The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-04-10

ment of labor in aid of the plan for the en-
ployment and distribution of laborers in the
United States; the former through its post
masters, officers in charge of branch post Of
noes and rural carriers; and the latter through
its field and other services throughout the 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 To-
cality in which he resides. Every farmer in the
United States through the post office depart
ment by this time has been, or soon will be, fur
nished with application blanks upon which he
cam state any need which he has of farm labor
ers or of help of any description. These blanks
filled in and forwarded will do the service for
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
it's division of information is performing. Manu-
f~acturers and employers of labor of all kinds are
furnished with blanks similar to those sent to the
farmers, except, of course, that they are adj
iusted to meet other kinds of working needs. The
correspondence of the department is tremendous
and the work of giving men work is going for
ward rapidly.
Before going into the details of the mocha
nism of the system by which natives, sometimes
residents, and recently arrived immigrants are
directed 10 nelQS Ol 6lpiOy lhCulB ~
should be said about the development of this
great governmental plan to provide work for the
voorhees,. 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,
we're a better word, in the solution of the prob
lem of forging the connecting link of Information
between the man seeking work and the man seek
ing workmen.
For Just as long and perhaps a longer period
T.. ". Powderly, the chief of the division of in
formation, has been interested in the same prob
lem. Mr.. Powderly has been connected with the
government service for some years and has de-
veloped a system of getting the work and the
voorhees, worker together until today the post
Office department and the agricultural depart
ment are cooperating with the department of Ia
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
II one tells a story of how he first became inter
ested to a heart and mind feeling point in plans
to get work for the voorhees,. To me the story
is an interesting one and it seems that 1t 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 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 Years day,
1873, he found himself in st, Thomas, Ont, with
no money in his pocket, no food in his stomach
and no place to sleep. A Waterman allowed him
to sleep in the freighthouse 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
had for some days. All this time the tramper
was asking himself why there was not some
means of letting him know where there was
work. In asking himself this he was charging
his heart and mind with a purpose in life, the
same purpose which Secretary Wilson Of the de-
partment of labor fixed in his own mind and
heart a quarter of century ago.
Tramp" Powderly reached one town where
there we're some machine shops. He applied for
work and there were no vacancies. He left