He was officially connected with the following public bodies:
PresidentMcKinley's Industrial Commission, the Wisconsin In-
dustrial Commission ( 1911-1913), and the United States Commis-
ion on Industrial Relations ( 1913-1916). In 1923 with Professors
Ripley and Fetter he represented four western states before the
Federal Trade Commission on the Pittsburgh Plus case, involving
price discrimination as practiced by the United States Steel Cor-
poration. He organized and directed the Bureau of Economy and
Efficiency of the city of Milwaukee during the first Socialist ad-
ministration, 1910-1912.

His connections with unofficial bodies were equally varied. Early
in the century he promoted agreements between employers and
unions for the National Civic Federation. In 1906 and 1907 he
also investigated for the same organization municipal and private
operation of public utilities. In the same years he investigated
with others labor conditions in the steel industry in Pittsburgh for
the Russell Sage Foundation. The American Association for Labor
Legislation began operations in 1909 in a corner of his university
office at Madison. Between 1924 and 1926 he was chairman of the
voluntary plan of unemployment insurance in the clothing in-
dustry in Chicago. He was president of the American Economic
Association ( 1917), associate director of the National Bureau of
Economic Research ( 1920-28), president of the National Monetary
Association ( 1922-23), and president of the National Consumer's
League ( 1923-35).

Among his appearances before Congressional committees doubt-
less the one in 1913 in support of the elder LaFollette's bill for
the physical valuation of the railways by the Interstate Commerce
Commission was the most comprehensive in scope. His intimate
cooperation with LaFollette had begun in 1905 when the latter, as
Governor of Wisconsin, requested him to draft a civil service law.
In 1907 he drafted a public utility law for the state of Wisconsin.

Perhaps Commons' greatest contribution as a scholar dealt with
the life cycle of economic institutions. He defined an economic
institution as "collective action in control of individual action."
Commons had no liking for either the winged phrase or for what
one might call the winged theory: he knew from experience that

-2-