Evening star., 1919-03-09

am certain of the vital need for the
ment service. Personally I am con-
vinced that those who hamper it are
tampering without effort among
those most essential to the prevention
of distress and If disorder
The great labor organizations
strongly favor the continuance of the
federal system. Gompers, Franey,
Frank Morrison and others freely and
vigorously have expressed themselves
upon the subject. Their lies the
brightest hope. II organized labor
steadfastly demands it. the effort Will
be kept up and intensified.
without it no medium will exist
through which labor supply can be ad-
justed to labor demand at a time when
there are certain to be large surplus
ages and when, in consequence, 1t
will be unsafe to let any demand any
where to remain unsatisfed. Efficient
distribution. in the circumstances, Is
an absolute necessity and viii be i'm
possible under any but federal sys-
tenn. State lines have no relationship
whatever to labor shortage and la
Dor surpluses.
Existing unemployment" Dean
Kirchwey presently continued, "is an
inevitable result of wars dislocation
of our whole Industrial system. Ger
tain conditions, partly governmental,
partly psychological, partly social.
have tended to retard revival of many
peace-time industries.
First and most important among
the governmental! causes has been con-
gressional delay in passing the act
validating those war contracts which
the Attorney General declared invalid.
owing to their informal execution.
There may have been legal exactitude
in this decision, but there was human
injustice in it.
*k
Had 1t been observed exactly, a
technical provision that no war con-
tract should be actually valid unless
signed by certain official designated
to execute all contracts of the inter
ested division of war industries would
have hampered all our war effort In
the rush of the emergency, vast
number of war contracts were entered
into by letter or by telegraph by the
higher governmental representatives
and with utter disregard to these
designated individuals. On the
strength of such arrangements manu-
facturers in all parts of the country
installed especial equipment, pur-
chased stocks Of raw material, and
prosecuted manufacturing sometimes
actually to deliver before the formal
contract for their output had finished
it's laborious passage through the cir
cumlocution Office at the capital, which
laboriously had been provided for by
statute.
"All this was accepted as quite regu-
lar while the war remained in prog
ress, but when the armistice was sign
ed production under these contracts
was Immediately stopped, leaving mil
lions of money tied up in enterprises
which had only moral and no logical
claim against the government.
obviously only legislation could
untangle the complicated situation
born of this astonishing ineficiency
and a bill providing means through
which to determine what contracts
remained valid and to what extent
long has been pending before Con-
gress. The affected industries have
been suffering as might be expected
during the heartbreaking delays at
tending governmental processes.
MANY have found their capital so
involved by these complications that
their resumption of peace-Time pro-
duction has been impossible, and
their unfortunate predicament inevi-
tably has affected labor The War
Department and 'tlte War inadat ries