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Show CONNECTING THE s JOBLESS SAQS MW ( TOE HAMLES5 J0B L 6y EDWARD B-CLARK- STAFF CO?RJPOtfDFr OF IMF WJTfW JFVJPAPIft WON . ? v ' ' n ti i i i z 4 fNCLE SAM today is engaged In the beneficent work of securing employment em-ployment for his unemployed nieces and nephews, whether native or foreign born. Uncle Sam's workers in chief at the problem of connecting connect-ing the jobless man with the man-less man-less job are William B. Wilson, secretary of the department of labor; la-bor; Anthony Caminetti, the commissioner general gen-eral of immigration, and T. V. Powderly, chief of the division of information of the immigration bureau. Nobody knows definitely how many unemployed men and women there are in the United State3 today. One thing, however, is known definitely, that the number probably is not as great nor anything any-thing like as great in proportion to the population popula-tion as it has been at times in the past. There are enough of the unemployed, however, to make the problem a serious one, but there seems to be a belief on the part of government officials that the broadening of the field of federal effort to help men and women to work steadily will sap the strength of that dreaded and at times actually de- mC-- -St-. jxvrjs&v' ojrMraKrzattojv vouring monster known as unemployment. The division of Information Informa-tion of the bureau of immigration immi-gration not only is engaged in the work of promoting the beneficial distribution of aliens admitted to the United Unit-ed States, but under the general gen-eral power of the law is directing di-recting the distribution of residents and citizens of the United States "who wish to avail themselves of opportunities oppor-tunities for labor afforded through its instrumentality." . Recently the post office department and the department depart-ment of agriculture have entered en-tered Into a co-operative arrangement- with tKr, A A If v - 4iv- - z v n u mo uupai l- ment of labor in aid of the plan "for the employment em-ployment and distribution of laborers in the United States; the former through its postmasters, post-masters, officers in charge of branch post offices of-fices and rural carriers; and the latter through Its field and other services throughout the United Unit-ed States." Every officer of the department of agriculture, no matter where he Is located, is charged with the duty of keeping Washington officials informed concerning the necessity for workers in the locality lo-cality in which he resides. Every farmer in the United States through the post office department depart-ment by this time has been, or soon will be, furnished fur-nished with application blanks upon which he can state any need which he has of farm laborers labor-ers or of help of any description. These blanks Shortly afterward he learned that at another machine shop they had needed need-ed men. If he had known it he could have secured work at his trade and have been clothed, well fed and happy. He had no means of knowing except by direct application that at this place there was work. Today, as a result of study of systems which they are intended the connection of some competent man with work of the kind which he seeks. The work -which is being done in connection with farm labor is, of course, only one part of the service which the department of labor through its division of information is performing. Manufacturers Manu-facturers and employers of labor of all kinds are furnished with blanks similar to those sent to the farmers, except, of course, that they are adjusted ad-justed to meet other kind3 of working needs. The correspondence of the department is tremendous and the work of giving men work is going forward for-ward rapidly. Before going into the details of the mechanism mecha-nism of the system by which natives, sometimes residents, and recently arrived immigrants are directed to fields of employment, something should be said about the development of this great governmental plan to provide work for the workless. For a quarter of a century William B. Wilson, now a member of President Wilson's cabinet as the head of the department of labor, has been deeply interested, concerned, perhaps, were a better word, in the solution of the problem prob-lem of forging the connecting link of information between the man seeking work and the man seeking seek-ing workmen. For just as long and perhaps a longer period T. V. Powderly, the chief of the division of information, in-formation, has been interested in the same problem. prob-lem. Mr. Powderly has been connected with the government service--for some years and has developed de-veloped a system of getting the work and the , workless worker together until today the post office department and the agricultural department depart-ment are co-operating with the department of labor la-bor in a broad and comprehensive plan to reduce the evil of unemployment to a minimum which might be called natural. Perhaps Mr. Powderly will enter no objection if one tells a story of how he first became interested inter-ested to a heart and mind feeling point in plans to get work for the workless. To me the story is an interesting one and it seems that it ought to be to others. In the year 1873 T. V. Powderly, a machinist by trade, lost his eyesight. For three months he sat in darkness, and being unable to work he lost his job. His sight came back and he started on a tramp looking for work. He was a tramp seeking seek-ing work, not a tramp seeking handouts. He left the United States and went into Canada. He found no work. On the eve of New Year's day, 1S73, he found himself in St. Thomas, Ont., with no money in his pocket, no food in his stomach and no place to sleep. A watchman allowed him to sleep in the Sreighthouse of a depot on a bed made of bagging. From there Powderly walked to Buffalo seeking work. There a good-hearted Irishman gave him breakfast, the first one he had j had for some days. All this time the tramper I was asking himself why there was not some I means of letting him know where there was t work. In asking himself this he was charging I his heart and mind with a purpose in life, the same purpose which Secretary Wilson of the de-. de-. partment of labor fixed in his own mind and i heart a quarter of century ago. "Tramp" Powderly reached one town where there were some machine shops. He applied for work and there were no vacancies. He left. and of the development of ideas formulated through the years, a workless man can go to any post office, or soon will be able so to do, in the United States and there learn from the government officials of the employment possibilities possibili-ties in the neighborhood. Uncle Sam is using his postmasters as a means of getting the willing will-ing worker to the waiting job. There are many factors in this problem of unemployment. un-employment. It must be known that there are tramps and tramps. There is the man who is looking for work and who seeks it and has to tramp to do it, and then there is the man who has lost his work and has become discouraged and apparently does not care whether or not ha ever finds work again. The first man has not lost his self-respect and the second man has either lost it or has come pretty close to losing it It is not going too far, perhaps, to say that a part of the governmental function eventually will be to recultivate a spirit of self-respect in men who through idleness, enforced idleness in the first place, generally, have lost it Some day these men will be brought back to manhood. They are in the minority, for experience shows that most of the idle ones are idle because they cannot can-not help being idle. The government through its division of information is seeking to destroy idleness. The United States, for the purpose of connecting con-necting employment seekers with employment, has been divided into distribution zones. There are 18 of these zones. The official of the immigration immi-gration service already on duty in a city in each - zone attends to the work of distribution. For a long time the labor of distributing workmen was carried on from New York city, and it is true that in the future a large part of the supply of material will come from New York, because it is a big city and also a great immigration port. The headquarters cities of the different distribution zones are New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Phila-delphia, Baltimore. Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., New Orleans, Galveston, Cleveland, Chicago. Minneapolis, Min-neapolis, St. Louis, Denver, Helena, Seattle, Portland, Ore., San Francisco and Los Angeles. Let New York city as a distributing center and as a center of information be taken as a chief example of how things are being done in this effort to connect the unemployed with employment. employ-ment. Canon L. Greene is the inspector in charge of the information work at the barge office in New York city Now, it should be known that the government not only tries to connect workless ones with work, but it also tries to put men who have saved a little mone? and who want to buy farms in touch with conditions in any part of the country in which it seems likely that they will make a success of their farming efiorts. A man seeking work on a farm comes Into the barge office in New York. First, the officials read a lesson in human nature from the man's face. They try to discover, it is said, and almost always succeed, how much sincerity there is in him. Then he is asked how much money he has. If he has enough to take him to the place of employment all well and good. The fact that he is willing to pay the money to take him there is first proof of his desire to work and to stick to it-There it-There are men, however, who have no money, but who are capable, willing, temperate and anx ious to work. In many cases the farmer who needs a special kind of man is willing to advance ad-vance the transportation which will take the employed from the place of his application for work to the scene of action. Now, of course, some men might take the transportation and never show up and the government has not funds to make gocd such petty defalcations. Nearly every man, however, who applies for work wants work, and such men generally have some personal per-sonal belongings. He is told that if he will check his belongings, which are first examined to see if they are valuable enough to cover the cost of transportation, and will give the check to the authorities, they will give him the money to send him to his place of employment. This system sys-tem of baggage checking has been going on for a long timo and almost never has there been a slip. The men go and in most cases make good. Chief Powderly of the division of information says that in the belongings of most of the men who apply for work are found pictures of a mother moth-er or a father or of a family group, and that almost al-most invariably when the baggage is turned over for inspection and transportation the workseeker says: "Don't lose the picture." It is a human trait and a sign of the softer nature which underlies almost every exterior, even if it be a rugged one and perhaps seemingly at times a hard one. The remedy for unemployment is employment This is what Mr. Powderly says and it seems as sharply true as the saying of the past in connection con-nection with the resumption of specie payment, "The way to resume is to resume." It is the effort ef-fort today of the department of lakor, through it division of information, to ask all employers In the United States, agricultural, commercial, manufacturing, man-ufacturing, to tell the government what men they . want and what they pay. The rural carriers, the post offices and every postal means is beint used to get the information. The responses have been most generous. The officials at one distribution distri-bution center when they find that the proper place for a man or that the place to which he wishes to go is located in another zone communicate communi-cate with the distribution center of that zone. The work is systematized and rapidly it is becoming be-coming the most effective agent to diminish the condition of unemployment in America. The officials of the division of information are now seeking definite information concerning how much repair work on barns and other buildings build-ings on the farms is done each winter. The plan Is to see If through the farmers who need the help of carpenters or machinists in winter, relief cannot be given to many city workers who have little or nothing to do during the cold winter months. The farmers are to be asked what repairs they will need next winter and what kind of a man they would like to have. The federal officials will find the man and thus they hope to supply with employment during th slack time3 in the city many men willing and anxious to labor through the entire year.. It seemingly is a wish of the officials of the department of labor that it should be known that while the division of Information is a part of the bureau of immigration that this work of connecting the jobless with the job does not concern Itself alone with the immigrant, but alms to give its service fully and freely alike to the incoming stranger and to the man vho knowi this as his native land. |