The evening leader., 1918-11-23
ILAbOR'S GREAT TASK WELL DONE

gram. To construct the great fleet
that America has put upon the waves
enough pine was required to have
built bridge from here to France
with 100000 feet of timber left over
Getting this timber out of the prime
val forests of the great Northwest,
hauling it to the railroad, transport
ing it 1000 or 5000 miles to Gulf and
Atlantic Coast shipyards, formed an
epic feat of labor that deserves cele-
bration by a great poet
Moreover, America had to get ready
to make the ships. The building of
the great shipyards was a race
against time and the German subma-
rine; but they were completed through
American genius and the devotion of
American labor, and the submarine
menace no longer exists.
The nations $4,000 factories next
needed help; those and the farms.
While the wheat fields IF the ives:
were clamoring for men to harvest
the great crop that must feed not only
this country but it's armies and the ar
mics and civilian populations of the
allies, the munitions works in MANY
parts of the country were beginning
to feel keenly the losses they had sus-
tained through the draft. Here was q
double problem, which the United
States employment service was at
once called upon to solve.
This great organization, through its
farm labor officials, succeeded first of
all in mobilizing all the spare labor of
the wheat Countrywide older men and
the boys who could give effective SER
vice. Next, men out of jobs or expect
ing calls to the army within Z month
or SO were collected from all parts of
the country. In one way ard another,
great harvest army was created.
which worked its way north through
the Mississippi and Missouri valleys
to the Canadian border with all the
precision Of victorious army on the
battlefield. The American wheat crop
was saved, and that of Canada as well.
Before the army was demobilized. the
American corn crop was a1so gath
cred.
While this great project was under
way, the employment service was
guiding men into essential occupa-
tions. There was a splendid response
to the nations need when men in full
strength and vigor were summoned
from nQn-esential jobs to wartime
production. AS occupations were add
ed from time to time to the non-essen-
tial list, the munitions factories and
other war work received a supply of
recruits who have given excellent ser.
vice to the country.
Here again came an instance of co.
operatio,o between employer and en=
r'oye. At first few factory owners
felt some spprehens ~ at.ol' placing
young men without experience in ma
chine work. Nevertheless. the facto-
ry gates were opened for their recep-
tion and everything possible was done
to instruct them in the work required
to turn out war materials.
Labor has kept the stream of guns
and projectiles, of foodstuffs, and
moving forward steadily
during the past year and half. So
has the American workman
performed his task that America has
practically supported the world, and
yet the people at home have suffered
no real hardships.
Coal presented one of the great
problems of the war. Coal is a vital
necessity to all forms of war work
to the factories that produce war ma
terials, the homes of the worlmen,
the railroads and the ships that trans
port goods to all parts of this country
and to our soldiers abroad. Many min
ers had been called into the army; the
depleted number that remained must
produce more coal than had ever been