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U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR JAMES J. DAVIS, Secretary BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS ETHELBERT STEWART, Commissioner BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES ) BU REAU OF LAB O R S T A T IS T IC S f ................... E MP LO YM E NT AND U N E MP L OY ME NT N o. 3 3 7 SERIES PROCEEDINGS OF THE TENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES HELD AT WASHINGTON, D. C. SEPTEMBER 11-13,1922 APRIL, 1923 WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1923 ADDITIONAL COPIES OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE PROCURED FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON, D. C. AT 10 CENTS PER COPY PURCHASER AGREES NOT TO RESELL OR DISTRIBUTE THIS COPY FOR PROFIT.— PUB. RES. 57, APPROVED MAY 11, 1922 CONTENTS, Page. Introduction_________________________________________________________ 1,2 Address by Hon. James J. Davis_____________________________________ 2-5 Government action on unemployment in the Dominion of Canada, by James H. H. Ballantyne___________________________________________ 5-12 EMPLOYMENT AND REHABILITATION. Rehabilitation and employment, by S. S. Riddle-----------------------------------13-21 Reestablishment of the ex-service man in employment, by Charles H. Taylor____________________________ 22-25 METHODS IN PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICE . Functions of the United States Employment Service, by Francis I. Jones_ 26-34 Various methods used by State employment services, by Charles J. Boyd_ 34-40 Employment office methods, by C. W. E. Meath_____ __________________ 41- 45 PLACEMENT PROBLEMS AFFECTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN. Placement—An educational process, by Miss Mary Stewart_____________ 46-53 Some problems of the Women’s Division of the Public Employment Serv ice, by Miss Marion C. Findlay--------------------------------------------------------- 53-57 DINNER SESSION. How the emergency immigration law works out, by Hon. W. W. Hus band_____________________________________________________________ 58-62 International aspect of some of our national problems, by Ernest GreenLABOR AND THE GRAIN HARVEST. Emergency farm labor,by George E. Tucker___________________________ 70-76 in OFFICERS AND EXECUTIVE COMMITTEES OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. 1921-22. President: Bryce M. Stewart, Director of the Employment Service of Canada, Ottawa, Canada. First vice president: John M. Sullivan, field representative, United States Em ployment Service, Washington, D. C. Second vice president: G. Harry Dunderdale, Superintendent Public Employ ment Office, Boston, Mass. Third vice president: Miss Marion C. Findlay, Toronto Employment Office, Employment Service of Canada. Secretary-treasurer: Richard A. Flinn, 1834 Forty-ninth Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. Executive committee: Charles J. Boyd, General Superintendent Illinois Free Employment Offices, Chicago, 111.; Robert J. Peters, Director Bureau of Employ ment, Department of Labor and Industry, Harrisburg, Pa.; Thomas N. Molloy, Commissioner of Labor and Industries, Regina, Canada. 1920-21. President: Bryce M. Stewart, Director Employment Service of Canada, Ottawa, Canada. Past president: John B. Densmore, Washington, D. C. First vice president: A. W. Holbrook, Superintendent State Employment Bureau, Dayton, Ohio. Second vice president: G. Harry Dunderdale, Superintendent Massachusetts State Employment Bureau, Boston, Mass. Third vice president: J. M. Sullivan, United States Employment Service, St. Paul, Minn. Executive members at large: Miss Marion C. Findlay, Superintendent Women’s Department, Employment Service of Canada, Toronto, Ont.; Robert J. Peters, Director Bureau of Employment, State Department of Labor and Industry, Harrisburg, P a.; Thomas N. Molloy, Commissioner of Labor and Industries, Regina, Sask. Secretary-treasurer: Richard A. Flinn, Superintendent Bureau of Employ ment, New York State Industrial Commission, 112 West Forty-sixth street, New York City. 1919-20. President: Bryce M. Stewart, Director Employment Service of Canada, Ottawa, Canada. Vice presidents: L. E. Woodcock, Russell Sage Foundation, New York City; Mrs. May L. Cheney, University of California, Berkeley, Calif.; John S. B. Davie, Commissioner of Labor, Concord, N. H .; E. N. Ellis, State Employment Service, Oklahoma City, Okla. Secretary-treasurer: Richard A. Flinn, 112 West Forty-sixth street, New York City. 1918-19. President: Hon. John B. Densmore, Director General United States Employ ment Service, Washington, D. C. Vice presidents: J. A. Miller, Toronto, Canada; Mrs. Margaretta Neale, United States Employment Service, Washington, D. C.; C. B. Sexton, Superin tendent State Public Employment Bureau, San Francisco, Calif.; Morna M. Mickam, Indianapolis, Ind. Secretary-treasurer: Wilbur F. Maxwell, United States Employment Service, Columbus, Ohio. y OFFICERS AND EXECUTIVE COMMITTEES, VI 1917-18. President: Charles B. Barnes, Director State Public Employment Bureau of New York. Vice presidents: Mrs. L. H. Walter, Chicago, 111.; Royal Meeker, United States Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Washington, D. C.; Arnold F. George, Dominion Inspector of Employment Agencies, Saskatoon, Sask.; Wortley Dickey, Superintendent Municipal Employment Bureau, Richmond, Va. Secretary-treasurer: H. J. Beckerle, Assistant Director of Employment, State Employment Bureau, Minneapolis, Minn. 1916-17. President: Charles B. Barnes, Director State Public Employment Bureau of New York. Vice presidents: Hilda Muhlhauser, Cleveland, Ohio; H. J. Beckerle, Milwau kee, W is.; J. D. Malloy, Saskatchewan, Canada; George D. Halsey, Atlanta, Ga. Secretary-treasurer: G. P. Berner, Superintendent Buffalo Branch of State Employment Bureau of New York. 1915-16. President: Charles B. Barnes, Director State Public Employment Bureau of New York. Vice presidents: Walter L. Sears, New York City; Francis Payette, Montreal, Canada; H. J. Beckerle, Milwaukee, W is.; Hilda Muhlhauser, Cleveland, Ohio. Secretary-treasurer: W. M. Leiserson, Toledo University, Toledo, Ohio. 1914-15. President: W. F. Hennessy, Commissioner of Employment, Cleveland, Ohio. Vice presidents: Mrs. W. L. Essman, Milwaukee, W is.; J. W. Calley, Chicago, 111.; Walter L. Sears, New York City; Edwin Dickie, Toronto, Canada. Secretary-treasurer: W. M. Leiserson. 1913-14. President: Fred C. Croxton, Columbus, Ohio. Vice president: James V. Cunningham, Lansing, Mich. Secretary-treasurer: W. M. Leiserson. BULLETIN OF THE U. S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS NO. 337 WASHINGTON april, 1923 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. INTRODUCTION. The tenth annual meeting of the International Association of Public Employment Services, which was held in the auditorium of the Department of the Interior, at Washington, D. C., September 11-13, 1922, brought together a number of representative employ ment officials from various States of the United States and Provinces of Canada and other persons interested in problems of employment and unemployment. There was evident at the meeting a spirit of hopefulness that the recent improvement in employment conditions would prove the beginning of some years of rising labor market, many speakers referring to the astonishing measure of success the free public employment services have experienced in view of the lack of adequate support and of effective public opinion as to the need for better organization of the labor market. At the opening session the delegates were welcomed by Hon. Cuno H. Rudolph, Commissioner of the District of Columbia, and by Hon. James J. Davis, United States Secretary of Labor, who extended the greetings of the President. The speakers at the dinner session on September 12 were Hon. W. W. Husband, United States Commis sion of Immigation, who told of the immigration policies of the United States Government and analyzed the recent “ quota 55 law, and Mr. Ernest Greenwood, United States correspondent of the In ternational Labor Office, who spoke on international aspects of the employment problem. Other papers read at the meeting related to employment and rehabilitation, methods in public employment serv ice, placement problems affecting women and children, and labor and the grain harvest. Discussion followed the reading of many of the papers, but as no stenographic report was made, only the papers are reproduced. At the annual business meeting a number of resolutions were adopted, and Toronto was chosen as the meeting place for the next annual conference, which probably will be held in September, 1923. 1 2 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SEBYICES. The following is the list of officers for the year 1922-23: President: Hon. E. J. Henning, Assistant Secretary United States Depart ment of Labor, Washington, D. C. Past president: Bryce M. Stewart, director employment department, Almalgamated Clothing Workers of America, Chicago. First vice president: G. Harry Dunderdale, superintendent public employ ment office, Boston, Mass. Second vice president: Hon. A. L. Urick, commissioner of labor of Iowa, Des Moines, Iowa. Third vice president: Charles J. Boyd, general superintendent Illinois free employment offices, Chicago, I1L Secretary-treasurer: Miss Marion C. Findlay, department of labor of Ontario, Toronto, Canada. Executive committee at large: Robert J. Peters, director bureau of employ ment, department of labor and industry, Harrisburg, Pa.; R. A. Rigg, director employment service of Canada, Ottawa, Canada; Francis I. Jones, Director General United States Employment Service, Department of Labor, Washington, D. C. ADDRESS. BY JAMES J. DAVIS, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF LABOR. There is much gratitude for the past and hope for the future in the thoughts stirred by this gathering of those who have worked to enable America to meet and overcome one of the greatest industrial problems the Nation has ever faced. It is with deep and sincere appreciation of the magnitude and importance of your work that I extend to you a greeting from the President of the United States and his fervent best wishes that your deliberations may prove fruit ful of the utmost benefits to the cause which you represent. You have done great things. Great things remain for you to do. There is always grave need for men of broad understanding with the courage to grapple the great problems which confront the whole people. The Wise Man of the Old Testament saw shrewdly when he said: “ Where there is no vision, the people perish.” To-day America’s great want is men of vision, men who can look far ahead and meet to-day’s problems with solutions which will prove sure and certain to-morrow, who will serve the nation of the future in aiding the nation of the present. It is men of this type who have accom plished the tremendous task of meeting the vast menace of unemploy ment which confronted America a year ago and who will provide the means of meeting the unemployment evil in the future. One year ago we were face to face with the greatest industrial depression that the United States had ever known. It was estimatedthat as many as five and one-half million of our workmen were walk ing the streets looking for jobs. It was the greatest horde of unem ployed that ever burdened the nation. To-day that horde has been disbanded, and has gone back to its legitimate place in shop and factory and mine and mill and quarry. You all know how great this problem was; you all have had some part in meeting it. We have faced and conquered the abnormal unemployment evil; we now face the evil of normal unemployment. We have put between three and four million of our workless men back at bench and lathe and furnace; we still have a million and a half seeking jobs; another million and a half are idle through the so-called part-time employ ADDRESS BY HON. JAMES J . DAVIS. 3 ment. Investigation made during the last year has demonstrated that this is the normal condition in America. This is the condition we must overcome. We have brought unem ployment back to normal; now it is our task to reduce what the experts would call the “ norm.” It does not take an expert to vision the vast economic loss entailed in this condition. Unemployment, with its disastrous effect on pro duction and distribution, reaches out its malignant hand of death over wage earner and employer, manufacturer, merchant, and con sumer. The loss in wages alone to the million and a half workers who are truly unemployed, separated from any pay roll day in and day out, at an average rate of pay would entail a loss of from a billion and a half to two billion and a half dollars a year. If we add an equal amount for wages lost through part-time employment, the total runs to between three billion and five billion a year. Here begins the vicious circle. Men out of work have no wages to spend. That three to five billion lost in wages is three to five billion that fail to reach the merchant’s cash register. When the merchant can not sell his goods he does not order from the factory, and here unemploy ment begets unemployment. The man out of a job becomes a burden on the whole industrial fabric. Unable to maintain himself and his family properly, he tends to lower the standard of living and ulti mately becomes a burden on the community. It is distinctly to the interest of the entire business community to keep workmen reasonably steadily employed at fair wages; it is good business. Furthermore, it is good patriotism, for the busy, well-paid workman is *a good citizen; the idle, needy workman a tool always sought by the economic and political quack who has false economic and political nostrums to peddle to the injury of the Nation. Surely no greater duty rests on America to-day than the prevention of a recurrence of the period of unemployment through which we have just passed and the elimination of that bulk of unemployment which investigation discloses we have always with us. The problem before us in the reducing of the normal unemploy ment problem is twofold. First, the placing of the million and a half men who are seeking jobs; second, the elimination of the parttime evil which is keeping another million and a half in idleness on the average throughout the year. The much-disputed word efficiency has grown to be somewhat of a fetish in our industrial life. To many of us it conjures up be-spectacled experts, armed with voluminous documents and maps and charts, who chatter a strange jargon of plats and peaks and curves and depressions and index numbers. Now, experts are as experts do. They are a vital necessity in our labors. But sometimes after a wearisome session I am inclined to throw up my hands and say, “ Let us have a little less efficiency and a little more common sense.” For when we take up the yardstick of mathematical formulae and seek to index the power of every human cog in the industrial ma chine we find too many opportunities for overlooking some vital factor in our calculations. We are likely to think a little too much in terms of figures and a little too little in terms of manhood. For behind all of the calculated niceties of mathematically charted effi ciency lies the human factor, and no mathematician since Euclid has 4 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. been able to reduce humankind to exact arithmetic. After you have fixed a formula for every industrial operation you find behind each and every one of them the algebraic unknown quantity, “ X,” hu mankind. So we must mix a little humanity with our efficiency in meeting this evil of chronic unemployment. Large in the question of the 1,500,000 men who are constantly separated from a pay roll looms the factor of vast labor turnover in some of our industrial plants. In a very large number of factories the number of new employees hired during each year to fill the places of those who leave exceeds the average total number of em ployees on the pay roll during the year. To my mind there is some thing radically wrong with an industrial plant which in a short 12 months finds it necessary to hire a new man for every job in the plant. It is a clear indication to me that in that plant the vital personal relation between employer and employee has been totally lost and that humanity has been eliminated in the struggle for some thing less important. It is clear to my mind that there are condi tions in many plants which would never be allowed to exist if the real owners of the property knew of them. But management has in some instances become a machine, interposed between the employer and the worker, eliminating all personal contact, all human rela tions. The employer to the employee is a mere empty name, and the employee is known to the management only as a number. We could accomplish much if we could teach management a little more humanity and could give the worker a little more sense of business responsibility. With a closer relationship between employer and employee, a wider knowledge of the problems and aspirations of each, we might look to the inauguration of the real golden rule in industry and to the partial elimination of this item of labor turn over. I feel that each of you in the work you have been doing have encountered conditions which would prompt you to indorse the golden rule as a standard of industrial conduct. Part-time employment in many of our industries adds to the long roll of idle men. In some industries this condition is due to the seasonal nature of the occupation, in others to lack of market to absorb the entire capacity of the plants engaged in production. Two remedies suggest themselves for these conditions. In many cases management in these industries can spread out the production by increasing the selling efforts and by creating new markets. I have in mind several industries which have accomplished a great deal in this direction. Stabilization of production by storage in dull seasons is another expedient along this line. As for the worker himself, he can meet this situation by fitting himself in an alternate trade to which he can turn for an income when the industry in which he is usually employed is closed down. There is one place where we must walk warily in calculating the economic loss caused by part-time employment. We have heard much of the loss of labor in coal mining by reason of idle time. But expe rience has shown that oftentimes a man who knows that he can work but three days a week will turn out a task equal to an ordinary four or four and a half days’ effort. No scheme of efficiency which bases a day’s work on the task this man has performed under these abnor mally speed-up conditions can be sound. Here, again, the human factor must be considered. . GOVERNMENT ACTION ON UNEMPLOYMENT IN CANADA. 5 Much can be accomplished in meeting the unemployment problem in America by the very work you men are doing every day, by fitting the man to the job and the job to the man. If by one great stroke we could fill every job in America with the man particularly fitted to do the task, we would have swept away probably the greatest factor in our problem of the workless. If we could then establish in industry that human relationship between employer and employee which obtained before industry became so highly developed in a cor porate direction, we would have ended nearly all the rest of our unemployment. We face a great task. It calls for all of the thought and all of the genius of which America is capable. But I am confident that we will meet it. I have a deep and abiding faith in the future of America and in the ability of our people to keep themselves on the path of progress and prosperity. That faith has been strengthened in the last year, as I have observed the recovery of the Nation from that depression which threatened us a year ago. I am sure that we are on the right road, and that the time is coming when American employer and American employee, in mutual regard and mutual help fulness, will join hands for a forward movement to heights of indus trial prosperity such as the Nation has never known. And I know that in this movement you men will take a great part. GOVERNM ENT A C T IO N ON U N E M P LO YM E N T IN TH E DOM INION OF C A N A D A . BY JAMES H . H . BALLANTYNE, DEPUTY MINISTER OF LABOR OF CANADA. Lowell, one of America’s great sons, is reputed to have written that “ Speech was given to us in order to make our thoughts intelligible, and sometimes unintelligible.” In considering the complexity of the unemployment question, the multifarious and multitudinous factors involved in its causes and effects, the thought suggests itself to me that my address to you may prove more unintelligible than intel ligible. Carlyle, the great philosopher, said that the proper organization of labor is the supreme problem confronting the world. What he meant to teach was that each person had his or her proper place in contributing to the common welfare and that society should be so organized that all individuals in the labor market would have the utmost freedom and widest opportunity to exercise their powers and talents to the highest degree and thereby insure the safety and happi ness of society and its institution through the well-being and con tentment of the individual. The specter that haunts the lives of thousands of people to-day is one of unemployment, and its baneful effects are too well known to invite repetition. So far as Canada is concerned the problem of unemployment is not nearly so acute as in other parts of the world. The prevailing sentiment throughout the great Dominion is that we should not be troubled at all with such a problem. The vast area of Canada, which approximates 3,729,655 square miles, together with the com paratively small population of 9,000,000, is given as a reason for 6 ASSOCIATION* OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. this point of view. The area of Canada is equal to that of the United States and all her possessions, yet its population only ap proximates to the total number of inhabitants in the cities of New York and Chicago. Not more than half the population is living on the land, and one may often hear the question, “ Why should this country, with such a small population, have people searching for employment when we have such tremendous undeveloped resources and vast territory ? ” This question, however, is only a half truth. A country may be vast in area and rich in resources and only sup port a comparatively small population because it does not possess a large enough fund of capital for development purposes. This brings me to the observation that unemployment in some form or another is common to nearly every country in the world. It is inter national in its scope and effects and persists despite climatic varia tions and differences in social custom or political institutions. The problem presents similar phases in those countries whose eco nomic, industrial, commercial, and financial structure and develop ment is more alike, and this fact leads to the conclusion that an underlying cause of unemployment is of an economic character. Other causes undoubtedly exert an enormous influence in the various manifestations of the problem. The statement has been made by an eminent sociologist that man is not naturally a hard-working animal. It is claimed that man’s capacity for sustained industrial effort has been acquired only after centuries of a most exacting struggle to wrest from nature her secrets and obtain for mankind the means of subsistence and higher forms of civilization. Various forms of slavery in conjunction with the instinct of self-preservation have played an important part in the acquiring of the industrial habit, and one need only to recall to memory the age of the whip and the lash to realize the primitive truth that man is not naturally a hard-working animal. This may also explain why an organic repugnance to sustained effort is easily cultivated and why both rich and poor, in some degree at least, show similar traits in avoiding work. To-day, as of yore, the primal forces which impel the great body of men to perform arduous duties are hunger and love. In lieu of the whip and the lash, or feudal paternalism, the 44cash nexus ” is substituted. Viewed in this light the modem relationship between capital and labor presents an interesting reflection in regard to unemployment. Wages or salary is the modern reward for sustained toil. What wages or salary will bring to the recipient is the in ducement to go to work or continue working. 44To him that hath shall be given; to him that hath not shall be taken away,” may be interpreted to mean that if the reward is commensurate with the service rendered the inducement to continue such service is intensified, while if the reward, usually in the form of money wages, is reduced the primitive inclination not to be a hard-working animal is called into operation and wields an enormous influence on the efforts of the individual in relation to production of goods or performance of service. The vast majority of industrial disputes are invariably due to dis agreements regarding wages. Every time a reduction in wages takes place, or in other words the inducement to sustained effort is di minished, primitive instincts are called from the background of our GOVERNMENT ACTION ON UNEMPLOYMENT IN CANADA. 7 natures and temporarily a condition of unemployment is brought about until the other forces, hunger, love of wife, offspring, parents, home, begin to exert their influence for a continuation of the in dustrial habit. Interwoven with all the various phases of the unemployment problem is the man himself. Pope said that the proper study of man kind is man, and I commend this advice to the employment service official. Historically, unemployment as a problem begins with the introduc tion of machinery and centralization in factories and workshops. Machine power and organization is substituted for hand power and home production. The power of the machine to increase produc tion, the adaptability of the operator to specialize, the initiative of the management to meet and control different kinds of competition and develop business, even to the point of a monopoly, all play a part. The industrial era which began toward the end of the eight eenth century is the starting point of the chronic aspect of the modem unemployment problem. An analysis of available statistics covering unemployment during the past century reveals the chronic conditior* of unemployment as averaging 3 to 4 per cent. Industrial crises which occur with the frequency of a five years’ cycle are an aggravated condition of the chronic state of unemployment. Crises occurred in 1892, 1896, 1904, 1913, 1921-22, and unemployment rose as high as 10 per cent. It should thus be realized that in dealing with the unemployment question there are two divisions of it to con sider, the chronic and the cyclical or fluctuating. With the development of industry and the growth of international trade the unemployment situation becomes more complex. Price fluctuations, changes in money value and consequent disruption of the mechanism of international exchange, fiscal policies of different countries, seasonal occupations, casual nature of certain trades, changes in the industrial structure due to growth or removal of an industry, invention of new machinery, improvement of industrial processes and organization, general lack of skill among workers to follow lines other than that for which they have been trained, vaga ries of fashion, have all to be taken into- consideration. An excellent illustration of how a change in fashion will affect the employment situation is exemplified by the adoption by women and girls of the style of hair dressing known as “ bobbed hair.” It is estimated that thousands of persons who ordinarily were employed in the manu facture of hairpins and other things incidental to a lady’s coiffure were temporarily thrown out of employment, as well as numbers who were engaged in the manufacture of machinery, etc., used for the production of such things. In addition to- the causes which I have enumerated, each country presents local variations in regard to unemployment. In Canada we have a climate which in some parts of the country is fairly uni form, notably in the Province of British Columbia, but in most of the other Provinces the climate is such that a fairly warm spell is experienced during the summer months and an intensely cold period predominates during the winter season. The problem of securing adequate help to handle the harvest crops in Canada is an exceed ingly difficult one. The demands of the farmers are of the most urgent character and employment in the harvest fields is purely of 8 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. a temporary character. Securing large numbers o f men to handle the harvest crops and reabsorb these men within industry during the winter months constitutes an important aspect o f the unemployment situation in Canada. I have already pointed out to you the comparatively small popu lation of Canada, and one would naturally expect that we should easily absorb a large number o f immigrants, but unrestricted immi gration would have the effect of overpopulating the labor market and would probably aggravate unemployment conditions. Unemployment is a problem that has occupied the attention o f the ablest economists and statesmen throughout the world. Many inves tigations have been conducted by Governments in different coun tries, and one recommendation which appears common to nearly every committee that has investigated the unemployment situa tion is that there must be an organization for bringing the man and the job together without loss o f time on the part o f either the employer or the employee. It will b$ readily recognized that no country can hope to deal adequately with the unemployment problem unless it has a highly organized employment service with welltrained officials who understand some o f the causes which make for unemployment, the methods which are recommended for dealing with it, and the psychology o f those who frequent the employment offices. Just previous to the war period the Ontario government appointed a commission on unemployment, and the following proposals were made by this commission during 1915: 1. Public employment agencies to be established and operated by the government. 2. School age to be raised and industrial and manual training to be given to the scholars in part and whole time. The first recommendation has been carried into effect and 25 gov ernment. employment offices have been established in Ontario and a total of 76 throughout the Dominion. The adolescent school act of 1919 passed by the Ontario government provides for industrial and manual training being given to scholars between 14 and 18 years of age. It has not been found practicable, for reasons which I will mention later on, to initiate any scheme providing insurance against unem ployment. During the period o f the late war new standards of living were created For those engaged in industry and commerce. Employment was more secure and better paid, and the position sought the man rather than the man looking for a job. Money wages were at a higher level than ever before and better social standards were created and enjoyed. It is natural that a keener perception and appreciation o f these advantages were developed. The sense of service and sacri fice on the part o f those who had returned from the battle grounds o f Europe, in conjunction with the dislocation o f trade due to the termination o f the war, made the problem of unemployment in Canada a difficult one to deal with.. In sjpite o f the most strenuous efforts o f the ablest statesmen and financiers in the world to return to what President Harding o f the United States terms “ normalcy,” a large volume of unemployment was forthcoming in nearly every country. GOVERNMENT ACTION ON UNEMPLOYMENT IN CANADA. 9 During the war a very large export trade had been built up by Canada. This trade became entirely dislocated, due to the inability of European countries to purchase our goods, xhe debased currency of these countries accentuated this condition and, together with the almost universal buyers5 strike, which took place in Canada during the first half of the year 1920, a serious industrial depression took place during that year. The public had received the impression that prices were bound to come down, and consequently they waited for the period when they could obtain cheaper goods. Dealers finding sales slow did not buy, while manufacturers were unable to sell goods and were forced either to reduce their prices or to discontinue manu facturing operations. The result was that a serious condition of unemployment took place in Canada during the latter half of 1920. In order to deal with the conditions that had arisen the Dominion Government announced its unemployment policy on December 14, 1920. The Dominion Government took the stand that unemploy ment arose from causes over which it exercised little or no control, and any relief that was necessary and due to unemployment was primarily a municipal responsibility and in the second instance the responsibility of the Province. It realized, of course, that the situa tion was due to causes beyond the power or control of local, provin cial, and national authority, and the scheme provided a basis of cooperation between these three authorities in Canada. The scheme was framed to stimulate the creating of work and to provide em ployment, and conditioned upon the limitations of the Province and municipalities to provide work relief would be given. The Dominion Government participated in the cost of work pro vided by municipalities for the relief of unemployment on the basis of paying one-third of the excess cost of such work, provided the provincial and local authorities each bore one-third. The munici pality had to bear the normal cost of these undertakings, the normal cost being regarded as the cost of carrying on the work during the normal working season instead of under winter conditions. Where work could*not be provided in sufficient quantities to ade quately cope with unemployment the Dominion Government an nounced that it would refund one-third of the disbursements actu ally made by the municipality for unemployment relief provided the Province participated on an equal basis. This scheme has been in operation in the Dominion of Canada during the past two winter seasons, and it has been the means of enabling the respective authori ties to deal with a phase of the unemployment situation. In the Province of Ontario, which is the best developed industrial Province in the Dominion of Canada, the scheme had the effect of inducing municipalities in Ontario to provide work during the winter season* estimated at a value of approximately $1,600,000. The share of the Ontario government of the excess cost of these undertakings amounted to approximately $200,000, and the Dominion Government contributed approximately $300,000. In addition to work pro vided the Ontario municipalities distributed unemployment relief in the form of food, fuel, boots, shoes, and underclothing to the amount of approximately $750,000. The cost to the Province was approxi mately $235,000; and, as already explained, the balance was borne in nearly equal parts by the municipality and the Dominion Govern 10 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. ment. Similar action was taken by some of the other Provinces in the Dominion and a vast amount of work was provided. The regulations dealing with disbursement of unemployment relief provided that in the first instance all applicants for relief must regis ter at a Government employment office where same was established, and in those centers where no Government office was located it was incumbent on the municipality to appoint an officer for the purpose of registering all applicants for work. Any success which has attended the efforts of the respective au thorities in Canada in dealing with the unemployment situation is largely due to the fact that we have established a fairly efficient and comprehensive employment service. Had the employment service not been actively identified in such schemes for dealing with unem ployment it would have been a very difficult matter to discriminate between destitution that is due solely to unemployment and destitu tion that arises from causes other than unemployment. The Ontario government during the early part of the fall of 1921, appointed an advisory committee on unemployment. The chair man of the committee was Premier E. C. Dvury, and its duties were to investigate the local causes of the unemployment situation and advise the government what steps might be taken to deal with the known conditions. The committee recommended, first, that the Ontario government should cooperate with the Dominion Govern ment and with the municipalities in the Province with a view to providing as much work as possible for the unemployed. It was also recommended that in cases where the municipalities were unable to supply sufficient work to cope with the unemployment situation that relief measures be provided. The committee clearly perceived, however, that the mere application and continuation of the prin ciples involved in the Dominion-provincial-fnunicipal scheme were not of a character that could adequately cope with the unemploy ment question. The committee’s investigation showed that prices of commodities were remaining at too high a level and that money wages were in a similar category. These conclusions were arrived at after a very careful study of the influence of the fall of prices on commodities produced by the basic industries, such as agricul ture and lumber, in the Province and throughout the Dominion. A plan of cooperation was decided upon whereby the various in terests in industry and commerce would realize in a tangible way their interdependence with and influence on each other’s business. Through the medium of the daily press the manufacturers were asked to take a price for their goods on hand equal to the cost of replacement, having regard to decreased cost of raw material and of labor used in manufacturing. The wholesale merchants were re quested to sell their goods on hand at replacement prices and retail merchants were requested to take similar action. Realizing that building costs had decreased slightly, those desiring to build were requested to advertise for new tenders and contractors and builders were asked to make a special effort to reduce prices to a minimum. Bankers and financial institutions were asked to cooperate with business concerns by allowing all reasonable credits and by de creasing rates as rapidly as conditions would permit. The farmers were asked to maintain reasonable production and labor was re quested to take willingly a reduction in wages proportionate to GOVERNMENT ACTION ON UNEMPLOYMENT IN CANADA. 11 progressive decrease in the cost of living in so far as such wage reduction had not already taken place. This plan of cooperation was based on the fact that the ordinary channels of trade provided the widest field for obtaining the maximum of employment. Pro vided the various groups in industry and commerce did as requested by the committee, it was estimated the consumer would be able to buy more, industry would be stimulated, and employment main tained on a more normal level. In addition to utilizing the daily press a special campaign was conducted whereby boards of trade, chambers of commerce, mer chants’ associations, farmer and labor organizations, Eotary, Kiwanis, and other similar clubs were invited to lend their cooperation and assistance in making the campaign a success. The Ontario government is spending enormous sums of money in the development of hydroelectric projects, railway construction, and provincial highways. The Dominion Government under the employment offices coordina tion act, which covers the Employment Service of Canada, appointed an Employment Service Council of Canada. This council is to assist in the administration of the employment offices coordination act and to recommend ways and means of preventing unemployment. These recommendations are submitted to- the minister of labor for his con sideration. The council is a thoroughly representative one. Pro vincial governments, Canadian Manufacturers’ Association, Trades and Labor Congress of Canada, Eailway W ar Board, railway broth erhoods, Canadian Council of Agriculture, returned soldiers organ izations, soldiers Civil Eeestablishment Department, and the Domin ion Department of Labor have representation thereon. Their latest report to the Dominion Minister of Labor in connection with the question of unemployment is that the Provinces should establish pro vincial and local employment service councils; the building or con struction program of the Government should be so arranged that most of the work would be carried on when the state of the general labor market was of such a character as to require a leveling-up influence; that employers should seek to stabilize the employment situation by restriction of overtime and reduction of hours during slack periods rather than by releasing staff; that adequate provision should be made for enabling settlers to more permanently engage in the farming industry; immigration should be controlled in relation to the demands of industry and state of the labor market; and many other suggestions of a practical character are dealt with in their report. On April 24 of this year it was intimated in the Dominion House of Commons that the Government had been in communication with representatives of some of the provincial governments with a view to having a conference on the subject of unemployment. This con ference took place in the city of Ottawa on September 5, and repre sentatives of the Dominion and provincial governments were present. Some of the Canadian municipalities sent representatives and they were allowed to place the claims of the municipalities in matters per taining to unemployment before the conference for its consideration. At present I am not in a position to outline what were the conclusions arrived at by the conference in regard to the question of unemploy375420—23---- 2 12 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. ment. The Dominion Government will make the first pronouncement regarding this matter. Suffice to state that the question of unem ployment was thoroughly discussed, and as a guiding principle in dealing with the question it was decided that unemployment was essentially a problem belonging to industry, but that Governments in so far as they were members of industry or commerce were respon sible for a part of the problem although not the whole of it. You are probably aware that under the treaty of Versailles Canada is a member of the League of Nations and is obligated to deal with labor questions as determined by section 13 of this treaty. Interna tional Labor Conferences were held in Washington 1919, Genoa 1920, Geneva 1921, and among other subjects the question of unem ployment received exhaustive consideration. Various conventions and recommendations have emanated from the International Labor Conference. Many of these conventions have already been dealt with by legislation in the Dominion and in the Provinces of Canada. The outstanding exception appears to be the important question of insur ance against unemployment. Due to the political constitution of Canada, which is similar to that of the United States in so far as both countries have a Federal Government and State or provincial legislatures, the recommendations of the International Labor4Confer ence have to be decided, first, as matters of Dominion or provincial jurisdiction, and, second, in regard to the desirability and necessity for adopting the recommendations. You will appreciate the fact that no country closely adjacent to another can enact legislation of an advanced character without due regard to all factors that may influence the industrial and commercial life of the other country. There is no intention in my mind to reflect or comment upon the attitude of the United States of America in refraining from becoming a member of the League of Nations, but any action or otherwise which the United States of America will take in relation to the recommendations emanating from the In ternational Labor Conference on labor problems will have an im portant effect on whatever action Canada and its Provinces may take in regard to these matters. Whatever may be the final outcome in dealing with the unemploy ment situation, one thing stands out quite clear. It is that the system of handing out doles or relief is futile, and a continuation of it will never give any tangible results in dealing with the unem ployment situation. I have endeavored to place before you4a perspective of the general situation in regard to unemployment and in a measure have laid down the groundwork upon which the Employment Service of the United States and Canada operates. The proper development of the Employment Service is the first and most necessary step in dealing with the unemployment situation and with the growing knowledge of the importance of this service the Governments of the respective coun tries should recognize its value and give it all necessary support to perform its functions effectively. I thank you for the opportunity afforded me of coming before you to outline some of the features of this most important question, and I trust the deliberations of this conference will be crowned with the utmost success. EMPLOYMENT AND REHABILITATION. R E H AB ILITA TIO N A N D EM PLOYM ENT. BY S. S. BIDDLE, CHIEF BUREAU OF REHABILITATION, PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND INDUSTRY. A disheveled, despondent man, 29 years of age, came to a branch office of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Rehabilitation more than a year ago. In broken English he told of an industrial accident that had fractured his skull and not only prevented him from engaging in the rigorous work to which he was accustomed but also made it almost im possible for him to obtain a chance at any kind of employment. He was slipping and he knew it. Weekly payments of workmen’s compen sation kept him alive. A flash of pride was visible only when he dis played the papers which proclaimed him a naturalized American citizen—an immigrant from the Balkan States. Although his edu cation was more than meager in his native tongue, his difficulty with the English language had always kept him in this country in mining and similar industrial work. Action was taken by the bureau of rehabilitation to fit the man for employment. A year passed, during which time this man ear nestly studied and worked in an intensive course in English and com mercial lines at a business school. Last May a letter written in Eng lish in a clear, legible hand came to the central office of the bureau of rehabilitation at Harrisburg to enter the file of the formerly dis couraged alien. The letter said, in p art: I am taking the pleasure to inform you that I have started to work for -------- company and so far I am making good; thanks to you and your bureau for a great work your bureau did for me. It seems to me that before long I will enjoy at least part of my former state. Just now I am employed at a salary of $100 a month and I am well satisfied with my position, because it is a sort of executive position and I like responsibility very well. To-day I re ceived what I hope to be a last compensation check; also I notified them that from now on I will try to get along in this world without compensation * * *. That is rehabilitation. It is an accurate presentation of one of more than two thousand cases of disabled persons registered with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Rehabilitation in all sections of that Commonwealth. Of course, between the time that the disabled accident victim first entered a branch office of the bureau of rehabilitation and the time of the writ ing of the letter by the same disabled person field workers of the bureau from the branch office had performed many services for that disabled man and had finally obtained for him employment of which he wrote. REHABILITATION DEFINED. Rehabilitation is generally defined in recent State and Federal legislative enactments as the rendering of a person disabled fit to engage in a remunerative occupation. 13 14 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. The purpose of rehabilitation legislation is to render persons dis abled capable of earning a living at tasks they can perform without undue injury or health hazard—where advancement is possible; where competition with great numbers of other handicaps will not exist; where their disabilities will not render them likely to lose their employment in the event of a great supply of able-bodied labor; and preferably at tasks in which the disabled persons5 natural apti tude or prior experience may be of benefit. It would be futile to contend that such ultimate aims are always completely realized in the rehabilitation of a person disabled—there are too many other factors involved in each individual problem— although in many cases such aims are realized and they should always be the standards to guide a rehabilitation agency. Employment, suitable and remunerative, is therefore the definite objective of rehabilitation. If employment as the objective is not finally attained in an individual rehabilitation case—eligible, sus ceptible, and cooperative—the rehabilitation of such case has not been accomplished. Governmental agencies have, within the last three or four years, been created throughout the United States by Federal and State legislation to function actively for the rehabilitation of civilians disabled by employment accidents, public accidents, congenital de fects, and disease. Prior to the creation of the governmental rehabilitation agencies there existed national, State, and even municipal agencies as em ployment or labor exchanges, functioning for the benefit of employ ers and employees, eliminating industrial waste by serving as rapid, direct, and efficient mediums between the employer desiring em ployees qualified for various tasks and workers so qualified desiring enmloyment. It is merely the statement of a fact and proper recognition of excellent work done to point out that governmental employment agencies have to the limit of their facilities, through their regular placement divisions, been referring disabled applicants to employers. The question might therefore properly arise why such existing governmental employment agencies could not cover the field con templated in rehabilitation legislation and whether the establish ment of rehabilitation agencies would not tend toward further dupli cation in governmental activities. REHABILITATION IS INDIVIDUAL CASE WORK. The rehabilitation agency must be concerned with each separate disabled person as an individual and with every intimate personal relationship surrounding such individual interfering in any way with the fitness of such disabled person to enter a remunerative occupation. Effective rehabilitation is always and essentially individual case work with the first point of contact in the home and home com munity, wherever located, of the disabled person to be rendered fit to engage in sc remunerative occupation. The employment agency is in a sense static with definite focal points or offices established in strategic locations to serve as ex EMPLOYMENT AND REHABILITATION. 15 changes or clearing houses for the transfer of qualified workers to open tasks in industry requiring qualified employees. A rehabilitation agency operating on a State-wide basis through traveling field workers finds as its most definite cases for rehabilita tion those disabled persons who can be trained for and guided into suitable employment, usually in their home communities, but who have been unsuccessful in obtaining employment by making appli cation in the usual way. It is a fact that numbers of disabled persons, particularly those who have sustained amputations or loss of use of one member and otherwise physically sound, can in many cases obtain some form of employment which serves merely as an expedient to provide a wage for an existence but which may not be employment for which such disabled person, especially if young, may have latent abilities and aptitudes for advancement and for maximum service to himself, to industry, and to society as a whole. COOPERATION BETWEEN EMPLOYMENT AND REHABILITATION AGENCIES. It is obvious that a great opportunity for active cooperation exists between governmental employment agencies and governmental re habilitation agencies. Such cooperation has been in effect in Penn sylvania, where conditions lend themselves peculiarly toward such cooperation, as both the employment and rehabilitation agencies in that State are bureaus in the department of labor and industry, as is also the agency having jurisdiction over award and distribution of workmen’s compensation. In Pennsylvania the bureau of rehabilitation functions closely with the bureau of employment in the ultimate placement of persons dis abled and rehabilitated. Another reciprocal relationship of mutual advantage in Pennsylvania finds its practical expression in the bureau of employment referring to the bureau of rehabilitation disabled applicants for employment, for whom placement would be difficult if not impossible immediately, and for whom courses of training, artificial appliances, or other services are necessary to fit such dis abled applicants for suitable placement. The field workers of the bureau of rehabilitation are constantly in touch with the various offices of the bureau of employment to determine where employment opportunities exist in such communities for disabled applicants who have been rehabilitated or rendered fit to engage in remunera tive occupations. Such mutual helpfulness has been of great value to the rehabilitation work in Pennsylvania. It must be realized, however, that in the placement of a disabled person by the bureau of rehabilitation it is necessary in most cases for a representative of the bureau to make a personal call upon the prospective employer and outline to that employer a general history of the rehabilitation trainee for whom employment is desired. In many cases another such call must be made in company with the disabled applicant in order that the employer may have full knowl edge of the prospective employee. The disabled person, if placed by such employer, does not then pass from contact with the rehabili tation bureau. The field worker who accomplished such placement makes a number of later calls on such employer and disabled em 16 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. ployee at intervals of perhaps one to three weeks during a succeeding two or three months’ period to straighten out any difficulties that may arise, to encourage the disabled employee, and to determine definitely that the disabled worker is satisfied, is actually giving service and making good in his job to the complete satisfaction of the employer. In the event that the disabled employee does not fill all requirements of the employment in which he is thus placed, the placement process is repeated until it is definitely determined that the disabled person is in suitable and remunerative employment of as permanent a character as any employment may be considered permanent. Attention may at this point be drawn to the fact that rehabilita tion agencies have been functioning during a period of general un employment, and consequently the placements of rehabilitated dis abled persons have been far more difficult to accomplish than they would have been during periods of more advantageous industrial conditions. Rehabilitation, in the case of a person recently disabled, should al ways traverse the shortest line between complete convalescence and suitable employment at remunerative wage with every incentive given toward stimulating such disabled person to work for advancement within such employment. FIVE PHASES OF REHABILITATION. The rehabilitation of a disabled person includes five general phases, each distinct but closely related to the others, and each of which must be considered by rehabilitation field workers in the efforts to restore a person disabled as a useful and productive unit of society. Those phases are: 1. Physical—condition and capability of disabled person. - 2. Mental—attitude, development, and capacity of disabled person. 3. Economic—status and responsibilities of disabled person. 4. Training—possibilities leading to most suitable employment for disabled person. 5. Employment-—possibilities available and most suitable for dis abled person. Those five phases, affecting rehabilitation, must all be thoroughly explored in each individual case by the rehabilitation field workers, if the person disabled is to be rendered genuinely “ fit ” to engage in a remunerative occupation. A worker who has been seriously in jured and permanently disabled by accident has usually more than the mere physical disability to worry about; therefore, to render a physically handicapped person “ fit” to engage in a remunerative occupation, the efforts of a rehabilitation agency must be applied in a universal, helpful way, not only from a purely vocational-training or artificial-appliance-furnishing standpoint, but through every ac tivity that will relieve such disabled person so far as possible from worriment caused by financial stress, physical suffering, or other burdens. The five phases of rehabilitation—physical, mental, economic, train ing, and employment—have given rise to the contention that rehabili tation agencies will be lacking in completeness until they are estab lished in centralized institutions equipped to cope with each of the five Em p l o y m e n t and r e h a b il it a t io n , 1*7 phases of rehabilitation m every individual case. Such centralized institutions, in addition to being thoroughly equipped, would be manned by a staff of specialists in medicine, surgery, and the various physio, mechano, hydro1, and electro therapies; psychologists, ana lysts, and appraisers of mentalities; trained social workers along eco nomic lines; experts in vocational guidance and vocational training; personnel and placement experts. Such niceties of development in rehabilitation may ultimately be attained in certain populous communities. The expenditure of estab lishing and equipping such institutions and providing them with suitable management, supervision, together with the cost of mainte nance of disabled persons at such institutions, with the problem of maintaining their families at their homes while the disabled persons are in such institutions, together with transportation of disabled persons to and from such institutions, would be very heavy. In the practical application of a rehabilitation program for civilians on a State-wide basis over a great area, including many separate munici palities and sparsely populated sections, it is obvious that financial reasons alone prevent at the present time any such degree of develop ment by a State rehabilitation agency, for the whole State, and the facilities for each phase of the work must be obtained by the rehabili tation field workers on each individual case where most available. PHYSICAL FACTORS. The physical condition and capability of a disabled person is—in conjunction with the mental condition—one of the primary bases on which rehabilitation is built. Many disabled persons coming to the attention of a rehabilitation agency have already convalesced from the active manifestations of their injuries. Others may need further therapeutic treatment. Such condition may be obvious to the field worker, but in all cases the field worker should be guided by definite written statement of a physician who has examined the disabled person. Every effort should then be made by the field worker to obtain facilities for treatment in the event that the disabled person has no funds with which to obtain such treatment. In Pennsyl vania, the Commonwealth appropriates several millions of dollars a year to hospitals located at various points throughout the State, and although the bureau of rehabilitation may not expend from its appropriation funds for physical restoration of disabled persons it has experienced no difficulty in entering worthy cases in State-aided hospitals for observation and treatment without cost. In the event that the disabled person is one who has been injured in an employ ment accident and therefore eligible to compensation benefits, co operative relations between the bureau of rehabilitation and the compensation carrier in many cases result in further therapeutic treatment. * In this connection it may be stated that in those States where the workmen’s compensation award for partial disability is based on per cent of disability rather than on the difference in earning power, before and after the accident, the extension of medical benefits under workmen’s compensation is more readily obtained. The establish ment of industrial clinics for treatment and functional restoration of 18 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SEBVICES. partially disabled persons should be encouraged. Such clinics are being developed throughout the States in State hospitals by groups of employers, by insurance carriers, and by philanthropic agencies. Although facilities exist for therapeutic treatment of dangerous dis orders and for surgical relief, there are comparatively few facilities available, as developed in apparatus during the war, for physical capacity measurement of disabled members and for treatment leading toward complete or partial functional restoration of such disabled members. Rehabilitation is not charity. Legislative restrictions require that the activities of rehabilitation agencies be centered only upon those disabled persons who can be rendered fit to engage in remunerative occupations. Many disabled persons- may be so seriously afflicted physically and mentally as to make it impossible for them ever to enter a remunerative occupation. Humanitarian impulses demand that such persons be given every care and attention that public or private philanthropic agencies can bestow, but it is obvious that a rehabilitation agency may not go beyond its legal limitations and enter the field that is purely one of relief without possibility of per sons receiving such relief returning to remunerative occupations. Fine discrimination and judgment must be used, however, in such cases, as indicated by the fact that numbers of disabled persons registered with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Rehabilitation have through the aid of expert attention been fitted with braces of vari ous kinds and returned to suitable self-supporting tasks. Numbers of the so-called wheel-chair cases are also self-supporting in suitable productive activity in home workshops, others are running small businesses, and usually a case should not be turned down as phys ically hopeless until after more than a mere superficial investigation is made. The providing of artificial appliances in some States is a part of the workmen’s compensation award. In some States where such appliances are not provided as compensation in employment acci dents, appliances may be purchased from the rehabilitation appropri ation if the disabled person can be shown unable to provide such appliances necessary to enable him to return to remunerative occu pation. Considerable investigation should be made in such cases, and for the conservation of the rehabilitation funds every proper agency should be solicited to cooperate, in conjunction with the re habilitation agency, in the providing of such appliances. Physical condition and capability of a disabled person is, of course, the basic consideration in the determination of an employment ob jective for such disabled person. The task in employment must, of course, be one in which can properly be fitted the disabled person trained by a rehabilitation agency. From the standpoint of safety alone—safety of the disabled person and of the fellow workmen of the disabled person—considerable judgment must be used in placing the disabled person in employment. The safety of the disabled per son must be considered not only from the accident-hazard standpoint but also from the standpoint of physical capability, in order that the work may not be too rigorous for the disabled employee. In most cases the physical capability of such disabled person should be passed upon by a physician. EMPLOYMENT AND REHABILITATION. 19 MENTAL FACTORS. The mental attitude, development, and capacity of a disabled per son are similarly important factors in the determination of an em ployment objective for a disabled person. The mental attitude may vary from extreme depression to extreme antagonism to society in general; it may vary from misgivings as to the future to awakened interest and eager ambition for education, training, or return to work. Mental twists have led a few registrants of the rehabilitation bureau in Pennsylvania into penal and corrective institutions, while others have gone into preprofessional courses with the ultimate aim of being trained for the ministry with such final training at church expense. The lazy mental attitude of some young men prevents them from progress of any kind, while the energetic mentality of others— totally blind or with paralyzed lower limbs—has stimulated them to remarkable accomplishments with the aid of the rehabilitation agency. The overambitious type, which with perhaps a fourthgrade education and at the age of perhaps 30 years decides definitely upon being a physician, attorney, or other professional practitioner, is offset by the ambitious types with adequate preliminary education to be to-day through the aid of the bureau of rehabilitation in Penn sylvania pursuing courses in finance, engineering, law, and pedagogy. In consideration of the mental attitude of disabled persons it is most forcibly impressed upon the field workers of a rehabilitation agency that such registrants are not by any means plastic, either in the mass or as individuals, to be manipulated or directed at will by rehabilitation field workers or transported indiscriminately for training or placement from one locality to another. The best rehabili tation for the disabled individual must usually be effected in the home community of the disabled person. Very few registrants of a rehabilitation agency genuinely intent upon accomplishing their own rehabilitation are of the class known as “ floaters.” A rehabili tation agency, experience proves, can do little toward rehabilitating a handicapped person who has been a professional beggar at con siderable financial success. As a rehabilitation director of a southern State has declared, “A professional beggar already has a profession, thanks to his contributors, and consequently no desire to engage in any other profession or occupation.” The discovery of mental aptitudes among disabled persons and the adjustment of such persons with such aptitudes to suitable train ing and employment in their communities or elsewhere, if trans portation be feasible, is one of the most interesting activities of a rehabilitation field worker. ECONOMIC STATUS AND RESPONSIBILITIES. The economic status and responsibility of a disabled person have a vital and direct bearing upon the training program to render a disabled person fit to engage in a remunerative occupation. Train ing can usually be provided for those persons from whom the economic pressure can be removed during such course of training. Even in cases where training is not feasible or practicable a disabled person beset by economic pressure at home is usually diverted from giving that degree of attention to his task which makes him a 20 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. desirable employee. The field worker makes every effort to relieve economic pressure upon a disabled person, through existing agencies or from any source relief from such economic pressure may come. It is true that workmen’s compensation provides a measure of economic relief for persons disabled by employment accidents, but the maximum amount of payment is definitely fixed and is not based upon the size of family or financial responsibilties which may be upon such disabled person. Further, many persons injured in em ployment accidents have received all the workmen’s compensation to which they were entitled before getting in touch with a rehabilita tion agency. It must be further realized that rehabilitation agencies in most States followed workmen’s compensation agencies by several years. In numbers of States maintenance payments during a pre scribed course of training may be paid to a disabled person from the rehabilitation appropriation. TRAINING PHASES. Training for a disabled person may be conducted as a prelude to the person’s return to employment or provided in conjunction with employment. The training itself may be definite instruction in an educational institution, tutorial, by correspondence, or by instruc tion during practical work after entry into employment. Under present conditions in civilian rehabilitation, and excepting in unusual cases, the course of training is made as short and intensive as it can be made with the primary aim of fitting the disabled person for suit able and remunerative employment at the earliest possible time, with the thought that the disabled person will continue, with the en couragement of the rehabilitation agency, further study in conjunc tion with his employment for regular advancement. The best em ployment opportunity for an individual case after considering all factors should be decided upon and the best training possible of application to such case should be provided. Training in day classes in educational institutions applies usually, however, to only about 5 or 10 per cent of the total number of disabled persons coming to the attention of a civilian rehabilitation agency. Training is merely a step to employment and in some cases it is a part of the employment itself, and consequently the training must be based upon the physical capability of the disabled person, the mental status and capacity of the disabled person, and is further affected by the economic status of the disabled person. A few of the many tasks for which persons have been trained and are being trained by the rehabilitation agency in Pennsylvania are: Accountants, automobile mechanics, bakers, barbers, basket makers, bookkeepers, card writers and engrossers, carpet weavers, chair caners, clerks of various kinds, draftsmen, electricians, embalmers and funeral directors, insurance salesmen, jewelry manufacturers, mine-fire bosses, motion-picture operators, piano tuners, salesmen, shoe repairers, school-teachers, stenographers, telegraphers, commercial and wireless; traffic managers, watch re pairmen and engravers, and welders and brazers, in addition to many skilled tasks peculiar to the various industrial activities. Training provided in employment, or the so-called employment training, should in civilian rehabilitation, excepting in unusual cases, be on the same economic basis as should be any other phase of EMPLOYMENT AND REHABILITATION. 21 rehabilitation. In other words, in civilian rehabilitation a trainee should be entered in an establishment to learn the work peculiar to such establishment, wherever possible, with a definite wage coming from such establishment or at least promised after a short probation ary period, during which the prospective employer may determine whether the disabled person will be retained as a learner in the work and therefore receive the same wage as any other learner or ap prentice would receive under similar conditions. Unless opportuni ties for employment are very great in the occupation that a disabled person would learn under employment conditions in the establish ment without a wage, it is usually unwise to place a trainee in such employment training without prospects of a definite wage after a definite period. If such establishment does not heed the services which could be rendered by the disabled prospective trainee, it is not usually logical to assume that such trainee will get satisfactorily placed on a pay roll in such occupation unless, as stated before, em ployment opportunities in such occupation are very great or other unusual circumstances prevail. Field workers of a rehabilitation agency in determining training for a disabled person should obtain expert advice, as is done in the consulting of physicians in the physical phases of a rehabilitation program. In other words, the field worker should be thoroughly in formed regarding the various educational institutions whose facilities provide means for training in various cases and further should know the heads and instructors within such institutions for counsel and advice on the training for individual cases. A field worker should bring to the attention of training specialists each case for whom a course of training for definite employment seems feasible. EMPLOYMENT. Employment suitable and remunerative is the objective of all rehabilitation procedure. In some cases immediate placement in the most suitable employment available is necessary and an ambitious program of training is not practicable. Training is always the means to an end, and that end is suitable and remunerative employment and should be attained at as early a time as is possible. Placement of a disabled person in employment depends first on the employment possibilities available and most suitable for the disabled person in the community in which such disabled person resides, as it is only in unusual cases that a disabled person may be transported to a new field of activity. The disabled, illiterate for eigner residing in an isolated coal mining section must be returned to suitable remunerative occupation if he is to be rehabilitated, as well as the bright young person with good basic education resid ing in a city where opportunities for training in employment pro vide a great laboratory for experiment and for accomplishment of results. The procedure in such cases would vary widely, but the definition of rehabilitation, requiring the rendering of each of such disabled persons fit to engage in remunerative occupation, remains constant. The relation between rehabilitation and employment is more than casual. It is definite, and rehabilitation in any case is accomplished only after the employment objective has been attained. 22 ASSOCIATION o r PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. R E E STA B LISH M E N T OF T H E D ISAB LE D E X -SE R V IC E M EN IN EM PLO YM EN T. BY CHARLES H, TAYLOR, ACTING CHIEF EMPLOYMENT VETERANS’ BUREAU. SERVICE, UNITED STATES It has been said that the finding of suitable employment for the “ disabled,” “ crippled,” or “ handicapped ” is not a new problem or a new thought. The experience of the United States Veterans’ Bureau, with its 14 district and 140 subdistrict offices scattered throughout the more important centers of the country, bears out the fact that “ suitable or gainful ” or “ suitable and gainful ” employment can be readily found for our disabled veterans who have been thoroughly trained to meet the employment standards of the industrial, agricultural, com mercial, and professional world. In the opinion of the Veterans’ Bureau “ employment ” is the supreme test of its work and is proof that the physically disabled and vocationally handicapped veteran has been restored to his former vocational capacity and as near to his former earning capacity as it is humanly possible to bring him. In fact, the records of the Veterans’ Bureau of August 1,1922, indicate that out of the 17,251 veterans re habilitated, the great majority are earning more money than before their entrance into the military or naval forces of the country for service during the World War. In making this statement considera tion has been given to very general increase in wage and salary standards made during and after the war. In bringing the “ disabled veterans ” of the World War to this employment standard the Veterans’ Bureau has found it very neces sary to lay out the proper fundamental steps for the “ training” of these veterans to the point where they were assured of being able to take advantage of employment opportunities found for them in line with their training and their abilities. The first step is the determination of eligibility for training under the law, and four conditions of eligibility have been established to this end: . 1. The disabled man must have been separated from the military or naval forces of the United States under honorable conditions since April 7,1917. 2. He must have a disability that was incurred, increased, or aggra vated while he was a member of such forces, or that is traceable, in the opinion of the United States Veterans’ Bureau, to service in such forces. 3. His disability, in the opinion of the United States Veterans’ Bu reau, must be such as to cause him to be in need of vocational rehabili tation to overcome the handicap of his disability. 4. Training must be feasible. The second step is “ advisement and induction into training.” On this step hinges the success or failure of “training.” Advisement with the veteran as to the “ employment objective” for which training is to be given is arranged for in conference with the medi cal and training officers of the bureau with the following all-impor tant factors taken into consideration in all cases: (1) Physical and mental condition; (2) Education; (3) Pre-war occupation, and post EMPLOYMENT AND REHABILITATION. 23 war occupation if any; (4) Personal desires, native ability, and per sonality; (5) Dependents. The final recommendation for “ training ” is never made and the “ employment objective” is not selected until all concerned are assured (1) that the “ training” will not impair the veteran’s physical condition; (2) that it will, if possible, build upon his pre vious occupational experience; (3) that it will be within his mental scope; (4) that it will disturb his home (living) conditions as little as possible. The training program is submitted to the medical adviser for final approval as to “ feasibility ” and the veteran is then inducted into training in an institution (school or college) or in placement train ing (on the job) dependent upon the facts gathered and decision arrived at during “ advisement.” The third step, “ supervision of training,” is easily recognized as one of the most essential factors to the carrying out of a “ train ing program.” Each veteran is assigned to a training officer, whose duty it is to supervise the training and act as a guide and counselor during “ training.” The purpose being (1) to insure proper train ing and progress; (2) to see that the veteran is “ on the job” or at school regularly; (3) to see that the institution or firm is giving proper instruction; (4) to see that full value is received for tuition paid. The report of the training supervision is made in writing and must show what part of the training program has been completed, the quality of work or study accomplished, and whether training is adapted to the “ employment objective” for which training is be ing given, or whether training is proving detrimental physically. The fourth step is the handling and adjustment of appeals as made by the “ trainee ” relative to points of disagreement as to discipline, need for further training, adjustments in maintenance and support allowance, etc. All such questions are handled by a special “ district board of appeals.” The fifth step is “ employment ” and is the supreme test of all the previous steps. While “ employment ” has always been the aim of the bureau in the “ training ” of the disabled veteran, it was not until recently that it was considered necessary to create an “ employ ment service ” within the bureau, owing to the ever-increasing tide of rehabilitations due to the fact that vocational rehabilitation has now been in effect since July 1, 1918, although there were compara tively few men actually in training till January 1, 1919, following the signing of the armistice in November, 1918. The main object of the United States Veterans’ Bureau employ ment service is to provide employment opportunities for trained disabled veterans in alj fields of endeavor. To accomplish this end in a practical manner an organization has been created at the central office in Washington with the following personnel: Chief of employ ment service, assistant chief, and five assistants, one each in charge of employment in agriculture, trades and industries, commercial and business lines, professional lines, and civil service and miscellaneous. In the 14 district offices there is £ “ district employment representa tive ” whose duty it is to head the employment work in his district; with him are from three to seven assistant employment representa 24 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. tives, dependent on the size of the district. It is the duty of the assistant employment representative to secure employment oppor tunities; to make the specific employment opportunity available to the training officer for placing the man on the job; to effect through the training supervisor the necessary follow-up of the rehabilitated veteran in employment; to' make all contacts which will promote the good will of the public toward the rehabilitated veteran. Every facility afforded to promote the procurement of employment opportunities within the district are utilized and developed to the fullest extent, and no agency, however small or indirect its influence may be, is overlooked. The problem of securing proper employment opportunities is essentially a field problem, and every facility of the bureau is provided in order that the territory assigned to the assistant employment representative is properly covered. It is con sidered imperative that every employment opportunity afforded the rehabilitated veteran be suitable or gainful, with reasonable assur ance that the employment will be permanent and with proper appli cation on the part of the veteran will afford opportunity for enlarged experience, increased responsibility, and advancement. It is not deemed advisable to secure long lists of employment op portunities prior to knowing our needs, as our plan of procedure contemplates that the employment service is notified from one to six months previous to the date of rehabilitation, wdiich in the great majority of cases gives ample time to secure an employment op portunity in line with the individual needs of the particular veteran. The “ training supervision55 reports contain a wealth of information relative to the man, so that mistakes and guesswork can be reduced to the minimum. The Veterans’ Bureau considers it essential to “ follow u p ” in em ployment every veteran placed in employment. This “follow-up” period must cover four months and should in most cases be suffi cient to establish that the veteran is rehabilitated or is in need of further training. The “ follow-up ” reports are designed to show all the conditions during the first four months of employment and serve as a basis for action and decision. The methods used by the employment service of the Veterans’ Bureau to secure employment opportunities are many and varied. The United States Employment Service through its director has rendered valuable cooperation, and there is now a general working arrangement between all the subdistrict offices of the United States Veterans’ Bureau and the various employment offices of the United States Employment Service throughout the country. The bureau has made arrangements with the United States Cham ber of Commerce to place the question of employing trained veterans before all of its affiliated bodies. The Manufacturers’ Association of Bridgeport issues bulletins from time to time to its membership advising them of specific cases of veterans needing employment and recommending such veterans on the basis of information submitted by the employment representative of the bureau. Surveys are made in the districts for the purpose of finding gen eral conditions in industrial, commercial, professional, and agricul tural lines in order to prevent overloading any vocation at specific places. EMPLOYMENT AND REHABILITATION. 25 In closing, a few figures may be interesting and will indicate the size of and the progress being made in the vocational rehabilitation of the disabled veterans of the United States as of August 1 , 1922: Net registration______________________________________ 647,384 Total entered training----------------------------------------------- 156,562 At present in training__________________________________ 99,090 Rehabilitated_________________________________________ 17,251 There is no doubt that the soldier rehabilitation is paving the way for the more extensive work of rehabilitation and placing in employment the “ crippled in industry” as being handled by the States, but whether rehabilitation and later employment is handled by State or Nation their action must be based on the constant and continuous supervision of each individual case from the time it is first brought to attention through to the point of maximum economic independence, which is reached only when the individual is able to give a fair service in return for a fair salary or wage. He must be as efficient in his line as other workers, but can not reach this point unless the “ objective” is wisely chosen and the training given is thorough. It has been well said that the “ handicap of public opinion” is greater than any other handicap, which is one reason why the Vet erans’ Bureau realizes that the public at large must, be educated to the fact that neither the State nor the Nation will train one-armed men for two-armed work, or men with serious systemic disabilities for the more strenuous walks of life. Out of the 17,251 cases “ rehabilitated ” by the Veterans’ Bureau, hundreds of them have outstanding merit, and if space permitted could be cited here, and would show the wonderful results based on common-sense practice backed by indomitable will and ambition on the part of the veteran, which, after all, is 80 per cent of the problem of rehabilitation. In a great many cases the use of the scientific psychological and intelligence tests have proved to be of great value in finding “ the round peg for the round hole,” especially as it may be related to training. The “ employment ” man, if he is of the proper type,* will at all times be in need of that “ natural ” psychology the basis for which is sound judgment and common sense applied in a practical manner, according to the merits of the individual case. METHODS IN PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICE. FU N C TIO N S OF T H E U N ITE D STATES E M P LO YM EN T SERVICE. BY FRANCIS I. JONES, DIRECTOR GENERAL UNITED STATES EMPLOYMENT SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR. The aftermath of war is the testing time of a nation. The prob lems of the reconstruction period require greater courage and pa tience than the great problems of the war period. War causes an upheaval of the social, industrial, and economic life of the nation. The minds of men are inflamed. Drawn out of their peace-time em ployment into war industries, they earn abnormal wages and estab lish a different standard of living. Under the excitement of extra ordinary conditions they fling all sound reasoning to the four winds. Neither in their savings nor in their expenditures do they exercise their accustomed restraints. And to return the country b,ack to a sane and sound basis necessitates the changing of the minds of men into normal lines of thought, a problem the solving of which tries the souls of the wisest statesmen. Under the impetus of war industry was speeded to the top notch. With the stimulus of war removed war workers again became peace workers. The maker of munitions of war became the maker of im plements of peace, and the change of occupation, producing a smaller pay envelope, fostered a spirit of dissatisfaction and unrest. The cessation of war caused the closing of war-time industries and the abandonment by the Government of war projects, releasing workers by the hundreds of thousands. To these were added the demobilized men in khaki. Peace-time industry was not prepared to absorb this great mass of unemployed. To the problems of providing employ ment for the war workers and .the returned soldiers the United States Employment Service in cooperation with State and municipal serv ices addressed itself vigorously. Unhappily no provision was made for the normal absorption of workers released from war-productive industries into peaceful pursuits. The United States Employment Service itself, along with many other governmental divisions, suf fered a great reduction of funds, making the task of diverting war workers into other pursuits more difficult. However, with the resources at its command, while small, the United States Employment Service and cooperating State and mu nicipal services rose to the occasion. In the direct after-war period the employment services—Federal, State, and municipal—valiantly labored to relieve the unemployment situation and the results speak for themselves. After laboring hard during the darkness of unem ployment we have emerged in the early sunlight of normal employ ment. Industry is slowly but surely recovering from its paralysis. While business has not yet returned to normal it is, however, making sure and steady progress and is unquestionably on the upward swing. 26 METHODS IK PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICE. 27 Some pessimists had consigned the country to the everlasting bow wows, but the brave and the courageous, while recognizing the great depression in industry was causing an alarming condition of unem ployment,never lost heart, knowing that the 44best country on God’s green earth ” would again right itself. One of the most potential and influential factors at work to lessen unemployment and to stimulate industry was the United States Em ployment Service in cooperation with the State and municipal serv ices. This cooperative service exerted itself in every direction to find jobs for the jobless. It encouraged movements such as 44Clean up week,” 44Help the unemployed week,” and other undertakings in cooperation with mayors and public officials to aid the unemployed. The American workman is not looking for charity but does want an opportunity to work, and the prime function of the public employ ment services is to find jobs for men who want work. The wonderful record made by the public employment services during the great wave of unemployment is little short of marvelous. Experience has shown that under conditions of modern industry an efficient public employment service is a function of municipal, State, and Federal Governments not only for dealing with problems of labor in times of peace, but for mobilizing and organizing the man power of the Nation during the stress of war. He who ruled Egypt in the days of corn and plenty was a wise statesman with vision and foresight to store up reserves for lean and hungry times. Kecognizing the wisdom of Joseph of Biblical days, the United States Employment Service favors and advises legisla tion by municipal, State, and Federal Governments to store up public improvements in the days of industrial prosperity in order to dis tribute work when the cycle of unemployment returns. Competition with industry for labor by governmental agencies when all available workers are needed is a foolish and wasteful procedure, but govern mental work, undertaken during slack periods on such necessary projects as reclamation of public lands, the construction of buildings, roads, and bridges is a force which can stabilize employment through out the country and lessen the evils of the cycles of unemployment. The public employment service not only finds jobs for the jobless but it keeps a watchful eye that they are not exploited and preyed upon by unscrupulous private employment agencies that promise jobs for an enrollment fee when in fact they have no jobs to which to direct the applicants. With your permission I will cite an example. On February 24th the following advertisement appeared in a Hartford, Conn., paper. I received the advertisement the next day. It also appeared in a paper in Lincoln, Nebr., and at other points in the country. W A R N IN G — U N E M P L O Y E D . —Don’t come to Muscle Shoals naw. Possibili ties are a large army of industrial workers, mechanics, machinists, carpenters, electricians, painters, plumbers, stenographers, bookkeepers, timekeepers, etc., will be needed in very near future. Send $1 and we will mail application blank and information, and every effort will be made to place you when work starts. This organization has been investigated by Florence Chamber of Commerce. M u sc l e S h o a l s E m p l o y m e n t B u r e a u , B ox 71 , F lorence , A la . 37542°—23---- 3 28 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. I immediately got in touch with the Secretary of War, Mr. Weeks. He said he had turned the matter over to Maj. Gen. Lansing H. Beach. I was on the phone instantly and asked for an appointment. I said, “ General Beach, what I wanted to talk to you about was an advertisement concerning Muscle Shoals.” He invited me to set a time for a meeting, and we met and discussed the matter. He asked me to address a letter to him on the subject. Here’s my letter; Mr. Chairman, may I read it ? I want to say first, however, that this is one instance in which our service saved to the workingmen of this country more money than we asked, yes, double the amount of money that we received, from Congress this year, and it is only one instance. Muscle Shoals was greatly advertised by reason of the fact that Henry Ford expected to get it, and there were three private employ ment agents, one at Birmingham, Ala., one at Sheffield, Ala., and one at Florence, Ala., who were sending out and asking for an en rollment fee, two of them at $1, and one of them asking $2. My letter is as follows: Enclosed herewith find copies of advertisements appearing in the press throughout the country by the General Employment Manager, P, O. Box 2272, Birmingham, Ala., and Muscle Shoals Employment Bureau, Box 71, Florence, Ala., advertising help wanted for Muscle Shoals, and soliciting an enrollment fee of $1. You will observe that the advertisements are alluring, and adroitly worded. From the information we have there is no basis in fact for such advertisements. I am firmly of the opinion that they are exploiting the people and preying upon the unemployed. Measures should be taken at once to inform the public of the true facts concerning Muscle Shoals. Should Muscle Shoals be developed, thereby affording opportunity for jobs, the United States Employment Service of the United States Department of Labor, in cooperation with the several States that are maintaining public employment services, is in position to supply all men needed for Muscle Shoals, without any expense to the applicant. It is the legitimate channel through which men should apply for employment for Muscle Shoals when Muscle Shoals is in need of men. May I have an expression from you as to the status of Muscle Shoals, and any suggestions that you may see fit to offer as how best to inform the public as to the true conditions? I received the following letter from Maj. Gen. Lansing H. Beach in reply to my letter: In reply to your letter of February 25, 1922, with which you inclbse copies of advertisements from certain employment agencies, soliciting enrollment for employment at Muscle Shoals, on a fee of $1 and in which you request informa tion concerning the status of the work at Muscle Shoals, I have to inform you that all Government operations in that vicinity have been closed down for almost a year and there is no telling when work will be resumed. It is not possible at this date to state whether the work will be again taken up by the United States or whether it will be assigned to private parties. The latter are certainly not taking steps in the present uncertainty to secure labor, neither is the Government, which has its own agencies and methods. I share your opinion that these employment agencies are exploiting the people and preying upon the unemployed, and that the most energetic measures should be taken at once to inform the public of the true facts of the situation. I go so far as to suggest that the matter be presented to the Department of Justice with a view to prosecution, if it is found that a prosecution will hold under the circumstances. That was given to the press ana received wide publicity. I wrote the employment agencies at Birmingham, Sheffield, and Florence, and warned them that unless they withdrew their advertisements I would turn the matter over to the proper department in Wash^ METHODS IN PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICE. 29 ington. I meant the Department of Justice. I got letters back from them stating that they had returned the money and withdrawn their advertisements. I believe that they would have reaped a rich harvest, just as I told the Secretary of War. The farm labor bureau service is one of the big enterprises of the United States Employment Service. In cooperation with county farm agents, chambers of commerce, and other similar organizations it recruits farm help to harvest 29,000,000 acres of wheat. Begin ning in Texas, as the grain ripened the farm director moved the men along through the great Wheat Belt and wound up the wheat harvest in North Dakota. The next field of operation is in the Com Belt. This service has now come to be recognized as purely a Federal function. Before the United States Employment Service took over the recruiting and directing of the harvest hands there was much confusion as there was no central directing head. The headquarters for the farm service is in Kansas City, Mo., with a permanent branch service in Sioux City, Iowa. During the season many tem porary offices are opened in the field. These offices are fed from the recruiting offices in the large cities of the Middle West, and the men recruited are sent to the temporary offices to be distributed ac cording to the requirements of the farmers. The Kansas City of fice has recently moved into more commodious quarters in order to meet better the demands made upon its service. One of the notable undertakings of the United States Employ ment Service is the monthly Industrial Employment Information Bulletin. The United States is divided into nine districts, with a director in charge of each district, and connected with each district are many special agents. These special agents are in close touch with every industrial activity in their districts. They supply the information which is the basis for the comment submitted by the district directors. The monthly pay roll is gathered from 1,428 firms employing 500 and upward in the 14 basic industries. The co operative value of this data is important, as it indicates the rise and fall in industry and is gathered from the same firms each month. While the number employed in this survey is shown to be less than two million and only shows a trend in industry, yet it is a fair index of industry as a whole. A press release is issued not later than the 10th of each month for the purpose of informing the public of the real industrial conditions of the country. On the 15th of each month the Industrial Employment Information Bulletin is published. The current comment on the employment situation in 355 industrial centers is of great value as it reflects the actual industrial situation existing in these centers. The United States Employment Service is the legitimate source of information concerning the state of employment and unemployment. It should at all times have on hand all possible information on these subjects. The service is constantly being called upon by the Secretary of Labor, by Senators, Congressmen, and the country at large for accurate information as to the conditions of the various industries, as to the demand for workers and where there is an oversupply. In order that these facts may be available for all those who are request ing them constantly, it is very important that the United States Em ployment Service should gather all details itself and not depend on other sources for this important and valuable information. 30 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. The Secretary of Labor and the Director General have been care fully considering plans for the improvement of the Industrial Em ployment Information Bulletin, and the plans include elaboration on the present system of collection of facts and information so that a more perfect and graphic picture of industrial conditions may be available to labor and industry. This picture we desire shall be based upon facts that will accurately portray in detail exact condi tions in every line of industry. While these plans have not matured, they will be developed constructively and as rapidly as funds will permit. The United States Employment Service is extremely anxious to effect closer cooperation with the State and municipal employment services than now exists. It is the thought of the Secretary of Labor and the Director General that this cooperation should be mutual and cordial. There are those who believe that the Employment Service should be primarily and solely a function of the Federal Government. From experience, I have become a firm believer in the principle that the public employment service should function through the States and municipalities, cooperating in matters of clearance, general informa tion, and interstate communication, through the United States Em ployment Service. I believe that the public employment service should be headed in each State by the proper executive office of the State employment service. Each State and city has its own peculiar problems of employment. These problems can be best understood, appreciated, and solved by State and municipal officials who are in constant contact with conditions in their respective States and munici palities. These State and municipal officials, by reason of their long and intimate experience with problems peculiar to their own communities, would naturally have a better grasp of the situation than would Federal officials from other States or cities. However, many of our States and municipalities by reason of financial and other conditions are unable to appropriate moneys for the maintenance of State and municipal employment services to the extent of their own local requirements. Both States and munici palities are confronted with the problem of clearing unemployed to States and municipalities where employment can be obtained. They are confronted with the problems of securing skilled workers peculiar to and needed by the industries of their respective States and municipalities. Illustrative of this condition, an industry may be operating full time in New England mills and factories and the same industry may be shut down in the Middle West. New England would have a shortage and the Middle West a surplus of labor in this particular industry. In order that normal industrial employ ment may obtain, it becomes necessary to transfer these workers from the district where unemployment prevails to the district where employment is available. So a central or Federal employment serv ice is therefore necessary. It then functions in a cooperative man ner between the State directors of employment in the various States affected. In order that this cooperation may become closer and more cordial it is my.intention, if appropriation becomes available, to allot to each State 25 per cent of the amount appropriated by the State. This allotment would enable the respective States to widen and increase the activities of their respective employment bureaus. It would enable them to establish closer contact not only methods int fctblic employments service. 81 with the United States Employment Service at Washington but between the States themselves. While our appropriation was very limited, I have tried in a small way to carry out this principle with the hearty and splendid cooperation upon the part of Federal direc tors in the several States, and I wish to thank them fully for the splendid work they have done. It is the hope of the director gen eral that in due course of time we will attain this desirable objective, especially in the matter of the 25 per cent allotment. The employment problem is one that confronts the municipality, the States, and the Union. It demands the earnest attention of all officials, whether they be municipal, State, or Federal. I am sure that this spirit of friendly and mutual cooperation is strongly es tablished in the hearts of all of these. We will do our part and I am sure you will do your part. With this spirit and assurance of cooperation I am positive that a far greater record of efficiency in the public employment service will be attained. The success of the service depends in a large measure upon the ability of the examiner in charge, or placement clerk. If he or she is not familiar with the work to which the applicant is being directed, if a round peg is sent to a square hole, a failure is registered and the service injured from the point of efficiency. A placement clerk should study and know the needs of the employer so that the right person can be supplied for each job. The position of the placement clerk is not an easy one and his services should be well paid. The placement clerk should be as wise as Solomon, as versa tile as a Roosevelt, and as diplomatic as a Choate. In fact, he should be a walking encyclopedia. There are times when his patience will be sorely tried, but he should always take into consideration that the applicant, who is seeking a job, is perhaps without money or food for his family and is not apt to be as agreeable as a man with a job and steady pay. He can afford to keep his temper when he is in the right, and when he is wrong he can not afford to lose it. I am very glad to say that the majority of placement clerks I have met at the various offices display qualifications which well fit them for their place. However, I have noticed that in some cases the placement clerk is not to any appreciable extent interested in the applicant or in his work. A placement clerk who is really interested in his work eats, sleeps, and dreams in terms of employment service. Too many placement clerks do not lift their heads to notice the applicant when he enters, but brush him aside, saying, “ Come back to-morrow.” It is the Mexican manana; it never comes, for they do not exert themselves to secure a job for the applicant either to-day or to-morrow. Such employees are of no value to the service. It is my candid opinion that the placement clerk should be willing and ready at all times to put his hand kindly on the shoulder of the applicant, creating a feeling in the mind of the applicant that the service is truly interested in him. When a man ain’t got a cent, And is feeling kind of blue, And the clouds hang dark and heavy, And won’t let the sunshine through, It’s a great thing, oh, my brother, For a fellow just to lay His hand upon your shoulder In a friendly sort o’ way. 32 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. The success of any government of any people rests upon a satisfied and prosperous citizenship. One of the necessary essentials to a satisfied and prosperous citizenship is the satisfied and prosperous worker. The future of this country and of our people depends upon the attaining of this highly desirable state of citizenship. Therefore, the preparation of our future citizens—our boys and girls—for com mercial and industrial pursuits for which they are best fitted by personal inclination, by aptitude for their chosen profession or occupation, or by their demonstrated mental or physical qualifica tions, is essential. This preparation is known as vocational guidance and placement work. In other words, our future citizens must be guided in their quest for desirable and congenial occupation or profession for which they can obtain steady and satisfactory em ployment by trained and experienced workers in what is known as vocational guidance and placement work. The vast majority of the boys and girls in the United States over compulsory school age are employed as wage earners. After the compulsory school age is passed this great majority of boys and girls by reason of economic conditions are compelled to become wage earners. The guidance and placement of these children in useful and congenial occupations or professions is essential to the welfare and prosperity of society and of industry. It is conducive to a better understanding between employer and employee and a proper appreciation of the functions of our Government, whether it be Federal, State, or municipal. This vast majority of boys and girls at the beginning of their career as wage earners have not yet de veloped their education or experienced their maximum efficiency, and many of them are in occupations without educational possi bilities. The junior division of the United States Employment Service deals with the youth of the countiy, both sexes, between the legal working age and 21. Its purpose is to aid the schools in assisting boys and girls to select arid prepare for some definite occupation in which they may be efficient, productive, and constructive workers and to offer to employers the best possible facilities for the selec tion of their junior employees. Moreover, the schools need a chan nel through which a tide of information is constantly flowing back to them regarding the organization requirements and changes in industry. The junior division provides such a channel. As an employment agency the junior division has as its aim the pooling of the junior labor supply at its source and distributing it in such a manner that each individual will realize his best possibili ties and contribute his utmost to the welfare of society. A junior placement office, equipped with a personnel familiar with business practice and trained to understand the needs alike of industry and of boys and girls and the obligation of public education to both, does this with an immediate and practical effectiveness no other agency offers. The junior division functions through cooperation with local school systems and other agencies in various cities throughout the country. Local offices are usually established under the supervision of an officer of the local educational system who is appointed Federal superintendent of guidance and placement in charge of the office. In some cases they are established under the joint auspices of mu METHODS IN PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICE. 33 nicipal or State employment services, as well as the local school system and the junior division. Their services, however, are not limited to pupils just leaving school but are extended to every boy or girl who applies for work or advice. The present activities of the junior division by reason of Govern ment appropriation are necessarily limited. With the funds avail able, however, a number of school centers, equipped with the bestknown methods of junior guidance and placement, have been estab lished and maintained by the junior division. Practically all of these cases have been maintained in cooperation with the public schools and also with other agencies. They are located at Pitts burg, P a.; Gary, Ind.; Stockton, Calif.; South Bend, Ind.; Atlanta, Ga.; Rockford, 111.; Worcester, Mass.; Jackson, Mich.; Jersey City, N. J .; Minneapolis, Minn.; St. Paul, Minn.; Richmond, Ind.; Mil waukee, Wis.; Salt Lake City, Utah; Providence, R . I .; and Wilmington, Del. The field of vocational guidance and placement is comparatively new. It is largely in its experimental stage. However, it is a field which is sure to increase in interest and importance with a better realization on the part of the public of the vital need of the work. As junior work develops its effect on the problems of adult employ ment ;will become manifest. The program of the junior division is intended to lessen the future number of unemployables and drifters, to reduce social unrest and labor turnover, and to instill in our youth, during the formative period of life, habits of thought regarding their individual responsibility for the industrial welfare of the country. The United States Employment Service will gladly welcome coop eration and suggestions for constructive development of its junior work on the part of Federal directors. The director general and the director of the junior division will be pleased to advise and consult with the Federal directors on this most important problem. Before closing I desire to say that the United States Employment Service would not have merited the public confidence which it has won without the wonderful assistance given it by the honorable Secretary of Labor, James J. Davis. We would not have been able to establish and maintain that fine spirit of cooperation with the State and municipal employment services that now exists were it not for his kindly interest and generous help. He entered the office of Sec retary of Labor under the most trying circumstances, at the ebb tide of public employment, in the midnight of industrial discord. In James J. Davis is found a man of great heart, of sympathetic understand ing, and strong courage; a man who had a comprehensive knowledge of the problems of labor and industry. He started as a boy in the mills and fought his way to the pinnacle of success. Labor and* industry were in need of just such a man. He tackled the problems before him with the same intelligence, energy, and love of his fellow men that characterized his rise from a mill boy to a Cabinet officer. He worked night and day in the solution of the problems of recon struction. He is to be complimented in the highest terms for his untiring efforts, for his zeal, and for the big-hearted way in which he has administered the office of Secretary of Labor. As time goes on I am 34 ASSOCIATION OF EtTBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. sure that we will have a better understanding of the employment problems and that the public will have a deeper regard for its employment service and that we will achieve success through hearty and cordial cooperation between the United States Employment Service and the State and municipal employment services. V A R IO U S M ETH ODS USED B Y ST A T E EM P LO YM EN T SERVICES. BY CHABLES J. BOYD, GENEBAL SUPEBINTENDENT ILLINOIS FREE EMPLOYMENT OFFICES, CHICAGO, ILL. In addressing you on the subject of “ Various methods used by State employment services ” I feel that what is characteristic of the Illinois Free Employment Service would be applicable, with per haps some slight variations, to other States operating free employ ment offices, and for that reason I am confining my address to the methods used by the Illinois service. It might be of interest, however, before going into a description of the methods used, to give you a brief outline of the organization of the employment service in Illinois. The law creating free employment offices in Illinois was passed by the general assembly in 1899 and provided that one office be established in each city having a population of not less than 50,000 and three in each city having a population of 1,000,000 or over. In accordance with the provisions of this act three offices were established in Chicago in 1899, and in 1901 an office was opened in Peoria. In the year 1903 the act creating free employment offices in Illinois was declared unconstitutional by the supreme court because of a clause it contained which provided that applicants could not be directed by our offices to places of employment where strikes or lockouts existed. The State legislature was in session at the time the decision was handed down and met the situation by passing a new act May 11, 1903, eliminating the objectionable feature, sub stituting therefor a clause which read: “ Full information shall be given applicants regarding the existence of any strike or lockout in the establishment of any employer securing workers from the Illinois Free Employment Office.” In 1907 an office was opened in the city of East St. Louis and in the year 1909 an office in Springfield. The legislature in 1915 further amended the law, providing for one free employment office in each city with a population of 50,000 and also one or more contiguous cities or towns having an aggregate or .combined population of not less than 50,000. Under the provisions of this act an office was opened at Rock Island-Moline in October, 1915, and one at Rockford in November of the same year. From May, 1918, to March, 1919, the Illinois Free Employment, Service was conducted in cooperation with the United States Em ployment Service, and under the plan of cooperation offices were established in a number of cities. After this agreement expired the offices at Aurora, Bloomington, Danville, Decatur, and Joliet were retained by the State of Illinois. METHODS IH PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SEPVICE. 85 In the year 1921 an amendment to the act was passed by the general assembly which authorized the establishment of offices in each city, village, or incorporated town with a population of not less than 25,000, or where two or more contiguous cities, villages, or incorporated towns have an aggregate population of not less than 25,000, and under this act an office was opened at Quincy in Octo ber, 1921, and another office at Cicero in February, 1922. In connection with the Illinois Free Employment Service a gen eral advisory board was created by the legislature in 1915, consisting of five members, of whom two are representatives of employers, two of organized labor, and the fifth member representing the public. Notwithstanding that the board serves without compensation, aside from traveling and other necessary expenses incidental to their duties, they have on all occasions given generously of their time and energies in helping to promote the interests of the service. Their function as outlined by the law is, among other things, to advise and cooperate with the general superintendent in promoting the efficiency of the service, to investigate the extent and cause of unemployment and remedies therefor, and to devise and adopt the most effectual means within their power to provide employment and to prevent distress and involuntary idleness. For this purpose they are empowered to cooperate with similar bureaus and commissions of other States, with the Federal Employment Office in the Depart ment of Labor, and with such municipal bureaus and exchanges as are now in operation or may be created. They are given an important part to perform in endeavoring to dovetail industries by long-time contracts or otherwise, so that the supply of labor will be most effectually distributed and utilized and kept employed with the greatest possible constancy and regularity. They are empowered to devise plans of operation with this object in view and shall seek to induce the organization of concerted movements in this direction, even to the enlisting of the aid of the Federal Government in extending these movements beyond the State. As the activities of our board may properly be classed among the methods used by State employment services, I think it would be well to here recount some of their activities during the last industrial depression. Early in the summer of 1921 the barometer of industrial conditions caused us to view with alarm the steadily increasing number of ap plicants against the decreasing number of available opportunities, and the situation was of such importance that it was deemed ad visable to hold a conference with the general advisory board in order to cope with the situation. Director of Labor George B. Arnold, State Superintendent W. C. Lewman, and myself met with the board, and the consensus of opinion was that the volume of unemployment was greatly increased with the chances to tide over the period of industrial depression lessened. The conference there fore resolved to call a meeting, which was held at the City Club of Chicago, August 8, 1921, invitations being sent to thirty organi zations, including civic, social, industrial, financial, trade-union, the American Legion, and others interested in the unemployment problem. At this conference attention was called to existing conditions and that sufficient warning had been given, as evidenced by the data 36 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. compiled by the Illinois Free Employment Service, so that we should prepare to meet any emergency. A permanent organization was the result, and this was known as the Chicago Conference on Unem ployment, and an executive committee of 15 selected. Meetings of the conference were held from time to time and com mittees were appointed to consider the best method of discouraging the influx of unemployed to Chicago and to consult with authorities regarding such prevention, to consider what private and public work might be made available, to consider the lodging-house situation and to consult with municipal authorities concerning municipal lodging houses, and a committee was also appointed to consider the question of raising funds from public and private sources to meet the added strain of relief demands during the winter. These committees functioned very efficiently, and a sum of money was raised to establish a special procurement bureau in the Chicago division of the Illinois Free Employment Service, the activities of which were confined solely to the procuring of jobs. A canvass was made of the entire city of Chicago, and the Woman’s City Club took an active part by forming district organizations where they main tained headquarters for the securing of jobs. The bureau became operative November 29,1921, and was discontinued April 1,1922. The activities of some of the other committees appointed by the Chicago Conference on Unemployment consisted of gathering data on public works and projects which might be speeded up in order to relieve the unemployment situation and to give publicity to the matter. This publicity program informed the people of Chicago, including large industrial employers, employers of smaller numbers of workers down to the householders who had need for workers for odd jobs, what the State free employment service was and how to use it. Articles were prepared carrying to the specific con stituency the kind of information thought to be most beneficial, and articles were also prepared for church bulletins and bulletins of civic clubs and organizations. The churches of Chicago became interested and a Sunday was designated as “ Unemployment Sunday,” and special attention was called to the needs of the unemployed and the necessity of relieving the situation by having contemplated work or improvement done while there was such a need for jobs. In this appeal the facilities of the Illinois Free Employment Service was called to the attention of the people, as our organization is a public service and was recog nized as the medium through which all jobs should be cleared, and it was urged that all those who had work to be done should get in touch with our service. Early in the industrial depression the Chicago Association of Com merce organized a committee on unemployment and was very active in their efforts to help relieve the unemployment situation through the creation of a sentiment whereby more jobs could be secured. They very generously carried a full page in their weekly publication, Chicago Commerce, advertising the Illinois Free Employment Serv ice, urging their 6,000 members to patronize our service, displaying a facsimile of our employers’ order blank and requesting them to use this blank to turn in all known orders. Uniformity in public employment organization is hardly to be ex pected, as the laws creating these offices were enacted at different METHODS IN PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SEBVICE. 37 times and are the result of diversified opinions. There are, however, several things which all public employment offices should do in order to function in the most efficient manner, and one of the most impor tant of these, in my opinion, is the necessity of knowing industry’s requirements and keeping in touch with conditions surrounding it. It is essential that we familiarize ourselves with plan and working conditions, as quite often applicants will elect to accept work under favorable working and sanitary surroundings in lieu of a higher wage and less favorable conditions. Modern working conditions call for an environment of such a character that the worker may perform his duties to the best advantage, and in our organization it is the practice for placement clerks to visit industrial plants in order to find out these conditions and the needs of the employers. These visits are usually made at the end of the week when there are fewer appli cants to be interviewed. Familiarity with the labor laws of the State is also essential in our work, and these, as well as other matters’of in terest to the service, are discussed at the regular monthly meeting of our employees in order to keep abreast of the times. I am sure you will be interested in knowing something of our central office in Chicago which occupies, with the exception of the first floor, the entire four-story building at 116 North Dearborn Street. This office is divided into three main departments—men’s, women’s, and administrative—which occupy the second, third, and fourth floors, respectively. In the men’s department we have the clerical, mechanical, building trades and maintenance, hotel and restaurant, janitors, porters and unskilled hotel help, and miscellaneous. The boys’ division is segre gated from the men’s in order to counteract any influence their asso ciating with them would have which would be detrimental to their welfare. We also have an agricultural division which is of more than ordi nary importance, and we have built up a large following among the farming interests. It is not unusual for us to receive calls for farm help within a radius of 100 miles of Chicago, and during the harvest season we ship to the wheat fields of the Southwest, West, and North west—in fact, at the beginning of the harvest season we send persons to the Southwest who follow the season northward, working their way from Oklahoma to Kansas, on through Nebraska, South Dakota, and to other northwestern wheat States. In stimulating this work we employ various methods and in season circularize the farm district, using posters, etc., in an effort to render the maximum of service to the farming communities. The handicapped division operated by our service is one in which the human element enters into more than in any other division. In dustry is prone to look unfavorably upon the employment of these unfortunate persons, and especially is this true since we have had such a large surplus of physically fit persons looking for jobs. How ever, by persistent efforts we have gradually created a sentiment whereby we are able to take care of large numbers of these appli cants. A great deal of patience is required to successfully handle work of this kind, but we are well satisfied with the cooperation re ceived from all sources and point with pride to the work accom plished by this division. 38 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SEBVICES. The women and girls’ department handles clerical help, factory workers, hotel, restaurant, domestic, and day workers, and the same practices prevail in this department as in ^he men’s, and each has a superintendent in charge with a sufficient number of placement clerks and other help to handle the work. In Chicago we also have a suboffice on the west side of the city which handles unskilled labor exclusively, and this is situated in a locality where large number of transient labor* congregates, and this office enjoys a large patronage. There is also an office located on the south side in the thickly populated colored district which specializes in the placement of both male and female colored persons. This office, as well as the various divisions in our central office, is under the immediate super vision of a general superintendent. A layout of our central office shows that when an applicant enters the men’s department he is directed to the registration desk, where he secures an application card to be filled out. The registration clerk thus ascertains what class of work the applicant desires, after which he is referred to the proper division. Applicant then passes down center aisle and enters the division handling the class of work he is seeking, and if there are no other applicants waiting he imme diately proceeds to the placement clerk’s desk, where he presents his applicant card and is examined as to his qualifications for the work for which he applies. If there is an opportunity for work for which he is qualified, the placement clerk furnishes him with a card of introduction to the employer. Notation is made on back of appli cant’s card and of employer’s order, which are clipped together until verification of placement can be made, which is done either by tele phone, return postal- card, or followed up by letter in the event the card is not returned by the employer. If on entering any of the various divisions there are applicants to be interviewed, the last person takes his seat and moves up when there are vacancies juntil he reaches the position nearest the placement clerk. This method of handling applicants insures fairness. However, the procedure may be varied at the discretion of the placement clerk, as, for in stance, if an applicant has previously registered and the placement clerk has an opportunity for which he thinks a particular applicant can qualify, then preference is given to him on account of his priority. The same procedure is practiced in the women’s de partment. Briefly I have described the layout of the office and shall now turn to the method practiced in handling an applicant for a position. The first step, as has been pointed out, which an applicant takes in seeking to obtain work in an employment office is to register, and it is customary in our office when applying for work to register the applicant on an index card which can be filed later. This, as I have said, is the first procedure in order to make your wants known, hence the first department or desk an applicant is directed to when entering an employment office is the information and registration desk, where he can obtain an application card and register. He is then, as previously stated, directed to the division handling the work he is seeking, where the transaction of getting him a position is completed. METHODS IN PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICE. 39 In order to operate a registration department on a systematic and uniform basis, it is essential that applications be made on one kind of form and in pen and ink to insure permanency of record. In our service it is the practice to maintain a duplicate application or cross file of every registrant, alphabetically and according to occu pation, which is later filed in our permanent file, and by this method we have a check and permanent record of every registrant which can be easily traced. The registration department of an employment office might be compared to the accounting department of a commercial organiza tion, and it is an essential and indispensable part of the service, hence care should be taken that the disposition of the cards is accurate. If a commercial organization were to be asked about an account and were unable to give an answer, our impression would be that there was something wrong with the organization, and by the same token if a patron of our service called upon us for in formation regarding help, etc., and did not secure the information he would naturally think the service was lacking in efficiency and that not very much could be expected from it, and for this reason the importance of this department can not be overlooked. When business is good and jobs are plentiful the applicant look ing for a position can easily be furnished work, but in times of in dustrial depression the ingenuity of the service is sometimes taxed to meet the situation. A State free employment office is much like any other business, and in order to be successful business methods must be practiced. As favorable publicity is a large factor in any business, we are constantly striving for this in our service, and among the “ various methods used in State employment services ” to secure publicity and encourage business is the employment of solicitors, sending communications by mail, soliciting orders by telephone, and adver tising by various methods and mediums. We have received con siderable favorable publicity through news items calling attention to something of special interest which occurred in connection with the service, and in this publicity the press of the city of Chicago have generally cooperated and their assistance was invaluable. Another method which we employ in our State service is to adver tise in the Employment Bulletin which is issued by the department of labor under the supervision of the general advisory board of the Illinois Free Employment Service. We also bulletin jobs difficult to fill and send special letters outlining qualifications of applicants to industries and individuals in our efforts to secure positions for them, and in all of these we have been uniformly successful. The clearing of jobs is done to some extent in our service, and as an illustration we might say that if there were a shortage of help at Joliet, which is about 40 miles from Chicago, and we had a surplus of help or vice versa, we would then circularize the opportunities in order to remedy the situation. As a stimulant for better efforts on the part of the placement clerks we get out a comparative 10-day statement of placements made by the various divisions in our office. This shows the number of persons placed by each division, with a gain and loss column, and gives us a line on how the work is progressing in each of these 40 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. divisions, and we find that it acts as an incentive for better efforts, for the reason that if a division showed a loss the person in charge would be more alert the next 10 days in order to keep out of the “ loss 55 column. Of course there are other details of a minor nature which taken as a whole go toward the efficiency of the employment service, but I have touched only what I consider some of the high spots in em ployment office methods. As to reports, we have these daily from all of our divisions which are tabulated by a statistician and from which the monthly report to the director of labor is made. We also submit an identical report, as do all of the State offices, to the gen eral advisory board of the Illinois Free Employment Service, where the statistics on the operation of the service are compiled. This department also makes a monthly survey of industrial conditions, all of which is published each month in the Employment Bulletin, together with other matters of interest to industry. While it is customary in most States to select employees for the service through competitive tests, there is hardly any kind of an examination by which one may be judged as to their fitness for placement work. One must possess, among other things, a large amount of the human element in order to be successful in this kind of work and endowed with more of the “ milk of human kindness ” than the ordinary person has. An oral examination would to a large extent bring out some of these qualifications, but only time would tell if they were fitted for a vocation of this kind. Some employees of the service, such as stenographers, statistical and filing clerks, etc., the nature of whose work does not bring them in contact with the public, are more easily selected as to fitness, but in the case of a placement clerk the task of proper selection is more difficult. In all cases the State should offer some inducement in the shape of promotion in the service to look forward to, and when it would seem that the right person had been selected he would be more apt to make good if he had something of a material nature as an incentive for better efforts. However, a person possessing the right char acteristics could not help but become interested in this kind of work, and he should be easily trained and receptive to influences that would make for the development of an ideal public servant in this field. Employment work is quite interesting and of much educational value from the fact that you are meeting all kinds and conditions of people, and in order to be successful in this kind of work you must learn, if you do not already know, the requirements of industry, and to successfully match the man and the job you must be familiar with job analysis and trade specifications, so that when an applicant is placed the chance of turnover is reduced to a minimum. A satisfied customer in employment work is as essential as a satisfied customer in any business. This is one of the greatest assets and the best advertisement a public employment service could pos sibly have, and in Illinois it is the goal toward which the service is constantly striving. METHODS IN PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICE. 41 EMPLOYMENT OFFICE METHODS. BY C. W . E. MEATH, CITY SUPERINTENDENT, EMPLOYMENT SEBYICE OF CANADA, TORONTO, CANADA. In dealing with the subject of “ Employment office methods” it will be necessary for me to describe the work of my own office in Toronto, and at the close of my paper I shall be glad to answer any questions and exchange ideas in order that we may be mutually bene fited. The staff of the Toronto office consists of 35 people, and the work is divided into the following sections: Men’s industrial, men’s farm, men’s out-of-town labor, men’s handicap, men’s professional and business, boys’ section, clearance section, record section, women’s houseworkers, women’s clerical and factory. The applicant on first coming into the office passes through the general waiting room and goes to the “ central registry,” where two cards are made out for him—one being a white card on which is placed his name, address, nationality, single or married, and age. This card remains at the central registry and is filed alphabetically, covering all registrations in the office. The other card, an orange color, is also filled out with the same details and the applicant di rected to take this card to the section concerned. Here the other de tails concerning his trade or calling are filled in by the interviewer dealing directly with the particular occupation mentioned on the card. This card remains within the section. The men’s industrial section has three subsections and has usually the heaviest registration in the office: Subsection “ c ” handles all factory laborers, builders’ laborers, and ordinary skilled labor of all kinds; subsection “ b ” handles the building trades and male houseworkers, such as chefs, cooks, butlers, porters, gardeners, etc.; sub section “ d ” handles the skilled trades, such as machinists, engineers, rubber workers, textile workers, weavers, motor mechanics, etc. As this section is the heaviest and busiest in the office all orders either by phone or from any source are taken by the person in charge of the section and distributed to each interviewer in the subsection, but when the order has been once taken over by the interviewer at the subsecfion he considers it a personal matter between the employer and himself, any further dealing being done direct from the subsec tion phone by the man who has actually referred the applicant to the vacancy. The head of the section takes all details of an order on a “ vacancy card ” and hands the card to the subsection, the responsibility for filling the order properly resting with the interviewer who knows his applicants. All applicants’ cards are filed according to occupation and alpha betically within the occupational groups, meaning, for instance, that all carpenters’ cards are filed together alphabetically—the key card having been held at the central registry—when the person registers. These key cards are filed alphabetically,* covering all registrations in the office, so that if we wish to find “ John Jpnes of 482 King Street,” we go to the central registry and look up his key card and find he is registered as a “ carpenter.” We then go to the subsection where the carpenters are and find complete details on the man, the jobs he has 42 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. been sent to and a record of how he has performed the various tasks assigned him from time to time. In the case of the farm, professional and business, handicap, boys’, or clearance sections the switchboard operator puts the call through direct to these sections where the interviewer speaks with the em ployer. All mail orders or scout orders are also handed direct to these sections. The last-named sections have private interviewing and waiting rooms, and in the case of the boys’ section there is a separate entrance so that boys do not come in contact with the men in the getieral office at any time. In the boys’ section we register boys up to 19 years of age, and at the present time we average about 50 placed every week. Great care must be taken with them. When orders are received for boys from employers of whom we have Had no previous record we investigate them very thoroughly to see that no exploiting is carried on and that proper conditions prevail before we send them out. This section is one of the most interesting of the office. The future men can be seen among these applicants. Some boys, like the men, must be pushed into work, while others can not get enough of it. Our interviewer has great control over most of the boys and they look to him for guidance and advice. We have registered over 2,000 boys for employment since January 1, 1922, the greater number of course in the school holiday period of July and August. They go to such work as office boys, messengers, factory help, fruit picking, farm help, etc. The handicap section has at the present time some 900 applicants registered for employment. They consist of ex-service men and civilian industrial handicaps, among the latter being a number of exservice men who have become industrial handicaps since their war service and whose disability can not be traced directly to their serv ice and for whom the pension board and department of soldiers re establishment take no responsibility. The disabilities of the 900 men I have mentioned above can be described as follows: Per cent. Involutional deterioration or “ burnt out ”T_________________ Injuries to leg_________________________ 1_________________ Leg amputations______________________________________ ___ Lungs____________________________________________________ Injuries to arm___________________________________________ Injuries to hand__________________________________________ Arm amputations_________________________________________ Trunk and head wounds___________________________________ Mental defectives-------------------------------------Epileptic_________________________________________________ Defective vision___________________________________________ Insane---------------------------------------------------------------------------Rheumatism______________________________________________ Heart____________________________________________________ Rupture__________________________________________________ Miscellaneous medical-------------------------------------------------------- fV 9 8 8 7 6 4 3 7£ 2$ 2 3 2\ 10 We have a medical man from the provincial department of health come to the office frequently to examine men for us, and we have also an official of the Canadian council on mental hygiene examine the men at intervals, so that the information which we have on each applicant is of the most definite nature. This is most impor tant, as it is well known that the handicap under which a man may METHODS IN PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICE. 43 be laboring does not determine his ability to perform any work assigned him. It is the mental effect the handicap has on the man in most cases which counts. I know cases of men who are “ ampu tations 55 and who are better men mentally than when they had the use of all their limbs, and I also know men who have one finger off and who would lead you to believe the world had nothing left but to provide for them for the rest of their lives. The fact of the matter is, we have figured that about 10 per cent of our registered cases are handicaps because they insist on classifying themselves as such. We humor such cases and educate them to the true state of affairs as far as possible. “ Live 55 handicap cases pick up a surprising number of jobs for themselves which would never be given the employment office. In fact, a great number of them have their own friends who make work for them because they are handicaps. We have also found that the worst cases we have are usually civilians who have reached the time of life industry calls “ old age.” They have toiled all their lives and are not able to carry on because of advancing years and are left stranded. These cases are among the hardest to place. They are “ burnt out 55mentally and physically, and it may be that through the operation of modern employment offices this matter will be forced to the attention of governments, and legislation will be en acted to look after these helpless men who through no fault of their own are unable to earn a living. The professional and business section registers accountants, civil engineers, electrical engineers, salesmen, etc., and we endeavor to give these applicants the utmost privacy in all their dealings with the office. Applicants in this section are usually of the educated class, as also is the case among the skilled workers in the industrial sec tion, and we shield them from any embarrassment in their dealings with us. For instance, after full details have been procured on registration we suggest that they can keep in touch with the section by phone, or if a vacancy comes in to which we can assign them we phone them. It is surprising how sensitive professional workers are when they find themselves unemployed, and we do everything pos sible to give them the service without dwelling too much on the fact that they are unemployed. Of course, we try to do this through out the whole office, but it can not be done as successfully, say, at the laborers5subsection, where casual work is the rule. Our professional and business section has gained the confidence of employers in Toronto. An instance of this may be mentioned: Re cently a large wholesale dry goods house phoned us that they were advertising in the evening papers for an accountant to take charge of their staff of 25 people. They gave us the order at the same time. There were 103 replies received from their newspaper adver tisements, and we sent them but one applicant. Our man secured the job, and the firm stated they will not advertise in the future. We went over at least 25 accountants registered with us, and our choice was successful in landing the position. That firm realized that they could have been saved the time in going over all those applications, the annoyance of interviewing overzealous job seekers, etc., by leaving the matter in our hands. 37542°—23----- 4 44 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. In the women’s houseworkers’ section we have a casual workers’ and a permanent workers’ section. The casual workers are seated in the section and sent out as calls come in. In the mornings as many as 100 casual workers will be sent out before 10 a. m. and the workers take their turn as they are seated when the office opens, pro viding of course they can do the work and the employer has no preference. The women’s clerical and factory section is handled about the same as the men’s professional and business section, separate inter viewing rooms being used and as much privacy as possible being given the dealings with all applicants. Our scouts in Toronto cover their territories regularly, and even if business is not secured on each visit yet the connection is kept up and results in keeping the employment office before the employer for his use when he has vacancies. We have recently started a scheme in Toronto by which we use various members of our staff as speakers, and when arrangements can be made they go out to a factory or plant and give the depart ment heads a talk on the work being done at the employment office. This has worked out splendidly and requests have been received from employers asking for a representative to speak to their people interested in our work. We also make a practice to have our interviewers visit the various plants to which they send men from time to time, and in this way they are made conversant with actual working conditions at these places and can describe them to workers before sending them out. The out-of-town labor section attends to the filling of all orders requiring the shipment of gangs of men, such as bushmen, lumbermill men, railroad construction gangs, etc. These gangs are shipped usually on the night trains. We look after the checking of all baggage, forwarding the checks to the employer, and also see that the men are properly located on the train, the transportation being handed to the conductor. This section will ship about 8,000 men this season, so that you will see the turnover in this class of work means considerable to our office. The clearance section is the center of the clearance zone, consisting of some employment offices, and is constantly in touch with these offices by phone, wire, and mail. The record section prepares all the reports required by the pro vincial and Federal departments. The men’s farm section handles the farm and dairy help, and this is a very busy section, particularly in the spring of the year. Our placements in this section last year were over 6,000. Most of the orders from farmers are received over the phone, but we usually advise farmers to come in to the office themselves, if possible, and choose their own help from among our applicants. Our aim in the Toronto office is to give the employer the service. A satisfied employer means continued business, and we consider it much better to say that we can not fill an order than to send help which may fall down on a job. It is difficult to get some people to understand that the employment office does not do the employing, but simply refers competent appli METHODS IN PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICE. 45 cants to vacancies. This is particularly true of social workers and those interested in such work. They refer some cases to the em ployment office and wonder why they are not employed at once, as though all we had to do at the employment office is turn on a tap and produce jobs. They fail to take into account the employer, who after all is the one who does the employing. These people1usually do not go into any of the details of the case which are important in the matter of employment, but simply refer a possibly destitute person and think he should be given employment because he is destitute, as in the case of a man referred to our office by a socialservice organization a few days ago. This man was a bookkeeper of exceptional ability, A1 personality, neat in appearance, and of good address and bearing. Our interviewer ascertained that he had recently been in court as a defaulter and had stolen several hundreds of dollars from his employers, yet the officer of this organi zation could not understand for some time why we could not secure him work in his own line. We finally placed him in other work where he had a chance to make good, but could not possibly send him to an employer in a position of trust because of his recent record. There are men who come to me and say, “ How is it I can never get a job here in this office? I have been registered for several months.55 There are good reasons probably, over which we have no control, and there are persons who can never be placed in positions to which they aspire because they will not take stock of themselves and make themselves worth while employing. After all it remains with the individual, and the employment office is simply a clearing house for individuals whom the employer will employ in some capacity or other. There will always be some unfortunates who are impossible from an employment standpoint for various reasons. But it is found that these people are usually the hardest and noisiest “ kickers,55 and the same thing in their make-up which makes them disturbers and agitators prevents them from securing employment. The postwar years produced a number of this type, and they are a problem in the employment office. We have been obtaining good results from a bulletin which we send out every two weeks to about 500 employers in Toronto. We list about a dozen applicants and describe their qualifications in detail. Employers appreciate this bulletin, and we place a number of people each time it is issued. We also inclose a short statement on the condition of the labor market, showing the classes of help which are scarce and those of which we have a good supply. Em ployers appreciate this “ employment advice.55 In Toronto we find the city newspapers only too willing to print interesting stories in connection with the work of our office. We use this in order to keep the office constantly before the public. It has proved to be good business, as advertising pays in employment work the same as any other business. PLACEMENT PROBLEMS AFFECTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN. PLACEMENT—AN EDUCATIONAL PROCESS. BY MISS MARY STEWART, DIRECTOR JUNIOR DIVISION, UNITED STATES EMPLOYMENT SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR. There is a growing change in the minds of both laymen and edu cators on two vital aspects of public education; first, on the measure of the State’s obligation to educate its youth, and, second, on the meaning of education itself. Practically all of the States have laws requiring school attendance and regulating in some degree the age and working conditions of juniors, and the general trend everywhere is toward raising the compulsory school age and tightening legal restrictions surrounding employment of boys and girls. Recent legislation in several States extends the age requiring some sort of supervision up to 18 years and in a number of others to IT. Within the last few weeks several bills have been introduced in Congress pro viding for a constitutional amendment granting Federal control over the working conditions of children up to 18 years. The obvious im plication and tendency in law, then, is the recognition of the obliga tion of the State to supervise its youth either in school or at work until they attain a maturity of judgment and a degree of skill where they can safely look out for themselves. VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE METHOD. Many changes in school organization and curricula evidence the fact that education has come to mean something vastly different from the “ three R’s,” or even the “ three H ’s.” None of the new methods or subjects is, perhaps, so significant of this altered concept of edu cation as vocational guidance, a term often vaguely and carelessly applied. However, its significance lies in part in this very; vague ness and breadth of application. For vocational guidance is, after all, rather a method than a process of education, applicable from primer to placement and on through job experience until supervision becomes unnecessary. It is a new technique in an old field, inject ing the life career motive into the whole education process. Vocational guidance and placement can not be separated. In fact, in the placement office vocational guidance becomes more definite than at any other point in the educational process, because here an alysis of the job supplements analysis of the individual and the placement officer fits the two in practical application. Moreover he »checks up his judgment by subsequent record of the individual’s experience in the occupational world, advising promotion, transfer, or discharge, giving encouragement, and in countless ways meeting the individual need until the subject finds himself in a real vocation and the guidance is complete. 40 PLACEMENT PROBLEMS AFFECTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN. THE PLACEMENT OFFICE. 47 The placement office is the point of convergence for all influences touching the child as a social unit; the home, the school, the State, and the occupational world, with all their conflicting authorities and opportunities meet here, each presenting the adolescent with a problem as often unconscious as unknown. All these unknown ways—including himself—the youthful applicant should find mapped and charted at the placement office. The purpose of an employment office for juniors is guidance into and through a job from the legal working age until such time as the young worker finds himself mature in judgment and skill. Arbi trarily we may place this time from the legal working age to 21 years, though in point of fact it may be more and often is less. The average placement office deals, broadly speaking, with three groups of juniors: First. Those from 14 to 16, unformed, who are better in school than at work, anyway, and for whom jobs offering training and ad vancement are almost entirely lacking. Studies made of this group show with almost complete unanimity that these children are too young to have much value as industrial factors and indicate that whatever kind of work they are doing had better be done under a teacher rather than under a foreman and for purposes of training rather than of profit. In short, a child from 14 to 16 is fitter for a pupil than a wage earner, and nothing short of necessity should set him to wage earning as such. Second. Those between 16 and 18, the ones most in need of actual vocational guidance. They are physically and mentally mature enough to do a job that has a wage-earning value, but they are not mature enough to know what they want to do nor how to do it. Obviously they need more education. This may be given them by purely academic training or by trade training. It may be done on the job for certain types of work, or with many it may be done better by a combination of both school and work. Third. Those between 18 and 21. As a rule these boys and girls do not use the junior placement office in large numbers, espe cially after their first placement. The high-school boy who comes for his first job for personal reasons often continues to come to a particular office, but once he has had a start he is fairly well equipped to find his way from one job to another. The junior who has been a drifter up to this age is likely to feel himself a member of the adult world, whether he should be or not, and to seek man’s work through an adult employment office. It is primarily some condition of home life that sends a child to work in the first place. It does not matter how many contributing causes operate—inadequacy of schools, bad influences in the commu nity, poverty, or inherent personal incapacity. The outstanding fact is that the home fails at some point for some reason (and the reasons are outside the scope of this discussion) to discharge its natural function as guide and support of the child who seeks work before his education is complete. The placement office is the door through which the young worker passes to lose or to find himself in the big unknown on the other side. 48 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. “Alice Through the Looking Glass ” found a world scarcely less topsy-turvy and much more kindly and interesting than the working child is likely to find when he passes through this door. The junior placement office exists to meet the needs of this child setting out on his strange new adventure and its duties are vastly more than merely getting him a job. Sometimes it is the plain duty of the office to see that he does not get a job, but that he gets a new viewpoint or a scholarship or perhaps a square meal—certainly a square deal. How ever complex his need, a properly equipped placement office will somehow meet it. As Walter Dill Scott says, “ The object of all intelligent vocational guidance is placement, not elimination ” ; it is to put the individual where he will get the most good that he may be able to give the most good in the long run. WHAT DO WE MEAN BY A “ WELL-EQUIPPED PLACEMENT OFFICE **% Generalizations are breath of life to the theorist, and the pedant moves by precept. But the worker in the field, seeing precept and general proposition give way day after day to the exigencies of the thing to be done, comes to view both with a by no means altogether unwarranted suspicion and is apt to proceed by a rule of thumb which may in the long run produce results no more satisfactory than poorly grounded theorizing. Surely a careful evaluation of experiments in the field of junior employment should lead us to a formulation of some definite policies on specific matters of organization and administration, policies on which we may all in time agree and whose acceptance may chart for us certain known territory. 1. Allocation of office. What policies then, dare we assert, have been the result of careful analyses of experience? What solutions of certain specific problems either have been or shortly may be reached ? What shall we say, for example, about the allocation of offices ? Should every town of over 5,000 have a junior employment office? Other experience indicates that population alone should not determine. There are large towns where local social and economic conditions clearly indicate that the machinery of an office is unnecessary. The town composed mainly of well-to-do homes with a high percentage of students finishing high school and with limited opportunities for juvenile employment, the town where all of the employment opportunities are in one highly localized industry, the town where special church or fraternal agencies seem to have the field well in hand might each prove an in advisable location for an office. In short, there are many conditions that deserve equal consideration with that of population in determin ing the allocation of junior placement bureaus. 2. Supervisory authority, where vested. Once a town is decided upon where there is both a labor supply and a labor demand for juniors, under what supervision is it wisest to establish an office? Shall it be a State or municipal or private agency? Again, in a measure, local conditions will be the determin ing factor, but all experience indicates that whatever the supervising agency a very close connection with the public schools must be estab PLACEMENT PROBLEMS AFFECTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN. 49 lished and maintained. More will be said of this later, but we can set it down as a general proposition that such cooperation is abso lutely essential in any plan of junior placement based on serving and conserving the child. Facts have by no means established the thesis that where special State or city or other agencies have devel oped which are adequately fitted, physically and otherwise, to assist in the work the school should be the sole and only agent. Quite otherwise, there are a number of offices already established and work ing admirably under both State and private agencies. However, it is from the school that the junior labor supply comes, not as a lump total but as highly differentiated boys and girls, and it is only by appropriating all that the school has learned of them as individuals that placement can be carried on as a proper part of the vocational process. 3. Location of office. Shall this lead us to the conclusion that the actual office should be in a school building? Again local conditions must determine, but taken by and large it seems best that it should not be. Nor is the average adult employment office likely to be suitable for junior work. The schoolhouse is frequently remote from business centers and its available room not easily accessible to the visitor in search of em ployment; moreover, it is unattractive to the out-of-school boy or girl, jealous of the emancipation from school conditions. On the other hand, the adult office often has unsavory surroundings and its physical limitations may preclude the careful work necessary for junior placement. Experiments thus far indicate that a properly functioning junior office should be centrally located, of easy approach (on a ground floor if possible), and independent physically of both school and adult office. 4. Office equipment. The minimum equipment of such an office calls for an attractive and pleasant room which furnishes an opportunity for a private interview between applicant and counselor. For effective work there should be a staff of at least two people. One person can not always be in attendance, and it is disastrous to interrupt the interview for office routine or to miss calls from employers or others or for patron or applicant to find the office closed during business hours. 5. Personnel. Much discussion has arisen over the relative value of men and women in the field of vocational guidance and placement. Let us hope that enough will be done in the way of adequate salaries, oppor tunities for advancement, etc., to make this work attractive to both men and women. There -is, as in other educational work, a serious danger of overfeminizing it, and effort should be made to attract and hold competent men without giving them so much advantage that the more able women will be discouraged. If there are to be only two members of the staff, experience indicates that there should be a man for the boys and a woman for the girls. Should there be but one counselor, however, it seems better to have a woman, because she can handle the boys up to 16 about as efficiently as a man can and is better for girls of all ages. 50 ASSOCIATION OP PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. 6. Personnel training. A word as to the training of this personnel. The tendency is to take a teacher from the schools and supplement his training with some slight information or to choose some one from the industrial field and give him a dash of pedagogy. Such a makeshift is inevi table in the development of a new field. However, the facts are that this is a profession in itself, requiring a special and specific training neither exclusively of the school nor of the shop and factory, and it is altogether pertinent to inquire in passing what this placement offi cer needs to know and to examine into the nature of the service he renders. We must assume such a minimum of cultural background as shall have produced a personality capable of sympathetic adjustment and a mind adaptable to the often widely divergent views of child, par ent, and employer. He must be able to interpret and apply scienti fically the definite information about the child which the school can furnish him—the school records, the health certificate, the psycho logic test rating; he must comprehend the condition and economic status of the child’s home and be able at times to solve the problem of the child by an economic readjustment of the responsible adult; he must have a broad knowledge of the occupational world in general and know in painstaking detail the specific opportunities of his own community; he must by actual visiting and survey have knowledge of possible places of employment; he must be able to establish and maintain cordial relationships with both labor and capital and have the vision to steer a safe course through shallows of racial and relig ious prejudices ; he must know in detail the educational opportunities of the community as provided by part-time, vocational, and night schools, by apprentice training, by scholarships for the exceptional child, by corrective and charitable or semicharitable institutions for the ill and the defective; he must know the work of the visiting nurses, the mother’s pensions, and all other agencies which by assist ing the family may free the child for further education. He must be able to develop and carry on a publicity campaign which will sell a new service both to employer and employee. Moreover, he must j ustify the schools to the community by placing the product of the schools in the community, and he must, first and last, conserve childhood and adolescence through this, its most crucial period. Shall we not be warranted in maintaining, then, that this is a new profession and re quires new training? However, we still find that local conditions and meager budgets dictate to a great extent a personnel that must be trained on the job. This is an added urgent reason for as much standardization and cooperative effort as possible* in order that futile or disastrous experi mentation may be avoided. 7. Administration. Evidently this paper does not afford the scope for a discussion of minute questions of methods in operation; but there too are points which junior experimentation has established as peculiar to its own needs. PLACEMENT PROBLEMS AFFECTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN. 51 BLANKS AND FORMS. It seems eminently desirable that an attempt should be made to reach some accepted standards in the matter of blanks and forms. For one thing we need to agree on a common terminology, clearly defined, in order that we may interpret and understand one another’s work and use statistical information interchangeably. There has been a tendency to think that each local office required its own forms especially fitted to its work. These have experimental value, but where they are made early in the work and are not the result of careful evaluation of experience there may be a danger later of fitting rather the work to the forms than the forms to the work. Any efforts looking toward standardization here are very welcome. PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS. In the matter of psychological tests recent experiments have pointed to certain fairly definite conclusions: First, to their unques tioned value in a broad field, that is, for general classification; sec ond, to the negative fact that taken alone they are not adequate to determine fine points of distinction, especially where personal char acter and specific adaptation are involved, and should be corrected by comparison with other tests, records, etc.; and third, to the further fact that they are dependent for their validity on their scientific nature and should always be formulated and interpreted by the specially trained person. FOLLOW-UP. We noted in passing the importance of follow-up. This feature, which enters so slightly, if at all, into adult employment technique is the very heart of all successful junior work. Without follow-up placement of juniors easily becomes exploitation. It is only by following up the young worker on the job that the State can dis charge toward him the obligation which it recognizes in law and in fact toward the junior citizen who is fortunate enough to stay in school. Most jobs into which the child under 16 can possibly be fitted with any economic value whatever are dull routine and without educational value. Unless the child is carefully followed and guided after he is placed and his job supplemented by study and training of some sort, he is a fair candidate for the company of permanent misfits and drifters who at last become not only the unemployed but the unemployable. THE FEDERAL JUNIOR EMPLOYMENT SERVICE. With this group of junior citizens, boys and girls under 21, out of school and either at work or seeking it or idle—more than half of the youth of the country—the Federal Junior Employment Service is concerned. Such a service presents itself for our consideration under two aspects—first, its general scope and relationship to the whole field of vocational guidance, and second, its relationship toward spe cific local placement bureaus. The first and fundamental obligation of a Federal service is to be of value to the whole movement with junior employment, wherever 52 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. and througl\wliatever agencies it may be functioning. These agencies may be widely divergent; at times even they may seem to be working at cross purposes, but surely each and every one of them has the right, so long as it is functioning legitimately and honestly, to look to a Federal office for assistance. Then in our judgment the first function of a Federal office is this: To serve as a clearing house for the whole field of vocational guid-^ ance and placement, gathering information on all phases of the work, indicating tendencies, evaluating various experiments, and inter preting findings clearly and simply. All the results of its investi gation and work should be made available for general use with the idea of effecting the greatest possible economy of time and gen eral resources. Private agencies undertaking special lines of in vestigation might well list that fact at the Federal office even before any conclusions were reached, in order that duplication of effort might be avoided and the whole field apprised of research under taken. Investigations made by the Federal office should cover the work in considerable detail, entering into methods of registration, interview, filing, follow-up, etc., particularly into ways and means of selling the service to employers and the community and of cooperation through local organizations, such as chambers of commerce, employ ment managers’ organizations, or the organizations of special groups to work directly with the local placement office. They should be technical enough to command the respect of the expert, but simple enough to be of value to every person, however untrained, who is confronted by the problems of junior guidance and employment. And finally these studies, properly evaluated, should look toward some standardization of organization and method. To carry on this work implies of course that the Federal office shall have a staff of investigators and special research workers. Such a staff at present need not be very large, for although the field is wide, experiments as yet undertaken are neither too numerous nor too elaborately developed to be reasonably reviewed by a few adequately trained experts. Second, a Federal service should itself conduct experiments in junior placement through cooperation with local offices, giving aid in establishment, varying according to local needs and national re sources. These cooperating offices should be limited to sections where local occupational and educational conditions are particularly favorable to the work, and while they serve incidentally to develop junior placement and guidance in their particular communities they should be regarded primarily as experiment stations where funda mental and specific junior employment problems can be worked out by a trained personnel and information collected and interpreted scientifically and made available to the whole country through the Washington office. In brief, these local offices provide first-hand information in regard to the junior wage earner and his relation to the public schools and the occupational world; the national office makes this information available to both educator and employer, who recognize a mutual responsibility in the person of the young worker as a potential citizen. It is the policy of the junior division to develop a few placement offices in representative sections to a point of efficiency rather than PLACEMENT PROBLEMS AFFECTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN. 53 to spread superficially over a wider territory. Only in this way can the service get results of value to the country as a whole; that is, function as a true Federal service. It is possible that at times Fed eral financial aid may be withdrawn from offices which have so estab lished themselves as to be locally autonomous, or from offices which have for any reason ceased to be contributory to the national move ment. Appropriate aid may also be given to offices already estab lished to secure greater efficiency when that efficiency will be of general benefit. A further service the Federal office may render con sists in supplying special agents not only to visit cooperating offices but to offer temporary aid to communities on specific problems requiring a highly trained personnel that they themselves could not support and to bring to new offices an experience and skill they could not themselves command in setting up their machine. Third, a Federal service should aim to establish and maintain a limited number of experiment stations of its own in various parts of the country which present different types of educational and indus trial problems. One of the main functions of such stations should be to serve as places for training a personnel for the field at large, as well as for working out unique or difficult problems which need that freedom from local pressure and that opportunity for more time and funds which can best be provided by a Federal service, well equipped and fully functioning. Obviously the work of these stations would be made available in the form of reports, charts, statistics, etc., for the benefit of the whole field. It is altogether possible that much of their work should be suggested and, in a wide sense, supervised by an advisory committee composed not of people directly employed by the Federal Government but of trained workers occupied in the various phases of vocational guidance and placement who would be willing to aid the Federal office with their ability and experience and who could be brought; together at the Washington office once or twice a year for a broad survey of the field. Such a Federal service can bring to the whole problem of the junior wage earner a broad and disinterested viewpoint outside the range of local experience, and it can better afford than the community to finance an investment in the general welfare whose return may be slowly realized. Vocational guidance for juniors as applied in a placement office attacks the problem of employment at its roots. It aims, on the one hand, to know scientifically the occupational world in which the indi vidual must actually function; on the other, the educational world which fits—or fails to fit—him for it; and, finally, to help the indi vidual make the adjustment from the one to the other. SOME PROBLEMS OF THE WOMEN’S DIVISION OF THE PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICE. BY MISS MARION C. FINDLAY, WOMEN’ S CLERICAL AND INDUSTRIAL DIVISION, EM PLOYMENT SERVICE OF CANADA, TORONTO. Sir James Barrie in his address to the students of St. Andrew’s University in May said to them: “ I wish that for this hour I could swell into some one of importance, so as to do you credit.” I repeat those words with much greater fervor than Barrie. 54 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. In speaking of some of the problems of the women’s division of the public employment service I feel that I can not give any startling new ideas or any revolutionary suggestions to you who are connected with a service which is older than our service in Can ada. The problems we have been meeting in the last few years are possibly not new to any of us and they differ from problems of the men’s department only in degree. It is said that “ an organism is intelligent in proportion as it adapts itself to its environment.” That is the chief problem of an employment service, in fact of any service—how best to meet the needs of the community and society in general. We can not hope to do this by forcing our serv ice upon the people, as a small boy scout might do in order to ac complish his good deed daily. It is necessary to gain and to keep the sympathy and confidence first of the employers and applicants and second of public opinion. This is one of the great tasks of a public employment service. Everyone connected with the service should contribute toward the accomplishment of this task. What problems do we find in our attempt to serve (1) the appli cant, (2) the employer, and (3) the public in general? It is the duty of a public employment service to receive all applicants and all orders and to do everything possible to give satisfaction in every case. Because of this fact a service will always have its problems. There will always be applicants who are difficult to place and orders which are almost impossible to fill, because of the nature of the work or the conditions of work. In the women’s division of a public employment service which includes all general work—that is, which is not a specialized divi sion—the greatest problem in connection with applicants is prob ably education or rather lack of education. Too many have started on their careers without the education which is so necessary for future success. This is where vocational guidance should apply— not for juveniles only, but for adults as well. There is a vital connection between vocational guidance in its broader sense and the problem of unemployment. Lack of education is a greater draw back to a girl who has been working several years than to a girl just starting out. That is usually what impedes her progress and makes it difficult for her to advance. This deficiency can be at least decreased by night classes in either academic or practical work, and applicants should be advised of this constantly. If a girl started her career five years ago as a general clerical worker, that is no reason why she should not become a stenographer, book keeper, or cost accountant, all of which should be more remunerative and possibly more interesting. Information as to the general requirements and possibilities of various fields should be at the disposal of all applicants who desire it, and the wisdom of selfimprovement in order to qualify for higher requirement should be impressed emphatically upon them. Some employers consider personality and appearance almost as important as education and general ability. This is one problem that looms larger in women’s work than in men’s. In speaking of problems, the discussion of such a point as standards of dress and manners is undeniably pertinent because untidiness or unsuitability of dress and awkward manners will surely stand in the way of a girl*s success in business. PLACEMENT PROBLEMS AFFECTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN. 55 Then there is the problem of placing girls who are already em ployed or of showing them the wisdom of remaining where they are. Tales of less work and more pay often unsettle girls, sometimes rightly so, or they feel that they can do better work than their pres ent position demands. How can they find that better work without taking days off? Often it seems wise for them to remain where they are, and it is difficult to persuade them of this. They are sometimes responsible for the cause of their discontent—they do not work in har mony with the rest of the staff, they are afraid of extra work, or perhaps again it is lack of training. Whatever is the cause, proper direction in the matter would be more valuable service than hastily sending them off to new positions. There is the difficulty of the older applicants—that does not mean only applicants of 50 or 60 years—for some offices 28 is old. Our sympathy for such naturally increases as we advance in years our selves, but the problem does not decrease—where to find work that older women can do just as well as the younger and be happy doing it. An intimate knowledge of the various firms is the first essential in such a matter. There is the great problem which is most familiar to all of us—the problem of the inefficient. In times of general unemployment it is usually the inefficient who suffer first. Some of them do not realize their deficiencies. If you ask them what kind of work they can do, they answer, “Oh, any kind!” They can not be ignored because, as stated before, the public employment service must work in the in terest of all applicants and all employers appealing to the service. We can not create work for them, we can not make them over to fit work that is available, and sometimes we can not make them “ stay p u t” when they are placed. This is our eternal problem—what to do with the inefficient. Thus positions and applicants never even up— it is never possible to balance accounts at the end of the week or month showing no applicants unplaced and no orders unfilled. These are some of the problems in connection with applicants, but all applicants are not problems. There are many who are first class in every way and are placed satisfactorily with little effort. JBut there will always be those who need so much assistance and so much advice—not that the advice is always put into practice and works like a charm and everybody lives happy ever after. That is the difficulty, and that is why the problem is ever present. With such discouragements any expressions of appreciation of services rendered are very welcome. When an applicant exclaimed “ I had no idea the Government took such an interest in us,” you may be sure the Government was pleased. What are the problems in connection with employers? One is their lack of knowledge of the scope of an employment service. Some employers cling to the idea that an employment service for women is the place to get a charwoman or an errand girl or some kind of casual worker. They must be taught otherwise, and the surest way of impressing this upon their minds is to give them complete satisfaction in their initial orders and of course in all sub sequent orders as well. By discrimination in selection with a due regard for personality the confidence of such employers should be gained, and they will "realize the convenience of the service in saving 56 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. the time of their firms in interviewing unsuitable applicants who will flock to their doors in answer to an advertisement. Thus, once having justified the existence of such an employment service to them, they will be strong supporters and advocates* of the system as Mr. Meath and Mr. Boyd both pointed out this morning. An employer is often unwilling to trust any judgment but his own and hesitates to make a decision until applicants from all possible sources have been interviewed. The result is often that he loses the girl he finally decides upon because in the meantime she has been placed elsewhere through the employment service. In such a case information re possible applicants should be available for him. If he knows as soon as the applicant is sent to him from the service her special qualifications and realizes his risk in losing her because she is a capable girl, he will be encouraged to make an immediate decision, perhaps satisfactory to all concerned. There is the employer’s lack of fair understanding and treatment of his employees which is a difficulty to be met by the Employment Service. It is necessary from time to time to educate employers in the matter of wages. They should be made to realize that other similar firms are paying higher rates and are able to get and keep good workers and that they will have to make adjustments in order to compete with them. As mentioned before, there are cases where girls want to leave their present employment. The employer is often to blame for this because of a low wage, and it falls to the lot of an employment service worker to act as mediator. If done to the advantage of both, something is accomplished in stabilizing employment. Firms need to be reminded constantly of the importance of teach ing inexperienced workers. For instance, operators—if all firms call for experienced operators only, where will girls get the oppor tunity to learn, and where will the future supply come from? It is only through some central organization such as an employment service that information as to general industrial conditions can be had by various employers. What has the public employment service to do with the general public, apart from the applicants and employers making use of the service ? There is the matter of information as to the general use of the labor market, conditions of unemployment, etc. In order that uniform statistics may be prepared, each division must -contribute the information gathered through the workings of the division. This is an important duty as it is related to relief and relief work in times of distress and to the regulation of immigration. Such statistics would be utilized also in formulating a plan for unemployment in surance, if such were desirable. There is the problem of making time in a busy office for outside work which is so essential. It is necessary to have at hand general information as to vocational opportunities. This means keeping in touch with various firms, knowing conditions and the requirements of different positions, the chances of advancements, etc. In fact placement and investigation should go hand in hand. Another form of necessary outside work is attending meetings of various kinds, belonging to clubs, and addressing gatherings of both young people and adults on some phase of the work. This is a very necessary form PLACEMENT PROBLEMS AFFECTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN. 57 of publicity and helps to give the service the position of prominence which it should occupy. “ His rebus cognitis,” as we used to read in our Caesar; or, in other words, since these are some of the problems to be met in public em ployment service work, who is the person best able to deal with these problems? As far as I know there has been no judgment passed as to who is or has been the best worker in the employment service of Canada. If there were to be such a contest, who would be judge, and what points would guide the decision? Would it be placements that would count for most, statistics, information, advice, low per capita cost, or what? A worker in the employment service, in addition to good executive ability, should have a broad understanding so that she, and he too, would be able to see things from the point of view of both employer and employee. She should have good judgment in order that her decision in any matter might instill confidence in the minds of those wTho have dealings with the service. It is very necessary, too, that a successful worker have a vision of the bigness of the problem, the importance and dignity of the work, and an indefatigable optimism that would carry her through the days of discouragement. Some one has said “ There is no greater satisfaction for a man than to be happy in his work. This is his reward.” An employment service worker has sometimes a double reward—by being happy in her own work and by making it possible for other people to be happy in theirs. DINNER SESSION. H O W T H E E M E R G E N C Y IM M IGRATION L A W W O RKS O U T. BY W. W. HUSBAND, COMMISSIONER GENERAL OF IMMIGRATION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR. UNITED STATES For nearly a century following the Revolutionary War the United States maintained an open-door policy with respect to immigration, and the doors were open to all classes and conditions of men from every clime* Throughout the century more or less determined effort was made to bring about some restriction of the alien movement into the country, but until 1882 the efforts were without result. The year 1882, however, marked an important milestone in our immigra tion history for then the first Chinese exclusion law was adopted, and this was the beginning of what is apparently a permanent law with respect to oriental immigration. In the same year the first general immigration law was also enacted. This provided for the exclusion from the United States of four classes of undesir ables—idiots, insane people, criminals other than political criminals and persons likely to become a public charge. This general law has undergone several revisions until at the present time there are some 30 more or less distinct classes of aliens who are denied ad mission to the country. With the exception of the laws relative to orientals, however, all of the legislation has been selective rather than restrictive, and until the enactment of the Dillingham per centum limit law of May 19, 1921, no limit was set on the number of Europeans who might come to the United States provided they met the physical and other tests which the law prescribed. The literacy test, which was added to the law in 1917, after a struggle which had continued for a quarter of a century, was primarily intended as a restrictive measure but obviously it could not be depended upon to accomplish that end. When the law of 1882 was enacted, approximately 85 per cent of all our European immigration originated in the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and France, and only about 15 per cent came from southern and eastern Europe. In the 25 years which followed a remarkable change occurred in the character of our European immigration, and by 1907 the situation was practically reversed and about 85 per cent of those admitted hailed from southern and eastern Europe and only about 15 per cent from northern and western Europe. The reasons for this change are well established and need no discussion, but the change in the racial character of the immigrants, even more than the enormous numbers, has been the real basis of the immigra tion problem during the past 20 years. There were of course objections on economic grounds and without doubt they were well founded, but the apprehension with respect to unlimited immigra58 HOW THE EMERGENCY IMMIGRATION HAW WORKS OUT. 59 tion was very largely based on the fear that an unrestricted move ment from southern and eastern Europe would not only permanently affect the character of the population but would endanger the very institutions which the fathers had established in the new world. It is true, of course, that the same fear prevailed during the periods of enormous immigration from the so-called older sources, but as the earlier comers became assimilated into the population and were widely scattered throughout the country they came to be regarded as genuine assets rather than liabilities, and for 40 years or more there has been little or no objection to the coming of what are now generally referred to as the Nordic stock. Accordingly, the problem in more recent years has been how ma terially to check the movement from southern and eastern Europe without unduly interfering with that coming from the older sources. The literacy test was primarily intended for this purpose but, as already pointed out, it could not be depended upon to bring about the desired results. Immigration, and particularly European im migration, was practically at a standstill during the World War, but following the armistice there was every indication of an enormous movement from the war-stricken and impoverished countries to the United States as war-time restrictions were removed and traveling facilities were restored. There was an unmistakable call for restriction, or even suspension, of all European immigration, and in December, 1920, the House of Representatives responded by passing a bill which practically shut off all immigration for a period of 14 months and there were only 43 votes recorded against it. Instead of adopting the House measure, however, the Senate turned to the Dillingham per centum limit plan as a possible remedy for the situation, and as a result the present quota law was enacted and went into effect on June 3, 1921. This law provides that the number of aliens of any nationality who may be admitted to the United States in any fiscal year shall not exceed 3 per cent of the number of persons&of like nationality who were in the United States in 1910 as shown by the census of that year. Na tionality in this case is determined by country of birth. To illustrate, if there were in the United States in 1910 100,000 persons who were born in a given country, the number of immigrants who might be admitted from that country in any fiscal year would be limited to 3,000, or 3 per cent of such population. The law is applicable only to immigration from Europe, the Near East (including Turkey, Persia, Mesopotamia, and Arabia), Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. In other words, it does not apply to the great countries of Asia, nor to Canada, Mexico, and other countries of the new world. The possible effect of the law on immigration from Europe during the present year is suggested by a comparison with the normal move ment prior to the World War. In normal years immediately prior to the outbreak of the war about 185,000 immigrants came from the north and west of Europe and about 750,000 from the southern and eastern countries, principally from Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Greece, and Turkey. Under the per centum limit plan approximately 200,000 are admissible annually from the older sources, so that in effect there is no restriction upon the normal movement from those 37542°-—23-----5 60 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. countries, while only about 155,000 may be admitted from the south and east of Europe and Turkey, or approximately one-fifth of the normal number who were admitted in pre-war years. It is of course impossible to say how many immigrants have been kept out of this country during the past fiscal year as the result of the per centum limit act, but the number has been variously estimated from 500,000 to 1,000,000. The latter estimate is probably an ex aggeration although it is perhaps safe to say that 500,000 have been kept back by the operation of the law. The countries of northern and western Europe, however, have not taken advantage of the quota allotted to them, as during the past fiscal year only 46 per cent of those who might have come have actually been admitted. On the other hand, 95 per cent of the year’s quota of southern and eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey were admitted and the quotas of practically all of these countries except Russia and Austria were exhausted early in the year. Only 219,166 immigrant aliens had been admitted from Europe and Asiatic Turkey compared with 1,081,012 for the year 1913-14. The operation of the law has had an interesting effect on the pro portion of immigrants coming from the sections of Europe under discussion. While in the fiscal year 1913-14 only 15 per cent of the immigrants came from northern and western Europe and 85 per cent from southern and eastern European countries and Asiatic Turkey, in the present fiscal year 36 per cent have come from northern and western Europe and 64 per cent from the southern and eastern European countries including Asiatic Turkey. Although the change in this respect is not all that might have been anticipated because of the relatively small number who have come from the old sources, nevertheless, the fact that the proportion coming from such sources has increased from 15 to 36 per cent is a pretty clear indication that the law is accomplishing what it was intended to accomplish in this respect. Therefore, if the so-called Nordic stock is prefer able to that of the newer souses of immigration, as seems to be so generally believed, there has been a very decided improvement in the character of the movement over pre-war years. It is needless to say that the administration of the per centum limit law has been attended with many difficulties, but all in all it is doubtful whether any plan of restriction which might be ap plied would have given less trouble. Hardships have been inflicted on immigrants and the Immigration Service alike and many per plexing questions have arisen. On the whole, the difficulties have been very largely due to aliens coming in excess of the monthly quotas rather than of the allotment for the year. The law pro vides that not more than 20 per cent of the yearly quota may be admitted in any one month, and for the first six months the law was in operation our ports, and particularly Ellis Island, were crowded, sometimes beyond capacity, with those who had come in excess of the monthly quotas. In the month of June, 1921, when the law first went into effect, nearly 11,000 aliens in excess of the admissible quota applied for admission at our ports. The situation thus created was an utterly impossible one, and in order to avoid the hardships inflicted Secretary Davis admitted the excess thou sands temporarily and subsequently Congress legalized his act and HOW THE EMERGENCY IMMIGRATION LAW WORKS OUT. 61 mad© their admission permanent. Somewhat less than 4,200 came in excess of the quotas during the last year and of these about 2,508 were admitted temporarily in the interests of humanity, while only 1,662 were actually rejected as excess quota during the fiscal period. All in all the law has accomplished certain definite things. It has restricted immigration to a figure far below the normal move ment prior to the war and presumably far below what it would have been during the past year in the absence of restriction. It has as already stated, by severe restriction of immigration from southern and eastern European countries, more than doubled the proportion of the old-time immigrants in the movement, but other wise the law can hardly be said to have contributed greatly toward a constructive immigration policy. However, it seems to me that it is a safe corner stone upon which a more constructive policy may be erected, for by limiting numbers beyond what might be called the danger point it has in my opinion opened the way for legislation which will make possible a better selection of immi grants when there is a renewed demand for alien labor in the United States, as there must be when the expected revival of in dustry becomes a reality. The war, as I have said, reduced European immigration to a minimum, and with the exception of the fiscal year 1921, when some what more than 800,000 immigrant aliens were admitted, there has been nothing like a revival of the pre-war movement. In the mean time very large numbers of former immigrants have returned to Europe, so that during the past eight years there has been a com paratively small addition to the immigrant working population in the country. In view of the fact that our labor in the past has been largely performed by Europeans, it seems reasonable to suppose that there will be a continuing need for such labor in the future, and it seems entirely reasonable to believe that when the demand for im migrants comes again and that demand can be supplied only to a very limited extent by southern and eastern Europeans, the induce ments will be such as to attract immigrants of the older, or Nordic, stock to the limit permitted by the quota law. This, as already pointed out, would result in a preponderance of northern and west ern Europeans in the incoming tide, but even then the number who could respond to any demand in the United States would be re stricted to a comparatively small part of the number who came dur ing prosperous years prior to the World War. If there is a demand which honestly exceeds the available supply, it would seem only right that some provision be made for supplying such excess demands, and such an addition would, it seems to me, make it possible to develop a constructive immigration policy based on a selection not only to meet the industrial needs of the country but also to permit of a quality selection which would contribute to the upbuilding rather than to the possible undermining of American citizenship, ideals, and institutions. It is quite impossible to say what effect, if any, the Dillingham law has had on the movement of aliens out of the United States. This outward movement has continued in much the same proportions as in other years. The number leaving the country during the past fiscal year was 198,712. The total number of immigrant aliens ad mitted during the same period was 809,556, leaving a permanent 62 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. addition to the population through immigration and emigration of only 110,844. A casual inspection of the statistics relative to the distribution of immigrants by States for the past fiscal year indicates that a considerably larger proportion have gone to the Western and agricul tural States than was the case for many years prior to the war. This is due, o f course, to the increased proportion o f the older type o f immigration in the movement, for it is a well-known fact that while the more recent immigrants have largely congregated in the cities and industrial districts the northern and western Europeans have always become widely scattered throughout the country and that a far larger proportion o f them have found their way into agricultural activities. I f this trend continues, as it promises to do, immigra tion will in a corresponding degree become less of a problem. INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF SOME OF OUR NATIONAL PROBLEMS. BY ERNEST GREENWOOD, AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR OFFICE. It was with a peculiar sense of gratification that I accepted the invitation of your secretary to speak to you to-night on the subject of the “ International aspects of some of our national problems.” There are some of you here who will recall that my first experience with Government service was with the United States Employment Service. This eventually led me into my present work. I therefore feel that I owe a very particular debt of gratitude to that branch of the Government establishment. Before taking up the subject of my talk to you—the international aspects of some of our national problems—it will be necessary for me to give a brief description of the organization which it is my good fortune to represent in the United States, for to a certain ex tent it is from the viewpoint of that organization that I am going to talk. The international labor organization is an autonomous asso ciation of 54 nations, nonpolitical in character, dealing with those industrial, social, and economic problems which have international aspects. It has for its charter what is known as Part X III of the treaty of Versailles. It is not, as many seem to think, a branch or department of the League of Nations; its autonomy is unquestioned. It is not an institution set up to secure preferential treatment for organized labor, but rather an institution having for its principal purpose the improvement of conditions of employment in the more backward countries, raising these conditions to the standards which exist in the more progressive countries. The effect of such a pur pose, if carried out, upon the industry of the United States, its rela tion to our tariff, to immigration, and to our unemployment crises, are all part of my general subject. Its annual conference, while called the International Labor Conference, is in reality an annual economic conference of the member nations. A study of the algenda of these past conferences will show that every branch of industrial economics comes within its jurisdiction, whether it be the protection of women INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF SOME NATIONAL PROBLEMS. 63 and children, hours of work, employment and unemployment, immi gration, maritime affairs, agriculture, the three-shift versus the twoshift day in the steel industry, or such subjects as the disinfection of wool from anthrax spores, or the care for the disabled veteran of the World War. It is perhaps the greatest experiment in interna tional cooperation, without even excepting the League of Nations, the world has ever dreamed of, for it depends entirely upon moral force to translate its work into definite action in the form of legisla tion by the parliaments of the different member nations. We hear a great deal of prattle these days about this country being the richest and most diversified in resources of any country on earth; and that the opportunities to prosper from our domestic trade are unlimited; that our foreign trade is relatively so small as to be negli gible ; and that we can easily isolate ourselves and live on our own. And we hear a great deal of prattle about not taking any part in the affairs of Europe until Europe has settled its political difficulties, and until nations can balance their budgets, and until we have limi tation of land armaments and the money saved used to balance these budgets. At this point let me call your attention to a statement made by Secretary of State Hughes in a speech before the tenth annual con vention of the United States Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Hughes said: The difficulty of maintaining enlightened public opinion with respect to national matters is very great, and it has been increased in this country by lack of general interest, at least until recently, in foreign affairs. This goodnatured indifference except in times of great emergencies, our geographical position, the extent of our country, and1the wide range of domestic opportunity have developed a sense of self-sufficiency. We have only begun to think inter nationally, and we find the attitude of the public mind to be still ill-adjusted to the magnitude of financial power and to the international interests we have accumulated as the result of the World War. Many leaders of thought, including a great many persons who have always been violently opposed to the League of Nations and to the treaty of Versailles, are now wondering whether or not our own economic ills are due, in a measure, to our failure to take a lead ing part in the establishment of a firm and lasting peace throughout the world. The possibility that our refusal to take any part in inter national cooperation has resulted in a failure to establish peace and has broken down the international group that worked in such har mony during the war is beginning to be recognized. Some authorities go so far as to say that our total disregard of the international aspects of our own domestic problems has proved an insurmountable obstacle in the way of curing our own economic ills. By this I do not suggest the surrender of the national view point, nor do I suggest the surrender of any or all of the principles popularly grouped under the word “Americanism.” I do suggest, however, that the giving of due consideration and proper value to the international aspects of domestic problems makes possible the solution of international economic problems so necessary to estab lish a basis on which to work out the solution of our own difficulties. Take, for example, the question of the tariff. Tariff legislation in the United States is not generally described as “ protective tariff ” without a reason; it is, in fact, designed primarily for the protection 64 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. of American industry from the ruinous international trade compe tition of goods which can be made more cheaply in other countries than in our own—the kind of competition, for instance, which seems to be menacing our manufacturers with goods made in Germany. The fact that these goods can be made more cheaply in countries other than our own is not due to the distribution of raw materials. America leads the world in the production of raw materials. Fur thermore, many of these competing goods are made from raw mate rials furnished by the United States. It is due primarily to the fact that many of these other countries have standards of conditions of employment which are much lower than those of the United States. The labor costs are but a fraction of our own labor costs; hence the phrase “ competition of cheap for eign labor.” In order to meet this situation American business seems blind to any solution except a high protective tariff. The possi bility of raising the standards of labor in the less-progressive coun tries has seemed too remote to engage attention. Even the fact that this work has been going on for the past two and a half years by international discussion at the international labor conferences and by national discussion and national action based on these interna tional discussions, with very marked results, has attracted little or no attention in this country. Had the United States taken its place in these discussions this work would have progressed with more rapidity, for the reason that the special machinery which was de signed and constructed and put in operation for this very purpose was designed with the idea that the United States would play a lead ing part. I will return to the tariff in a few moments and take up its bearing on your own particular problem. Or take the question of agriculture. The problem of the agricul turist is about the last one which the average American thinks of as having any decided international aspects. Let us consider the matter. More than one-third of our population live upon farms or are de pendent upon agriculture. Their prosperity depends not upon the amount which they produce but upon the price which they receive for their products. While to a certain extent this price is influenced by domestic demand it is the foreign demand which is the determin ing factor. To have a stable market for agricultural products we must have a stable foreign market for these products. As Mr. Silas H. Strawn, speaking before the United States Chamber of Commerce, said, our whole economic development, including agri cultural development, has been adjusted to meet a continually increas ing foreign trade. Or take the problems of my good friend Mr. Husband, the Com missioner General of Immigration, with their relations to labor and also to the other nations of the world. It is my belief that the hard ship involved in the exclusion clauses of our immigration law, which is due largely to the fact that most of our immigrants must journey 3,000 or 4,000 miles before coming in contact with our immigration officials, can only be solved by so-called “ inspection at the source ” ; in other words, the admission of the immigrant at or near his home. And it is my belief that this inspection at the source can be accom plished without the necessity of international treaties and elaborate diplomatic negotiations. Prior to the year 1914 diplomats looked INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF SOME NATIONAL PROBLEMS. 65 coldly on any suggestion of installing our immigration inspection offices in a quasi judicial capacity on their soil. It looked like an invasion of sovereignty and all that sort of thing. Any effort to over come this prejudice seemed to involve interminably diplomatic cor respondence, negotiations, and international treaties. The International Emigration Commission, consisting of repre sentatives and immigration experts of 17 of the countries principally interested in the migration of workers, has been established by the international labor organization, and has held one 10-day session. It is made up of representatives of Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, South Africa, Sweden, Germany, China, India, Spain, Japan, Canada, Brazil, France, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Argentina, and Aus tralia. The men on this commission are specialists in the matter of immigration and emigration. In all probability they understand the American problem as clearly as most of our students understand it, and I am convinced that they are, in general, anxious to assist us. The representatives of our own Government should have very little difficulty in persuading these experts that inspection at the source not only solves our immigration problems but would be extremely beneficial to their own nationals. After a thorough study they would be in a position to go back to their own Governments and remove such prejudice and political obstruction as has hitherto pre vented the installation of this humane system. I will now turn to the problems in which you are most interested, namely, the problems of employment and unemployment. Very few people realize that unemployment to-day has definite interna tional aspects. The American public seems to think that it is nothing more than a community or at best a State problem. The fact that the unemployment crisis is not confined to the borders of any one State does not seem to arouse any particular interest in the United States in action on a national scale, any more than the fact that un employment crises have appeared simultaneously in many countries does not suggest that a consideration from an international view point might prove profitable. There are, however, certain aspects of the unemployment situation in many countries which are to a certain extent international in character and which must be taken into consideration when studying the problem in any particular country. These international characteristics indicate that the causes and effects of a serious unemployment crisis in any country are by no means confined to the territory within the frontiers of that country. They have regard to economic forces which cross the frontiers, as, for example, the fluctuations of trade, financial crisis (originally local or even artificial), spreading to industry and becoming interna tional, thus affecting employment in all countries, and the effect of unemployment in decreasing imports or exports, thus causing distress in foreign countries. Again, there are certain other international re sults of unemployment. In each country it diminishes the market for foreign goods in that country and weakens the power of exporting for every country in which it is serious. This may lead to the advo cacy of tariffs and protection, with a view to diminishing imports from abroad; this in turn may create unemployment abroad. In a 66 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. statement made to the Senate Finance Committee, Arthur Balfour, head of a committee representing the high-speed tool steel industry of Sheffield, England, stated that if the proposed tariff on steel re mains in our new tariff bill, half the manufacturers in Sheffield will be forced to close down, thus adding to the already heavy unemploy ment in England. The productive capacity of each nation is weak ened because the material from abroad is lessened by unemployment there. Unrest and revolutionary feeling due to unemployment spread from country to country. These are a few of the most obvious and immediate international results of unemployment; clearly there are innumerable other and more distant results affecting the whole structure of society. It might, therefore, very well be concluded that these international characteristics necessitate the treatment of the general problem on an international scale (by conferences, agreements, and understand ings between nations) as one of the most subtle and pervading dis eases of the present industrial system. It should also be remembered that the same problem is appearing in many countries and that several of them have adopted similar methods of solving it. The very nature of unemployment can be better understood by comparing the experience of many peoples. Informa tion as to the methods of treating unemployment in one State may provide suggestions for the improvement of methods used in other States. Let me repeat that unless we are to have continued unemployment in this country this foreign market must absolutely be protected. On account of the war the productivity of our industry was increased to such an extent that it has been authoritatively stated that we can now turn out as much manufactured products in 7 months as we could in 12 months before the war. We can not tell our manufac turers to gear down the machine to pre-war capacity. We must expand and progress. We can not go backward. To isolate our selves and cut off our foreign trade would result in such intensive domestic competition as to precipitate an economic panic in this country the like of which has never been seen. The maintenance of a large volume of imports is just as essential to our progress as the maintenance of a large volume of exports. The European nations can not continue to buy unless we continue to buy of them. You will perhaps be interested to know something about the action which has been taken by the international labor conference of the International Labor Organization on the subject of employment and unemployment. The first international labor conference, which under the terms of Part X III of the treaty of Versailles was held in Washington in 1919, adopted a draft convention and a recommendation concern ing unemployment. The draft convention provided that each mem ber State which ratified it should establish a system of free public employment agencies under the control of a central authority. It also provided that where both public and private free employment agencies exist steps should be taken to coordinate the operations of these agencies on a national scale. The recommendation recom mended that all the members of the International Labor Organiza INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OP SOME NATIONAL PROBLEMS. 67 tion take steps to prohibit the establishment of employment agencies which charged fees or which carried on their business for profit. It also recommended that the recruiting of bodies of workers in one country with a view to their employment in another country should be prohibited only by mutual agreement between the countries con cerned and after consultation with employers and workers in each country in the industries concerned. In order that you may understand the action of the various Gov ernments on this convention and recommendation, I think I should describe to you briefly the two methods in which a convention may be treated. It may be ratified as adopted by the international labor convention by two or more Governments. If it is so ratified, it be comes an international treaty, subject to all the conditions which sur round treaties. In other words, if it is ratified, the action of the Government can not be repealed except under such conditions as may be provided for denouncing it. A Government may, however, carry out the spirit of the convention by passing legislation which has the same effect as the convention. Such legislation could, of course, at any time be repealed. I wish you to bear in mind, however, that the Government is not obligated to take any action other than to submit the convention to the competent authorities for consideration. In the case of the convention providing for the establishment of a system of free employment agencies under the control of a central authority, this convention has been ratified by Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Greece, India, Norway, Rumania, and Sweden. In other words, these countries have ratified the treaty in which they agree to establish these free employment agencies. The Parliaments of Italy, Spain, and Switzerland have authorized ratifi cation. The Governments of Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, and Poland have recommended ratification to their Parlia ments. In British Columbia, Denmark, Japan, Rumania, and Spain acts have been passed carrying out the spirit of the convention. Bills have been introduced in Chile, Czechoslovakia, Finland, and Rumania having the same effect. In the case of the recommendation pro hibiting fee-charging agencies, acts have been passed by the Parlia ments of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Norway, Poland, and Spain. Bills have been intro duced into the Parliaments of Chile, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Norway, and Poland. Bills have been drafted or are in course of preparation in Belgium, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, and Poland. Approval has been authorized by Bulgaria and Rumania. Approval has been recommended to Parliament by Germany. Aus tria, Finland, Italy, and Sweden have notified the international labor office that the recommendation is already applied by law. The second international labor conference, commonly known as the seaman’s conference, adopted a draft convention for establish ment of facilities for finding employment for seamen, a draft con vention concerning unemployment indemnity in cases of loss or foundering of the ship, and a recommendation concerning unemploy ment insurance for seamen. The progress of these conventions and this recommendation in the Parliaments of the world have been quite as marked as that in the case of the first conference. 68 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. The third international labor conference, which was held in Geneva last year, was largely devoted to questions affecting agricultural employment. Sufficient time has not yet elapsed for the recording of definite results from the work of this conference. This then, less than three years after its establishment, is the result of the work of the International Labor Organization with regard to the particular problem of unemployment. Never in the history of international relations has anything in the way of action by Governments been accomplished which is comparable to it, and you must remember, gentlemen, that this question of unemployment is only one of many questions with regard to labor, industrial relations, and economic conditions which has been under consideration by the international labor conference and the international labor office. The success of this experiment in international cooperation and in this effort to improve conditions of employment in the more backward countries completely overshadows any similar attempt in the history of international relations. I might stand here for hours giving you incidents filled with human interest. Let me tell you the story of the children in the carpet industry in the Kerman district of Persia. It will only take a moment. For a hundred years or more these children have been put to work at their little looms at the age of 4 and 5 years. Day in and day out, from sunrise to sunset, they have been seated tailor fashion working away all day long, knowing nothing of school or play. In a few years their limbs have grown in a grotesque fashion and are withered and useless. When this time has arrived they have been carried back and forth to their work. Nearly two years ago representations* were made to the interna tional labor office concerning this condition, and the director of the office wrote the Persian Government calling its attention to the fact that in the nine basic principles laid down in Part X III of the treaty of peace to which Persia had subscribed there was one which provided for the protection of children in industry. I will not take the time to describe the innumerable letters of a similar character written by the director, but I will only say that as a result of his efforts the Government of Persia has established in the Kerman dis trict regulations providing for a minimum age of 10 years, a maxi mum working day,‘adequate time off for rest and food in the middle of the day, proper seating arrangements for women and children, and a general improvement in conditions of employment. While con ditions are still far below the standards set by such countries as ours, this is a tremendous step forward. It may add to the cost of Persian rugs in New York or San Francisco, but I submit, ladies and gentle men, that this scheme is far better than any protective tariff which might be devised by the greatest tariff expert in the world. Or take the conditions in maritime pursuits. The standard of conditions of employment of ships of American registry are higher than the standards of conditions on the boats of the merchant marine of any other country in the world. Hence we talk of ship subsidies. Nearly two years ago the International Labor Organization estab lished what is known as the International Joint Maritime Commis INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF SOME NATIONAL PROBLEMS. 69 sion. This commission is working on an international seamen’s code. If this code could be so drawn that it would approximately parallel the seamen’s law of the United States, we would need no ship subsidy for the very good reason that the differentials in freight rates, due to the fact that the boats flying other flags can operate much more cheaply than the boats flying the American flag, would be wiped out. May I close with an appeal that you think internationally, so that when we are asked to participate in the solution of international problems we may act as becomes those who are devoting their lives to the great humanitarian purpose of finding employment for the unemployed. LABOR AND THE GRAIN HARVEST. EMERGENCY FARM LABOR. BY GEORGE E. TUCKER. FIELD DIRECTOR FARM LABOR BUREAU, UNITED STATES EM PLOYMENT SERVICE. The public employment office is the link that connects laborer and employer. Through this agency in periods of labor shortage men are found to keep the wheels of industry revolving. In times of depression it changes unemployment into employment, and the Na tion is the beneficiary in better business conditions, for nothing will banish hard times more quickly than a busy and contented laboring class. Practically every public employment office handles farm labor and does regular farm placement work. In the Central and Western States farm placement is an important activity of these offices. The State and Federal employment offices find work for all classes of labor—skilled and unskilled, technical, mechanical, commercial, col legiate. The Farm Labor Bureau of the United States Employment Serv ice handles laborers for the various lines of agricultural work only. This should be easy and simple—just men for the farm, that’s all. However, when we consider that agriculture embraces nearly onethird of the population of the country, reaches into every State in the Union, is capitalized at approximately one hundred billions of dollars, and is nearly as diversified as industry itself, demanding many and varied classes of laborers, we begin to realize that it may not be so easy and simple as at first it appears. Cotton, tobacco, sugar beets, sugar cane, corn, small grains, hay, truck farming, fruit growing, dairying, live-stock raising, feeding, and grazing—each requires its own peculiar kind of labor. This labor is not always easily obtainable, and even when the supply is adequate the distribution is seldom equitable, and assistance is constantly needed to care for the varied labor demands of diversified farming. In this connection it might be interesting to note that in all the Mississippi Valley States, and I believe in practically all the States west and in many east of the Mississippi River, the supply of ex perienced farm labor has not been equal to the demand throughout the present year. This condition prevailing in a period of financial depression and resultant unemployment may be partially accounted for by the fact that the farmers of America do not base production on supply and demand or upon profits or losses. Barring financial inability, farmers continue to produce regardless of personal gain or loss, and it is fortunate for mankind that such is the case. Bear in mind that I state there has been no shortage of experienced farm labor, for the general year-round farm hand must be experi enced. It is just as unreasonable to place a coal miner on a farm in the Middle West and expect him to satisfy requirements as it would 70 LABOR AND THE GRAIN HARVEST. 71 be to direct a Missouri farm hand to a steel mill in the East and expect him to make good. And yet the monthly or yearly farm labor is the most desirable class of farm labor and the easiest class the Farm Labor Bureau has to deal with. The seasonal labor is the most difficult class to handle and the hardest to supply. It is difficult to handle because it is almost in variably emergency labor. It is hard to supply because the call may come for several thousand laborers to be furnished on short notice for short-time employment periods. The call may be for skilled or unskilled help, of one or both sexes, of particular class or race or color, but invariably this labor must be supplied from outside the section where needed. Seasonal labor may be for wheat harvest ing, corn husking, cotton picking, fruit picking, potato picking, sugar beet thinning or topping, or other seasonal needs. In order to meet the demands made upon it the Farm Labor Bureau must keep close tab on agricultural conditions. It must know the acreage, probable yields, seasons, and periods that emer gency labor will be required, the number of men that will be neces sary in each section to care for its particular needs, the wages to be paid, living conditions to be provided laborers, cost of transporta tion, most direct routes between points, and the source of supply from which labor can be recruited. This information must be accurate and its dissemination fair and impartial. Having the necessary information it is the work of the Farm Labor Bureau when called into service to see to it that the right number of men are recruited, that they arrive at the right places at the exact times they are needed, and frequently it must arrange for the dis tribution of laborers in the field. It may be added that in carrying out this agricultural and crop statistical work the Farm Labor Bureau has to contend with errone ous reports and questionable publicity that get into the newspapers through the efforts of the panicky producer who fears he may lose his crop, or the overzealous agricultural agent who desires to exploit the wonderful advantages of his particular district. The bureau must be able to discriminate between that which is reliable and that which is doubtful and yet handle the situation tactfully and without antagonizing any big agricultural producer who may be a bull in the labor market or the local organization that desires to attract the public eye toward the wonderful fertility and productiveness of §ome particular locality. Probably in no other field of activity does the element of chance play' so important a role as in the production of farm crops. There fore each season’s employment work must be based on the conditions of that particular season. No definite rules of procedure can be laid down in advance and adhered to strictly. Misinformation, false pub licity, or the elements, may throw a monkey wrench into the ma chinery at any time. During the rush seasons the Farm Labor Bureau has to work at high tension and with no office hours. The 16-hour day of the old-time farmer is by no means unknown to the Farm Labor Bureau. The headquarters of the Farm Labor Bureau is at Kansas City, Mo. It conducts in the field the farm activities of the United States 72 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EM PLOYM ENT SERVICES. Employment Service. So far as I have been able to ascertain its only boundary lines are those designated to describe the United States of America, although the work of the Farm Labor Bureau has been conducted chiefly in the Western and Central States from Texas and Louisiana to the Canadian line. The harvesting of the “ big wheat belt” has just been completed, and perhaps it might be of interest to some of those attending this conference to know just what part the Farm Labor Bureau played in this harvest game. The handling of the wheat harvest labor problem is the biggest job the Farm Labor Bureau undertakes. The Kansas City office received from all of the wheat States where our services are required reports as to acreage, condition, probable yields, local labor supply, addi tional laborers required, wages to be paid, and the time that cutting would start. This information must be accurate and reliable and must be applicable to the various sections of the different States, for as crop, weather, and labor conditions will vary materially in differ ent localities in the same State, so also will dates of cutting vary in the same State as much as 15 to 20 days. It will be appreciated by all that plans for recruiting and distributing labor must be based on acreage and crop conditions, and any early reports must of necessity be subject to change as the season advances. It is therefore essential that a preliminary survey be made by two or more field men just in advance of the harvest to check up on reported acreage, condition, and labor needs. The territory comprising the “ big wheat belt ” and covered by the activities of the Farm Labor Bureau totals more than 30,000,000 acres, or practically two-thirds of the wheat acreage of the United States. It is in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, Ne braska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana that harvesting becomes a problem calling for the activities of the United States Em ployment Service. More than two-thirds of the States of the Union are wheat-producing, and the production of about 30 States that do not require outside help in caring for their wheat crop, because the acreage is comparatively small, adds materially to the total wheat yield of the Nation. In order to assist in recruiting the army of harvest laborers that work required, 20,000 harvest labor posters were printed and dis tributed in those States from which it seemed desirable to draw men. Lower wages, due to depressed agricultural conditions, together with abnormally high railroad rates, made it unwise to extend the harvest labor recruiting work to greater distance from the wheat fields than was absolutely necessary to secure the number of men required. There is a moral obligation resting on this service to protect the laborers as well as to care for the crops. An excessive influx of laborers to the harvest fields, resulting in a material oversupply of men, works a hardship both on the men themselves and the communities into which they go. An army of unemployed harvest hands in the fields would reflect on the service as seriously as failure to bring in men in numbers sufficient to handle the wheat crop. In addition to the recruiting posters the Farm Labor Bureau mailed out hundreds of personal letters and thousands of form letters LABOR AND THE GRAIN HARVEST. 73 giving information to men from all parts of the country who wrote inquiring concerning the wheat harvest. The names of these in quirers were placed on our mailing list, and bulletins were mailed to them giving general and specific information relative to harvest in the various States, the cutting dates in different sections, the location of recruiting and distributing offices, the wages to be paid, and in so far as possible anticipating the natural queries of the interested har vest laborer. Seven mimeographed bulletins and seven mimeo graphed circular letters were issued between May 1 and the close of the season. Questionnaires were also sent to county agents and farm ers throughout the wheat belt to procure needed information relative to labor needs and wages to be paid, while fully 200 confidential let ters from big wheat farmers, giving their personal judgment of the wages that should and would be paid, were received by the field di rector. The attitude of the newspapers toward the Farm Labor Bureau has been particularly gratifying. They have shown an al most uniform desire to give publicity only to such facts as would be of assistance to us in doing effective work and getting desired results. To augment the publicity program and in order to insure the re quired supply of laborers, special recruiting agents were placed at Fort Worth, Tex.; Little Rock, Ark.; St. Louis and Joplin, Mo.; Denver, Colo.; Omaha, Nebr.; Sioux City, Iowa; Cheyenne, Wyo.; and Minneapolis, Minn. Regular Federal-State employment offices at Birmingham, Chicago, Indianapolis, Columbus, Frankfort, and other natural labor centers were also of great assistance in recruiting harvest labor. To assist the Federal and State employment offices in the distri bution of harvest labor, special agents of the Farm Labor Bureau were placed in offices at 20 natural distributing points scattered from Texas to North Dakota. Each assisted in the equitable dis tribution of harvest laborers throughout a given district. As the harvest advanced northward temporary headquarters were opened at convenient points in the field and the regular force of the Farm Labor Bureau was engaged in personally directing the work, some times from the office but more frequently in the field, traveling from point to point, checking up on the supply and the demand and as sisting in equitable and adequate distribution of labor. Kansas being the largest wheat State, and one of the earliest to harvest its grain, is the battle ground for the harvest labor army. Kansas usually holds the key to the harvest-labor situation. It sets the wage largely for other States. If the harvest labor service is successfully handled in Kansas, it is less difficult to deal with the work farther north. A sufficient number of the Kansas harvest laborers can be directed into Nebraska and the Dakotas to at least partially solve their problem before cutting begins. Harvest starts in the Fort Worth district of Texas about June 1 and it continues moving northward as the season advances until the last field is cut in northwestern North Dakota and northeast ern Montana, about August 31. Harvest begins in the south and east sections of every State in the Mississippi Yalley and it in variably moves to the north and westward. The fact that the Panhandle of Texas, the north central and northwestern coun 74 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SEBVICES. ties of Oklahoma, due to altitude, are harvesting their wheat at the same time that Kansas is in the midst of its harvest adds to the difficulties of the task. This year, due to abnormal weather conditions, the Panhandle of Texas, northern Oklahoma, south ern, central, and northern Kansas, and southern Nebraska were all cutting wheat simultaneously and all calling for men at the same time, but all the demands were met with the exception of a few isolated places in Nebraska where wage conditions were unattractive, and not an acre of wheat was lost for lack of laborers. South Da kota’s verdict is that the harvest went off smoothly with labor suf ficient to meet requirements. North Dakota and Montana had rec ord-breaking crops of small grains. Men poured into North Da kota by thousands but they were restless. They had become particu lar as to jobs and wages. Canada beckoned to them. There were always better opportunities just beyond. Every town where harvest laborers gathered had its quota of agitators. Some men were intimi dated ; others refused to work for the wages offered. It was a mad scramble for men, yet all the wheat was harvested and none went to waste. The wheat harvest never ceases. Wheat is forever growing and forever coming to maturity and being garnered. As varied as the climes are the fields of golden grain. Always somewhere it is sum mer, and always somewhere wheat is growing and ripening to the harvest. As we convene here to-day Scotland, northern Russia, and Scan dinavia are entering on their harvest, which will continue through October. In November the harvest will be on in South Africa, Peru, and Argentina, while December will find the grain falling before the reaper in Burma. With January of the new year will come harvest time in Australia and New Zealand. In February and March the sickle will mow its way through the waving fields of India and Upper Egypt, while April will find cutting on in Cuba, Persia, Mexico, Asia Minor, and Lower Egypt. May will carry the harvest to China, Japan, and Central Asia. In June the busy laborers will gamer their grain in Spain, in Italy, Greece, Turkey, and the south of France, while leaping the ocean with the 1st of June harvest starts in Texas, working northward through Oklahoma and Kansas until on July 1 it crosses the line into Nebraska. Then as the month ad vances South Dakota claims attention and August is occupied with the harvest in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana. Through Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia and across the seas in the Balkan States, in Germany and Austria, Denmark and Poland, and the circle is complete. Through every month of the year, to the four corners of the earth, man ana nature have combined to provide for humanity an ample supply of the world’s most im portant food product—wheat. The United States stands preeminently first among the nations of the earth in the production of this grain upon which humanity de pends to so large a degree for sustenance. In rendering assistance in caring for this most important product the United States Employ ment Service is performing a decidedly worth-while mission and the “ big wheat belt” has come to look to and depend upon the Farm Labor Bureau for the solution of its harvest labor problem. LABOR AND THE GRAIN HARVEST. 75 In Kansas alone our records show the actual number of men handled to have been 37,127, while many more worked in the harvest fields without direction or assistance from employment agencies. While our reports are not all in and compiled, it is safe to say that they will show that more than 77,000 men were recruited and dis tributed this season through the efforts of the Farm Labor Bureau. With our limited organization the recruiting of harvest labor and its distribution were made possible by the cooperation of Federal and State employment offices, and much of the placement was through county agricultural agents or local representatives of farmers. What the Farm Labor Bureau does in the way of service for wheat farmers it does also on a less pretentious scale in relation to other farm crops. The opportunities for service to the agricul tural industry are unlimited. At present we are assisting in the recruiting and distribution of cotton pickers in Texas and potato pickers for the Bed Biver Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota. It is the policy of the Farm Labor Bureau whenever and wherever it can be of service, and such service is demanded, to go and render that service as expeditiously, as efficiently, and with as little ostenta tion as possible. It endeavors to work in harmony with the State labor organizations, the State farm bureaus, county agricultural agents, chambers of commerce, farmers’ and business men’s organi zations. It has never worried about division of credit, has had no thought of glory, has ignored criticism, and has had in mind only one thing—to do its job and to do it as nearly in the right way as pos sible, dealing at all times fairly with both laborers and farmers. The Secretary of Labor and the Director General of the United States Employment Service recognize the importance of the agri cultural industry. They are aware that agriculture is facing the most serious crisis in the history of the Nation. They realize that the condition of the farmer does not affect the farmer alone, but that when agriculture is crippled all the Nation moves more slowly and business limps along in sympathy; for agriculture is an in dustry so fundamental and basic in character that when crop values are high good times result, while business failures invariably follow in the wake of low crop values. It seems to me that it is a prime function of the Federal Government through the United States Employment Service of the Department of Labor to maintain a Farm Labor Bureau in the interests of farmers and farm laborers. Before I undertook the job of field director Mr. Francis I. Jones disclosed to me some of his plans for increasing the scope and broad ening the farm activities of the United States Employment Service. The offices of the Farm Labor Bureau at Kansas City, Mo., were not satisfactory as to location, floor space, or equipment. Immediately on my entrance upon duty the director general authorized me to secure suitable offices, properly located and equipped, and to-day our offices at 2014 Main Street, Kansas City, are more nearly in keep ing with the character and importance of our work. In other re spects the director general has shown an evident intention to put into effect as rapidly as funds will permit his plans for the future development of this service, and I am looking forward with assur37542°-—23-----6 76 ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. ance to the day when the Farm Labor Bureau will be recognized throughout agricultural America as indispensable to the farmers and consequently to the business interests of America. I have no desire to make comparisons between the work of my bureau and other activities of the United States Employment Service. There is ample opportunity for all of its branches to find outlet in effec tive service. Moreover, I have been so occupied with my job that I have not been seriously concerned with the other fellow’s job. However, I will venture the statement that regardless of the im portance of any particular activity none is further reaching in its influence upon the business interests of the country than that which directly concerns the basic industry—agriculture. The really interesting experiences and the difficulties of the work of the Farm Labor Bureau could not find appropriate place in a paper to be presented to this conference, although my prosaic statement of our seasonal labor activities is remarkable only for the things which it fails to reveal. Few people are really familiar with the field activities of the Farm Labor Bureau or grasp the real character of our work which if creditably conducted demands con stant alertness, quick decisions, cool judgment, self-control, tact, and a reasonable amount of energy. In fact, I can recommend the job to any ambitious individual seeking the strenuous life. I am frank to confess that I would not have had the temerity to tackle it had there not been at least one man in Washington who thoroughly understood just the sort of rapid-fire emergency work that was going on in the field, and his confidence and freedom from restraint alone made possible whatever degree of success we attained. The sympathy and understanding of Director General Francis I. Jones, together with firm conviction in the importance of the work, were the only things that held me to a job that, as Mr. Jones stated to you, was not of my seeking. To me, as a farmer, the Farm Labor Bureau represents an idea. That idea is service—service to farmers and to the agricultural industry, service to laboring men who seek employment. More over, I believe the Farm Labor Bureau is performing a worth while service that in many sections of the country is coming to be more appreciated and depended on year by year. The possibilities for usefulness of the Farm Labor Bureau seem to be confined only by the limitation of the funds necessary to carry on the work, for the demands on this branch of the United States Employment Serv ice are greater than our financial ability to meet them. o
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