The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1904-08-04
A FRIEND OF LABOR.

A FRIEND OF LABOR
Theodore Roosevelt's Record for Twenty
Years.
Theodore Roosevelt, from the day of
his first entrance into public life over
twenty years ago, has been consistent
and unselfish friend of the man who
tolls. AS a member of the New York
Assembly, as Civil Service Commits
sioner, as Assistant Secretary of the
Navy, as Governor of New York, as
President of the United States, he has
never failed to show real loyalty to
the true interests of labor. In his first
message to Congress as President he
said:
'The most vital problem with which
this country, and for that matter the
whole civilized world, has to deal is the
problem which has for one side the
betterment of social conditions, moral
and physical, in large cities and for
another side the effort to deal with
that tangle of far reaching questions
which we group together when we
speak of labor
His entire record as legislator and
executive is consistent with that utter
ance.
IN THE NEW YORK ASSEMBLY.
AS member of the New York As
sembly he voted for the following
bills:
Abolishing tenement-house cigar
making in New York City.
Restricting child labor in factories
and workshops.
Regulating the labor hours of minors
and women in manufacturing estab-
lishments.
Safeguarding the lives and limbs of
factory operatives.
Regulating wage rates of laborerS
employed by municipalities.
Making employees preferred credit
OrS.
Providing for building mechanics
liens.
Prescribing the lien rights of work
ing women.
Protecting mechanics and laborers
engaged in sinking oil or gas wells.
Abolishing contract child labor in
refOrmatory institutions.
Creating commission to examine
into the operation of the contract sys-
tenn of employing convicts.
Establishing the bureau of labor sta
tistics.
To promote industrial peace.
For a scent fare on the New York
City elevated railroad.
Incorporating the New York City
Free Circulating Library.
For free public baths in New York
City.
AS GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK.
While Governor of New York he ap-
proved the following measures:
Creating a tenement house commits
sion.
Regulating sWeat-shop labor.
Empowering the factory inspector to
enforce the scaffolding law
Directing the factory inspector to en-
force the act regulating labor hours on
railroads.
Making the eight hour and prevailing
rate-of-wages law effective.
Amending the factory act
l. Protecting employees at work on
buildings.
2. Regulating the working time of
female employees.
3. Providing that stairways shall be
properly lighted.
4. Prohibiting the operation of dan
gerous machinery by children.
5. Prohibiting women and minors
working on polishing or buf1ing wheels.
g. Providing for seats for mattresses
in hotels and restaurants.
Shortening the working hours of
drug clerks.
Increasing the salaries of New York
City school teachers.
Extending to other engineers the
law licensing New York City engineers
and making it misdemeanor for vio-
lating the same.
Licensing stationary engineers in
Buffalo.
Providing for the examination and
registration of horseshoers in cities.
Registration of laborers for munich
pal employment.
Relating to air brakes on freight
trains.
Providing means for the issuance of
quarterly bulletins by the bureau of
labor statistics.
In addition to the foregoing, while
Governor of New York he recon-
mended legislation (Which the Legisla-
ture failed to pass in regard to-
Employers liability.
State control of employment offices.
State ownership of, printing plant.
Devising means whereby free me-
chanics shall not be brought into COM
petition with prison labor.
AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
As President of the United States he
has signed the following bills:
Renewing the Chinese exclusion act
and extending its provisions to the is
land territory of the United States.
Prohibiting the employment Of Mon
golian labor on irrigation works and