Evening star., 1942-08-09
Divided Authority Hampers
National Employment Policy
State Controls Overlap Federal Jurisdiction of
Public Agencies and Prevent Efficient -,
Utilization of Workers
BY Fell. NJ orIey.

making 1t extremely dlfncult Tor the
| employment service to function efficiently
across State lines.
The present dual organization of the
| United States Employment Service would
have been very appropriate in the Con-
federacy during the Civil War. Each
State there was practically sovereign and
contributed to the common effort to an
extent determined not in Richmond but
in the capitals of the various seeding
Commonwealths.
But in the prosecution of what is
rightly defined as total war" divided
control in the vital field of public en-
ployment agencies must be questioned
as fundamentally illogical If civilian
mobilization is to be more than a phrase
it will probably have to be handled as
concerted national effort rather than as
one in which the isolated contributions
of the several States, added together,
are optimistically expected to make an
impressive total
The present United States Employment
Service was established by the Wagner
Peyser Act, signed by President Roosevelt
on June 6, 1885. It's provision that local
employment Offices should be adminis-
tered by the States, which were supposed
to comply with Federal standards to be
eligible for Federal grants on a $3.50
basis, was even then criticized, on the
grounds that unemployment is essentially
national rather than State or local
problem.
President Asked Uniformity.
On December 10, l941, less than fort
night after Pearl Harbor, President
Roosevelt reminded all State and terri
torial Governors that: "At present, as
you know, the United States Employment
Service consists of so separate State and
territorial employment services whose
operations are loosely co-ordinated by
the Federal Government" To meet war
conditions the Presidents telegram con-
tinued: TT is essential that all of these
separate employment services become a
uniformly and of necessity nationally op-
Grated employment service
During the intervening period much
progress has been made in welding the
l,500 local public employment Offices into
single national system. But in making
appropriations for the current fiscal year
Congress not only stipulated the return
to State control after the war emergency
OF the employment service facilities.
property and personnel" but also added
certain provisions which make it all but
impossible for the system to function,
even in wartime, as a co-ordinated ma
tional service.
ssss present conditions, for example.
1t IS doubtful that the normal local ofice
will make any attempt to cooperate in
sending unemployed workers out of its
own State, regardless of acute shortages
in other areas. Yet such shortages can
only be met smoothly and effectively if
Interstate transfer of workers is re-
garded as normal employment service
function
Almost so years ago a great English
serted that "a federation will always be
at disadvantage in a contest with uni
tartan States of equal resources" The
reason, he explained Is that under the
Federal system the constituent parts will
inevitably tend to oppose single CEN
tralized policy, no matter how imperative
this may be from the national viewpoint.
OF this characteristic of our political
system the present difficulties of the
United States Employment Service pro-
vide clear-cut illustration. Regret
table as the fact may be, these difficulties
will have to be confronted squarely by
the chairman of the War Manpower
Commission, and by Congress, before the
projected assignment of the entire civil
population to essential services can be
attempted with prospect - complete
success.