Public Utilities Commission. The duties of the commission were re- defined, emphasizing the procedure in the valuation of property and the determination of the reasonableness of rates and charges for public utilities. At the same session of the General Assembly a State Industrial Commission of three members was created to as- sume the functions of the Board of Awards in industrial accidents, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Mine Inspection, the Department of Inspection of Workshops, Factories, and Public Buildings, the Board of Examiners of Steam Engineers, and the Board of Arbitration, together with the new duties of regulating hours and conditions of labour. This Act was a part of the legislative progress of industrial insurance in Ohio. In 1911 the Workmen's Compensation Act had substituted "a system of compensation for industrial accidents, which compensation is to be paid out of a state insurance fund, to which both employers and employees contributed (90% and 10% respectively) in lieu of the civil action for damages." This first plan of state insurance was optional. The Act applied only to employers with five or more employees. A State Liability Board of Awards, with one member representative of labour, one of em- ployers, and another of the public, was created to administer the system of compensation. The law of 1913 made the system com- pulsory. Employers were required to guard the safety of employees and also to arrange reasonable hours of work. Employers with less than five employees might take out workmen's insurance and have the benefit of the cheap state rates and of the protection from civil suits for damages which the system gives the employers. Ohio under the Act maintains its own state insurance fund. Every employer pays into the fund an amount proportioned by the State Industrial Commission to the amount of the pay-roll and the hazards of the occupation. The employer may carry his own compensation insur- ance, but in that case he must give the state a bond. By 1918 the premium income to the state fund amounted annually to $9,000,000. At a cost of 4j % of the premium receipts the Industrial Commission gave protection to more than 1,500,000 workmen.
In the days when the interests of Ohio were chiefly agricultural there were three especially important institutions : the Department of Agriculture, the State Experiment Station and the College of Agri- culture. There was, however, confusion regarding the specific duties of each, and duplication of work. To remedy this the reform Legis- lature of 1913 brought the three institutions, together with the dairy and food commissioner and the fish and game commissioner, under a small agricultural commission with four members. Two years later, with a change of administration, the Legislature undid the reform in part, making the Experiment Station and the Agricultural College independent institutions, and restoring the large Board of Agriculture of 10 members without a salary. A change in political parties occurred again in 1917 and the Legislature, while retaining the large Board of Agriculture, made its functions those of an advisory council. The position of Secretary of Agriculture was created, and responsibility put upon him as director of the department.
The same type of organization was applied in 1917 to education and health. There had been an elective state commissioner of com- mon schools since 1853. One of the constitutional amendments of 1912 instructed the Legislature to make provision for a state-wide public-school system, and substitute for the commissioner elected by the people a superintendent of public instruction, appointed by the governor. The Legislature appointed a special commission to survey the needs of the rural schools and in 1914 enacted a Rural School Code; three years later it created a State Board of Education. A state superintendent of public instruction appointed by the governor became secretary and executive head. The reorganized Department of Education was instructed to emphasize rural agricultural educa- tion, and to cooperate with the Federal Government in vocational education. The old State Board of Health was at the same session subjected to a similar reform. In caring for the health of its people Ohio had been notoriously backward. Successive legislative Acts increased the power of the State Board of Health and prepared the public mind for the reorganization of 1917-9. In the Act of 1917 a State Commissioner of Health was supported by an Advisory Public Health Council of four members. The statute of 1919 created a state- wide system of municipal and general health districts. Cities of 25,000 constituted municipal health districts ; townships and smaller cities general health districts. The law provided for local commis- sioners of health and an Advisory Council modelled on the state organization. The powers of the Department of Health were greatly increased, and each district received power to employ physicians and nurses so far as necessary to protect the health of the community. The interest in roads led the General Assembly in 1915 to create a State Highway Commissioner. The following session of the General Assembly added a State Highway Advisory Board to serve without compensation. An Act of 1919 established a state highway levy of 5/10 of a mill per Sioo, and authorized the development of a state system of highways and cooperation with the road-making enterprises of the Federal Government.
With a change of administration in 1921 the further reorganization of the state system of administration was made the principal policy. An Act was passed which combined the numerous departments and commissions which had grown up in recent years by legislative enactment into nine departments finance, commerce, public works, agriculture, health, industrial relations, examinations, education and public welfare. At the head of each is a director, appointed by the governor. Each director is authorized to appoint, with the gover- nor's approval, a purely advisory board. If the Act stands the test of constitutionality Ohio will have a system of administration analogous to that of the Federal Government. The state directors of depart- ments correspond to the heads of the national departments. The secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, and attorney-general are still elected by popular vote. A change in the method of choosing them can only be made by a constitutional amendment, although in some cases the Act of 1921 transferred their duties to the new departments.
The General Assembly of 1913 authorized civil service reform and a budget system. A civil service commission of three, subsequently reduced to two, was established. Another statute authorized a com- mission or commissioner of budget, but made no direct specifications regarding the organization. From 1914 to 1921 there was a budget commissioner, and the foundations of modern budget procedure were laid. In 1917 the governor presented his budget to the Legisla- ture, meeting both Houses in joint session and explaining the items of the budget and answering questions from the floor. Other progres- sive legislation included a children's code (1913), providing a state- wide'juvenile court and a mothers' allowance system, and a pension system for teachers in the public schools (1919), supported in part by contributions from the teachers and in part from the school boards.
A disastrous flood in 1913, affecting especially the inhabitants of the Miami, the Scioto, and the Muskingum river valleys, led to a most thoroughgoing measure for the protection of the river valleys from future damage of the kind. The following session of the Legis- lature authorized the inhabitants of a danger area to form themselves into a " conservancy district " and appoint a " conservancy board " which should have adequate powers to secure funds by assessing the property of the affected area and to carry out such measures of protection as the board might adopt. By 1921 the Miami Con- servancy District had practically completed a series of dry reservoir dams costing 25,000,000. The flood of 1913 cost more than 500 lives and in property an amount estimated from $250,000,000 to $350,000,000. At an expense of one-tenth of this amount one of the three valleys most liable to damage has removed the menace.
The municipal home-rule amendment of 1912 gave cities of over 5,000 inhabitants the privilege of adopting charters with very large powers of local self-government and with a great degree of freedom from legislative interference. The chief limitation was the failure to give the cities home-rule in levying taxes or in incurring debts. The state reserved the control of elections, of education, of the general police powers and all matters affecting the welfare of the state as a whole. However, the courts of Ohio have liberally interpreted the amendment so that the cities came into the possession of a really broad grant of local autonomy if they chose to claim it. Of the 82 cities qualified to adopt home-rule charters about one-fourth had done so by 1921. Fourteen Akron, Ashtabula, Dayton, Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, East Cleveland, Gallipolis, Lima, Painsville, Sandusky, South Charleston, Springfield, Westerville, and Xenia had adopted the city-manager plan of municipal government.
In order to mobilize more effectually the war resources and to aid the war policies of the national Government after the entry of the United States into the World War, the governor appointed, June I 1917, an Ohio branch of the Council of National Defense. It con- stituted a sort of governor's cabinet on the war, although without legal status. It worked through committees of finance, food con- servation, labour and industrial relations, publicity, transportation and the like. A state employment service, organized before the war, performed the important war task of supplying labour for the con- struction of the cantonment at Chillicothe. As many as 2,760 men were furnished within 24 hours. The total number of men furnished by the state to the army, navy and marine corps was 200,293; the number of deaths 4,982; the amount raised in Liberty and Victory loans l,324,545,75-
Recent governors have been Judson Harmon (Dem.), 1909-13; James M. Cox (Dem.), 1913-5 and 1917-21 ; Frank B. Willis (Rep.), 1915-7; Harry L. Davis (Rep.), 1921- . (E. J. B.*)
OHNET, GEORGES (1848-1918), French novelist and man of letters (see 20.35), published in 1908 La Route Rouge and in 1912 La Serre de I Aigle. His last work was Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris pedant la Guerre de 1914 (1914). He died May 5 1918.
OHRWALDER, JOSEPH (1856-1913), Roman Catholic mis- sionary, was born at Lana, near Meran, Tirol, May 1856. In 1880 he went out to the Sudan as a missionary, and was in 1882 taken prisoner by the Mahdi. In 1892 he managed to escape, and the same year published an account of his experiences under the title of Ten Years' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp. He died at Omdurman Aug. 8 1913.
OKLAHOMA (see 20.57). The pop. of Oklahoma in 1920 was 2,028,283; in 1910 it was 1,657,155; an increase of 371,128 or 22.4% as compared with 866,764 or 109. 7% in the preceding decade. The urban pop. increased from 19-3% of the total in 1910 to 26-6% in 1920. During the same period the density of pop.
