“Therefore this bureau was established on a modest scale as a clearing house to bring inquirers to the people who can assist them. The rooms are open every afternoon and evening, where foreigners who are in any kind of trouble or perplexity may come for advice. During four months when the bureau was first opened, the callers averaged 71 per day.” This bureau received reports from the New York office of the Civic League for Immigrants about all newly arrived immigrant children whose destination was Rochester. The children were located on their arrival and their names sent to the School Census Board. Among these, a number of cases of child labor have been found and reported. Several positions for men out of work have also been found. Leaflets on tuberculosis have been distributed and cases, when discovered, sent to the proper authorities. A pure milk station has been maintained at the bureau and its other activities have included the preparation of Italian dances for the National Playground Congress; a series of articles contributed to the Italian press on living standards, health, duties of citizens, school laws, savings banks, honest elections and similar topics; and a suggestion made to the City Club, which was adopted, that a Fourth of July banquet be tendered the newly naturalized citizens of Rochester. The Rochester Bureau came most prominently before the public during the directorship of Miss Cross while a strike of Italian laborers was going on in Rochester. The story of this strike illustrates fundamental elements in the work of assimilation. The Italian laborers’ union some nine years previously had succeeded in getting a wage increase. The increased cost of living in the meantime had made their wage inadequate for a decent standard of living, so the union gave contractors a six months’ notice of its demand for a second increase. The demand was ignored and the strike commenced. Mr. Kitchelt thus relates the story: Newspapers began their campaign then. Those who had blamed the Italians for their low standard of living now criticized them for trying to improve it by the only means in their power. The chief of police held a conference with the contractors, and groups of strikers were attacked by the police. Some men were shot and others arrested. The cases of the latter were twice postponed in spite of their desire for a speedy trial and they were finally discharged for lack of evidence. The strikers appealed to the mayor to try to effect a settlement and several conferences were held in his office. But he was himself a contractor and the results were not apparent. Arbitration through Italian lawyers was tried but with no success.