The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-08-11
Hundreds of UnSkilled LabOrerS
Established on the Soil.
men IN MANY WALKS OF LIFE
Have Been Provided With Work
by the Bureau.
The Number i'm the Past Year
Reached Over 10000.


movement, conducted by the state free
employment bureau, in the last year
has proved most successful, according
to a report being compiled by q. G..
Hopkins, director
Several hundred unskilled laborers,
whose early lives were spent on farms
and who were eager to take their fam
Ines to homes in the country have been
directed to employers who are willing
to provide tenant houses, sufficient
ground for a garden and the oppor-
tunity to keep a COW and a few chick
ems, it is asserted.
AS typical of the success of the plan,
Mr. Hopkins pointed to a young man
who was born and reared on an east
ern farm. Several years ago he was
attracted to one of the larger Kansas
cities and was married there. A year
ago he was employed in a minor clerk
ship at a salary of $50 a month. He
saw his way clear only to provide the
simple necessities of life for his fam
lily and applied to the state bureau for
relief. A position as farm 1aborer in
southern Kansas county was OBJ
tanned for him, and recently he wrote
a letter to the bureau, in which he
said:
Il have about $50 in the bank My
children are healthier and happier
than ever before. 1 have a good home.
chickens, a brood sow and COW and
a calf. And it won't be long until
/ have farm to go with them"
Mr. Hopkins announced that be-
cause of the success of the experiment
this year, a larger attention will be de-
voted to this phase of the bureaus
work in the future.
Work of All Kinds.
While the big demand from the en-
ployers of Kansas always has been for
farm labor, men employed in almost.
every phase of human activity have
been provided with work in the last
year.
Two farm laborers, a baker, a
chambermaid and worn tragedian of
the "A horse; a horse; my kingdom
for horse" type, applied for positions
within half an hour recently. And
among other recent applicants have
been men of every stamp from one
who urged as his chief qualification
that he knew the names of each of
the wives of Henry VIII, to a 90
year-old man who worked through the
harvest near Great Bend for the ex-
perience." -
Numbers of men, having finished
one harvest, have applied for further
work. These have reported that al
manner of devices have been en-
ployed, because of the. delayed season,
to hasten the harvest Among the
novel methods was that. of a Lane
county farmer, who rugged his tractor
with gas lights, and a searchIight
that ne might work an ''outfit'' day
and night. Many farmers in the
southeastern counties of Kansas used
beer kegs to keep their machinery
from slipping in the mud
10 Per Cent Women.
Probably 10 per cent of the persons
directed to employment by the bureau
in the last year have been women
or these, the larger number were
cham bermaids, cooks, dishwashers
laundresses, nursery girls, stenog-
raphers and mattresses.
OF the 10000 persons for whom, Mr..
Hopkins estimates, the bureau found
employment in the last year, 80, 900 of
them were harvest hands, who, it is
believed, came into the state on the
strength of the bulletins of the bureau
of these, about 10000 were directed
personally to work in the Kansas
wheat fields. Mr.. Hopkins has an
swered $500 letters since May 1 in
quiring about the need for harvest
hands in the state and in the same
time c, L. Green, the federal labor
agent at Kansas City, has replied to
5000 inquiries.
Numbers of men also have been di-
rected to employment by the branch
offices of the state bureau in Wichita
and Hutchinson and by the special
agents in Salina. and Mr.. Hopkins
recently pointed out that from this
years experience it has been found
wise to make these stations permanent
harvest features.