The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-08-28
SQUARE PEGS FOR SQUARE
HOLES
THE TOPEKA STATE J0URNAL
IMPORTATION BUREAU
BY Frederic }. Haskin. Director.
Washington, ID. @.

public service reserve IN It's washing
ton office is proving that the United
States leads the world in the science
of card-indeXing-
The reserve is preparing to card
index every patriotic man and woman
in the nation. President Wilson has
said that this is a war, not OF armies,
but of whole nations; and also that
our own nation would volunteer for
service en- masse The pub icN service
reserve, which functions under the
auspices of the department of labor,
is the agency which will take care or
a nation of volunteers.
The public service reserve asks ev-
cry man to come forward and say that
he is ready to serve the government,
wherever he can be of most use in
the war emergency. In reply to this
offer of service, the reserve gives him
a certificate of membership. bronze
button to wear in his coat and the
consciousness of having done his duty.
Before very long it may give him a
new job, which may or may not be
more pleasant and remunerative than
the one he has today, but which will
certainly be one where he can serve
the national interest to better advan-
tage.
This war will bring tremendous
changes in American industry if 1t
lasts as long as conservative predic-
lions forecast. It will mean great
fer of workmen from industry to in
dustry and from state to state. Some
times it will mean the transfer of
single chemist from perfume factory
to a plant for the manufacture of
ether or poison gases; sometimes it
will mean the shifting of five thousand
mechanics from the making of pleas
ure boats to the making of aeroplanes.
How to find the map for each need
as it arises, to lay the national finger
20
select from all the eligibleS the one
whose transfer will cause the least
industrial disturbance-that is the
problem of mobilizinS the labor re-
sources of nation. 1t is task re-
curing some central agency where
needs and resources may be brought
together. The United states Public|
Service Reserve intends to supply this
agency, and eventually it intends to
have at it's fingers ends the man
power of the nation. The heart of the
reserve is card-indeX.
The Public Service Reserve.
Before its work is done. the public
service reserve hopes to list millions
of men who have volunteered to work
where they can do the most good. Yet
it's system is suchs that if the govern
ment calls for a single chemist or
single mechanic, the reese, We wilf-be
able to turn to its index and pick out,
not a thousand possible candidates,
nor hundred men who might fill the
bill, but one single man who iSe the
man for the place and is ready to take
it, Speed, efficiency, the elimination
of waste effort, the reduction of in
dustrial loss to a minimum-theSe are
the things that win wars, and they de-
pend not upon hePoism or patriotism,
but upon scientific system. The sys-
tenn adopted for indexing industrial
volunteers is the really vital point of
-, Hi lon nd
is an intricate and interesting thing.
The officials of the reserve say that
they have completed the experimental
period of their work, in which they
have listed and indexed some twelve
or fifteen thousand Industrial vol,ln-
teers from various sources, most of
them skilled technical men. Now they
are ready ITO begin work on a national
scale. The task will be taken up state
by state Pennsylvania has been select
ed for the first state campaign, and
from the results of the work theI >,
the system will be further perfected to
apply to every state in The union.
Six Hundred Subdivisions.
So far the men who have offered
their services have only been divided
into some 500 classes and suh-classes,
according to their training and occu
pations The number of classes wilt
be greatly increased as the work goes
forward. Mr.. 1. L. Litchfield, wh1 is
the indexing expert of the reserve, can
take any mans volunteering blank
and refer it at a glance to its proper
class and Sub-clasS in the 500; OF you
can ask him for any kind of a man
you choose from a drill press feeder
to a veterinary surgeon and he can
turn to the proper division Of the 900
divisions in the card index, and give
you the names of the men listed under
that head. More than that, he can
Il,
particular job you have in mind.
where he is working and what he is
doing, whether he is willing to work
in Europe or not, what his disabilities
are, If any, where his father was born,
and a mass of other information bear
tenn is such that the best man for
particular job can usually be picked
out almost literally at a glance
Each man who volunteers for in
dustria1 service-and by volunteering
is meant an offer to serve with or
without pay; a man with wife and
seven children can volunteer as well
as anyone else-is listed on three sep
arate cards and 'indexed three times.
at least First he is indexed on a
white card, in the class to which his
present work belongs, Second, he Is
indeXed ION blue card, showing
what work he has done in the past
And third, he is indexed on a red
card which shows the emergency
work for which his training has fitted
him in case of need. Each card con-
tains all the information that is con-
tanned on both the other cards, so no
matter from which angle his case Is
pproached-present, past, or emerg=
eney occupation-all the facts are
gathered together, in highly technical
and abbreviated form, (on a single
square of paper.
The Gard Index.
For example. zone volunteer is a
chief clerk in the division of accounts
in railroad. His white card lists
him with the bookkeepers. His blue
card lists him with clerical railway
workers. His red card shows that in
case of emergency he is capable of
doing the work of a statistical expert.
There is not much war demand for