Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-05-07
SOCIAL WORKERS
|. TAKE UP PROBLEM
OF UNEMPLOYED
State Bureau and Minimum
Wage Urged at Confer
ence Here.

Resolutions faVoring the establish.
ment of a State employment bureau,
a minimum wage for both men and
women, an eight-hour workday and
q slx-day working week, were passed
last night at the close of the inter-
denominational social service confer
ence in the old First Presbyterian
| Church, Broad street.
Rev. Mercer G. Johnston, rector of
Trinity Episcopal Church. introduced
the resolution. 1t was adopted unan-
imously.
Among those who spoke were
the Rev. DIR. W. D. p. Bliss,
of New York; Alexander Gle
| William J. Dawson. Senator Charles
O'Connor Hennessy, of Bergen, was
scheduled to make an address, but be-
cause of a misunderstanding as to the
date, Senator Hennessy could not be
present. His address was read by
Rev. DIR. Dawson.
The resolution passed is as follows:
"First-The problem of unemploy-
ment, which gave such grave con-
Germ to thoughtful men and women
QuflIlR Tie past NlllltT anu Wl-Cll uel0
| been for some time and still is one
of the very serious public questions
of the day, is not a city, or State, or
| national problem, but, as witnessed
by the First General Unemployment
| Conference convened at Client in Sep
| TENDER, 1918, in which sixteen nations
We're represented, a world problem.
"Second-The conditions of unem-
ployment which have existed for some
! xKyafn nd
which threaten to continue, are
| shame to any civilization and a cry
| ing shame to a Christion civilization
and must be ameliorated in the very
near future, and radically changed for
| the better at the earliest possible
time.
"Third-Loolling toward the early
amelioration and the not too remote
radical change of these unhappy con-
ditions so far as our own nation Is
concerned we make the following
recommendations:
la The creation of q Federal en-
! ployment bureau on the lines of those
now in existence in Great Britain and
Germany. Inasmuch as some time
would be required before such a fed
eral bureau could be in working
order, we believe that the State of
New Jersey should create a State en-
ployment bureau at the next session
of the Legislature. There already ex-
! lists in this State a Bureau of Statis-
tics of Labor and Industries. The
employment bureau could be made a
part of this.
"(b) The establishment of the
eight-hour day and the six-day week
throughout the nation within the
next five years by steady progress
toward that end
"(c) The immediate passage of the
uniform child labor law as approved
and recommended by the conference
of commissioners on uniform State
| laws by Congress as a minimum, ana
the increase of the age at which chill
dren may be employed to sixteen
years within the next five years. with
/ provision for vocational training OF
prospective manual workers between
the ages of fourteen and sixteen.
"(d The establishment of a mini
mum wage throughout the nation for
/ all workers, men and women.
"(e) Unemployment insurance in.
surance covering sickness and accie
dents, old age and death.
go The encouragement as far as
may be of seasonal employment
"(g) The encouragement of welfare
work in all large business establish
ments so that the heads Of the bust
ness may be kept informed of cases
of distress among those who look to
them for employment.
! "(h) We hold that if a man able
TO work will not work neither should
he eat. But we hold with equal
strength and tenacity that if man
is willing to work he should be prop
erlys fed, clothed and housed, not as a
matter of charity, but as a matter
of right, at the general expense We
believe that it is the duty of the
State or nation either to provide
work for it's workers, and, failing this,
to provide for workers until such
time as there is work for them to
do
In part Senator Hennessy's address
said:
The problem that is to be solved
resides not merely in the fact that
there is a considerable class in every
large community unable to find the
opportunity to employ themselves or
to be employed, but in the less prom
inent but equally significant fact
that vast numbers of our citizens are
employed precariously, or at such
small return for their labors that ex-
istence has become for them a con.
slant struggle against the poverty
which degrades and brutalizes. These
conditions produce the great social
disease of which the moral mental
and physical deterioration of the in
dividual are symptoms, and county
jails, prisons, insane asylums and
charity hospitals are the incidents.