Establishing the eight-hour day for women employed in certain occupations in the District of Columbia. Co-ordinating the federal health activities and strengthening the public health service. Providing in the immigration act for mental examination of immigrants by alienists; safeguarding the welfare of immigrants at sea by detailing American medical officers and matrons to immigrant-carrying ships. Providing a hospital ship for American deep-sea fishermen. Providing for the betterment of the conditions of American seamen. Establishing a commission to investigate jails and the correction of first offenders. Abolishing the contract convict labor system by restricting interstate commerce in prison-made goods. Legislation giving effect to the principles underlying such proposals as these would constitute, we believe, an important step in the accomplishment of the forward-looking purposes which you have placed before the American people. Caroline B. Alexander Frederic Almy Louise de Koven Bowen Louis D. Brandeis Howard S. Braucher Allen T. Burns Charles C. Burlingham Richard C. Cabot Richard S. Childs John R. Commons Charles R. Crane Edward T. Devine Abram J. Elkus H. D. W. English Livingston Farrand Homer Folks Ernst Freund John M. Glenn Josephine Goldmark T. J. Keenan Florence Kelley Howard A. Kelly Arthur P. Kellogg Paul U. Kellogg John A. Kingsbury Constance D. Leupp Samuel McCune Lindsay Charles S. Macfarland W. N. McNair Charles E. Merriam Adelbert Moot Henry Morgenthau Frances Perkins Charles R. Richards Margaret Drier Robins W. L. Russell Thomas W. Salmon Henry R. Seager Thomas A. Storey Graham Taylor Graham Romeyn Taylor Lillian D. Wald James R. West W. F. Willoughby Stephen S. Wise Robert A. Woods COMPULSORY MINIMUM WAGE LAW IN OREGON Oregon's minimum wage law,[2] which was recently signed by Governor West, is the first one in America to have a compulsory clause. Failure to pay the rate of wages fixed and in the method provided by the law is punishable by fine or imprisonment or both. In Massachusetts, the first state to establish minimum wage boards, the only penalty is the publication of the names of offending employers in four newspapers in the county where their industries are located. [2] See Minimum Wage Legislation by Florence Kelley, on page 9 of this issue. The Oregon law applies only to women and children. It prohibits their employment in any occupation in which the sanitary or other conditions are detrimental to health or morals, or for wages "which are inadequate to supply the necessary cost of living and maintain them in health." It likewise forbids the employment of minors "for unreasonable low wages." An Industrial Welfare Commission is created to determine minimum wages, maximum hours and standard conditions of labor.