[Sidenote: The American Railway Association's special committee.] In this general connection it seems appropriate to refer to the effective cooperation between the department and the transportation agencies of the country. For a number of years the Quartermaster General's Department has maintained close relations with the executives of the great railway systems of the country. In February, 1917, a special committee of the American Railway Association was appointed to deal with questions of national defense, and the cooperation between this committee and the department has been most cordial and effective, and but for some such arrangement the great transportation problem would have been insoluble. I am happy, therefore, to join the Quartermaster General in pointing out the extraordinary service rendered by the transportation agencies of the country, and I concur also in his statement that "of those who are now serving the Nation in this time of stress, there are none who are doing so more whole-heartedly, unselfishly, and efficiently than the railroad officials who are engaged in this patriotic work." [Sidenote: Codes established for the garment industry.] One other aspect of the work of the Quartermaster General's Office has engaged my particular attention, and seems to me to have been fruitful of most excellent results. The garment working trades of the United States are largely composed of women and children, and of men of foreign extraction. More than any other industry in the United States it has been menaced by the sweatshop system. The States have enacted codes and established inspection agencies to enforce sanitary conditions for these workers, and to relieve the evils which seem everywhere to spring up about them. To some extent the factory system operated under rigid inspection has replaced home work, and has improved conditions; but garment making is an industry midway in its course of being removed from the home to the factory, and under pressure of intensive production, home work in congested tenements has been difficult to eradicate. [Sidenote: Dangers in home work system.] The vice of this system is not merely the invasion of the home of the worker, and the consequent enfeeblement of the family and family life. Work done under such circumstances escapes the inspector, and the crowded workers in the tenement are helpless in their struggle for subsistence under conditions which are unrelieved by an assertion of the Government's interest in the condition under which these workers live. Moreover, wide distribution of garments made under such conditions tends to spread disease, and adds another menace from the public point of view. [Sidenote: Standards inserted in contracts.]