The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-03-13

ing and immediate problem which we are facing. Hundreds of thousands of wage-earners are being poured back into our country from France, and other hundreds of thousands are jobless because of the cutting off of war activities. The unemployment situation is bad and getting worse: more than half million men arc idle in the county today, and more than halT a milE-l more will be in the near future, and they are idle and without earnings while the cost of Hviu= $ still on a war basis. Un- employment insurance acts and all other devices but one to care for this difficulty would take too long, and thlt one is the creation of work by the federal, state, and municipal go,-- ernnlents of this country upon pub lie buildings, public roads, and pub lie improvements of all kinds. This is a peculiarly happy solution, if the authorities would only take IL promptly in hand, because all such inlproveme have been slowed down t.- four years. and practically stop ped during our period in the war, and 3ar necessities in this respect have been so damned up that we are to- day uuderbuilt to a surprising de- gree.
 Construction Program
 If every man will devote little of his time to urging the federal and state authorities with whom he is in touch to forward a program of pub lie construction, and q little more time to ascertaining whether the city or town in which he lives cannot take up some of the slack, he will be doing a great public service
 -T,g-r heard that you had done me the hon. or of asking me to address you, and that my subject was Labor During and After Reconstruction they were kind enough to send representative to New York to explain the work that they, the Department of Com merce, and the Treasury Department are engaged in in an effort to meet this unemployment situation.
 [ Their estimates, from carefully con- siGered statistics go to show that pub
 lie construction, federal, state and municipal, during the last four years of war, has been damned up to an extent approximating $1,200, 900, 900, of which 60 per cent or S720,o0o,ooO ] will go out in wages when the work i is performed.
 ! To Adjust Prices
 Realizing the difficulty of secur- ing public support for public con- . struction with the prevailing high cost
 of building materials. the Department i of Commerce has organized an In i dustriaI board, which is engaged in an effort to adjust the commodity sit uation along the following line: 1 Prevailing prices were fixed by the l War Industries Board for the pur- ] pose of getting 100 per cent effective i ness during the war; that is to say, l prices were set at such 8 figure as | to permit manufacturing concerns to 1 operate It 8 profit which, under normal prices could not operate i at all on account of faulty lo- [ cation or equipment. It is proposed 1 to cut the top off of this pyramid by
 a reduction of prices to such point as to dispense with those factories which can only operate on a war basis and, when the country has readjusted itself to that situation, to cut again i to the point where the only factories that can operate will be those which can operate at a cost that will leave l them a, profit at normal prices
 Upon the success of this plan de- 1 bends the Treasury's aid without ad- ditional legislation The Treasury has large building appropriations which can only be used within certain limits
 of cost set by the legislation authoriz- i ing them, and the Department or l Commerc eand Labor are mak- ing the effort to bring the cost within the Treasury appropriations in order that the Treasury's funds for contruc- ton may be immediately available
 to aid in taking up the slack in un- employment.
 The railroad administration is ask ing for revolving fund of s760,0O0- 900 for railway eonstruatian and ina