of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 146

impartial administration of laws relating to labor and conditions of improve-
ment. The Workmen's Compensation Law was amended to include victims
of occupational diseases, thus greatly increasing the scope of the law. A new
law as passed, with Administration support, providing for an official super-
vising weights and measures in the protection of the interests of the miners
of Western Maryland.

In the interest of the State's large colored population, an enabling act
was passed by which the State finally, after years of discussion, has taken
over Morgan College as a State institution. This entailed the greatest outlay
in the field of higher education ever made by Maryland in the interest of its
colored citizens.

For the first time in the history of Maryland, a State Publicity Commission
was created and is now functioning, to acquaint the people of the Country with
the products of Maryland and the advantages of our State from a recreational
and scenic standpoint.

The consumers of electricity, in Baltimore City and adjoining counties, received
the benefit of a reduction in electric rates of $1, 000, 000 through the order of
our Public Service Commission. In this substantial saving to the public an out-
standing part was played by People's Counsel Joseph Sherbow, whom I ap-
pointed.

Time does not permit a sufficiently lengthy treatment of many other ac-
tivities of the State Government but, to summarize, there was increased
support given to the State Merit System and the widening of the application
of the system by including approximately 600 employees of the Unemployment
Compensation Division; the system of production for State use in the penal
institutions was expanded, as was the use of prison labor on the State Roads.
There was created the Maryland Traffic Safety Committee, composed of rep-
resentative men and women throughout the State, who have concentrated upon
the most serious problem of bringing about increased safety on our roads and
city streets. Already results are being shown through the operation of this
Committee. Much needed improvements were made in the Election Laws. The
Maryland Veterans Commission was reorganized, resulting in the reduction
of overhead expenses and increasing the amount available for deserving
veterans.

Concluding this report, which is offered in order that you may know what
is going on in your State Government, I express my gratitude for your willing-
ness to hear this recital. Further, I earnestly seek your cooperation, counsel,
criticism and advice in the serious tasks which lie ahead.

My purposes and aims, in administering your affairs, are identically the
same as those which I charted one year ago. To emphasize this and to show
that we will adhere consistently to the same course, I will quote from the
concluding paragraph of my inaugural address. Then I said:

"Let us, together, so arrange the affairs of the great State of Maryland
that never again will we need take second place in the Union. Let petty con-
siderations be ignored while we, as fellow citizens, become interested in the
continued progress of our State along every forward-looking line.

"Let us grapple with our problems with steadfast purpose, encouraged by
the incentive that no difficulties are so great that the united efforts of well-
intentioned people cannot solve them.