CHARLES P. NEILL
Former President Roosevelt discovered Mr. Neill. Mr. Neill discovered the Erdman Act, which platted a narrow pathway through the industrial jungle in the United States. Congress put the Erdman Act on the statute books, but Charles P. Neill placed it definitely in the imagination of the American people and focused upon it the hope of the nation for industrial peace. It is to Mr. Neill’s credit that he found and took advantage of the possibilities of the Erdman Act in spite of its limitations.
From 1898, when the Erdman Act was passed, to 1906, only a single attempt was made to utilize its provisions in industrial warfare. That attempt, which was in June, 1899, failed. Mr. Neill became commissioner of labor in 1905. Within the five years, December, 1906, to January, 1912, the provisions of the law were invoked in nearly 60 interstate commerce disputes. Between 1908 and 1912 there was but one period as long as three months during which mediation was not sought in a railroad dispute. The threatened strikes which were averted during these five years involved over half a million miles of railroad and 163,000 railroad employes. These figures include duplicates since the same railroad was sometimes involved more than once.
In all this work as mediator Mr. Neill enjoyed the unlimited confidence of railroad managers, and employes alike. Whatever the bitterness, the differences in codes of industrial ethics, and the misunderstandings of fact which separated into bitter opposition the railroad managers and their employes, there was no time when both parties failed to give absolute confidence to Commissioner Neill and to rely with unquestioning trust on his judgment, on his personal character, and the practical wisdom of his suggestion. This extraordinary tribute to him was primarily a tribute to his character, but it was earned in part by the marvelous accuracy with which his imagination seized situations and all their parts, and enabled him to talk the minutely technical language of railroad operation. The rare assemblage of mental and moral gifts which characterize Mr. Neill was fully recognized and nothing clouded that recognition during his term of service. These extraordinary features of his career will offer but little consolation to the few lonely critics whose voices were recently heard in high circles.
Mr. Neill was made commissioner of labor in 1905. He was re-appointed in 1909. His third nomination was sent to the Senate by President Taft in January, 1913. Confirmation was withheld because of the Democratic policy toward President Taft’s nominations in general. Mr. Neill’s name was sent back to the Senate by President Wilson but it was not acted upon at the short session. It was again sent to the Senate at its extraordinary session. Meantime Mr. Neill’s term of office had expired, and on February 1 he surrendered his office. Confirmation was delayed, apparently because certain southern Senators seemed to have views of the humanities of industry which were not in accord with those of Commissioner Neill. His appointment, however, was finally confirmed and Mr. Neill resumed his office. After a few weeks of service he resigned to take the position of director of welfare with the American Smelting and Refining Company. He has taken charge of the welfare of approximately 20,000 laboring men in the employ of this corporation. The delay of the confirmation of Mr. Neill’s appointment brought forth from the labor press generally, from the railroad managers of the United States and from the American press generally, tributes to his character, to his power, and to his achievements which have been rarely equaled and more rarely exceeded in the industrial history of the nation.
In addition to the annual reports and bulletins issued by the Bureau while Mr. Neill was commissioner of labor, which publications form a very valuable contribution to the literature dealing with labor conditions, the bureau made a number of important special investigations at the direction of Congress, the results of which are embodied in various reports, notable among them are the Report of the Condition of Women and Child Wage-Earners in the United States (in 19 volumes), the Report on the Conditions of Employment in the Iron and Steel Industry, and the Reports on the Strike at Bethlehem and the Strike at Lawrence, Mass. Acting as special commissioner under Roosevelt Mr. Neill investigated the packing house industry and the Goldfield strike. In spite of the handicap under which he was placed by his mediation work, Mr. Neill gave most careful supervision to the planning and the executing of the work of the Bureau of Labor, and in many cases tested the accuracy and completeness of work of his agents by personally inspecting the fields in which they labored.
Mr. Neill was born in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1865. His college education was obtained at Notre Dame University, at the University of Texas, at Georgetown, and at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where he took his Ph.D. in 1897. He served as an instructor at Notre Dame University from 1891 to 1894. He was professor of political economy at the Catholic University from 1898 to 1905. While occupying this position he prepared and installed an exhibit of the Catholic charities of the United States at the St. Louis Exposition. He was United States commissioner of labor from 1905 to 1913, vice-president of the Board of Charities of the District of Columbia, 1900 to 1908; assistant recorder of the Anthracite Strike Commission in 1902; recorder of the Arbitration Board for the Birmingham strike in 1903; member of the U. S. Immigration Commission, 1907 to 1910. As member of the International Institute of Statistics, he has actively furthered plans for the adoption of international standards for the compilation of industrial statistics and has been active in working toward international conventions to promote that end.
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.