“That must never happen again,” he declared. “Tell her to come to me if she is ever in trouble again. She shall have shoes, or whatever she needs for comfort.” Charity, however, was not what Mildred required, but adequate pay for service. That could not be granted. It would establish that terrifying thing, a precedent! Elsewhere the agent met with better success, Mildred has employment again and better pay: And with _x_ as a known and more satisfactory basis, she forms her problems now. But her old arithmetic remains the lesson book of how many other girls? EDITORIAL GRIST HOLDING FAST TO THE TWELVE-HOUR DAY JOHN A. FITCH The United States Steel Corporation, in the annual meeting of its stockholders, held in Hoboken, N. J., April 21, took a step which may tend to cause a reaction among that part of the public which had come to believe, on account of the frequent pronouncements by the corporation of its kindly intent toward its employes, that it would take any reasonable and logical step that it might to improve labor conditions. To make this clear it is not necessary to go back to the addresses in this vein that have been delivered from time to time by executive officers of the corporation before the American Iron and Steel Institute and elsewhere. It is sufficient to refer to the committee of stockholders, appointed by Judge Gary in the fall of 1911, who made a report on labor conditions to the stockholders meeting of 1912. Their report declared that 25¾ per cent of the employes of the corporation were working twelve hours a day. This figure included all employes in mines and quarries, as well as in mills and furnaces. The committee made it clear that “this schedule of work was found in the largest proportion in its departments which are more or less continuous, such as rolling mills, open hearths, and blast furnaces, where the percentage of work for the twelve hours varies from 50 to 60.” Speaking of the effects of the twelve-hour day, the committee said: “We are of the opinion that a twelve-hour day of labor, followed continuously by any group of men for any considerable number of years means a decreasing of the efficiency and lessening of the vigor and virility of such men.