The sun., 1918-07-30
where Federal Labor Control Can
Be6in Reform,


In number Of Its features the
Federal labor control, which Is to be-
come operative on Thursday, prob
ably will amount to little or nothing.
But on this Government programme
are two things which the Department
Of Labor can do easily. II 1t does
Only those two things much of the
really dangerous labor shortage will
be modified. Then the general labor
market would naturally readjust It.
self back to better conditions.
One thing the Government can do
and ought to do Immediately is to
stop Its own bidding, directly and
indirectly, Of labor away from fields
where it can be useful, to Government
shipyards, cantonments or other
places where good part Of that
labor can be of no use to itself or to
anybody else.
Steel plants and munition facto-
ries have been foolish enough to send
out agents through the coal territory
to induce miners and miners helpers
TO quit their Jobs for higher pay in
the steel and munition plants. Not
only did those plants get nothing
much worth while for their purposes
from that sort of labor, but they
soon discovered that as they pulled
away men from the mines they cut
Off their own coal supply.
But there was no worse offender
than the Government itself. When It
wanted to put up barracks, ware
houses or terminals. when 1t wanted
to convert fields and forests into
camps and drill grounds, when 1t
wanted to do any big piece Of work,
1t paid men, good, bad and indifferent,
all sorts Of inflated. wages. When
the farm hand, the village carpenter,
the shoemaker, anybody, heard that
those working for the Government
we're making fabulous wages, whether
they knew anything about the work
they were doing or not. they all pulled
up stakes and beat 1t to the Govern
ment jobs. These men would 60 not
merely out Of their own communities ;
they would go out Of their State and
across n neighboring State. Some of
them would go half way across the
continent.
1t was not many months before the
Government quit letting a man gather
in two, three. or four times what he
was worth. The Government got It.
self organized In its work, shipped
some Of the lncompetents. selected
more carefully those that were left,
and took reasonable palms in engag.
ing new labor. But the fables OF
what any man. without arms. with
out legs. without eyes. could get from
the Government for doing nothing at
all nre still enhancing large pro-
portion Of the wage eaners Of the
United States. Here the trouble hae
been not merely that the men who
packed their kits and started for a
Government Job were gone for a sea
son from where they were needed
just rs bad was the fact that those
who were left behind wouldn't work
for reasonable wages or even high
wages when they believed that those
who had the Government Jobs were
getting the salaries of bank presi
dents and were going TO hold them as
life jobs.
1t did not take the farm hands long
to find their way hack to the farms
after they discovered that they could
not make any sort of living building
ships or turning out munitions, for
the very good reason that they could
not hold those Jobs. They We're glad
enough to go back to the farms where
they were sure OF work, with their
pay net in their jeans at the end OF
the month, no rent, no board, nc
railway fares, &c, to he paid. But
the carpenter, the teamster, the smith
the plumber, the painter. who wen
Off to work for the Government al
two or three times what he had ever
earned before in his life. was sc
thoroughly demoralized that he never
landed on his feet again, even when
he was ticketed home.
If the Government. which itself set
the false standards, blinded the eyes
Of wage earners and, directly and in.
directly, stripped other fields Of labor
Of half n dozen workers for every
one needed by the Government. car
etralghten out the situation which the
Government thus created, it will 60 n
long way toward enabling other EN-
ployers Of labor to get their fields re-
adjusted on something like rational
basis.
The Improving Wheat situation.
The Food Administration has noti