Nature, grace and environment conspired to prepare Mr. Neill for his work. Ideals governed him from his early boyhood and gave him the courage to overcome a typical range of obstacles in working them out. Everything taught Mr. Neill. He had the rare capacity and the temperament to profit by experience. His ideals of social service and his Christian sympathies have been so powerful that nothing frightened him and nothing side-tracked him from his path. There is no way of knowing fully the pressure that was brought to bear upon him, or the dust that was stirred up to obscure the practical ideals that governed him in his work as an investigator of the industrial battlefield. Whether in a congressional hearing where a none too kindly spirit sometimes cropped out, or in protecting the accuracy and good faith of his bureau reports, some of which aroused fierce antagonisms and were subject to bitter attack, Mr. Neill displayed the same intelligent fearlessness, the same restrained idealism and the same self reliance which his friends have always noted and admired in him. He has had severe academic training, yet he has remained a thoroughly practical man. He is a brave and honest fighter, without any love of fighting for its own sake. A personal feature of Mr. Neill’s career remains to be noted. Under the law he, as commissioner of labor, was associated with Judge Martin A. Knapp in adjusting railway disputes. Originally Judge Knapp acted in his capacity as chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission. When he was transferred to the Court of Commerce a change in the law was made, permitting the President to select as second mediator any member of the Interstate Commerce Commission or of the Commerce Court. In this manner it was possible to continue Judge Knapp in the mediation work. Fortunately he remains to carry into the newer epoch just entered upon, the splendid traditions of the work as developed by himself and Mr. Neill. These two men worked together in a spirit of mutual understanding and trust which made their mediation work a happy experience for themselves, no less than for the railroads and the employes. It is impossible to separate them in attributing credit for the great results which have been achieved. Each has been most gratified when the public honored the other. Both will be associated in the discriminating memory of the nation as precursors of the era of industrial peace for which the nation’s heart is longing. WM. J. KIRBY. * * * * * Charles Stelzle, pioneer in church social service, who was the founder and has for ten years been in charge of this phase of the work of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, will leave that board on October 1. Mr. Stelzle plans to set up offices of his own as consulting sociologist and efficiency engineer for national church organizations, social service agencies and industrial enterprises.