Evening star., 1919-03-09

Geological effect OF military seryices
difficult sometimes for us to ind for
the lads Jobs which they are wiliingI
TO accept. While we place about 60a
per cent of the civilians who apply
to us. / think we place much lessE
than the proportion of the soldiers
and sailors coming to us, because so
often they reject the places which
we have to, offer them.
Immediately after the armistices
was signed, Knowing that If 1t was
to play a role Of real Importance II
must act at once. the board got intoj
touch with every employer offering
places to more men than ten in itsl
whole district, asking each III ne had
and Ii so, whether or not he would
find places for them after their dis
charge. Almost all employers re-
srondeu with enthusiasm expressing
not mere Willingness, but eagerness,i
to make places for all old employees.
Some sent letters to all old employees,
whether they were under arms at
home or on the oceans other side.
assuring them that their old jobs
were open to Them
But the men were less enthusiastic.
Nearly all were courteous, writing
letters of thanks, but less than half
expressed Willingness to take UP
their old Jobs. This was surprise
to all OF us. When we had had from
the employers such a fine response We
naturally had assumed that the sol,
dier problem would care for itself;
but our plans have been upset by the
undoubted fact that a very large pro-
portion of the men discharged from
the Army want to begin life over. do.
ing something bigger than they did
before they Joined the colors.
When we asked one great depart
ment store. which had lost $50 men
to the service, IL it would take them
back, its management expressed
amusement. saying that IL one-third
wanted their old Jobs the proportion
would be utterly astonishing. The
estimate was accurate. The men did
not go back to their old jobs. or
ffty-six men on the Mexican border,
for example, all of whom were offered
their old places, less than twenty took
them, and within a month all but two
OF those who had gone back had left
the jobs for new fields of effort.
''It has become disturbingly apparent
that military service quite upsets mems
old ideas as to what constitute desirable
employment. One of our representa-
tives reports that New York jobs are
being filed by men out of Nebraska and
North Carolina When we asked him
where the New York men were he re-
piled that probably they were taking
jobs in North Carolina and Nebraska
We now are making careful records of
the previous residence of such men rs
apply to us for jobs. The final sum-
mary will be very interesting, / am sure.
"A general reshuffing of young men
appears to be in progress War service
must be dislocating many homes. Office
superintendents here in the city tell us
that at least one-third of those who
come to them for jobs never in the past
have worked in New York city or it's
neighborhood, and that OF those apply
ing for positions less than one-third are
accepting the jobs offered.
Through changed environment and
effort soldiers, l imagine, In many in
stances have discovered in themselves
quite unexpected qualities. Surely many
youngsters during military service have
achieved new Independence and new
seh-respect; they have found that they
possess undreamed-of endurance: they
have developed in themselves q new ini-
tiative; many of them have proved their
possession Of actual heroisn and that
means strength of character, where, in
the old days, they had little to exercise
real force.
What these men desire are positions
which will give play to those new char
acteristics. and with nothing less than
this will they be satisfied Such jobs
are hard to find
"They are harder to find now than
they were after our great civil war
when the vast west awaited settlement.
In many instances the enforced break
has supplied the men with the first
chance they ever have had to break
loose from an old environment, which
may have been ill-suited to their tastes.
hut which they would have clung to
through sheer inertia IL the war had not
removed them from it. They might
never have thrown up the old jobs IL
they had been left in them. but once cut
of them they won't go back to them
Copyright, 1919. by the Edward Marshall syn!
dcate, Inc.