Royal Meeker to Woodrow Wilson

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS
Washington
Referring to our correspondence, under dates of November 6, 7, 12, 27 and 28 and December 1 and 5, 1917, relating to cost of living investigations, I wish to say that the investigations have been completed or are in progress at all of the important shipbuilding centers on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and also on the Great Lakes. I had not planned to cover the Great Lakes, but the Labor Adjustment Board of the Emergency Fleet Corporation felt that it was necessary to include the shipbuilding centers of the Great Lakes. As we have carried out the studies more economically than I had originally estimated, we were able to take in the Great Lakes. The Labor Adjustment Board now feels that these studies should be extended to the shipbuilding centers of the Pacific Coast, namely, Puget Sound District, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The Board must give a rehearing on wages and conditions of employment the . The basis upon which the existing wage adjustment rests is most precarious. The Board induced the Economic Department of the University of Washington to make a very rapid survey of prices of certain commodities, and these prices were weighted by the figures for budgetary expenditures which were shown in the budgetary study made by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1901. The workmen were not satisfied to accept either the findings of fact regarding prices or the figures showing expenses for different items of the family budget applying to 1901. To enable the Labor Adjustment Board to base its decision upon a more solid foundation, it will be necessary for the Bureau of Labor Statistics to make the same kind of a budget and price investigation on the Pacific Coast that it has made and is making on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and the Great Lakes.
As I explained in a previous letter, strikes occur or are threatened most frequently on the ground of increasing cost of living. For that reason the greater number of labor disputes can be definitely settled in all industries through cost of living studies. I have asked Congress to appropriate $300,000 to my Bureau for the purpose of making these studies not in the shipbuilding centers alone but in all the important industrial centers, so that we may have data at hand to enable wage adjustment boards to make rational and acceptable wage adjustments on the basis of cost of living. Congress has not yet even referred my estimates to a committee. In the meantime, the approaches when it will be necessary for the Labor Adjustment Board of the Emergency Fleet Corporation to reconsider the deamands of the workers in shipbuilding on the Pacific Coast. If the Board is to be able to render an intelligent decision which cannot be torn to pieces by either party to the controversy, it must be put in possession of the facts as to family expenditures by items and the prices of the various articles of family consumption. The determination of these facts will take not less than two months, so that the agency which is to make the necessary surveys should begin as soon as possible in order that the Board may have the facts in time to assist it in making a just and acceptable decision.
In view of the emergency and because Congress has taken no step to recognize the necessity for cost of living studies to serve as a means for stabilizing our unstable labor conditions, I am writing to suggest that an additional appropriation of funds be made from the President's National Security and Defense Fund to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in order to enable it to make a cost of living survey in the shipbuilding centers on the Pacific Coast. I estimate that it will require $25,000 to make these surveys, including the very heavy transportation expenses. I am making this suggestion because I have been asked by the Labor Adjustment Board to make this investigation.
Very Sincerely yours,
(signed) Royal Meeker.
Commissioner of Labor Statistics.

The White House,
Approved and authorized,

(signed) Woodrow WilsonThe President,
The White House,
Washington, D. C.