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An American statistician, lecturer, and writer on political economy; born in Dunbarton, N. H., July 25, 1840. After distinguished service in the Civil War, he was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, 1871-72; afterwards chief of the State Bureau of Statistics, lecturer at Harvard University, and United States Commissioner of Labor from 1885. He is professor of political science in the Catholic University at Washington, D. C. Besides numerous addresses, pamphlets, and articles in reviews, he has published: "Reports of Massachusetts Bureau of Labor" (15 vols., 1873-88); "Census of Massachusetts" (1876-77); "The Factory System of the United States" (1882); Reports of the U. S. Commissioner of Labor, including "Industrial Depressions" (1886), "Convict Labor" (1886), "Strikes and Lockouts" (1887), "Railroad Labor"; and "Battles of Labor". He has writen much on social economy and is authority on statistics.