members of the National Guard in the State Militia is one which I will present to your body in a special message in the near future.