Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1942-02-04
Workers Without Work

The disclosure that scores of young
men and women are being brought
into Washington for war work and
placed on the payroll until jobs are
available for them is striking COM
mentary on the chaotic conditions
attending our transition from a
peacetime to a wartime basis.
This situation, as reported in The
Star yesterday, seems to be particu-
larry acute in the War Department,
although it can hardly be doubted
that it prevails elsewhere in the war
agencies. 1t is difficult, because of the
refusal of officials directly involved
to discuss the matter, to ascertain
fully the facts pertaining to this
condition, but the picture appears to
shape up about as follows: The War
Department., to take this agency as
an example, concludes that certain
number of employees will be needed
by particular date. Upon receiving
this notification the Civil Service
Commission canvasses the country
until the specified number Of workers
have been secured, and then turns
them over to the War Department.
There they are assigned to a pool
until the Jobs are ready for them.
OF the girls assigned to the large
pool visited by a Star reporter yes
terday, one had been on the pay roll
here three weeks, another two weeks.
Yet they had been given nothing to
do. They report for duty at am,
read movie magazines, write personal
letters and exchange bits of gossip.
At quitting time they go home, only
to repeat the performance the next
day. Ultimately, no doubt, they are
assigned to a job.
1t Is to be expected, of course, that
a certain amount Of confusion and
lost motion should be in evidence in
any such transition as that now TAX
ing place in this country. But the
fact that some confusion is inevitable
does not excuse failure to hold it
to minimum, and it is becoming in
creasingly clear that no adequate
effort to bring order out Of chaos is
being made here. On the contrary,
it Is difficult to escape the impression
that the various agencies are fran
tically clamoring to the Civil Service
Commission for employees before the
jobs they are to fill are ready for
them.
On the one hand Federal employees
already established in Washington
are being ordered away, in such haste
that those responsible for the order
have not assured themselves that
adequate provisions in housing and
office space in other cities are made.
In several cases orders transferring
agencies to certain cities have had
to be Cancelled because the designated
cities were having their own war
expansion problems and could not
accommodate the newcomers. Yet
there is no slackening of pace in the
disorderly process of sending estab-
lished employees away to make room
for those who are coming in. No one,
apparently, is giving any thought to
the possibility Of assigning the work.
ers already here to war jobs, in~so far
as that might be possible, and then
moving the agencies to be transferred
to places where they could be re-
stated with new workers. That
would be a relatively orderly pro-
cedure, and possibly for that reason
1t is taboo.
1t is not possible to say how much
longer these conditions can prevail
before the whole incredible business
collapses of its own weight. But of
one thing there can be no doubt-the
entire lopSided structure is going to
come tumbling down unless some
thing is done promptly to inject a
semblance of rational direction into
this chaos which has become the
order Of the day.