New-York tribune., 1919-06-21
Sec. Wilson Denies
Politics Govern
Employment System
Its Personnel Suggested by
Defence Councils, Which
Follow State Party Rule,
He Explains to Committee
Ne,o York Tribune
W00htr0t0rt Bureau

|
WASHINGTON, June 20.-Explana-
tion of the criticism that the Federal
employment system is political ma
chine was made by Secretary William
3. Wilson Of the Department of Labor
this morning at the joint hearing OF
the Kenyon and Nolan bills before the
Senate Committee on Education anc
Labor and the House Committee or
Labor, with Representative Smith, OF
Michigan, presiding.
That the councils of National De-
fence in the states had suggested the
names for the personnel of the service
in their respective territory was the
complaints of political machinery.
He pointed out that in Republican
states the councils Of defence were
largely of that party and in states
where the Democrats were in power
the councils of defence reflected this
condition. AS a consequence, declared
the Secretary, the Democrats in Repub-
lican states charged the service with
using its appointive power to favor
the Republicans and in the Democratic
states the Republicans made similar
charges. These complaints were not
numerous, he said.
The Secretary occupied the full two
hours of the hearing this morning,
with the exception of ten minutes
given to A. Brand, of Washington.
Tomorrow morning, at 10 o'clock,
John Densmore, director general of
the service, will take the stand
'In compliance with the request of
Senator Smith, of Georgia. would like
to report that it will be impossible to
separate the work of placement done
1,1y -&,%1 L. L
done by the Federal offices" said Sec
retary Wilson. "In Illinois, however,
before the war, they had 16O,738 regis
trations. 157,686 referred to positions
and 99,730 placed in positions. In 1918,
after the Federal system had been
cooperating, there were 1852 regis
trations, 51O,368 referred to positions
and 100000 placed in jobs. 1t is not
fair to the state to make these COM
parsons, as conditions after the war
began in earnest for US were different.
But these are the only kind of figures
extant.
at should be the policy of the en-
ployment service to refuse to furnish
labor in the case of a strike. This is
the only condition under which we de-
Dor. We believe the service should be
neutral, and if we supplied labor to
the employer whose men had struck
we would not be in the position of ex-
act neutrality. There was another an
gle to the question that guided this
policy. We do not see why labor should
be imported into community when
there is already sufficient supply of
labor there to fill the positions. Any
cancellations of the strike troubles were
left to the conciliation board of the
Department of Labor, the employment
service keeping out of the matter"
The chair asked if it was a fact that
5000 strikes had been held by indus
trial workers in this country from
April, 1917, to November, 1918. Secre-
tary Wilson said he was not prepared
to give figures on this query, but add
ed:
"There never were any strikes DUR
ing the war of more than local i'm
port, nor any involving a large num-
ber of workers. After the concilia-
tion board went into effect large
percentage of strikes that formerly
reached the open stage was stopped
before they materialized."