The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-05-29
WAR and WOMEN WORKERS
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
By Frederic j. Haskin. Director
Washington. D. @.

without waste of energy and loss of
health, without wearing out women
and killing babies?
The children's bureau of the United
States department of labor has set
out to solve this problem by a study
of Europes experience during the
war.
The substitution of inexperienced
women and children for skilled male
factory workers has caused inevitable
loss, but it was not this alone which
caused Great Britain and France to
establish commissions for the inves
tigation of labor conditions. 1t was
because in time of emergency the
government of each of these countries
had looked for quick intelligence and
found 1t wanting; had expected eff
cheney and been disappointed, and
had come at last to realize that this
was not the fault of the workers but
of the industrial system itself.
Great Britain's new education bill
contains number of progressive
measures which would doubtless have
been scorned by the house of COM
mons before the war Moreover, Mr..
Herbert Fisher, president of the board
OF education, in speech made in par
lament a few weeks ago, declared
that hereafter it would be the policy
of England to insist upon the educa-
ton and industrial training of the
masses, so that the nation could de-
pend upon a sufficient number of
skilled and intelligent workers. One
of the measures of the bill which Mr..
Fisher expects to put in force as soon
as possible is the provision for con-
tinuation schools for persons between
the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
The attendance at these schools will
be for not less than eight hours
week, and will be at the employers
expense.
The Industrial lessons of the war
learned by France and England are
now of particular interest to this coun-
try. The United States childrens bu
reau was the first to realize the i'm
portance of obtaining all the facts
brought out by the European indus
trial commissions. The usual work of
the children'S bureau is looking after
the nations babies, but the bureau
early discovered that it could not go
very far in it's work without encoun
tering the industrial problem. 1t
found that the chief cause of infant
mortality was the low wages earned
by the babies fathers, and that the
mortality rate was greatly increased
when the babies mothers also were
compelled to work in order to earn
enough to live on. Now, a result of
the war, great many more women,
including mothers, will be employed IN
the factories of the nation, which will
place q greater hardship on the babies
and children. Therefore, the chill
dren's bureau does not seek to prevent
such employment, but from the in
formation obtained concerning the
same situation in Europe, it hopes to
insure the best possible working con-
ditionS for these women.
In the first place, according to the
bureau. at the beginning of the war
in Europe the industrial world was
completely disrupted. Factories sus-
pended their production, hundreds of
people were thrown out of work, and
thousands were starving. Then the
industries began to rally, as the war
mand for production, and finally the
war boom set in. The need for labor
was again nOrmal-even above normal
but it was impossible to get it. The
majority of the men had enlisted. So
the women and the children had to
estimated that there are now 100000
women working in the munition fac
tories of France, and approximately
the same number in those of Great
Britain.
But even this was not enough. The
machinery had to be kept going night
and day to supply sufficient military
equipment, and the manufacturers be-
gan to urge the necessity of certain
exemptions in the labor laws. The
minimum age limit for the employ
ment of children was lowered in both
countries, the regulations concerning
overtime became extremely lax, and
legal working day depended largely
upon the Judgment of the manufac-
turer.
After these conditions had gone on
for about a year, the government au-
thorities began to be worried. They
were not obtaining the expected pro-
duction. In spite of the employme
of all the working population. includ-
ing men, women and children, on
twelve hour shifts, the results were
far below the original estimates.
1t was then that the industrial COM
work. What they discovered led the
government authorities to reinforce
every regulation concerning the mini
mum age law, the eight-hour day, and
some new and very stringent laws in
regard to overtime employment.
Perhaps the most remarkable re-
suits obtained were those of the Brit
fish fatigue commission, which con-
Quoted an extensive inquiry into the
| principal causes of fatigue. Its ex-
periments covered seven factories each
| employing anywhere from six hundred
to two thousand hands, including men
| and women. The first investigation,
extending over a period of one and a
| half months, was conducted in a fac
tory engaged in the manufacture of
surgical dressings for the army in the
| field. The entire process of making
surgical dressings was carried on in
this one factory, including packing,
carding, spinning, winding, wrapping,
sizing, weaving, bleaching, drying, i'm
ORIGINATING with antiseptic, redrying,
examining. cutting into bandages.
weighing and COMPRISING.
| The second factory was an engineer
ing plant manufacturing materials OF
war, which ranged from the huge tur-
bineS for large ships to the steel
shields used in the trenches. 1t en-
ployed aobtu six hundred men and
many women.
The first experiment was known as
a color test. The person examined
was given the task of depressing a key
on a moving drum, which caused a
shutter to fall. revealing a certain
! cala-- 4