The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1915-02-01
UNEMPLOYMENT IN
WAR AND PEACE
War Measures Teach How To
Mobilize Armies Of
Industry.
GRAHAM TAYLOR
Exclusive Service The Survey
Press Bureau.)

the peoples at war. me test IN the
rear was instantly recognized to be
one and the same with the test at
the front. The military army and
the industrial army were considered
equally vital to the national defense
However Industrial depression had
hitherto been left to crush whom it
might, however Unemployment had
been regarded as a misfortune to be
borne as best it might by the indi-
viduaI or by the class, however the
right to work had been denied and
the assertion Of 1t denounced--now
without q. moments hesitation this
laissez faire attitude toward unem-
pIoyneEt was abandoned and the
nations recognized the claim Of their
people TO be kept at work. As soon
as each parliament was faced by the
possibility of war. it sQuafedy faced
the certainty of Unemployment as a
national crisis which could be met
only by national resources.
War Budgets Provide Work At Home
The necessity of making some pro-
vision in advance to meet the lack
of work was antici pated by the gov
ernments, before it began to be felt
seriously by the workers themselves.
In the very first war budgets large
appropriations were included to pay
for public work undertaken to com
pensate in part, at least, for the de-
crease in private employment. Among
the earliest measures for national de-
Tense taken in Germany, France and
Britain, " ere enabling acts authoriz-
ing the national and local administra-
tions to protect and promote employ
ment. Public work already under.
taken was thus continued. New en-
terprises requiring labor on large
scale were initiated. The British
Parliament added to its first appro-.
priation Of $500,o00, 900 for war pur-
80 n
the building trades busy in erecting
and renovatfng dwellings for better
housing Of the working classes Hous-
ing thus be came a national issue, as
a legislative principle at least.
In Germany new public enterprises
have been started by many Gsunfci-
palities, urged by the Reichstag and
supplemented by the imperial govern
ment. Experience in social legisla-
ton enabled both these nations the
more readily and effectively to mobi-
lie all their national resources. not
only for the defense of their frontiers,
but for the conservation of their in
dustrial forces at home. Arms and
the man" found It's. equivalent in
tools and the man
Crisis OF Peace
If the certainty and disastrous eff
fects of economic depression and un-
employment could thus be- anticipat-
ed forefended, and provided for, in
any measure, by people distracted
and distraught by war, is not the
possibility suggested of mobilizing the
greater resources of forethought and
reserve capital available in times of
peace to meet the same sort of an
emergency in a nations industrial
life?
No crisis has become more chronic
than that which throws multitudes
| of workers in every land out of their
employment And yet no Industrial
nation more than ours has SO utterly
ignored the possibility. not to say
certainty, of the frequently, almost
regularly, recurring Aertods of in
dustriaI depression and unempIoy-
ment.
we act as though such as ener-
gency would never come again. how
ever many times we well remember
it to have come When it does
come, we do nothing directly to
| meet it. Indeed. with more caution
than lis truly cautious, we diminish
our commercial and industrial activ-
ity, thus making matters worse. AL
though the classes who most suffer
by industrial depression are least re-
sponsible for it and least able to pro-
tect themselves from it, they are I'M
justly left to bear the brunt Of the
burden and to suffer disaster from
which many OF them never recover
industrial efficiency.
National Strength For Industrial
Disasters
Here then is the sorry contrast be-
between mobilization for war and the
ency of war the nation instinctiveIy
feels that the strength of all is inn
paired by the weakness of any, that
its whole resource is available to
conserve every vital force, that as
each individual and class is needed
available for each, This is the JUS
tice newly experienced In Germany
Britain and France by those who
have hitherto for the most part been
dustria1 disasters of peace.
The difference betweene the two
experiences lies precisely at the point
thus indicated. 1t is in the presence
or absence OF national conscious
ness and resourcefu1ness in meeting
peace we have not yet become con-
scious that Unemployment is ma
uonal emergency, to be met only by
the concern and the resources of the
whole nation. In America, the emer-
gency is still thought1ess1y and I'M
Justly left to the indixidual.~the fam
| lily, the locality, and tbs class suf-
fering most from it, to grapple with.
Even they delay so late to do so that
| they can have recourse only to char
ity, seldom to Justice; only to relief,
never to prevention: only to recovery
from disastrous effects, not to deal
| ing with causes of disaster.
| This has been and now is the ex-
perience of every Industrial COM
munity hit hardest by the present
paralysis of trade and labor. Private
employment agencies. fail to-. find
work for their applicants, who are
often their victims. Public employ
ment agencies are SO narrowly To-
| Called and disconnected, SO politt-
cally exploited and therefore ineffec-
| tive, that they are no better than
private organizations, if as good, in
| bringing the demand and supply to-
gether. Employers are besought for
| jobs that they do not have. Their
| cha ritz IL. anroea1ad 70 for. :