manent working organization, the new plan is interesting and deserving of description in some detail. This is well done in an annual report.

Control Division.-Preparation of all general and special orders; supervision of the field organization attached directly to the administrative offices; mails and files; general correspondence; reports from the federal directors for the States and research and statistical work; property and supplies for the administrative offices and the field organization; auditing and supervision of expenditures and accounts.

Field Organization Division."-Creation and perfection of an efficient system of employment offices in each State; organization of the State advisory boards and community labor boards; supervision of the work of the Public Service and Boys' Working Reserve (whenever possible merging these with the employment service organization in each State); obtaining proper facilities for women's and farm-labor departments in local offices (these to be under the direction of the local superintendents and the organization work to be carried out through the federal directors); creation of special facilities or departments for such other classes of workers as may need specialized handling.

Clearance Division.-Distribution of requests for labor among the States according to their proper share of workers to be furnished; reports concerning the supply of and the demand for workers (this information to be redistributed to the federal directors); reference of orders for help from employers to the federal directors for the States in which they originate and reference or orders from federal directors to other localities as necessary (together with full information regarding all important matters relating to the transfer of workers); arrangement of transportation details prior to giving information to the federal directors.

Personnel Division.-Appointment and personnel records (involving handling of employment for the administrative offices, investigating requests for help from divisions of the administrative offices, investigating applicants for employment with the United States Employment Service, maintaining individual records of all employees of the Employment Service, and assisting the federal directors for States in getting help); developing plans for and supervising the training of employees of the United States Employment Service; developing a classification of occupations and promoting the use of uniform terminology in the Employment Service offices; developing standard tests and supervising their use in the placement work of the Employment Service.

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Name subsequently changed to "Organization Division."

Information Division.-Publication of the United States Employment Service Bulletin and other organs of the Employment Service, and supervision and control of all news matter originating within the administrative offices of the Employment Service."

The new plan went into effect August 5, 1918.

Mobilizing Labor. Meanwhile an act had been passed which, while not affecting any change in organization, broadened the scope of the work. This was the urgent deficiency act of March 28, 1918, (40 Stat. L., 459, 496)," which contained a provision making possible the easier mobilization of labor. The provision read as follows:

To enable the Secretary of Labor to advance to wage earners transportation to such places as may be deemed necessary for the purpose of securing employment in connection with the prosecution of the war, $250,000, which may be used as a revolving fund until June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and eighteen: Provided, That advances hereunder shall be so made as to insure the return to the Treasury of sums so advanced: Provided further, That an accounting shall be kept of the operations under this paragraph which shall include as to each person transported the following: Name, vocation, starting point and destination, shipyard, factory, or other place for which transported, and amount of advance made.

The plan of charging transportation bills from the railroads directly to the employer benefited was adopted, thus leaving untouched the "revolving fund" in most cases.

An arrangement similar in principle was also adopted in coöperation between the Department of Labor and other government departments.

By the close of the fiscal year 1919 bills approximating $300,000 had been rendered against guarantors, and collections of about $210,000 effected.

Funds. A second piece of legislation, enacted during this period of organization flux, which affected the Employment Service was the sundry civil act of July 1, 1918, which provided for the continuation of the service during the fiscal year 1919 and continued

"Department of Labor, Annual Reports, 1918, p. 706.

12 This appropriation was continued and made available for the fiscal year 1919 by the sundry civil appropriation act of July 1, 1918 (40 Stat. L., 634, 696).

the previous appropriation for the transportation of labor. The pertinent sections read:

To enable the Secretary of Labor, during the present emergency, to furnish such information and to render such assistance in the employment of wage earners throughout the United States as may be deemed necessary in the prosecution of the war and to aid in the standardization of all wages paid by the Government of the United States and its agencies, including personal services in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, per diem in lieu of subsistence at not exceeding $4, traveling expenses, rental of quarters in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, heat and light, telegraph and telephone service, supplies and equipment, and printing and binding, $5,500,000: Provided, That no money now or hereafter appropriated for the payment of wages not fixed by statute shall be available to pay wages in excess of the standard determined upon by the War Labor Policies Board.

The appropriation of $250,000" to enable the Secretary of Labor to advance to wage earners transportation to such places as may be deemed necessary for the purpose of securing employment in connection with the prosecution of the war," contained in the deficiency appropriation Act approved March twenty-eighth, nineteen hundred and eighteen, is continued and made available for the same purposes and under the same conditions for the fiscal year nineteen hundred and nineteen."

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Summary. The work of the Service during the period of early growth before 1917 and the time of stress during 1917 and 1918 has been described at some length. The numerous changes in organization and progressive alterations to meet new conditions have also been outlined in detail.

The two form a picture of the efforts of the Service during the years of rapid expansion, to meet pressing problems, inside and outside of the organization.

The specific accomplishments of the Service during the war months are briefly outlined below.

The registrations, applications, references, and placements for the II war months in which the United States Employment Service operated, that is, from January, 1918, to November, 1918, inclusive,

340 Stat. L., 634, 696.

so far as it has been possible to gather statistics are shown in the following table:

It was impossible to secure statistical data with respect to large groups of persons referred to employment through this service but who did not actually pass through the placement offices. As examples of these classes, there may be mentioned the thousands of men who engaged in work in the harvest fields, of whom no record could be obtained; the experienced miners who were induced to reenter the mines; the stevedores and marine workers who were transferred in many instances from one place of employment to another without any statistical record being kept of their several employments. The heaviest month of placements occurred in November, 1918, when war labor recruiting and the war industries had attained their greatest momentum. The placements for the month of November alone were over a half a million, and, as the foregoing table shows, they had been steadily increasing since the previous January."

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The Post-Armistice Period. From the inception of the Employment Service work until the end of the war the problem was one of meeting the growing needs and of shaping the organization to handle increasingly complicated situations and rapidly accumulating volume.

From 1914 until the armistice the gap between the supply of and demand for labor had steadily widened, the demand exceeding the

"Department of Labor, Annual Reports, 1919, pp. 284-85.

supply. Suddenly, with the termination of the war, the reversal of the process began.

The result was that the Employment Service had to alter its procedure, its principles, its planning. Where formerly labor recruiting groups were busily at work, now such groups had to be turned toward finding jobs for men. Where formerly advertising for labor was suppressed, now it became an aid. Where previously the problem was to mobilize labor so that it might quickly fill far scattered needs, now the problem was to prevent an exodus en masse toward an opportunity unable to absorb the migrants.

After the termination of hostilities the war branches of the Employment Service were discontinued, the regulations regarding the centralized recruiting of labor were cancelled, and the control thereover withdrawn. All energies were turned toward accomplishing the complete reversals necessary.

The change was sudden and the problem acute. Upon the signing of the armistice, most of the large war projects reduced operations materially or discontinued them. This threw thousands of workers out of employment. Added to these were the soldiers discharged from the camps in this country and the group of workers, such as farm hands, carpenters, and the like, for whom outdoor work had been stopped by winter weather.

In consideration of the labor situation, an agreement was entered into by the Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of War which provided that no war contracts should be canceled without the advice of the War Industries Board. That board looked to the Department of Labor for information as to the manner in which the cancellation of contracts would react on the labor situation, and a representative of the Department acted with the War Industries Board for the purpose of supplying to the military authorities information upon employment conditions.

The War Department and the War Industries Board called upon the Department of Labor for this information in order that contracts for war materials might be curtailed or canceled and the Army demobilized with the least possible danger of serious unemployment during the period of reconstruction. To that end instructions were issued on November 20, 1918, to all Federal directors of the Employment Service, under the terms of which a survey in 122 cities was undertaken and a statement of labor conditions in those industrial centers telegraphed each week to the War Industries