Finally, unlike many other problems brought to the surface by war conditions, this racial labor situation probably can best be guided toward a constructive policy through the help of the federal government acting as a central, co-ordinating agency for the private organizations and interests involved. Repeatedly, I have found white employers and white workmen willing to meet Negro representatives under Department of Labor supervision, when they would not consider it otherwise. Negroes have comparatively few unions or employers' organizations. They have felt the power of both organized capital and organized labor. Negroes have had to deal with both in an effort to secure an American's chance to work.

Yesterday, when I read the resolutions of the councillors of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States on regularity of employment, the right of workers to organize, a minimum wage and their other newly adopted principles of industrial democracy, immediately there arose in my mind the question, how far Negro workers will share these benefits just as other workers do. The announcement of the new policy of the captains of industry and commerce gave new strength to my conviction that there should be some governmental guidance of the private forces toward a constructive policy dealing with the reconstruction and peace problems growing out of the effect of war conditions upon Negro labor.

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THE U. S. EMPLOYMENT SERVICE IN RELATION

T

TO THE DEMOBILIZATION OF LABOR

NATHAN A. SMYTH

Assistant Director General, U. S. Employment Service

HE employment service of the United States stands with others, as it were, at a Chateau-Thierry against the danger of a threatened incursion of Bolshevism which follows upon unemployment. We stand there frankly needing help. We stand there, happily I can say, with the present assurance of help being given, and the further assurance that all the help is going to be given that may be needed.

Demobilization has commenced with a rush. We were not prepared for the end of the war. Since we have come to the end of it we have started to get rid of our contracts, and to discharge the soldiers with the utmost possible rapidity. A week or two ago I viewed the situation with very grave apprehension. We were beginning to demobilize at the beginning of the winter season, at a time when there is less employment than usual, when jobs on the farms are few, when outdoor work cannot be done, and at a time when of necessity there is great industrial confusion and difficulty in getting ordinary normal life re-established. Within the last few weeks, I might almost say within the last few days, in the hurry of developing work in Washington, there have developed tendencies and trends which bring me before you today with a spirit not of pessimism, but of great optimism, a feeling of abounding confidence that the American people are going to meet this problem as they have met all other problems; and if, in what I have to say to you as to what is being done, what remains to be done, and wherein we think perhaps some of you can help, I mention certain dangers in the present situation, it is not from any spirit of pessimism, it is merely in the full confidence that we can meet any danger when we realize it and are prepared to meet it.

The day the armistice was signed a number of telegrams went out from the War Department cancelling contracts.

The industrial transformation began. The process of moving great hordes of men from war work to peace work was under way. On that same day, however, or on the next day, an order went out from the office of the Secretary of War that no cancellations of contracts were to be made effective without first taking the advice of and consulting with the War Industries Board and the Department of Labor. The Director of the Clearance Division of the United States Employment Service, representing the Department of Labor, has been devoting his whole time every day from that day to this, with the War Industries Board committees, and with the representatives of General Goethals' department, in going over the policies of cancellation, and studying their effect, and I am happy to say that every one of them-the army officers concerned, the War Industries Board and all-feel that the relationship of the cancellation of contracts to the labor situation is one of its most important aspects. General policies have been laid down, whereby it is possible for an industry to shift gradually from its war work to peace work, such as the industries which are engaged in making uniforms, and a great many others that will come to your minds, so that so far as possible the transition will be made gradually in order that if possible the forces of employees may not have to be discharged.

In other cases where there is no peace-time work which can be performed in the plant without great changes, such as in some of the manufacture of ammunition, the policy has been to shade off gradually, to cut down slowly, so that the laying off of men and women may take place without too great rapidity. There has been a very great urgency for prompt, rapid action. We were expending enormous sums of money in creating goods that are of no value in peace times, some of which are a positive menace in peace times, and of course it has been necessary that that expenditure should be curtailed just as rapidly as possible.

We have been watching with great care the effect of the industrial transition so far as it has taken place, and under the very wise policy which the army has adopted we feel happy to say that so far as we have been able to observe, up to the present moment, the industrial transition due to the cancellation of contracts bids fair to take place without serious or pro

tracted unemployment. The only possibility of danger, as we see it, comes from the likelihood that the situation may be complicated by a too-rapid demobilization of the soldiers. That demobilization is taking place largely on the basis of military consideration. For reasons the adequacy of which I am in no position to discuss, or upon which I am in no position to form a judgment—the men are being turned out rapidly, as rapidly perhaps as physical conditions permit, on the basis of military units. A good many men are thus being discharged for whom there is not at the present moment any real need in industry. A vast number of other men are being held back in the units which are going to be discharged later, for whom there is immediate need, men who could step back today or tomorrow into positions in our industrial life where they would be of assistance in helping us to resume it rapidly. There has however been an opening wedge inserted. An order has been issued under which the individual soldier may be discharged on his own application because of sickness in his family, or because he wants to resume some position or occupation in which he is greatly needed. At the present time, in the view of the general staff, that is to be the exception rather than the rule. I personally am of the hope, as time goes on and the administrative details are more worked out, that that exception will become more and more the rule, that we may be able to say that those who are immediately needed will be released at once, and those for whom there is no immediate need will be held back to come along later with the later units.

The men are being discharged from the camps with no pay in advance, with a sum of money equal to three and a half cents a mile to their homes, with permission to buy a ticket anywhere. Many of them are boys who worked on the farms, for whom no positions on the farms are immediately available. Many of them are men who have engaged in outdoor construction work of some sort or other, for whom positions are not immediately available. Most of them, I believe, are going home, but many of them are going to drift to the cities. The danger which we face, due partly to the methods under which they are discharged, to the speed, and to the time of the year, and due partly to the instincts which led a body of

them to say to a man who was investigating what they were going to do when they got home, that they were going to sleep until ten o'clock every morning, is a certain initial reluctance to go to work. Already there are turning up in our cities stranded soldiers; they are "broke," they haven't any money, they are applying for civilian relief. The danger against which we have to guard, the danger against which I believe we can successfully guard if we take all the steps which are necessary, is that during the next three or four months, when we combine this rapid demobilization of industry with so rapid a demobilization of the soldiers, there will be a large number of workless, moneyless soldiers in our cities and larger towns.

The first thing to do about it, because that is the thing with which we are all concerned, is to try to help them find jobs, whether they go back to the home from which they came, or whether they turn up in the larger cities; and to be sure, they deserve every possible help that the nation or the community can give them in finding not only jobs, but finding the jobs for which they are best fitted. Many of them are changed into better men than they were when they went away, many of them are fitted for better jobs than they held, many of them will find in this period an opportunity to get out of a blind alley into a new and better line of activity. The boys who gave up their work without a moment's hesitation to go to fight for us deserve from us every opportunity and assistance in finding the kind of work in which they will be of the most value to themselves and to the nation.

To meet this situation the United States Employment Service is working along two distinct lines. We have in the first place a representative in every camp, working there with the co-operation of the commanding officers and other agencies, for disseminating such information as can there well be used as to positions and lines of work which are open for returning soldiers. We do not however anticipate that any very great amount of assistance can be given to the soldiers in the camps. They do not know very long ahead when they are going home, and you cannot place a man when it is perfectly indefinite as to when he is going to be able to take a place. By and large, they are not profoundly interested in getting a job, during