Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-11-22
GOVERNMENT
WORK TO KEEP
LABOR BUSY
War Labor Board Plans TO
Start Enormous Public
Projects at Oonce

Washington, Nov 22.-The War
Labor Policies Board has now become
a peace policies board and has set
! out to realize the determination of
American labor as represented by
! Samuel Gompers to resist all efforts
| to lengthen the day or shorten the
upon the coming of peace.
DR.. Frankfurter and his associates,
however realize that mere announce
ment by Mr.. Gompers or anybody
else that the short day and the long
pay are going to stick are mere verbal
defiances unless the economic foun-
dation can be provided. If there are
| more men than jobs and more pro-
duction than consumption then there
Is going to be competition for the at
tenuated payroll and the elongated
job.
\ graphic illustration of this fact
has already appeared in the shipyards.
The efficiency of the workers at Hog
Island has increased 20 per cent since
the armistice was declared.
one day of fear that a good job
might be lost accomplished more than
all the exhortations. patriotic ap-
peals, competitive stunts and uplift
work of a year. From now on ships
will be built faster than they were
built during the war; for with the
end of the war has come the belief
that there will soon be more men than
jobs around shipyards.
Five ObjcctivcS Sought
The War Labor Policies Board rec
ognizes that wages come out of
wealth production and that the only
chance there is for keeping them UP
to their present level is to crowd
production and industrial activity to
the limit. So 1t has laid down five
detectives for the public policy de-
signed to meet the readiustment pc
riad without serious disturbances.
These are:
First-Avoidance of a large vol
ume of unemployment.
. Second Maintenance of labor
standards.
Third-Avoidance of a falling off
to serious extent of rates of wages.
Fourth-Maintenanc of produc-
tion at a high level
tlllN-ReHONd Ul pOSSlDIllly VI
business depression.
The first great step forward the at
tainment of these ends is to be the
immediate Inauguration of public
works on a great scale by the Fed
eral government. The administration
is now at work on an appropriation
scheme for starting river and harbor
work, national highroads and recla-
MI In :
scale. This program will be laid be-
fore Congress after it meets in its
second session in December, and every
effort will be made to secure prompt
action. Every ordinary government
project from irrigation to lighthouses
that was held up or slowed down on
account of the war will be resumed,
and Congress will be asked to auth
orize new projects on a vast scale.
Irrigation Work to Start
Secretary Lane says that irrigation
projects already surveyed, planned
and estimated on can put 100000 men
at work the minute Congress presses
the treasury button.
Moreover, the moment Congress
acts on this colossal scheme for the
reclamation of arid, wet and cut-over
lands he can put another half million
to work.
a national highways program has
been outlined on such a magnificent
scale that the mere mention of it be-
fore the war would have been pre-
sumptivc evidence of insanity, EX-
tension of inland waterways is to
be advocated as Indispensable to the
solution of the nations inland trans
port problem.
The railways are to be urged to
"cut loose" at once, as asked by the
steel men, with orders for steel and
equipment.