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We tried to use the insurance companies and their inspection services as a check on the reports of the Labor Department. That was what we were doing.

In the nature of the case, once those things were done, once these methods were established, once the public was cooperative, and once the scientific and other agencies that know about these matters were cooperating to the limit, there was less and less to do. It took care of itself automatically. We had always anticipated that the Committee on Safety would be a committee of limited life; that it wouldn't live forever. There was no great project that needed to be carried on by a special committee. There were other agencies of good will. that would carry on the general idea. The Consumers' League and the others would carry on the general idea that factories should be well conducted. Once it became an obligation of the state Department of Labor under the law of the state, you had an official group whose duty it was and who could be impeached if they didn't see that the factories were safe.

So we had anticipated for several years that the committee would gradually decline. With the coming of the war, the committee did decline. The people on the committee who were most valuable had war work to do. For instance, Joe, Hammitt - who had been Fire Commissioner and head of