New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-01-12

ME best TREND OF the returning SOL
der or sailor is the United States
- Employment Service He wants
job The service gets one for him.
1t is Big Brother work, but of far more mo-
ment than that, for it is to the best inter-
est of everybody that these millions of
boys, so summarily called from the pursuits
of peace to fight our battles, should be fitted
back into the industrial and commercial
life of the nation as rapidly and smoothly
as possible.
This the Employment Service is doing.
More, it is also taking care of every one
else who wants work, whether the desire be
for job in boiler foundry or on farm
or for an executive position with some big
corporation. This includes the thousands
of workers in munitions factories and other
plants where government contracts have
meant big pay and bonuses and much over
time for the last year and half. When,
on November II, four miserable Huns
signed their names to document of stern
terms they precipitated a period of read
justment into which American industry had
hardly expected to go before next spring or
early summer, and there has been since the
keenest interest-not to say anxiety
cern-over what might eventuate from the
canceling of contracts, which would natur-
ally follow the sudden cessation of demand
for munitions and many other kinds of
war material.
Interest is, of course, justifed-very
much so--but there is occasion for nothing
but optimism. Matters seem to be going
very we'll indeed with American industry
thus far and Uncle Sam has his finger
the pulse of the labor situation through the
Employment Service. It's hundreds of local
offices cover the country thoroughly and
systematically. To be sure, up to Novem-
Der IL, war industry being then at the peak
of an intensive push for production in con-
nection with which the whole United States
was being combed for workers, the job
sought the man, while now-to an extent,
at least-the opposite is the case, but there
are hundreds of thousands of places open
for workers in American factories and on
our railroads and farms-a round million.
a recent bulletin of the Department of La
Dor said.
Henry Bruere, who was City Chamberlain
in the Mitchell administration and had be-
come we'll known over good part Of the
country before that through his work at
the head of the Bureau of Municipal Re-
search, was till last week Federal director
of the Employment Service for New York
City and State. His Offices in a Fifth Ave
nue. building were the centre CT the far
flung network which maintains a direct
contact between the service and every
poyer of labor in its district, we'll
with the soldiers and sailors who are COM
ing back to civil life and all other cogs in
the industrial machine.
"The labor situation is working out very
WE'LL" said Mr.. Bruere last week.
eve are taking of the soldiers and
sailors without difficulty and balancing the
labor laid off by plants which have in
creased their forces largely to handle MUM
tions and other war contracts against the
needs Of the non-essential concerns which
are now filling in their skeleton organiza-
tions and the war plants which able to
turn their energies Immediately to other
work
There is a demand for labor over the
country which on the surface might seem
surprising For one thing, the shipbuld-
ing plants, which are hustlng their con-
tracts along just before the armistice
need large numbers of men. Then differ
ent lines of manufacturing which have done
little since we entered the war are starting
up again in full force. The piano industry
in New York end hereabouts is an example
Rubber industries of all kinds are asking
for thousands of men. The corset manu-
facturers, the manufacturers of certain
kinds of textiles, the clock and watch fac
tories, the automobile people--all these and
many others in the market for labor.
ave get the discharged soldier or sailor
his old job back, or its equivalent, and are