'^- 



May 6. 1915. 



The Florists' Review 



21 



HER&S HELP FOR FLORISTS 



BOILER MEN OFFER ASSISTANCE 



A flood of legislation affecting our heating boilers brings the 

 offer of co-operation from manufacturers' effective organization 



IVERYBODY knows, through 

 the article printed in The 

 Review for March 4, of the 

 trouble Ohio florists are in 

 because of the action of the 

 boiler inspection depart- 

 ment of the Industrial Com- 

 mission of that state. There is an old 

 law on the statute books there that 

 requires, in certain cases, the employ- 

 ment of a licensed fireman. Until re- 

 cently it was not enforced as against 

 florists, although it had been on the 

 books for fourteen years. But now 

 every florist who runs a boiler of thirty 

 horsepower is required to employ li- 

 censed firemen — enough of them to keep 

 his boiler going the 



twenty-four hours; he 



can not even stoke it 

 himself part of the 

 time unless he can pass 

 the technical examina- 

 tion and get a fire- 

 man's license, which 

 few florists can do. 



A horsepower means, 

 according to Ohio law, 

 twelve square feet of 

 heating surface. It is 

 immaterial whether the 

 operator develops this 

 horsepower by the 100 

 pounds of pressure r«. 

 quired or whether he 

 runs his boiler at only 

 one pound of pressure. 

 It is held, apparently, 

 that a 30-horsepower 

 boiler run at low pres- 

 sure is a dangerous 

 thing and must be in 

 the charge of a li- 

 censed operator, while 

 a 29-horsepower boiler 

 operated at the highest 

 pressure possible can 

 be run by Tom, Dick or 

 Harry. 



Many Laws Threaten. 



Now comes the in- 

 formation that similar 

 or otherwise inimical 

 laws threaten — have threatened to the 

 number of seventy-five in the last year 

 — and few florists knew anything about 

 it. Even today the Pennsylvania legis- 

 lature is at work on a bill that will 

 require every florist to pay a fee for 

 the inspection of his boiler, no matter 

 how small it may be, and in many 

 cases to employ only licensed firemen 

 to operate it. 



The manufacturers of boilers have 

 long appreciated the dangers that lie 

 in such legislation and they have an 

 effective organization for meeting 

 them. Their secretary is Frederick W. 

 Herendeen, of Geneva, N. Y., who was 



for some years a member of the Society 

 of American Florists and who has at- 

 tended many of this trade's national 

 conventions. Mr. Herendeen believes 

 that the florists' organizations and 

 the Boiler Manufacturers' Association 

 should work together. He is in a splen- 

 did position to give warning of threat- 

 ened legislation prejudicial to our in- 

 terests and the S. A. F. is in position, 

 through its widespread membership and 

 its staff of state vice-presidents, to pre- 

 sent its case strongly in every state in 

 the Union. 



Mr. 



Mr. Herendeen 's Idea. 



Herendeen wrote The Review* 



The Call to Arms 



Ohio florists are engaged in a battle 

 against an ancient law now dug up for 

 enforcement in greenhouses. 



A bill now before the Pennsylvania legis- 

 lature would provide for the inspection 

 of all heating boilers and in many cases 

 compel florists to employ licensed fire- 

 men. 



Seventy-five bills affecting the interests of 

 every florist who operates a boiler have 

 been introduced in state legislatures 

 during the last year. 



Boiler manufacturers, interested almost as 

 much as florists are, have an association 

 that will cooperate with the S. A. F., 

 with state or local organizations, or with 

 individual florists seeking to eliminate 

 the bad features of proposed laws. Sec- 

 retary Frederick W. Herendeen, Geneva, 



unnecessarily work hardships on the 

 owners and users of low pressure heat- 

 ing boilers by requiring them to be 

 inspected and by requiring them to 

 have a licensed engineer or fireman to 

 take care of the boiler. 



"We believe, as an association, that 

 all low pressure heating boilers carry- 

 ing fifteen pounds or less steam pres- 

 sure should be exempt from inspection 

 and should not require a licensed engi- 

 neer. 



"The American Society of Mechan- 

 ical Engineers, after working a long 

 time, has formulated standard speci- 

 fications for the construction of steam 

 boilers, and has formulated rules and 

 allowable working 

 pressures for steam 

 boilers. Their book is 

 commonly known as 

 'The Boiler Code.' 

 The American Society 

 of Mechanical Engi- 

 neers, the highest tech- 

 nical society in this 

 country, in Section 2 

 of the code, beginning 

 on page 81, states that 

 the maximum allow- 

 able working pressure 

 for a low pressure 

 steam heating boiler 

 shall not exceed fifteen 

 pounds to the square 

 inch. 



"It may be news to 

 you to know that some 

 seventy-five bills have 

 been introduced in the 

 various state legisla- 

 tures this year which 

 more or less have a 

 direct bearing on low 

 pressure heating boil> 

 ers. 



N. T., makes the offer. 



The Pennsylvania BilL 

 "There is at the 



under date of May 1 in part, as follows: 

 "One of our members has called my 

 attention to the issue of March 4 of 

 The Review, on page 23 of which, under 

 the heading 'Florists Fight for Fire- 

 men; Ohio Greenhouse Men in Arms,' 

 is a most interesting article bearing 

 on the enforcement of a law which re- 

 quires in Ohio licensing firemen on all 

 boilers of thirty horsepower or more. 



"One of the objects of our associa- 

 tion — which is composed of some 

 twenty-five prominent boiler and radi- 

 ator manufacturers — is to resist along 

 proper lines the passage of bill? in the 

 various legislatures which unduly and 



present moment intro- 

 duced into the legisla- 

 ture of Pennsylvania a 

 dangerous bill from 

 our point of view; 

 namely, Senate Bill 841, a bill creating 

 a division of boiler inspection, and 

 under its various sections requiring that 

 all heating boilers be inspected in 

 Pennsylvania; that the owners must 

 pay a tax on inspection; and that 

 heating boilers must require in some 

 cases a licensed engineer to run them. 

 I am going to Harrisburg May 3 on 

 this particular bill. 



"Had many of these seventy-flve 

 bills introduced in state legislatures in 

 the last year been passed it would have 

 meant that low pressure heating boil- 

 ers would have had to be inspected 

 and would have required a licensed 



