Research was not then a popular expression of social interest. Discussions developed the need of a formal investigation into conditions, and a distinguished economist of Yale was asked to send someone academic and “without feeling for either side,” while we chose a labor leader, well informed from the workers’ point of view, to make the inquiry. The paraphernalia of cards, filing cabinets, et cetera, was provided, and a room set apart in the settlement, but the investigation ended before it was fairly begun with mutual scorn on the part of the two men. Through the years that have followed the settlement has from time to time been the neutral ground where both sides might meet, or has furnished the “impartial third party” in industrial disputes. One such conference lingers in my memory because of the open-mindedness shown by a man whose traditions and training were far removed from wage-earners’ problems. A friend and generously interested in all our undertakings, he questioned my judgment in espousing the workingmen’s side in a threatened strike, believing that a compromise on disputed hours and pay during that unprosperous time was better than interrupted employment. We believed that the “half loaf” might prove too costly. The wage was already below a living minimum, and the workers’ contention that at the beginning of the season the market could be made to meet a fair charge for labor seemed to us an entirely reasonable one. My friend agreed to bring representatives of the manufacturers and contractors if I would bring an equal number of workers to a conference in the Henry Street house, over which he would preside. No agreement was reached, but when the strike was finally declared this friend, whose wisdom and experience have placed him high in the councils of the nation, had come to see that the workers could not do otherwise, and throughout the strike he aided with money and sympathy. Since those days cloaks are no longer made in New York tenement homes, and the once unhappy, sweated workers, united with other garment-makers, have been lifted into eminence because of the unusual character of their organization. In 1910, after a prolonged strike, peace was declared under a “protocol,”[19] wherein were combined unique methods devised for the control of shops and adjustment of difficulties between the association of progressive manufacturers and the trades unions. New terms—“a preferential union shop” and the “Joint Board of Sanitary Control”—were introduced. Under the latter, for the first time in the history, of industry, sanitary standards were enforced by the trade itself. On this board, the expense of which was shared equally by the association of manufacturers and the trades unions, were representatives of both organizations, their attorneys, and three representatives of the public unanimously elected by both parties to the agreement.