Omaha daily bee., 1916-12-18
SEPARATE BUREAU
FOR EMPLOYMENT
Secretary Wilson Says Work
Started by immigration Blu
reau Has 0utgrown It.
SAYS AGE LIMIT is WRONG

Washington, Dec. 17.-Expansion OF
the governments public employment
service by creation of separate bu-
reau OF employment within the De.
partment OF Labor, is the CHIEF
Recommendation Of Secretary. VII
sons annual report made public to-
day. The work, it is declared, has
outprown the facilities Of the bureau
of immigration, from where it has
been directed. Beginning in small
way in 1907 it now covers the country
through the Postoffice and other de-
partments.
The assistance of the Postoffiee de-
partment, Secretary Wilson says, has
been particularly helpful. Some Co.,
900 postofiices are distributing blanks
which the seeker of job fills out and
| sends through the mails free OF post
age. When applications OF employers
and employees in the same neighbor-
hood enter the same postofhce the
postmaster brings them together
without forwarding the applications.
Cooperation With Municipalities.
One feature OF the employment
work emphasized in the report is the
Department of Labor's cooperation
with state and city public employment
work. The departments aim, It IS de-
clared. is to make the work so ex-
tensive as to comprise the whole
country geographically and to en-
brace all its industries, yet so inten-
sive as to discover every opportunity
for work, however obscure, and to
reach with a helping hand every wage
Garner needing employment or want
ing better employment"
The departments attitude twoards
strike breaking is set forth in con,
nection with its public employment
policy in these words: ..
1.-THE Department of Labor should
not make itself medium for convey
| ing information of demands for wage
earners where labor disputes are the
cause of the demand. That there is
already a sufficient supply Of labor
there IS as true If it is unemployed on
account of dispute over terms as il
| it were unemployed from lack of EN-.
ployment opportunities from other
causes"
Arbitrary Age Limit Wrong
Extension of the service is urged
to provide for the employment Of the
aged. Modern industrialism, it is de-
clared, condemns to the scrap hear
too many able-bodied and active
Drained men, whose only defect i:
their having passed an arbitrary agt
limit.
The report relates at length the de
partment's mediation efforts during
the year and argues for collectiv,
bargaining in matters Of employment
Large employers are usually incor
porated companies with many stock
holders OF diversified industrial con
nections and with boards of directors
having intercorporate affiliations. Al
individual wage worker is weak in
. deed as bargainer against such EN-
ployers. He must take what they of
fer or 60 without employment; AM
. going without employment means t
, the wageworker what bankruptc.
means to the business man, excep
| that it is UNNECESSARILY worse"
Purpose Of Department.
The department was created in tn
: interest Of the wage earner-both or
4 ganizeR and unorganized-and it
7 great guiding purpose, Secretary Vii
!. sons description of its policy de
i clares, is promotion Of the welfare Q
i the wage Garner of the United States
e an the execution OF that purpose,
the report says, "the element of fair
ness to every interest is of equal i'm
d portance, and the department, in fac