gi^SHsesasafrasESEsassasasHfffirasasasHsas^i^a^^ ^ Cornell University Library HD 5726.C4A5 Report to the mayor and aldermen, Q a g a a a a 3 1924 002 405 417 to the Aldermen BY THE Chicago Municipal Markets Commission ON A Practical Plan for Relieving Des- titution and Unemployment in the City of Chicago D B C B & C B C B B B G B Q Chicago December 28, 1914 THE LIBRARY OF THE NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924002405417 Report to the Mayor and Aldermen BY THE Chicago. Municipal Markets Commission ON A Practical Plan for Relieving Des- titution and Unemployment in the City of Chicago Chicago December 28, 1914 H. G. ADAIR. Printing 107 North Marltel Street, Chicago Chicago Municipal Markets Commission APPOINTED BY MAYOR HARRISON TO MAKE A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY AND REPORT ON THE SUBJECT OF MUNICIPAL MAR- KETS AND OTHER AGENCIES TENDING TO BRING THE PRODUCER AND THE CONSUMER INTO CLOSER CONTACT Members of Commission Chairman, ALDERMAN JAMES H. LAWLEY ALDERMAN AUGUST KRUMHOLZ MRS. JOHN C. BLEY ALDERMAN JOHN TOMAN MISS GERTRUDE V. SOULE MRS. C. FRANKLIN LEAVITT FRED A. CURTIS PROF. GRAHAM TAYLOR SECRETARY FREDERICK REX, Municipal Reference Librarian 1005 CITY HALL CHICAGO PROPERTY OF LIBRARY NEW YORK STATE SCKS8L INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS CONTENTS Page 1. Introduction •■ •• S 2. The Problem of the Unemployed 6-7 3. The Regularity of Unemployment 7-10 4. The Number of ^ Unemployed 10-15 5. The Number of Unemployed in Chicago 15-19 6. The Economic Waste Caused by Unemployment in the City of Chi- cago 19-20 7. A Classification of the Unemployed 20-21 8. The Remedy for Unemployment ■ 22 9. A Municipal Employment Bureau 22-32 10. Public Works for the Unemployed 32-37 11. Day Labor Versus Contract Labor Upon Public Works...... 37-38 12. Part Time Work 38-40 13. Employment of Resident Chicagoans 40-42 14. Unemployment Insurance 42-43 15. Relief Work 43-44 16. The Transient Laborer and the Municipal Lodging House 44-46 17. The Private Employment Agency r. 46-48 18. Illinois Free Employment Offices 48-49 19. The Police Station as a Branch of the Municipal Employment Bureau 49-50 20. Juvenile Employment and Vocational Training 50-51 21. The Reduction of Peddlers' Licenses in the City of Chicago 51-52 22. The Handicapped 52-53 23. Appointment of a Co-operative Committee to Put Practical Plan Into Effect S3 24. Conclusions 53-54 25. Recommendations 54-58 Appendices 59 A. Report by Miss Amelia Sears, Director of the Bureau of Public Welfare of Cook County, to the Chicago Municipal Markets Commission on the problem of unemployment and possible destitution 60-66 B. Letter from Mr. Eugene T. Lies, General Superintendent, United Charities of Chicago, to the Chicago Municipal Markets Com- mission, submitting plans for dealing with the problem of un- employment and destitution 66-67 C. Supplementary letter from Mr. Eugene T. Lies, General Superin- tendent, United Charities of Chicago 68-69 December 28, 1914. To the Honorable, The Mayor, and City Council of the City of Chicago. Gentlemen : — The Chicago Municipal Markets Commission begs to submit herewith its report on the order introduced by Alderman Charles E. Merriam of the Seventh Ward, and adopted by your Honorable Body on August 24, 1914, as published on page 1405 in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Chi- cago City Council of the date given, to the following effect: "Ordered, That the Chicago Municipal Markets Commission be and it hereby is directed to prepare as soon as possible a practical plan for relieving destitution and unemployment resulting from war conditions of trade and war prices." Your Commission has held a number of public hearings since the adoption of the foregoing order. At these public hearings representatives of the City and County Governments, various Park Districts, the Illinois Free Employ- ment Offices located in Chicago, the Sanitary District, Social Settlements, Charitable Organizations and employers and labor organizations have been examined. The Commission has made use of the information collected by civic bodies in Chicago; has secured the results obtained by other cities in com- bating unemployment, and has made a special effort to secure the advice and counsel of experts in the solution of this great problem. The shortness of time allowed for the investigation, in view of the impending winter season with its consequent wave of unemployment, has prevented any extended original re- search. The Commission has made use of all existing material bearing on the problem under investigation which could be gathered together in the brief space of time allotted and has instituted such further inquiries as were pos- sible under the circumstances. Opportunity has been given to all persons who expressed a desire to be heard, to submit their plans, suggestions and recom- mendations to the Commission. The Commission desires to express its appreciation of the valuable aid rendered to it in the pursuit of its investigations by Mr. William M. Leiserson, formerly Superintendent of the Wisconsin Free Employment Offices; Mr. Charles R. Barnes, recently chosen head of the newly created New York State Free Employment Exchanges; Mr. Eugene T. Lies, General Superintendent of the United Charities of Chicago, and Mr. John J. Fitzpatrick, President of the Chicago Federation of Labor. Appended will be found a report by Miss Amelia Sears, Director of the Bureau of Public Welfare of Cook County, on the problem of unemployment and possible destitution and various suggestions made by Mr. Eugene T. Lies, General Superintendent of the United Charities of Chicago, to the Commission for dealing with unemployment and poverty in the City of Chicago. In this report the data relating to the number of unemployed in Chicago and elsewhere are first presented. The remedies that can be put. into effect in solving the problem of unemployment are discussed at length, and the con- clusions and recommendations of the Commission are summarized in the final chapter. THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED Every industrial crisis and period of business depression in our com- munity has rapidly caused a large number of projects for aiding and relieving destitution and unemployment to be brought to the attention of the public. This fecundity in plans and schemes for relief may be but in answer to the desire of our citizens for reliable and sane proposals and definite information as to proper methods of procedure in public emergencies. As a consequence, plans and suggestions have been submitted from various sources from time to time which are to a greater or lesser extent experimental and tentative. As an offset to these temporary plans and proposals, various cities have made an attempt to acquire a permanent policy of dealing with problems of destitution and unemployment, in order to obviate the necessity of beginning anew each year or during each recurring industrial crisis in meeting such problems. There are periodical recurrences of great industial and business depres- sion in which many mercantile, industrial and manufacturing establishments lie idle. Thousands of wage earners are at such times deprived of livelihood for themselves and families, causing conditions which produce great suffering, oftentimes exceedingly aggravated by an unusually severe winter.. Demands of the unemployed and the destitute for food, clothing, shelter and other means of relief tax to the utmost the efforts of our charitable agencies. Unemployment represents the loss of useful labor, and millions of dollars in wages due to unemployment are lost each year in the City of Chicago to its wage earners. In addition the wage earner is subject to physical and mental suffering, and there is an increase in the number of our criminals and vagrants, the charitable and correctional institutions are filled to overflowing, the fami- lies and children of the unemployed suffer by neglect, and the entire social fabric is weakened by the painful malady affecting its base. Unemployment very generally is regarded as an individual misfortune subject to treatment by charity. Relief measures employed by the State for alleviating the destitution and distress caused by unemploj'ment have con- sisted of gifts of money or in obtaining work for the unemployed in a hap- hazard and unorganized way. As late as 1905, any person in England who received public assistance in finding employment was disfranchised and in Massachusetts this penalty was inflicted upon any person other than a veteran of the Civil War who was the recipient of public aid. It is only recently that unemployment has come to be looked upon as a problem peculiarly a part of the industrial organism. Unemployment has become necessarily incident to the present industrial system as a result of the methods prevailing in the factory and other modes of production. This unemployment being thus recog- nized as inherent in the present industrial organization of society, a con- structive social program relating to unemployment has been developed. Sta- tistics show that unemployment is the necessary handmaid of present-day in- dustrialism. The minority report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress in Great Britain found "that distress from want of employment, though periodically aggravated by depression of trade, is a con- stant feature of industry and commerce as at present administered." Unem- ployment is a risk to which wage earners are periodically liable, and the public organization of the labor market has in a large number of countries become one of the chief welfare activities of their respective governments. In every industrial crisis and business and financial depression furnaces are slaked, construction of various sorts is postponed, mines and industries are at a standstill, capital becomes timid and machinery is idle; factories are working on half time, and the turnover of stock in warehouses and shops is far below the transactions in more normal or favorable times. While our indus- trial system has made unemployment customary and inevitable the City of Chicago has, however, officially assumed no responsibility toward the able- bodied employable unemployed. It is only when these unemployed within our midst become ill, destitute and disabled and they seek relief at the doors of our various charitable agencies, or when the extremity of abject poverty makes them homeless and criminal and subjects them to arrest for vagrancy or mis demeanors, that the machinery of our government comes into direct contact with them. Instead of providing^ ways and means whereby the unemoloved may remain independent of charitable aid, our City has fostered a policy of 6 caring for these unfortunates only when they are no longer able to aid them- selves. A foremost, economist has said that "modern life has no more tragical figure than the gaunt, hungry laborer wandering about the crowded centers of industry and wealth, begging in vain for permission to share in that indus- try and to contribute to that wealth, asking in return not the comforts and luxuries of civilized life, but the rough food and shelter for himself and family which would be practically secured to him in the rudest form of savage society." i Irregular employment not only saps the vitality of the higher classes of labor and plunges the poorer classes into abject poverty, but it seriously drains and impairs the strength and stability of the community as a whole. There is a fear continually lurking in the minds of the workers that the next day may bring unemployment, and that nicely arranged methods for domestic comfort and the hope of being able in a few years by constant industry and frugality to occupy a more permanent and assured position will prove only a dream. The burden of supporting a large unemployed class places a toll upon even the most favored members of society; it less-ens the capacity of the worker; it decreases the profits of capital, and places our business enterprises at the mercy of more efficient and systematic industrial competitors. It has been said that nothing will avail to save a nation whose workers have decayed. It is also true that hand in hand with the unemployment of labor the unemployment of capital maintains a measured and even tread. It is during periods of industrial depression that business is dull, capital and labor are unemployed, and the productivity of capital is reduced to the extent of the unemployment prevailing among the workers. It is then that our citizens realize that destitution among wage earners due to unemployment is a part of the established order of things and cannot be combated. It is the part of wise social statesmanship to make an earnest endeavor to oppose the evils of unemployment with a deliberate, well-considered and adequately thought- out plan. Unemployment is an absolute waste of labor power. The method of solving the problem of unemployment should be according to a unified organic treatment, and not by any piecemeal plan.' There is a growing conviction that the subject of unemployment is one of the principal problems before our City Councils and State Legislatures. The problem of unemployment is not due to any spasmodic or exceptional cause, but may be considered chronic. It does not concern itself with the in- dividual, but with an entire class. Even in the best of times we have the un- employed in our midst. It is incumbent upon every community and upon its inhabitants to aid the less fortunate members of its citizenship in times of need with all the means and power at its command. Any practical plan for solving the problem of unemployment should include measures for the pre- vention and the mitigation of the results of such unemployment. Destitution and the hardships caused by unemployment can only be avoided by organiza- tion against the same in sufficient time. Results in other cities of the United States and in Europe have shown that the systematic care of the unemployed can well assuage and lessen the ruthlessness of prevalent unemployment. Accordingly, each city should have a permanent policy of dealing with the problem of unemployment, and not be obliged to begin over again each year. The municipal treatment of the problem of unemployment in the City of Chicago should consist of regular, coherent and organic action. Each govern- ing body in the City of Chicago should not handle the problem of the unem- ployed according to its own conjecture independent and disregardful of what the other is doing. Even should your Honorable Body fail to heed the recommendations of this Commission at this time, the important thing, nevertheless, would be that for the first time in the history of the City of Chicago the problem of unemployment has been placed before our public authorities with a view to having them comprehend its solution according to a methodical, systematic and orderly plan of procedure. THE REGULARITY OF UNEMPLOYMENT. The fact is being slowly recognized by the people of the United States that there is in the present industrial system a pronounced regularity of irreg- ularity of employment. This irregularity of employment is no longer con- 7 sidered temporary, but the regularity of its annual recurrence constitutes one of the principal indictments of the ineflficiency and waste prevalent in the present industrial system. Statistics of various kinds have been compiled from time to time showing the relative amount of unemployment in existence at certain specified times. They have only skimmed the surface, however, and, as a rule, are more or less confusing. Conditions of unemployment which come to the attention of our public authorities during the winter months are no longer considered abnormal. Professor Charles R. Henderson, Secretary of the Mayor's Commission on Unemployment, has well said: "The tragedy of our situation in Chicago is that it is just the ordinary, inevitable, steadily recurring situation of every great center of industry throughout the world. That is the fact that our Commission has discovered. Our unemployment is not simply spasmodic, nor spectacular, nor unusual, nor peculiar to this year, nor due to the change of administration, nor to any of the causes to which it is usually attributed. We have in Chicago, as through- out the world, wherever men are gathered in great industries, the fact of the great reserve army of workers without jobs; men who must eat, men who must live over those times of unemployment at their own cost, in order that our great industries may continue." Unemployment is as much a permanent risk of "the present chaotic and inconsiderate manner of conducting industry as are accidents or occupational diseases. The united sympathy and cunning of the community and of society as a whole, ought at least be able to mitigate, if they cannot altogether pre- vent, the suffering and mis'ery which inevitably accompany the conditions prevalent in the industries of today. In times of greatest industrial prosper- ity there is bound to exist a certain amount of unemployment. The minority report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress in Great Britain found that "Distress from want of employment, though periodically ag- gravated by depression of trade, is a constant feature of industry and commerce as at .present administered; and that the amount of men, women and children suffering privation due to this unem- ployment in the United Kingdom amounts, at the best' of times, to hundreds of thousands, while in years of depression they must exceed a million in number." Even the majority report of the Commission just cited is forced to admit that "At every relief committee there appeared large numbers who do not seem to fit in with the theory that in times of good trade there was approximately full employment for all classes." The continuous nature of the problem of unemployment has long been recognized in Germany France, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, the Nether- lands and Belgium. The statistical studies made by these governments have shown that unemployment is due to certain well recognized laws which re- spond in a regular, orderly manner to the workings of the present defective administration of business and industry. The problem of unemployment is, therefore, not due to the spasmodic and violent disorganization of industry and business, but is peculiarly one of the results of the present industrial or- ganization of society. In the United States we have no statistics showing the actual number of the unemployed, and we are compelled to make use of the statistics made in solitary and isolated cases by official bodies, trade unions, employ- ment offices, economists, charitable organizations, and others. These statistics are of sufficient import to show that in normal years a considerable number of the working population is unemployed, and that in dull and lean years the number of unemployed rises to proportions which affect the general well- being of society. Even though business conditions are at their height, there are still a number of human beings in our midst who desire work and cannot find it. 8 The report of the New York Committee on Unemployment of New York State, made January 23, 1911, finds that: "Among one hundred thousand trade unionists in the State of New York, there are seldom less than 5 per cent of the members unemployed, while usually about 10 per cent are idle, and during the year the number who suffer some unemployment is from one- third to one-half the total. The statistics of manufactures show that about 10 per cent of the wage earners employed are kept as a reserve to meet the fluctuating monthly demands, and that fully one-third of the workers who are employed at the busiest times have to change places and lose time between jolis. Investiga- tions of over four thousand wage earners' families in the State show that less than half of the bread winners have steady work during the year. '"i'he Commission's special inquiry brings the conclusion that one-fifth of the manufacturing establishments in the State close down, and another one-fifth operate on part time, for a month or more every year. "Employment agencies, private and philanthropic, report that at all times there are more applicants for work than there are posi- tions open, and that they can place only about one out of four of those who register. Lodging houses show a constant number in distress from lack of work, and of those who appeal to chari- table societies every year, at least 2S per cent have been brought to that condition through unemployment, due to no fault of their own. ^ "On these facts we base our statement that at all times of the year in every industrial center of the State able-bodied men are forced to remain idle, though willing to work. On any given day during the year, at least 3 per cent of our wage earners are involuntarily idle. Usually there are 10 per cent. These idle men must always be on hand to meet the fluctuating demands of the industries of the State. "Summarizing the data at our command, we should say that in ordinary years of business prosperity, taking all industries into consideration, out of every 100 persons, 60 will be steadily em- ployed; 40 will be working irregularly. Of those who have irreg- ular employment, 3 will always be out of work. The percentages vary with the dififerent industries, but the experience is charac- teristic of every industry." Even under the best of ameliorative conditions, unemployment is insepar- able from the present system of industry, and is a constant factor in the every-day life of the average wage earner. The regular appearance of unem- ployment may be considered a necessary consequence of the present planless system of production, but even under the present conditions society has a duty to counteract these consequences and to abate the accompanying evils. This may be achieved by impressing upon public and private employers the ad- visability of part-time work; the obtaining of employment by the city for the unemployed through efficient public employment bureaus, and the undertaking of a planned system of public works. While the great good accomplished by private charities should be recognized, still it should be impressed upon the public authorities that it is their diity to care for the men without a job. The toiler has a right to expect that the city government immediately occupy itself with .plans for relieving unemployment and establish the necessary facilities for the continual subjugation of unemployment, which has become a veritable specter and ogre to the wage earner because of the destitution and distress caused by it. Every important, comprehensive, pronounced advance in civilization has not only given to society great benefits, but it has also left in its wake certain evils. The tremendous advance which has been made in trade and industry has been a blessing to humanity and on the development of modern civiliza- tion, but likewise it has been the cause of one of the most painful diseases with which society is now afflicted and by which it is endangered, namely, the large number of men and women who are unemployed during certam periods of the year. It has been but lately that we have been brought face to face with the regularity of this evil, and the certainty has been brought home to us that society no longer can silently remain inactive in its presence, but must take steps for its mitigation and abatement. THE NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED. Very little attention has been given to the gathering of statistics on the subject of unemployment in the United States. Such statistics as have been gathered should be examined with considerable caution, both as to their reli- ability and the deductions which may be inferred from the same. It is not intended in this report to extensively treat of the number of the unemployed, save to point out certain prominent characteristics of the problem as shown by the statistics thus far collected on the subject. Esti- mates intended to show the number of jobless men and women cannot even be called approximately correct or exact. It has been well stated that the real number of the unemployed in the United States, or in any city, is known to no one, nor can anyone know from the present tabulated facts. Whatever statistics have been gathered are mere indications, far from complete, of the- vastness and the gravity of the problem of unemployment. In endeavoring to give the number of the unemployed in the United States, it should be premised that on account of the scarcity of statistical data available at the present time on this subject, any estimate which may be made for the United States as a whole, or for the City of Chicago, should be considered as indicating but relatively the amount of possible unemploy- ment. The sources of statistical information on the subject of unemployment in the United States during recent years are chiefly the following: 1. The United States census reports. 2. A report on the cost of living contained in the Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States Commissioner of Labor. 3. Reports of unemployment among organized workmen in New York and in Massachusetts, issued by the Department of Labor in New York, and the Bureau of Statistics in Massachusetts. 4. Reports of unofficial bodies and persons. The statistics on unemployment collected by the United States Census Bureau are very meager and are accompanied with a careful warning by the Bureau as to their reliability. The United States census reports for 1890 and 1900 gave the number of persons ten years of age and over who were ordin£|,rily engaged in remunerative labor. These returns do not indicate what propor- tion of the population is habitually out of work on account of incapacity, un- willingness to work, or constant inability to find work. The statistics show that in 1890, there were 23,318,183 persons ten years of age and over engaged in gainful occupations. Of this number, 3,523,730 persons, or IS.1% of the total were unemployed. In 1900, the total number ot persons ten years of age and over engaged in gainful occupations, as re- ported by the census, was 29,073,233, and of this number 6,468,964 persons, or 22.3% of the total number, were unemployed. The 1900 census, showing the number of unemployed persons in the United States, found that of the 5,227,- 472 males unemployed during the census year, 2,593,136, or 49.6% of the total number, were unemployed from one to three months during the year; 2,069,546 persons, or 39.6% of the total number, were unemployed from four to six months during the year, while 564,790 persons, or 10.8% of the total number, were unemployed from seven to twelve months during the entire year. Of the 1,241,492 women unemployed during the 1900 census year, it was found that 548,617, or 47.1% of the total number, were unemployed from one to three months during that year; 45,379, or 39.1%, were unemployed from four to six months, while 171,496, or 13.8%, were unemployed from seven to twelve months. These figures are briefly summarized in the census report thus: "It appears that approximately four persons out of five who claim gainful occupations were continuously employed throughout the census year, while the fifth person was idle for a period vary- ing from one to twelve months." 10 There is no means of knowing from the above figures what per cent of these persons was idle from choice and what per cent wanted work and was unable to secure it. The figures include all persons ten years of age and over ordinarily employed, and so include many children attending school for a part of the year. The general report and analysis of the Census Bureau of Manu- factures in the United States in the year 1909 contains data which may be con- sidered in a study of the amount of unemployment. The number of persons em- ployed during the census year in all manufacturing industries is shown in the census report, while the fluctuations in the monthly demand for workers in manufacturing industries do not show how many are unemployed during any month, inasmuch as these may find work in other branches of trade and in- dustry. They do show, however, seasonal, discontinuous demand for labor and for this reason are valuable. The following table shows by months the number of wa,ge earners re- ported for all manufacturing industries in the United States in the year 1909: Wage Earners in Manufacturing Industries in the United States in 1909. Number Per cent of of Un- Month. Number. Maximum, employed. January 6,210,063 88.6 796,790 February 6,297,627 89.9 709,226 March 6,423,517 91.7 583,336 April 6,437,633 91.9 569,220 May 6,457,279 92.2 549,574 Tune 6,517,469 93.0 489,384 July 6,486,676 92.6 520,177 August 6,656,933 95.0 349,920 September 6,898,765 98.5 108,088 October 6,997,090 99.9 9,763 November 7,006,853 100.0 December 6,990,652 99.8 16,201 According to this table the maximum number of wage earners reported as unemployed in manufacturing industries was 7,006,853 during the month oi November and the smallest number, 6,210,063, in January, being 796,790, or 11.4%, less than the total number employed in the maximum month of No- vember. During the year there was a fairly constant increase in employment from January to November, except that the number employed in July was a little lower than in June. This increase doubtless resulted, in part, from a normal growth of industry during the year, and, in part, from the general improvement in industrial conditions which took place particularly during the latter half of the year. The number employed during the maximum month of employment, November, does not .indicate all persons seeking a livelihood in manufacturing industries, inasmuch as some workers were necessarily unem- ployed during this same month on account of sickness, disability or strikes and probably some were unable to obtain work. The Department of Labor of the State of New York has published data showing the extent of unemployment among organized workers in that state for a continuous period extending from March, 1897, to the present time. These statistics, it must be kept in ijiind, are of two classes, namely, those furnished by certain selected or representative unions, numbering about two hundred, and constituting about one-fourth of the total organized working- men in the state, and those furnished by all unions in the state. The enumera- tion classifies idleness into three divisions, such as idleness due to labor dis- putes, disability, and to unemployment, which is principally due to lack of work. For the purposes of this report, it is but necessary to consider the statistics relating to the last classification. These statistics reflect the demand for labor, inasmuch as the leading causes of such idleness, due to lack of work, are general and seasonal industrial and business conditions. Below is gjven a comparative table; showing the monthly percentages of idleness, due to lack of work, in representative unions in New York State: 11 Mean for Year. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May. June. Tuly. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Year. 1904... ...22.0 188 18.9 12.7 10.9 10.8 8.6 7.7 6.3 6.4 Al 15.4 12.1 1905... ...18.0 15 3 146 8.2 5.9 6.7 6.3 5.4 4.4 3.6 40 9.2 ».b 1906... ...11.8 ]?A 89 5,0 4.1 3.2 4.7 4.0 4.3 4.5 5.3 13.3 6.8. 1907... ...19.0 174 15 5 8 5 7.7 6.2 5.4 7.7 9.6 16.1 20.0 30.5 13.6 1908... ...35.1 359 35 9 32.2 30.6 28.6 25.2 22.2 23.0 21.3 20.0 25.9 28.0 1909... ...26.4 ?46 ?A?. 15.1 12.7 13.1 10.0 8.2 11.0 9.6 9.i 17.7 14.9 1910... . . . 16.5 15 5 174 12,6 11.8 11.7 8.1 7.5 8.4 13.4 Ib.O 25.6 13.6 1011... ...24.9 22,9 24.1 19.6 24.0 17.7 13.1 9.5 8.9 9.8 17.6 31.9 18.7 1912. . . ...24.4 161 174 11.9 18.5 21.0 19.0 6.3 4.9 6.0 14.1 23.1 15.2 1913... . . . 17.5 13.2 20.7 20.4 21.7 20.9 19.7 18.2 15.0 18.1 26.1 38.8 20.9 1914. . . . . .31.0 29.3 26.5 22.4 21.4 24.3 25.8* *Mean for six months. The foregoing statistics show that the greatest lack of work in the trade unions occurred during the six-months period from October 1 to April 1, after which period normal business and trade conditions again prevailed. They also show that no matter how favorable such business and trade conditions may be, there still is a considerable residuum of unemployment, due to lack of work, even in the best years. Emphasis is also given to the claim made before your Commission that during every decade there are two years of unusual unemployment. Mr. William M. Leiserson, formerly Superintendent of the Wisconsin Free Em- ployment Offices, and the expert investigator of the New York State Commit- tee on Unemployment, stated, at a public hearing of your Commission, that: "Out of every ten years — it does not make any difference what ten years — two bad years will be noted of more or less depression in industries and of people who are out of work." The striking phenomenon is 'brought out by the New York statistics of a return at fairly regular intervals of periods of high unemployment. The table indicates that union labor in New York State experienced two periods' of high unemployment during the decade from 1900 to 1910, one period of maximum unemployment being in 1903 and 1904 and another beginning in 1907 and ex- tending through the year 1908 into 1909. Between these years of high unem- ployment there was a period of low unemployment. From the middle of 1909 to the end of 1912, the percentage of idleness was relatively low. The sta- tistics furnished to the New York State Department of Labor by all labor unions in the state show the causes of idleness in all labor organizations at the end of the months of March and September, during the years 1910-1913, with the percentages for each class of idleness during these years: Causes of Idleness in all Labor Organizations. r Numbei ^ i Percentage \ Cause. 1910. 1911. 1912. 1913. 1910. 1911. 1912. 1913. End of March- Lack of work 42,010 79,866 71,813 78,196 66.8 82.7 80.0 80.2 Lack of material 2,667 548 476 1,364 4.2 0.6 O.S 1.4 Weather 7,329 8,544 8,834 5,799 11.7 8.8 9.8 6.0 Labor disputes 6,864 3,289 4,197 7,025 10.9 3.4 4.7 7.2 Disability 3,838 3,752 4,086 4,328 6.1 3.9 4.6 4.4 Other causes 56 450 133 651 0.1 0.4 0.2 0.7 Cause not stated 87 159 179 135 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.1 Total 62,851 96,608 89,718 97,498 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 End of September — Lack of work 39,307 39,959 24,798 93,495 Lack of material 2,450 680 279 667 Weather 163 493 237 493 Labor disputes 17,646 5,699 6,057 1,855 Disability . 3,216 3,336 3,199 4,321 Other causes . . .■ 181 128 93 248 Cause not stated 143 95 166 70 Total 63,106 50,390 34,829 101,149 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 12 The foregoing table shows that the predominant cause of idleness among the trade unions in New York State during the fall and winter months is lack of work. These statistics but corroborate the assertixsn made by Mr. John Fitzpatrick, President of the Chicago Federation of Labor, at a public hearing of this Commission, that: "During the summer months, or from April until November, conditions among the organized trades are very good, unless in the case of a big strike or a disturbing influence of that character." It should be remembered that the figures shown in the last table include all union workers in the State of New York who, on December 31, 1913, numbered 627,094, belonging to approximately 2,500 different unions. While the New York figures tend to establish the probability that periods of high unemployment will recur every four or five years, they do not, how- ever, clearly bring out the fact that unemployment is by no means constant, but that it varies from month to month with each season of the year and from year to year. That the wage earner is more or less at the mercy of business and trade fluctuations should disprove the statement often made that all men and women who desire work can obtain it, and that those who are idle and able to work, are idle from choice. If the unemployment of able-bodied human beings were due solely to laziness or unwillingness to work, the number of the unemployed would palpably remain about constant, not many more persons being sick, disabled, or lazy in winter than in summer, and it is evident that there were no more in this class in 1904 and 1908 than in the intervening years; still from two to three times as many trade unionists in New York and in Massachusetts were idle at the end of March as at the end of September, each year, and only about one-half as many were idle in New York in the year 1905 as in the year 1904, while the number unemployed in 1906 was still lower. Four times as many were reported unemployed in 1908 during the last days of both March and September as in the year 1906. Only 4.8% of all union workingmen in New York State were reported idle in September, 1905, while six months later, in March, 1906, the percentage was twice as great. It is evi- dent that laziness or physical incapacity do not increase or decrease in the ratios and according to the seasons just given. Labor conditions in New York State require more workers in September than in March, and the demands of industry were greater in the years 1905- 1906-1907 than in 1904 and 1908. It should be noted that the high unemploy- ment among trade unions during the winter months is probably due to the fact that weather is a very important factor at this time. The Committee on Unemployment of New York State says: "From the evidence before us we can say with certainty that there are at all times able-'bodied wage earners out of work in every city of the state; that the number varies from month to month and from year to year; that it grows larger during the winter and during the years of industrial depression and reaches tremendous proportions every fifteen or twenty years. A con- servative estimate would be that in ordinary years of business activity, the lowest number out of work is about 3% of the wage earners regularly employed in the industries of the state, while during the winter months, the number would rise to 8 or 10%. In a year of business depression like 1908, the number out of work ranges from 15 to 30%." This same Committee, in a census taken of the number of employes work- ing on the 15th day of each month during the year 1909 in 759 industrial establishments of the state, found that there is considerable fluctuation in the amount of employment each month during the year. The following is the table: All Number Industries, Unemployed, Month. 1909. 1909. Tanuarv 321,861 43,362 February ".■.■.■.■.: 323,772 41,451 March 329,221 36,002 April ■" 332,952 32,271 May .'.'."..' 335,030 30,193 13 All Number Industries, Unemployed, 1909. 1909. Tune 337,888 27,335 July 337,824 27,399 August 340,389 24,834 September 346,360 18,863 October 348,104 17,119 November 355,223 December 363,406 1,817 Over 95% of the employers of the industrial establishments enumerated, stated that the monthly fluctuation in the number of their employes was due to industrial and trade conditions, lack of orders, seasonal work, and the like. Mr. Luke Grant, in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science for March, 1909, gives statistics taken from the official reports of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners for the year 1908, which show to what extent its members are unemployed: Number Number Number of Receiving Per Receiving Per Month. Members. Full Benefit. Cent. Partial Benefit. Cent. February, 1908 3,496 1,024 29.2 248 7.09 June, 1908 3,350 356 10.6 233 6:9 September, 1908 3,123 176 5.6 125 4.0 Mr. Grant observes that the above statistics do not show the total number of unemployed because many members of the Society entitled to benefits do not claim them, and the rules provide that a member must be four successive days out of employment before he becomes entitled to a benefit. These figures therefore do not show short periods of time lost of less than four days' dura- tion, but they do show conclusively every idle workman for periods longer than four days, and the figures, in consequence, show the minimum amount of idleness prevailing in the Society. In reality, it is undoubtedly considerably greater. Beginping with March, 1908, the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics has also obtained statistics of unemployment of organized labor. While the Mas- sachusetts data is not as complete as that for the State of New York, still the amount of unemployment is shown for a given day. The returns are received from approximately 66% of the labor unions representing, it is estimated, 67% of the aggre,gate membership of all unions in the state. In the following com- parative statement, data is given showing the number and membership of or- ganizations reporting to the Massachusetts Bureau since the collection of returns was inaugurated and the number of members unemployed owing to lack of work or material: Number Reporting. Unemployed Owing to Lack of Work or Material. Unions. Membership. Members. Percentages. Quarters ending — March 31, 1908 256 66,968 10,832 16 2 June 30, 1908 493 72,815 9,128 125 September 30, 1908 651 83,969 7349 8 8 December 31, 1908 770 102,941 11302 110 March 31, 1909 m 105,059 9980 95 June 30, 1909 780 105,944 4913 46 September 30, 1909 797 113,464 3 873 34 December 31, 1909 830 107,689 5248 49 March 31, 1910 837 117,082 6186 53 June 30, 1910 841 121,849 6 570 54 September 30, 1910 845 118,781 4 687 40 ' December 31, 1910 862 122,621 8938 73 March 31, 1911 889 122,002 9120 75 June 30, 1911 897 135,202 5'669 42 September 30, 1911 975 133,540 4904 37 December 31, 1911 905 125,484 7',S68 6'.0 The percentage of unemployment owing to lack of work or material represents more accurately the actual industrial conditions than the percentage 14 of unemployment for all causes and may be considered as the proper index of industrial prosperity or_ depression. It should be borne in mind, in a con- sideration of the statistics shown in these tables, that union men are much more likely to be regularly employed than unskilled workmen, and that, there- fore, the per cent idle among union men is much lower than among industrial workers as a whole. However, the assertion has been made that the skilled man will hold out for a job in his own particular line and would rather be unemployed than work below the regular scale of wages, while the unskilled man will take anythin,g he can find and more readily adjust himself to a fall in the market. The report made by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics on Unem- ployment Among Organized Wage Earners for the period ending June 30, 1914, shows that the principal cause of unemployment at the close of the first six months of this year was lack of work or material, the percentage of unem- ployed for this cause being 6.9, as compared with 4.3 June 30, 1913. The following is the table: Causes of Unemployment. Unemployed Percentages Returned June 30, 1914. as Unemployed. Num- Percent- March 31, June 30, Causes of Unemployment. ber. ages. 1914. 1913. Lack of work or material 12,576 6.9 9.2 4.3 Unfavorable weather 530 0.3 0.7 0.1 Strikes or lockouts 1,326 0.7 0.6 0.7 Disability (sickness, accidents, or old age) . 2,268' 1.2 1.6 1.2 Other causes 1,422 0.8 0.8 0.1 Total 18,122 9.9 12.9 6.4 THE NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED IN CHICAGO. The United States Bureau of Labor, in 1901, conducted an investigation into the cost of living of 25,440 workingmen's families, representing 124,108 persons, distributed over thirty-three states of the Union. The investigation was limited to the families of wage earners and to persons on salaries not exceeding $1,200 per year, no attempt being made to question families of persons engaged in business on their own account. Both the native and the foreign elements of the public were questioned, the nativity of the husband being accepted as determining the nativity of the family. Among other sub- jects inquired into in the investigation, data was obtained as to the amount of non-employment during the year of the head of each family. The data obtained by the Bureau of Labor in 1901, although not recent, may be taken as indicative of the amount of unemployment during a normal 3'ear. The statistics of unemployment found in this year indicate that the year was 'not unusual with respect to the amount of idleness, and may .therefore be taken as fairly representative. It was found that of 24,402 families from whom information on unem- ployment was obtained, 33.29% were unable to procure work for an average period of 10.9 weeks during the entire year. Data was obtained from 1,604 heads of families in the State of Illinois and it was found that 750 heads of families, or 46.76% of the total number, were idle an average of 11.52 weeks, or three months, or about one-fourth of the year. According to the report of the United States Bureau of the Census on Manufacturers in Illinois, during the year 1909, it appears that there is a con- tinual lack of work among a certain proportion of the wage earners during each month of the year. Even durir^g the month of maximum employment in November of 1909, there is no available information at hand to show what pro- portion of the wage earners employed in the manufacturing industries of the state are out of work on account of physical incapacity, laziness, or inability to find work. The variation in the monthly number of employed wage earners is attributed to the improved general business conditions rather than to the shifting einployment of labor in the so-called seasonal industries. There are no very important seasonal industries in Illinois, and while there are five industries which show considerable diversity in the number of employed dur- ing the year, the total number of such employes, however, is too small to 15 affect materially the difference in employment for all industries combined. The following table shows the irregularity in employment in 18,026 manu- facturing establishments in the State of Illinois on the ISth day of each month of the year 1909 and the proportion which the number employed each month is of the month of maximum employment: -Wage Earners Wage Earners - Per Cent of Per Cent of Month. Number. Maximum. Month. Number. Maximum. January 438,594 88.0 July "^^MJ? HH February 442,881 88.8 August 460,414 92.3 March 452,563 90.8 September 481,796 96.6 April 455,145 91.3 October 493,928 99.1 May 454,965 91.2 November 496,452 99.6 June 459,375 92.1 December 498,640 100.0 An investigation was carried on under the direction of the Board of the University of Chicago Settlement into wages and family budgets in the Chi- cago Stock Yards district in 1910 and a considerable difference was noted in the number of wage earners employed in the Chicago Stock Yards district during the various months of the year. The fluctuations in employment on the pay roll of one large company is shown 'by the total number of employes carried at the end of each four-week period throughout the year. Number of Number of Date. Employes. Date. Employes. November 20 6,523 June 4.» 5,641 December 18 7,041 July 2 5,847 January 15 6,799 July 30 6,272 February 12 6,317 August 27 6,520 March 12 6,119 September 24 6,754 April 9 5,862 October 22 7,046 May 7 5,702 The great variation in the number of employes would indicate that there is considerable unemployment in the Chicago Stock Yards district. In some districts in the Chicago Stock Yards, the report says, the worker loses ap- proximately one-third of the time through unemployment, but in the majority of the districts work is much more steady. It would appear from the above table that there are 25% of the employes in the Stock Yards who are at some periods unemployed. It is declared probable "that the total number of un- employed in 'Packingtown' fluctuates between 2,000 and 7,000." It was found that out of 184 families investigated in the Chicago Stock Yards, 53 heads of families lost 580 weeks of work, or an average of 10.9 weeks per year. In a study made by Misses Edith Abbott and S. P. Breckenridge into the subject of women employed in the Chicago Stock Yards, it is stated that over 50% of the women employed by one of the largest packing companies were idle continually from one to twenty weeks per year because of "no work." In an investigation carried on by the Mayor's Commission on Unemploy- ment, a very great disparity between the reports of employers and the reports from labor unions, in re,gard to the amount of slack or part time work, is shown. The labor unions report that about 7.75 months of the year are busy, 3.5 months are slack, and 1.5 months are periods of no work at all. The total for these months is a little over twelve months, which is due to the fact that some of the unions reported slack and no work seasons together. The Mayor's Commission states that: "While these figures give no indication of the absolute number of persons in Chicago who were unemployed at any one time, they do indicate that unemployment is a serious problem, for the working man particularly, and that the situations which result in unemployment for the working man, to a certain extent mean that employers are unable to secure employes when needed. No evidence is at hand in regard to the total number of men unem- ployed in any year or at any one time in the year; conditions have been described, however, from which it is evident that there has been a considerable amount of unemployment. One firm em- 16 ployed 5,044 fewer workers in 1911-12 than in 1910-11; another firm employed 2,000 fewer in 1911-12. The average decrease in the number of employes in 1911-12 for these firms which reported the number of employes was 13%. It is impossible to tell what became of these men who were engaged in one year and unem- ployed by these firms the next year; they had been employed in other firms in the city or employed outside the city. The pre- sumption is that they* were probably unemployed; one-half the establishments had more men seeking wgrk in 1911-12 than in former years." The labor unions of Chicago reported to the Mayor's Commission on Unemployment that the time lost by the average member at his trade was about three months; 74% of the unions reported that some of their members were unemployed at all times of the year; 69 per cent of the unions reported that unemployment is a grave problem to them. The general averages of the unions show that there is about one and one-half months of no work at the trade represented and three and one-half months of slack work, while about 50% of the members of the unions have work the entire year; 74% of the unions replying stated that at all times of the year some of their members were unemployed. It is evident from the returns received, that unemployment is a grave problem to the members of trades unions. There is about a month and a half during which members of trades unions can find no work at all and three and one-half months of slack work. About .50% of the members have work the entire year and the average working man loses about three months at his trade during the year. From the crude indications of the extent of unemployment in the United States which have been secured by the various investigations made into the subject, the general conclusions may be drawn! that there are at all times during the year some unemployed persons willing and able to work even when employers are in need of help, and this number increases greatly in certain seasons and in years of depression. A conservative estimate made by the New York Committee on Unemployment states that in years of ordinary busi- ness activity the least number out of work is about 3% of the wage earners regularly employed in the industries of the state,, while during the winter months the number would rise to 8 or 10%. In a year of business depression like that prevailing in 1908, the number varies from 15 to 30%. From the dififerent sets of statistical data presented on the subject of un- employment in the State of Illinois and other states of the Union, and in the United States as a whole, it is possible to construct a table showing the prob- able amount of unemployment which will prevail in the City of Chicago during the months of January, February, and March of the year 1915. Such an esti- mate should be considered more or less tentative and subject to certain limitations. " Based upon the United States Bureau of the Census Report on Occupa- tions in Chicago in 1910, it is estimated that the total number of persons ten years of age and over engaged in gainful occupations in the year 1914 in the City of Chicago, was as follows: Male 845,822 Female 263,253 Total 1,109,075 Using the figures obtained from the Bureau of the Census Report on Manufacturing Industries in the State of Illinois in 1909, showing the number of wage earners employed for each month of the year, it is possible to make an estimate showing the fluctuation of employment in the City of Chicago. A maximum number of 345,970 wage earners was employed in approximately 10,000 manufacturing establishments in the City of Chicago in the year 1914. In view of the relative amount of unemployment shown in the manufacturing industries bi the State of Illinois for each month of the year below the number employed during the month of maximum employment, it is estimated that the following will be the number of wage earners unemployed for each month of the year 1915, excepting the month of maximum employment, which, according to the census taken by the Government, is the month of December 17 Estimated Monthly Number of Wage Earners in Manufacturing Establish- ments in the City of Chicago, Employed and Unemployed, During the YEAR 1915. Wage Earners. Per Cent Unemployed Total Number of Maximum Month Number. Unemployed. Number Employed. January 304,454 ' 41,516 12.0 February 307,221 38,749 11.2 March 314,414 31,829 9.2 April 315,871 30,099 8.7 May 315,525 30,445 8.8 June 318,638 27,332 7.9 July 315,179 30,791 8.9 August 319,330 26,640 11 September 334,207 11,763 3.4 October 342,856 3,114 ' 0.9 November 344,586 1,384 0.4 December 345,970 100.0 The foregoing table merely shows the amount of unemployment, or non- employment, which will prevail during each month of the comingyear in man- ufacturing industries in the City of Chicago, but it does not consider the large number of men employed in the building trades and in nearly all the trades unions. It has been estimated that there are in the City of Chicago 285,000 members of trades unions. Statistics compiled by the Department of Labor of New York State show that the mean average of unemployment, due to lack of work, for the first six months of 1914 was 25.8%. The mean average for these six months is lower than the percentage of unemployment, due to lack of work, in the same labor unions in New York State during the months of January, Feb- ruary, and March of 1914, which was 31.0%, 29.3%, and 26.5% respectively. As- suming that the general business conditions which will prevail in the City of Chicago during the first quarter of 1915 will be similar to those prevailing during the first quarter of 1914, it is possible to arrive at an estimate of the relative amount of unemployment, due to lack of work, which will affect the members of trades unions during the first three months of the coming year. The percentages of unemployment, due to lack of work, in New York State are for representative trades unions only and include only those labor organiza- tions in which the demands of industry are fairly normal and even during the entire year. The statistics furnished to the New York State Labor Department from all labor unions in the state, showing the unemployment due to lack of work in all labor organizations at the end of the month of March during the years 1§10-11-12-13, give the unusually high percentages of 66.8%, 82.7%, 80.0%, and 80.2% for the years given, respectively. Thg labor unions reporting to the Mayor's Commission on Unemployment stated that the time lost by the average member at his trade was about three months. In view of the figures on unemployment, due to lack of work, which are at hand, a conservative estimate, it is believed, can be arrived at on the ex- tent of unemployment, due to lack of work, which will obtain among the labor organizations of Chicago during the first quarter of 1915, by assuming that the percentages of unemployment during January, February, and March will be the same as those shown prevailing in New York State during the first three months of 1914. The following, therefore, is an estimate of the amount of unemployment, due to lack of work, which will prevail in Chicago during the first three months of 1915 among the wage earners who are permanent resi- dents of the city: Estimated Number of Resident Unemployed in the City of Chicago During the Months of January, February, and March, 1915. Unemployed Wage Unemployed Total Number Earners in Manu- Members of Unemployed Due 1915. facturing Industry. Trades Unions, to Lack of Work, January 41,516 88,350 129,866 February 38,749 83,505 122,254 March 31,829 75,525 107,354 18 It IS not believed that the foregoing estimate is too high, but is conserva- tive and the best that can be -made at the present time in view of the incom- pleteness of the data relative to unemployment. It has been shown by the reports of the United States Census Bureau that "approximately four persons out of five who claim gainful occupations were continuously employed through- out the census year, while the fifth person was idle for a period varying from one to twelve months." In view of this statement, the figures given above on the amount of unemployment, due to lack of work, which will be prevalent in the City of Chicago during the months of January, February, and March of 1915, is low. Similarly it should be noted that the foregoing estimate of un- employment, due to lack of work, does not include vagrants nor seasonal laborers who flock to Chicago during the winter and who, to a large extent, make up the population of our Municipal Lodging House. The estimate] furthermore, does not make allowance for the unusually bad conditions which are said to prevail in business and industry in the City of Chicago, due to the present European war. It is an estimate which more nearly approximates the degree of unemployment, due to lack of work, which may be said to have prevailed in the City of Chicago during the first quarter of 1913 among the resident wage earners and toilers of the city. THE ECONOMIC WASTE CAUSED BY UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE CITY OF CHICAGO. Nearly all wage earners and salaried employes in the City of Chicago and elsewhere are dependent upon the fruits of their labor for the support of life. It is but a very small class in the community which is able to live in comfort, free from the pressing cares of close economy and the struggle for existence. For the average man and woman life has little meaning outside of the endeavor to maintain a standard of life which is hardly above the margin of the bare necessities. The family of the wage earner, however comfortably it may exist during a period of greatest employment and in imes of booming trade, is almost always liable by illness, death or the loss of employment, to be reduced in a few weeks to the border line of poverty. Statistics compiled by the United States Bureau of the Census on Manu- factures for the State of Illinois during the years 1899-1904 and 1909, show that the wages paid to the wage earners in 1909 were 20.5% greater than the wages received in 1899. The increase in the average salary received by sal- aried employes in manufacturing industries in the City of Chicago in 1909 over the average salary paid in 1899 was 21.5%. While the increase in wages has, to a certain extent, been dissipated by increased prices, there is, how- ever, a much worse thing than low wages, and that is irregularity of employ- ment. It is a queer corollary on modern industrial conditions to see large classes of our workers continually overworked, men and women toiling ten, twelve and more hours a day, while at the same time and in the same city we see men and women earnestly seeking work, and without avail. Industry, apparently, is afflicted with a painful twin malady which may be called overwork, on the one hand, and under-employment, on the other. The belief strongly prevalent at one time that the unemployed classes con- sisted of the shiftless, the worthless, the lazy and those wilfully idle is now being supplanted by a recognition of the fact that the irregularity of employ- ment is due not so much to there not being enough work for all, but rather to a maladjustment of the industrial process. A well-known English publicist has said that it would be enough to condemn modern society as hardly an advance on slavery or serfdom if the permanent conditions of industry were to be that which we now behold, of a large body of men subject to the pre- carious chance of weekly wages and being separated by so narrow a margin from destitution that a month of bad trade, illness or unemployment brings them face to face with hunger and destitution. It is well, therefore, in view of the estimate made of the number of men and women who, it can be anticipated, will be unemployed during the months of January, February and March of 1915, to arrive at some figure showing the amount of wages lost by the unemployed in Chicago during the next three months. From statistics compiled by the United States Bureau of the Census on manufactures in Illinois in 1909 it appears that the 293,977 wage earners employed in the 9,656 manufacturing establishments in the City of 19 Chicago were paid an annual wage of $174,112,000, and that the average wage for each wage earner during the year was $592.29, or approximately $50 per month. Taking this monthly average wage per wage earner as a fair average wage which would have been earned by the employable unemployed wage earners during each month of the first quarter of 1915, the great total of $1/,- 973,700 may be considered as the amount lost in wages by the employable un- employed in the City of Chicago during the three months' period. This amount under the present wasteful organization of industry and business is a direct loss to the stored-up labor of society, generally known as capital, and will decrease the surplus wealth of the entire community by $17,973,700. Estimated Amount in Wages Lost by the Employable Unemployed in the City of Chicago During January, February and March, 1915. Number of Amount in Employable Unem- Wages Lost by Em- 1915 ployed in Chicago, ployable Unemployed. January 129,866 $6,493,300.00 February 122,254 6,112,700.00 March 107,354 5,367,700.00 Total "$17,973,700,00 It has well been stated before your Commission by Mr. William M. Leiserson, that: "Somebody pays for this maladjustment in industry — either the people who suffer this tremendous loss in wages are supported by charity, or else other families privately support them, or else they steal and become criminals and you support them later in the prisons; but in the long run it pays for itself." The cost is likewise borne by trade unions in the payment of benefits during such times of unemployment, and the entire social organism is affected by such loss in wages. As an example of the way in which the loss of wages will affect the different interests in the community during the month of Jan-< uary, it is estimated that the 129,866 employable unemployed in Chicago in. January, 1915, will draw upon their grocer and butcher for $3,142,757.00 worth of food supplies. They will be required to expend $1,519,432.20 on rent, light and fuel; $948,021.80 will have to be spent on clothing; $311,678.40 will be spent on carfare and health, and $571,410.40 will be expended for miscellaneous purposes. Under ordinary conditions of industry, when these men are employed at an average wage of $50 a month, the above amounts would have been ex- pended for these various purposes of maintaining a decent home and providing a comfortable living for their families. Should the one month of unemploy- ment during January of next year find these men unprepared for the same, they will, in consequence, either have to obtain credit from the grocer and butcher, hold off the landlord in the payment of their rent, or deny themselves good food, warm clothing, adequate shelter and the demands incident to their physical well-being. Unable to draw upon savings in the bank, lacking friends and relatives to help them tide over these months of unemployment, without credit at the grocery store or meat market, clothing store, drug store, the physician, and elsewhere, these families of the unemployed will become charges upon public and private charities; or should pride prevent them from making known their wants or condition to the latter, they will suffer untold privation and the pangs of starvation. Even though the grocer, butcher, landlord and the other parties are paid, the amount lost in wages by the em- ployable unemployed during the next year will be a direct drain upon the wealth of the community and is an annual tax placed upon society by the present maladjustment and inefficiency in industry. A CLASSIFICATION OF THE UNEMPLOYED. In any consideration of the problem of unemployment a marked distinc- tion should be made at the outset between the employable unemployed work- man and those who are unemployable. The workman who under ordinary 20 circumstances is able to make his living stands on a different plane from that of the man who is unemployed because he is incapable of holding or keeping a job. Unemployment is in nearly all occupations and trades a regular inci- dent in the life of even the most industrious and competent wage earner. One of the main objects of this investigation is to devise ways and means whereby the duration and frequency of such compulsory unemployment on the part of the toiler may be diminished or eliminated.) But whatever plans and proposals may be considered in the mitigation of the evil of unemploy- ment to the competent workman, they should be understood as having no relation to the problem of dealing with the incompetent and the unemploy- able. It is a decided loss of time and waste of effort to confuse these two classes of the unemployed, and while society will persist in regarding them as identically the same, any remedies suggested or put into operation may be considered more or less futile. There should be a sharp diflferentiation between the genuine and honest unemployed workman and the sick, invalids, shiftless, vagrants and ne'er-do-well. Nothing has so blighting and demoral- izing an effect upon the former as being mixed up and confused with those who can not, even by the widest stretch of imagination, be placed in the_ category of the employable unemployed. A line of demarcation should ac-" cordmgly be drawn between the employable unemployed wage earner and that group which may be described as the unemployable and dependent group. The group composed of the employable unemployed wage earners may be divided into the following classes: 1. Those who have lately been in definite situations of presumed per- manency, such as factory and clerical workers. 2. Those who normally in their own trades shift from job to job and from one employer to another, such as the workers in the build- ing trades. 3. Those who normally earn a bare subsistence by casual jobs, such as dock workers, harvest hands, and the like. It should be noted that the various classes in the group defined above contain those who are able, willing and competent to work but who find themselves temporarily out of employment for one reason or another. The unemployable group of wage earners may be said to be composed of the following: Those who have been ousted or have willingly withdrawn themselves from the ranks of labor, such as the aged, the infirm and the criminal. This group is composed of the sick and the crippled; idiots and lunatics; epileptics; the blind, the deaf and dumb; the criminals and those who are viciously or incorrigibly unwilling to work. It also includes men and women who, while apparently sound of body and mind, are incapable of steady and continuous application and who are permanently out of work because they are deficient in strength, speed or skill and are too inefficient to do work. One of the most costly and ruinous experiments to the community is to allow those belonging to the unemployable group to be brought unrestrain- edly into competition with wage earners who belong to the first group. The two groups enumerated above need radically different modes of treatment, and the sharp differentiation of the unemployed into these two groups is one of the first elementary steps necessary towards coping effectually with the evils of unemployment. - Naturally, it will require an efficient agency to make possible the classi- fication of the unemployed into the employable and unemployable groups. At the present time the confusion is such that the former are treated by methods of relief and the latter are judged by the common standards of business and industrial efficiency. The problem of the employable group of workmen should be considered from an! industrial standpoint. Conservative methods should be used in handling the employable group of wage earners by regular- ized and equalized business conditions, by providing efficient public labor bureaus, and, subsequent to these, adequate unemployment insurance. The care of the unemployable group should be treated as the problem and the task of the relief and charitable agency, the hospital and the correctional insti- tutions. 21 THE REMEDY FOR UNEMPLOYMENT. It has been shown that unemployment has become a regular and per- manent phenomena in industry, and is a necessary result of our present plan- less system of production. It is the duty of the community, however, under the present conditions, to check and restrict unemployment among the wage earners with all the resources and power at its command, and to undertake plans and proposals designed to ease and mitigate the consequences of such unemployment. This can be achieved by shortening the hours of work, by the obtaining of work for the unemployed through public employment offices maintained by the city or state, by public work put under way by the com- munity for the benefit of the unemployed, and by unemployment insurance. American states and cities have been very ready in recognizing the effi- cient work carried on by private charitable organizations for the benefit of the unemployed, but the burden of caring for the employable unemployed should not be placed and be dependent upon private charitable effort. It is the first duty of the city authorities to care for the unemployed. The em- ployable unemployed who are part of Chicago's resident population have the right to expect that our city officials will endeavor to procure employment for those who are unemployed through no fault of their own, and to draft practical plans for the permanent subjugation of unemployment and its con- sequences. The four pre-eminent means of combating unemployment are: 1. The establishment of efficient public employment offices. 2. The providing of public work for the unemployed. 3. The establishment of short or part-time work by public and private employers. 4. The organization of a system of public unemployment insurance. The foregoing measures are designed to efficiently grapple with the prob- lem of unemployment in a basic and permanent manner. At the first National Conference on Unemployment, five main points of agreement for combating unemployent were clearly defined, viz.: 1. The necessity for accurate labor market statistics. 2. The necessity for a widespread system of efficient public employment offices. 3. The necessity for regularizing business. 4. The necessity for industrial training and vocational guidance. 5. The necessity for tmemployment insurance. The furnishing of public and part-time work for the unemployed may be considered as being one of the means of regularizing business, the latter being the third point of agreement reached at the Conference. It is not believed that any or all of the above measures, when put into effect, will ever com- pletely do away with the causes of unemployment without an entire reorgani- zation of the industrial process. They will, however, serve to restore the unemployed wage earner to his proper place in industry at the first available opportunity, insure him against involuntary idleness and tide him over periods of distress. Although society cannot prevent the fluctuations of employment, it may, however, aid in lessening the number of unemployed to an appreciable extent! A MUNICIPAL EMPLOYMENT BUREAU. It has been urged upon your Commission during the course of its in- vestigation that the first requisite toward the solving of the problem of un- employment is the organization of a municipal employment bureau on an effi- cient basis. The claim has been made that the establishment of a municipal employment bureau, though in itself not an absolute remedy for unemploy- ment, is the foundation of all proposals for the amelioration of the condi- tions of the unemployed. It has been termed an indispensable condition for any real constructive work in this direction. Employers and employes alike are impressed with the need of some more assured means than those existing at present by which men and women out of employment can find auicklv and with some assurance of certainty the positions and jobs which are vacant in the industrial field, and where employers seeking help can engage those who 22 may be out of work. Such a clearing house, where the jobless man may obtain information of the manless job is evidently useful and necessary at the present time, not only to the various ranks of the unemployed but also to em- ployers. In a small village or town with its limited number of toilers it is com- paratively easy for employers and employes to be informed of all positions which may be unfilled, as well as of the number of men who are unemployed, but in a city of the size of Chicago with its tremendous industries and their specialized nature, it is practically impossible to ascertain conclusively where opportunities of employment exist for certain kinds of labor during times of industrial demand. As it is, there is an enormous waste of time for both the employe and employer in the finding of the job and in the obtaining of the man for the job. A municipal employment bureau, efficiently managed, should prevent a great deal of the present economic waste by lessening the period during which employers are seeking men or men seeking employers. It could do away with the existing useless roaming about of men in search of work and the great loss of time incurred by them between jobs, and which, as a rule, has so demoralizing an effect upon the man. The labor market of to-day is unorganized, with its resulting confusion, waste and monetary loss to both employers and employes. Because of this unorganized state of the labor market, unemployment is daily the cause of a series of suicides, family desertions and infractions of the law of various kinds. Under it men are sent away to find jobs where they cannot obtain them, the children of the unemployed are sent to work at an immature age, while homes are broken up and the respective members of a family become dependent upon relatives and upon charity. In general, unemployment means suffering to the men and their families, a decline in the standard of living, greatly impaired vitality and efficiency, and a tendency for the unemployed to slide into the ranks of the unemployable, dependent and vagrant classes. Not -only does unemployment have a demoralizing effect upon the employe, but its effect is equally severe upon the social structure as a whole. Industry in the United States s.till looks upon the loss of employment as a one-sided risk which the employe alone must take, regardless of whether the worker is economically able to bear the risk or whether he is able to find employment when discharged. The City of Chicago, as well as nearly all of the other cities of the United States, has failed to develop any systematic machinery whereby the discharged man is able to obtain a new job. Under the present chaotic and inhuman method of conducting industry it is incum- bent upon the wage earner to tramp the pavements and the sidewalks of our streets until he perchance finds re-employment. Without going into the moral aspect of the problem and into the injustice and cruelty of the system which places the burden of obtaining a new job upon those economically weakest in the social organism, it is apparent to all that the loss of time, the loss of efficiency and the loss of ambition among the toiling masses of the city and nation must to a very great extent sap the industrial and business efficiency of not only the city, but of the nation as a whole. In order to con- serve the human resources of the city, state and nation, it is incumbent upon our public authorities to meet the first real need of the problem of unemploy- ment by endeavoring to regularize and organize the labor market by the establishment of public employment bureaus. The usual way in which a wage earner out of a job may obtain employ- ment is by calling at the diflferent factories and plants and in reading the newspaper advertising columns. The agonizing weariness and weakening effects of this method are well illustrated in a communication sent to the Chicago Tribune by a young girl some time ago. Her letter, in part, said: "For the last ten days I have been going to the loop every day to look for work. I am there at eight o'clock in the morning. I look for work until eleven. From eleven to twelve is the lunch period in most big establishments, and it is useless to try to see anybody at_ that time. My lunch in a cafeteria gives me a rest of fifteen or twenty minutes. Then I am back again on the sidewalk. The chase from building to building during the morning and the constant dodging of automobiles tire me. Is there a place where I can 23 go to rest up?" The waste of time and energy and the discouragement in going from office to office and door to door in search for work is well brougnt out in the foregoing letter. The wastefulness of this method should be ap- parent to all. The furnishing of exact and reliable information concerning jobs that are available is one of the most important services which the city or state can render to its people. Society cannot appeal to the tolling and producing masses who make our civilization possible and ask them to be industrious, thrifty, sober, religious, intelligent and moral until it has first afforded them the means of living an assured physical existence, freed from the constant danger of idleness and the dire extremity of poverty. The government feels the pulse of business conditions in foreign lands for our business men through its consular reports, and locally aids capital through geological survey and other bulletins. It distributes, information concerning the crops and daily weather reports free X)i charge. Similarly the public nature of employment offices should be considered a useful func- tion rendered to the community. The problem of assuring wage earners a greater security of permanent employment is one that will not be solved probably for a long time. The first step in dealing with this problem is to register the unemployed, to ascer- tain the classes of the unemployed they properly fall into, and then find out how much work there is available in the city. These steps may be considered absolutely necessary ini the process of dealing with the question of unein- ployment. Whatever remedies may be suggested, it is essential that this work be done first. After these steps have been well organized it will then be time for the community to consider a definite policy relating to its public works. When the community is ready to consider public works for the un- employed, it will then be time enough to consider the question of insurance against unemployment. These steps, however, should be taken up one at a time, and it will take years to work out a remedy in an adequate way. The task of securing work for the unemployed is a recurring problem in industry, and is especially difficult of solution towards the end of a winter season of enforced idleness. Through the establishment of a municipal em- ployment bureau, a more exact estimate of the actual number of unemployed can be made, based upon the registration of each applicant at such bureau. The heart-breaking job hunting of the unemployed will be relieved to some extent, new avenues of employment may be opened by getting into imme- diate communication with employers of labor, and work will be secured for heads of families and individuals in distressing circumstances. While municipal employment agencies are not intended to solve the prob- lem of unemployment, they can, however, if efficiently administered, mitigate the evils by reducing to a minimum the number of the unemployed. Municipal employment agencies will serve to relieve the feeling of the hopelessness of life prevalent among a large number of the unemployed wage earners who, through frequent and seasonal unemployment, are unable to secure for themselves and families the industrial conditions necessary to healthy physical existence. This feeling, it has been observed, is lacking among the unem- ployed who congregate about the municipal employment bureaus of the cities of Germany. Here the unemployed sit in a large hall adjoining the offices of the bureau and play checkers, cards and other games while awaiting the call from the offices — which is usually within a few hours, or of days at the most — of their respective names and being sent away to a job. It has become evident from experience that employment offices are neces- sary institutions in every industrial community. They serve as clearing houses for the labor market in bringing together men and jobs with the least loss of time and earnings. Just as every great industrial corporation has an employment office to see that all its departments are supplied with a proper force and that men are not standing around in some departments when they can be used in others, so the city needs a free employment office to direct people to opportunities for employment and to see that some industries are not overcrowded and employes idle while others are suffering from a shortage of help. 24 The municipal employment bureau should dispense information about jobs and not the jobs themselves. No applicant for a position is assured of the same by applying for work, nor is an employer assured of help. The bureau merely brings to the notice of the unemployed the unfilled positions for which they are waiting and places employers in touch with the kind of labor on hand which will suit their needs. The labor contract must be made by the employer and the wage earner independent of the municipal employ- ment bureau. In times of industrial disputes or strikes the practice of the German employment bureau should be followed of listing demands for help from employers whose workmen are on strike. If the applicant, after knowing the conditions and that a strike is on, wishes to be referred to the employer he must go on his own responsibility. While a good deal can be said of such agencies in the distribution of labor, it should, however, be remembered that they deal with but one phase of the unemployment problem. If men are out of work because work cannot be obtained, even the municipal employment agencies cannot render any effi- cacious aid. Furthermore, if men are idle because they are either unwilling or unable to work, an employment office will help very little; or where un- skilled men are idle when .skilled men only are wanted in the industrial field. Should, however, employes with certain qualifications be idle at a time when employers are seeking employes with the same qualifications, then an employ- ment agency can be of great service. By placing this limitation upon the usefulness of employment agencies, most of the criticism to which they are subjected will be unnecessary. Employment agencies cannot create work, nor can they infuse into work- ingmen habits of industry, ability or skill. Their capacity to .serve the public is bound by the condition of the labor market. That the usefulness of em- ployment agencies is very great admits of slight doubt. An employer in need of help is unable to know what particular man or group of men are idle or in need of work. Similarly the unemployed workman is unable to know which of the thousand and one employers is in need of his services. To bring these two interested parties into contact is the special field of the municipal employment agency. The justification of the municipal employment agency is chiefly in the advantage accruing to the general public through the lessening of unemployment and its concomitant evils. The service of connecting employers and working people is something which private agencies cannot do as efficiently as the city. The gathering of information about opportunities for employment and the distribution of this information to those in need of it requires a centralized organization which will concentrate the demand for labor and be in touch with the entire labor supply. Private labor agents, by attempting to render this service, defeat the very purpose of a clearing house where employer and worker may meet, as, where a demand for help is often registered with one employment agent, the applicants for employment are registered at other offices. A unified sys- tem is needed to secure the best distribution of labor. It has been found that the free municipal employment office in Milwaukee has become a great center where men needing work may go and where work seeking men may also apply. It has succeeded in cutting down the crowds of hundreds of workless men congregating at the factory gates every morning. At the free employment office the working man out of a job has a hun- dred chances to obtain work, while by applying at the factory gates he has but one chance. It has been stated by Mr. G. von Hoffmann, Vice Consul of Austria-Hungary at Berlin, in "The Survey" for October 24, 1914, that the distress and misery caused by the present European war in Germany and Austria-Hungary "is not greater or even as great as, for instance, that in the United States during the crisis in 1907-08." This scramble for jobs, oftentimes by despairing men with families anx- iously waiting for the success or failure of the quest, is one of the pathetic sights meeting the gaze of the Chicagoan who is about early in the morning, ■ and frequently has in it all the elements of tragedy. A central clearing house for such jobs in a municipal employment bureau would provide a much better and efficient manner of handling the problern of unemployment; and manufacturers and business men themselves are coming to realize this. It is 25 more humane to the men looking for work, saves them a lot of tramping to and fro, and is a great convenience in the securmg of wo'^kmen Under tne present system obtaining in the City of Chicago workers are ^"kmg «"^Pl°y- ment while at the same time employers are unable to get the help they need The state employment bureaus fail to meet the problem of unemployment in the slightest degree, and the city should begin to forniulate plans for a permanent employment exchange of the first order. Such an employment bureau would serve the needs of the various departments of the city particu- larly, and also of employers when there are signs of revivalin ordinary m- dustrial lines Such municipal employment bureau would discriminate between the employable and unemployable unemployed, so that when the city under- takes public work the unemployable class, which, under ordinary circumstances, is living on charity or on other human beings, would not come and benefit from this public work, to the disadvantage of the employable unemployed. It would serve to pick out the unemployed who are mentally and physically able to work. ... , ■ In the furnishing of jobs to applicants by a municipal employment bureau, fitness for the position should be a prime test in every sense. It is no use for such a bureau to recommend those to positions which they cannot fill to the satisfaction of employers or are not able to hold because of some physical ailment or disability, old age or inefficiency. A municipal employment agency when established should receive an appropriation of adequate funds to make it efficient in the highest possible degr,ee, and the members of its staff should be appointed according to a method which will make it impervious to the attacks of political and partisan spoilsmen. The bureau should be under the supervision of an advisory board or council, of responsible citizens representing employers, employes and the general public, whose province it shall be to direct the general policy and supervise the efficiency of the bureau, this board or council having the power to employ or discharge all employes according to the rules and regulations of the Civil Service Commission. A municipal employment bureau thus equipped will, practically organize the labor market. The mere fact that such a bureau contains a paid superin- tendent in charge, with ample clerical assistants devoting their entire time to the affairs of the bureau, will go far towards aiding in such organization. It, however, cannot be emphasized often enough that it will be necessary to put people in charge who understand the. business, who are efficient and who know the plans upon which the municipal employment bureaus are founded and who will work with energy and vigor to make them a success. The one elemental condition in the successful operation and management of a public employment office is that it must be impartial between employers and em- ployes in their disputes over conditions of employment. To prevent municipal employment bureaus from being a detriment to organized labor they should not be allowed to furnish help where there is any labor trouble without advance notice and a true explanation of the facts to the unemployed that there is a strike on, either for better conditions or against a reduction of wages, or because employers have refused to allow their working people to organize, or for any other cause. The presence of an equal number of employes and employers upon the boards of control of employment bureaus is considerd in European countries so necessary to their success that it is almost universally the policy in the foreign public employment bureaus. The following is a list of cities in the United States which have estab- lished municipal employment agencies: Date of Date of T S'*^ , r- , Establishment City Establishment Los Angeles, Cal 1893 Everett, Wash... igOR Seattle, Wash 1894 Wellesley, Mass '.'.'." 1908 Superior, Wis 1899 Newark, N. T. . . 1909 Duluth, Minn 1901 Portland, Ore.... "'" lOQO Butte, Mont 1902 Kansas City, Mo. ...! .'l' ' 1910 Tacoma, Wash 1904 Schenectady, N. Y 1012 Great Falls, Mont 1905 Berkeley, Cal '.'.'.'.'.'. 1913 Spokane, Wash 1905 New York City. . 1914 26 It is estimated that in New York City the total number of unemployed men during the winter of 1913-14 approximated 300,000. The city govern- ment realized that a duty devolved upon it in this emergency and undertook to study the means of relief which could be devised for handling the problem. A conference was called by the Mayor, composed of representative groups of the community, and the conference recommended the establishment by the city of an emJ)loyment agency. The Board of Aldermen on April 28, 1914, established a public employment bureau in the office of the Commissioner of Licenses. The ordinance as adopted reads as follows: "Section 1. There shall be a Public Employment Bureau in and for the City of New York, attached to the Department of Licenses, with the principal office in the Borough of Manhattan, and a branch office in such other boroughs as may be deemed necessary and designated by the Commissioner of Licenses for the purpose of aiding unemployed persons in securing employment and employers of labor in securing employes, but no fee shall be charged by said bureau, or any officer or employe thereof for such purpose. "Section 2. The employes of said Public Employment Bureau shall consist of such assistants and clerks as may be found neces- sary for properly carrying on the work of said bureau, and they shall be appointed and removed by the Commissioner of Licenses, in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Municipal Civil Service Commission, and shall be paid such compensation as shall be fixed and established pursuant to Section 56 of the Greater New York Charter. "Section 3. There shall be kept in the principal office of said bureau and in each and every branch office thereof such system of records as may be necessary properly to record and classify, ac- cording to trade or profession, (1) all applicants for positions; (2) all positions to be filled as reported to said bureau; (3) alljier- sons sent to those seeking employes; (4) all such persons who secure employment, and (5) such other records as the Commis- sioner of Licenses deems necessary. A report of the transactions of each branch office shall be transmitted each day to the principal office of the Public Employment Bureau in the Borough of Man- hattan. "Section 4. The Public Employment Bureau shall, in so far as it is feasible, co-operate with such employment bureaus or intelli- gence offices as now exist, or which are now or may hereafter be established and conducted by the United States or the State of New York." The Boston Free Employment Office, one of a series of employment offices maintained by the State, is one of the most efficient in the United States. It has a superintendent, chief clerk and nine additional clerks doing its work, the latter being selected by Civil Service examination. The office finds jobs for approximately fifteen thousand applicants during the year. All classes of labor have been placed by this office, from a foundry superintendent at $2,000 a year, to a scrub woman at $1.50 a day. The Boston Employment Office compares favorably with many of the German and British labor exchanges. The summary of business done by the Boston Free Employment Office from December 3, 1906, to November 30, 1913, is as follows: Classification. 1907. 1908. 1909. 1910. 1911. 1912. 1913. Total. Offers of positions... 44,876 24,445 32,432 41,630 47,688 61,051 58,324 310,446 Positions reported filled 14,480 9,941 13,034 15,478 15,806 19,554 20,971 109,264 Persons furnished employment 10,707 6,535 8,327 9,262 10,112 12,216 12,981 70,140 Persons applied for by employers 33,696 12,825 17,404 21,425 22,816 26,749 26,956 161,871 The foregoing statistics show 14,480 jobs reported filled in 1907, the first year of its operation, and in 1913 the number had increased to 20,971, or an in- 27 crease of 44 83 per cent. It likewise has a vocational counsellor to advise j^eenilefwitfre^^rd to opportunities for which the a,e best ad t,,, ,,^ i clerk who has charge of all applicants for work by the handKapped In 1911 the Industrial Commission of Wisconsin "organized tneiou free employment offices in the state and proceeded to work out a system ot civil service for the employes. MilwnnWpp the In Milwaukee, through the co-operation of the p^^ °i^.f,f™^^' tUc County of Milwaukee, and the Wisconsin Industrial Commission, a public empKment office has been established which can tell -^^ f ^^^ °^^*eb^ whether there are any jobs to be obtained m the city. The question of know ing where jobs and men can be brought together is practically solved for ''"'Thl' report of the Milwaukee Free Employment Office shows that during the year ending October 31, 1913. the business of the office >"<:£5ffd almost four-fold over the average done for the seven previous years The foUowmg is a summary of the business of the Free Employment Office durmg the years 1912 and 1913: Year 1912 Year 1913 Increase 1. Applications for wofk: - Men 18,439 24,949 6,510, or 35% Women 4,311 4,333 22, or J4% Total 22,750 29,282 6,532, or 29% 2. Positions secured: „ „,„ ,^^, Ann/ Men . . . 9,287 13,030 3,743, or 40% Women' '. .' 2,186 2,630 444, or 20% Total 11,473 15,660 4,187, or 36% While business in 1913 was not, on the whole, as good as that of the year 1912, still, despite these unfavorable conditions, the employment office was able'to increase its demand for help by 10 per cent, while the number who actually secured work through the office increased by about 36 per cent. That more and more workers are patronizing the office is evidenced by the greater number of registrations in 1913, there being an increase of 24 per cent The number of different individuals who applied for work during 1913 was 17,825, as compared with 14,540 in 1912. The office is operated as a purely business proposition for facilitating the meeting of buyers and sellers of labor. Emphasis is laid upon fitness for positions as the first test in all deal- ings. If applicants are unemployed because of old age, inefficiency or inability of any kind, it will be of no help to them to refer them to positions which they cannot hold. The office is kept free from every taint of charity, inasmuch as experience has shown that self-respecting working people will not patronize an employment office of this character, and employers will not call upon it when they want efficient help. The office merely brings to the notice of work- ing people the opportunities for employment for which they are fitted and connects employers with the available supply of labor of the kind they need. Both parties are left to make their own bargains. The Free Employment Office does not distribute jobs to those who apply, but merely serves to dis- pense information about the labor supply and demand. A committee representing employers and wage earners advises in the management of the Milwaukee office. This assures impartiality in labor dis- putes and obtains the confidence of both sides, which latter is considered necessary for the successful management of any employment office. A monthly labor market bulletin is issued showing the supply in labor and the demand, by industries and by occupations; also whether the occupations are skilled or unskilled, and temporary or permanent positions. It is hoped that in time these labor market reports will take their place in the pages of the daily newspapers alongside of the transactions of stock exchanges, boards of trade, hog, grain, produce and other markets, and the daily reports of the weather bureau. During the slack winter months the Free Employment Office was able to get together enough work to tide over most of the unemployed, especially family men and residents of the city, who might otherwise have fallen upon 28 the community for support. At a time when the funds of the jobless were being exhausted by lack of work, this Free Employment Office saved the working people unnecessary car fares and labor agency fees; it sent men to work on the ice; gave them short jobs wrecking houses, helping coal team- sters, cleaning streets and bridges of snow and similar work, until the warm weather came, when there was plenty of work for all. Similarly the work of this employment office kept on increasing during the summer months. Em- ployers have become accustomed to calling at the employment office for their help. Working men have become used to dropping in at the office as soon as they get out of work. It has become a real clearing house for labor. Work- ing people, instead of starting blindly in search of work, go at once to the employment office, where they know they can always find a list of opportuni- ties for employment posted in the waiting room. The Los Angeles Board of County Supervisors has ordered that in all work done under contract for the county, men shall be hired through the Municipal Employment Bureau instead of through any private agency. The failure of the employer to find workers to do the work necessarily reduces the production of the nation to that extent. The public employment agencies of Europe do not create work, but they do see that the productive machinery and the man willing and able to produce shall not be prevented from coming into direct working relations by as much as a day's delay if this can be accomplished by intelligence and organization. Free public labor exchanges were created by act of Parliament in the United Kingdom in 1909. About 430 of these public employment exchanges are now opened in different parts of the kingdom, and these exchanges, with their subsidiary offices, are within five miles of every group of wage earners, so that any man out of work, by going not more than five miles, can file his application for work in these bureaus, and employers desiring workers can immediately be put in touch through these bureaus with the man in the nearest vicinity who will fill the job. From statistics published in the Fourth Abstract of Foreign Labor Sta- tistics of the British Board of Trade, it appears that the number of unem- ployed is smaller in those countries having effective public employment offices than in others not so adequately equipped. The statistics published show the fluctuations in employment in Denmark. Norway, Germany, Belgium, France and in the State of New York. It will be noted that the percentages for Germany are far below those of any of the other countries and are more even and regular for each succeeding year than elsewhere. It is believed that the low percentages of employment prevailing in Germany are due to the in- fluence of the public employment offices so efficiently maintained in that country. Year Denmark Norway Germany Belgium France N.Y.State 1903 .. 2.7 3.4 10.1 1904 4.0 2.1 3.0 10.8 12.1 190S 13.28 4.4 1.6 2.1 9.9 8.5 1906 6.12 3.2 1.1 1.8 8.4 6,8 1907 6.79 2.S 1.6 2.0 7.5 13.6 1908 10.96 3.6 2.9 5.9 9.5 28.0 1909 13.32 5.0 2.8 3.4 8.1 14.9 In the main, the public employment offices in Germany are now in mu- nicipal hands. Privileges are afforded the unemployed in regard to the postal ' and telephone services, and reduced fares are charged on the state railways to the accredited seekers of work in Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Alsace-Lorraine, Central Germany, Baden and elsewhere, and a certain degree of systematic co-ordination has been established between the public employment offices operating within wide areas. The public employment offices are, as a rule, free, at least to applicants for work, and it is usual for the wage earner to have a share in their management. Private employment agencies are required to be licensed in Germany. The thorough manner in which the problem of the unemployed is handled in Germany is further illustrated by the following table, which shows that the applications for work at the public employment offices reporting to the Ger- man Imperial Labor Department average 309,000 monthly; the number of 29 offers of work, 184,000, and the number of situations filled, 44.3% of the mean number of applications and 74.5% of the offers of work: Applications for 137,000, equal to mean number of Year 1909 January . . . February .. March .... April May June July August . . . September October . . . November December Employment 300,000 308,000 331,000 306,000 305,000 311,000 305,000 313,000 325,000 314,000 300,000 299,000 Offers of Situations Situations Filled 137,000 105,000 144,000 105,000 191,000 135,000 207,000 148,000 196,000 143,000 191,000 141,000 183,000 137,000 203,000 150,000 230,000 168,000 211,000 162,000 166,000 131,000 148,000 121,000 Mean for year. 309,000 184,000 137,000 The Municipal Employment Exchange in the City of Berlin in one year has found as many as 120,000 jobs for jobless men, men who in the City of Chicago would have wasted shoe-leather and valuable time going up and down the streets of the city in search of employment, with a more than even chance of probably getting in the wrong job in the end. The Berlin exchange is not only a great clearing house of labor, but by classifying the jobs and the men suitable for these jobs, the four-dollar man is sent away to a_ four-dollar job — to the satisfaction alike of both employer and employe — while the man capable of earning but two and a half dollars a day is sent away to a two and a half dollar job. The Municipal Employment Bureau of Munich is considered one of the most successful of the bureaus of Germany. It is not only open every work- ing day, but from ten to twelve A. M. on Sundays and holidays, as well. It has been found that the establishment of this municipal employment bureau has accomplished a real social service to the community which is valued high by both wage earners and employers. It is estimated that this bureau in 1910 saved the applicants for work the sum of about $12,000 in fees, and that employers find they have achieved certain economic advantages by making use of the bureau. The activity of the Munich bureau since its establishment on November 1, 1895, is shown in the following table: Numter Number of Positions Number of Applications Offered by Employers of Positions Filled Year Men Women Total Men Women Total Men Women Total 1895 . 6,712 2,949 9,661 1,352 1,287 2,639 1,127 838 1,965 1896 . 32,355 14,653 47,008 16,725 13,332 30,057 15,653 9,933 25,586 1897 . 25,540 15,462 41,002 20,572 13,880 34,452 18,186 10,669 28,855 1898 . 36,151 18,843 54,994 23,393 15,598 38,991 20,439 11,897 32,336 1899 . 30,505 19,967 50,472 28,145 21,235 49,380 25,179 14,308 39,487 1900 . 30,788 23,569 54,357 28,919 25,479 54,398 26,356 18,142 44,498 1901 . 42,912 30,395 73,307 27,203 29,353 56,556 24,358 20,815 45,173 1902 . 39,634 28,807 ' 68,441 25,094 27,525 52,619 21,171 19,342 40,513 19U3 . 35,599 29,849 65,448 26,253 30,357 56,610 22,109 20,063 42,172 1904 . 34,558 31,200 65,758 30,179 33,909 64,088 25,680 21,142 46,822 1905 . 33,421 32,086 65,507 31,239 36,747 67,986 27,317 22,161 49,478 19U0 . 35,674 32,418 68,092 34,348 37,642 71,990 29,658 24,015 53,673 190/ . 39,961 34,454 74,415 39,381 39,502 78,883 33,602 27,150 60,752 19U8 . 43,199 36,644 79,843 35,427 40,702 76,129 31,174 28,909 60,083 1909 . 48,279 37,293 85,572 38,477 40,611 79,088 34,431 30,085 64,516 1910 . 50,013 48,707 98,720 44,310 51,839 96,149 39,222 39,696 78,918 Grand Total 565,301 437,2961,002,597 451,017 458,998 910,015 395,662 319,165 714,827 During the fifteen-year period from 1895 to 1910, the Bureau has received 1.002,597 applications for work; 910,015 unfilled positions were posted during 30 Number of Year Applications. 1907 16,726 1908 1S,37S 1909 30,702 1910 45,613 1911 51,697 1912 59,399 this period, and of this number 714,827 positions were filled from the worlcers having applications on file. It has been found that an average of 70 men and 73 women out of every 100 applying for work at the Munich bureau in each year received positions, while out of every 100 positions declared open by employers, 87 men and 69 women in each year found employment. In 1910 the ratio was much above the average for the fifteen years, being 88 men and 78 women who received work for every 100 positions listed at the municipal em- ployment bureau by employers. Similarly the ratio in 1910 for the number of persons applying for work and receiving the same was greater than the annual average for the fifteen-year period, being 78 men and 81 women who received employment out of every lOO applications for work by wage earners. Since 1912 the Municipal Employment Bureau in Nuremberg, Germany, has published each month a labor bulletin describing the condition of the labor market of the city. This monthly bulletin is distributed to the newspapers, who practically publish the bulletin in full. The work of the Nuremberg Municipal Employment Agency is well illustrated by the following statistical table, showing the results accomplished during the years 1907-12: Number of Positions Number of Offered by Employers. Positions Filled. 20,761 16,049 14,882 12,483 21,219 16,360 34,850 29,088 40,726 34,379 42,749 35,687 The need of a municipal employment agency in the City of Chicago has been made evident by the report of the Mayor's Commission on Unemploy- ment. Statistics gathered by the Commission show that there is overlapping to a certain extent in the industrial field, as is instanced by the fact that three firms in the city could not always find enough common labor, whereas twenty- two firms were over-supplied with it; fifteen firms did not always have a suffi- cient supply of skilled labor, while two firms found that kind of labor over- supplied. It is remarkable that there should be such a great variation m the supply of labor within the City of Chicago and is indicative to some extent of the lack of control of the labor market, and the possibility that in one part of the city there may be an over-supply of a particular kmd of labor and a scarcity of the same kind of labor in another part of the city. The municipal employment agency would serve as an efficient clearing house for all kinds of workers and furnish reliable knowledge of the industries in the community. Such an agency would secure information in regard to every available position and every available worker within the area of its operations. In order to secure complete information in regard to supply and demand it would be necessary that no position which might be filled should fail to be listed in a public employment agency. . , , ^ .u Employers, by agreeing to obtain their employes only throu.gh the mu- nicipal employment agency, would make the wandering of employes in search of work unnecessary and unprofitable for them. Likewise the worker, by registering at the public employment agency before he became unemployed, could pass from one occupation to another without loss of time before he was dismissed from his previous engagement. Likewise, the employer would make his application for help at the public agency in advance of the time when it was needed. In this respect neither employer nor employe would suffer loss because of the lack of adjustment. , . . ^i. The public employment agency would also be the necessary test of the impossibility of finding work and would remove the prevailing state of ignor- ance and lack of definite and accurate information from the problem of The most important service the Chicago Municipal Markets Commission can render the City of Chicago in the present emergency is to impress upon its public officials, the press, civic organizations, labor unions, employers associations and public opinion as a whole, the great need of a clearing house for labor, such as is offered by a municipal employment bureau. Such an employment bureau will aid in bringing the jobless man and the manless job together no matter how far within the City of Chicago these two may be 31 separated, and an initial step will be taken at arriving at soine fairly accurate idea each year of the extent of the unemployment in the city. PUBLIC WORKS FOR THE UNEMPLOYED. Public works undertaken by communities should be distinguished from the so-called works of necessity. The works of necessity undertaken by cities are commonly those of relief or charity, even though the cost of such works of necessity or relief may, to a small extent, be returned to the public treasury. Works of relief or necessity are conducted in the interest of the unemployed solely, in order to prevent the latter from becortiing demoralized through alms and being made unemployable later because of their period of compulsory idleness. It is therefore difficult to arrive at a fair, relative value between the work actually done and the wage paid for the same. The cities of the United States have never given sufficient thought nor afforded satisfactory facilities for the prevention of unemployment by dividing and allotting their public work into more even periods. During the industrial and business depression in Germany in 1895 and 1900, the cities, states, and the national government put under way increased construction work upon the state railroads, forts, harbors, and other improvements, so that the number of unemployed might be kept at a minimum. The usual tendency in American cities has been to increase the a.mount of construction work and public improvements during favorable conditions in the financial market and to decrease the same during periods of industrial and financial depression, while a similar decrease in work is being felt by private industry. This senseless plan pursued by public officials of increasing public work during favorable and prosperous business conditions, ma,de re- latively easy by the greater increase in taxes and other municipal revenues during such time, should be decried. It is most necessary to emphasize that only such public works should be put under way during favorable periods as are absolutely essential and non-postponable. Our cities, through a wise con- sideration and study of labor conditions and the state of employment, should pursue a plan of undertaking municipal improvements during dull times, which will act as an impetus upon the labor market and assist in raising and helping the same over what may be called a stagnant or dead level. By regulating the time of constructing public works and improvements, the involuntary idle- ness of the employable unemployed would, to a great extent, be prevented, productivity would be enlarged, and the earnings of capital and of labor would be increased. Early in the summer or fall of each year, an official list should be com- piled by the City of Chicago showing all municipal public works, the con- tracts for which have been let, but which have not been put under way or completed, so that the construction can be commenced at the beginning of or during cold weather. The municipal treatment of the problem of unemploy- ment in Chicago, as in all our cities, in this particular, is likewise inconsistent, incoherent, and lacking in organic action. Chicago handles the problem of the unemployed according to its own conjecture, regardless of any planned or intelligent system. It should not be difficult for the City of Chica,go to formulate a systematic, methodical, regular, and well thought-out plain for combating the pro-blem of unemployment. Such a well-devised plan would include the postponement of public works during favorable industrial periods for less favorable times and would set aside a sinking fund each year during the years of prosperity so that, at the beginning of the periods of depression and when business is dull and the municipal income slumps proportionately, the necessary means for the undertaking of public works and improvements will be at hand and can be released for this purpose. Our cities have shown a stupid tendency to limit and curtail their ex- penditures during periods of industrial crisis and business depression, not- withstanding the easier financial terms which might be obtained in the pre- vailing money market. The French Commission on Economic Crises came to the conclusion that public bodies should create sinking funds for public works during times of plenty and prosperity in order that in times of extreme de- pression, the city and the state could take speedy action toward releasing these accumulated amounts upon the public works and improvements. The city should take suitable steps for anticipating widespread unemployment and to mitigate the effects of such unemployment. A general plan for a proper 32 division and allotment of public works or improvements to be undertaken by it should be duly considered. In nearly every avenue of municipal activity there are certain works and improvements which it is not necessary to have carried out and finished by a certain time. Similarly, there are public con- tracts and improvements for the undertaking and completion of which it is entirely optional upon the municipal authorities to choose the time when they shall be started or performed. If all public bodies would give due consideration to the problem of un- employment by the disposition of such contracts and public works, and to the postponement and the awarding of the same in times of greatest dearth and scarcity of employment, it would afford an opportunity to a large and increas- ing number of the unemployed to make a livelihood at such times. Unem- ployment is recurrent^ annually during the winter months in the City of Chicago and in other industrial centers, and by the systematic planning and apportioning on the part of municipalities in their public works and improve- ments, so that the construction and completion of the latter shall benefit the winter unemployed, the misery and destitution annually caused by unemploy- ment would be warded off and prevented to a very large extent. The Minister of the Interior of Germany, in 1908, during a period of great industrial depression, made an appeal to the municipalities and states of the Empire that they use every endeavor to keep industry in full operation to the greatest possible extent; that public works of all kinds and equipment and construction which had been planned for the future be undertaken at once and that orders and contracts for municipal supplies be given out immediately, in anticipation of future demands, in order that the least possible number of men might be thrown out of employment. It was suggested that employment be limited, as far as possible, to working men resident in the city or state. In a iiumber of German cities, public works are put under way only during the winter months, the only exception being where the construction of such public works and improvements is an immediate necessity and incapable of postponement. A broad, methodical, systematic, municipal labor policy will consider as a permanent municipal arrangement the undertaking of public works and improvements during the winter months. These public works and improve- ments will tend to reduce the number of unemployed during each winter practically to a minimum and do away with the necessity of establishing relief works and charitable aid to the unemployed. No extraordinary relief meas- ures or charity should be resorted to by the city until it finds that the unem- ployed cannot be taken care of on the public works and improvements during the winter months. All municipal work, the construction and completion of which is not essential during the warm months of the year, should system- atically be carried over by the city until the winter season. German cities divide all their municipal work with the greatest care so that as much of it as can possibly be carried out during the winter months is postponed to that season. Water pipe extension and street work should be reserved for the winter months, insofar as work of this nature can be done before the time of continual frost. Great stress should be laid upon the fact that public works, wholly or in part, should be carried on only during periods of industrial and business quietude. The experience of German cities shows that the systematic applica- tion of a definite and well ordered plan of finding work for the unemployed has resulted in recent years in a decided decrease in the number of jobless men. Some public work, naturally, cannot be done during the winter months, and for that reason the postponement to that time would not be advisable. The adoption of a well-ordered and definite plan for dealing with the problem of unemployment by the municipality during periods of industrial and business depression, should prove an example and an incentive to private employers, who, likewise, should plan new buildings and equipment; should look into the condition of the labor market, so that as miich of this work as is possible may be undertaken by them during the period of greatest unemploy- In the efforts to relieve unemployment by public works, preference should be given to men who are heads of families, who are residents of the city, or have lived and worked here with the intention of becoming residents and who .have become unemployed through industrial conditions over which they have no control. It is to help this class of the unemployed that provision for 33 public work should be made by the city, so that these men can be given continued work during the slack season. Unemployment during business and industrial depression could be pre- vented by postponing some of the public works and municipal contracts until such depression begins. It would be possible to postpone some of the work on public buildings, harbors, streets, material, printing of municipal documents, and the like. This public work would dififer essentially from the relief works which were formerly prevalent; in hiring help because it was efficient rather than because it was unemployed and in stimulating those occupations which would cause employment to ramify through the entire industrial system. The city should adjust its contracts for construction work according to the state of the labor market and commence or discontinue public works for the purpose of leveling or regularizing the demands for labor. The neces- sity for increasing municipal industrial activities should be gauged by and dependent upon the increase and decrease of employment among the wage earners. Public works and improvements, when undertaken by the municipality in times of unemployment, should be conducted for the benefit of the employable unemployed and the men who can come up to a certain standard of com- petency. They should be subject to discharge for incompetency as would be the case if they were in private employ. The public works should not de- generate to the level of relief works where incompetent and competent work- men are given employment, regardless of the kind of work they turn out. If care is not taken in this respect on the public works, skilled men will soon refuse to work with incompetent help, or, failing in this, run the danger of sinking to the incompetent. standard which the inferior type of workmen set up. Most of the German cities conduct public work for the unemployed during the winter months and during years of industrial depression. This work is not created primarily for the unemployed, and, as a rule, it is necessary public work, such as repairing streets, 'building schools, laying water pipes, extending municipal car lines, and the like, which is purposely delayed until such time when private business operations are quiet and dull. The Imperial and State authorities of Germany likewise arrange their work in such a manner that the greatest number of men shall be employed during the dull period. The government issues circulars calling the attention of the local authorities to approaching industrial crises and urge that public work be increased as much as possible during such times. The following is one of the circulars issued by the Prussian government in November, 1908, addressed to the Presidents of the various provinces: "The condition of the labor market has, during the past month, taken such an unsatisfactory course that it appears necessary to adopt special measures for dealing with unemployment in various classes of occupations. The most effective course is for both private persons giving out contracts and, above all, for public bodies which conduct undertakings themselves or employ work- men in other ways, or which, in order to supply their require- ments, must give out contracts by which occupation is provided, to avoid curtailing their undertakings, to increase as far as pos- sible work already commenced, to commence new work as soon as possible, and to give out at once wherever possible contracts for supplying their requirements in the near future, and, so far as is practicable, for providing a reserve. The State and Imperial authorities have issued orders to this effect. A number of com- munal administrations are to be commended for having also adopted these measures. We request Your Excellencies to bring your influence to bear on the larger and smaller communal groups and on all other public bodies in your province which have not up to the present adopted this policy, to cause them to continue their industrial undertakings to the fullest extent, to commence at once so far as is practicable, building operations, installation worksi and any other work which they propose to undertake in the near future, and to give out contracts not only to supply their present material and other requirements in the near future, so that the contractors concerned may avoid curtailing their undertakings. "We confidently rely on all public bodies to give willing help 34 each within the limits of their authority, towards overcoming the difficulties arising in our social life, and on their co-operation to the best of their powers and abilities towards this end." Permanent public works and improvements could be undertaken by the public authorities, such as construction and improvement work in water pipe extension; upon the streets and highways; in parks and playgrounds and otherwise. Statistics have shown that there is annually what may be called a need- less amount of unemployment. If the present industrial system were admin- istered in an efficient manner, something would be done toward distributing employment more evenly over the whole year and to put extra construction work over until such times when industry is dull. Both public and private employers should choose doing such extra work during those times when a large number of men fitted to do this work are awaiting employment in the surplus labor market. If the streets have to be cleaned and water pipe must be laid, if _ various kinds of construction work should be executed, it is but sound business to have this work done when plenty of competent workmen can be obtained, and if our municipal governments were acting in a manner keenly regardful of the general weal, they would select such times for putting under way the public work in project. So long as we have our annually recur- ring periods of unemployment, which cannot be foreseen or guarded against by a large number of toilers, it should be recognized that the community should undertake measures such as establishing public works in order that society itself may be insured and protected against the demoralization of the life and habits of industry of the wage earners which such periods of idleness usually produce. In times of prosperity, the city should look ahead and anticipate the periods of industrial depression. Like the statesman of old, it should plan for the lean years which our experience shows will always succeed the fat years. The city could assist in regulating the labor market by putting its orders out during times of depression and thereby aid to increase the volume of demand for labor. During a mild and open winter, work done upon the public projects of the city could be prosecuted continuously, so that the num- ber of city laborers employed during the winter would be greater than usual. Our governing bodies can help to regularize the demand for labor by adopt- ing a ten-year pro.gram for all kinds of public works and by emphasizing their plan of executing such public works during periods of industrial and business ciuietude. Then the men would be hired during such dull periods upon these public works in the usual manner, because their labor was in demand and without any regard as to whether or not they were unemployed. At the first General Unemployment Congress, convened at Ghent, Belgium, in September, 1913, Dr. Treub, the Dutch Minister of Industry and Com- merce, recommended that: 1. Public bodies should, as far as possible, defer their undertaking to slack seasons or years of depression. 2. That reserve funds (sinking funds) be maintained for this purpose. 3. That permanent commissions be created in every state to study eco- nomic crises and to advise public bodies as to the probable recurrence of dull seasons. 4. That public bodies undertake more frequently than is now the case, the draining of marshes; the reclamation of desert lands; aflforestation ; the improvements of roads, and the like, with a view to furnishing employment that might carry the unemployed through periods of depression. It was the general opinion at this Congress that the fore.gomg policy wisely administered would prove the most important mitigation of the ex- traordinary conditions consequent in industrial and business depressions. The City of Chicago should begin needed public works and improvements during such periods of depression in order to absorb some of the unemployed, rather than postpone the same to a future date. It should see that these public works and improvements are of a sort that will be of practical value to the community. The work should be for residents of the City of Chicago, primarily, and this fact should be advertised emphatically throughout the land so that human beings will not flock in from all points of the compass to this city in the expectation of obtaining work and thus xlog the machinery put m motion by our public authorities and thereby defeat the very purpose for 35 which such public work and improvements are undertakeri. The pay of the men engaged upon such public works and improvements should be the stand- ard market rates for the various kinds of work required. The ability and capacity of the men to do the work should be the first consideration in em- ploying a man upon these public projects and not his need of the job, which, possibly, may be treated as a secondary and subsidiary consideration. Where two men of equal ability apply for a single job upoft our public works and improvements, the man who claims Chicago as a place of residence and who has a family or others dependent upon him should be taken on. In Philadelphia, an attempt has this year been made by the city authorities to assist in solving the problem of unemployment by adopting a liberal plan of public works, and, according to Mr. Edward J. Cattell, City Statistician of Philadelphia, the city is now preparing to issue $12,000,000 of bonds. One of the reasons for circulating this bond issue at this time is to furnish employ- ment for a large number of people during the coming winter and spring. It- is expected that the public work put under way through this bond issue will relieve the distress caused by unemployment during the coming winter. The mayor, the city solicitor, and the city comptroller were authorized to ascertain what funds were available for immediate use for public work and improve- ments, without requiring further action on the part of the Board of Aldermen, and how these funds could be made available without additional legislation and, if such additional legislation may be necessary, to suggest the form such legislation should take. In Grand Rapids, last winter, the Board of Park and Cemetery Corn- missioners was authorized by the Common Council to immediately proceed with some of the work planned for the summer of 1914, and the Board of Public Works was instructed to put under way additional work upon the city sewers in order to relieve the conditions of unemployment prevailing in the city to as great an extent as possible. In the City of Duluth, on account of the mild and open weather prevailing last winter, the logging in the woods north of the city was curtailed to a great extent, and, in consequence, the lab6r market of Duluth was congested with a large number of unemployed workmen. In order to take care of these unemployed, the city gave employment on several municipal sewer jobs and at a rock crusher, operated by the city, in connection with the removal of a large hill of rock which was an obstacle to street extension from the eastern to the western part of the city. It was found that these public projects served to reduce the number of unemployed to a considerable degree. . The city officials of Portland are laying plans for meeting the problem, o£ unemployment during the coming winter. Instead of expending municipal funds on the housing of the idle men, the municipality is furthering the efforts toward finding work for those who are unemployed. It is proposed to use a large number of the unemployed on the clearing of land. In Kansas City, the unemployed have been given work in the municipal quarry. The quarry work began December 6, 1913, when the supply was ihuch ' greater than the demand for laborers, and continued until April 18, 1914, when the number of applicants for a chance to break rock had dropped from the maximum of 175 a day to one-half a dozen. The work at the municipal quarry was divided into day and night shifts. Married men with families were given preference over single men who had only themselves to care for. No one was refused who needed the work and the foreman of the quarry was instructed to refer to the proper relief agencies those who were mentally and physically tinfit to work. The men employed at the municipal quarry broke the rock for ' commercial use and were paid 60 cents per yard for breaking it. The men were paid in meals and lodgings and orders for groceries and other supplies, while a limited^ number of men. experienced quarry men, were paid in cash. The operation of the municipal quarry was self-sustaining and it is be- lieved there will be a slight profit to the city when the rock is all sold. ' It is encouraging to note that a large number of our cities are coming tb the belief that the best method for combating the annually recurring problem of the unemployed is by the very means which are now lacking, namely, the creation and providing of work. In August, 1911, the public authoi-ities of Nuremberg, "Germany, set about making plans and considering the probable need of carrying on extended public works and improvements during the winter of 1911-12 for the employmeht'of jobless men. Nineteen various kinds of public works and improvements were 36 tabulated, upon which a total number of 800 persons could be employed during that wmter. These extraordinary public works and improvements were put under way on November 24, 1911; the day's work was fixed at eight hours and the standard wage prevailing in the open market for the kind of work done was fixed as a day's wage. These public works were continued throi^gh- out the winter months and no further work was undertaken by the city after the ISth of March. In London, according to the report of the Central Body of the Unem- ployed for the year ending June 30, 1911, work was provided at twenty-four different centers in the London County Council Parks; at two of the Royal Parks; at Alexandra Palace, and, by co-operation with Borough Councils, on twelve local schemes of work. The average daily number employed was up- wards of one thousand men. The city authorities, in making preparations and appropriations for public works and improvements, should take into consideration that every winter there are a large number of working people who are thrown out of private employment. A forethought would cause the city to postpone its public works and improvements from the time when there is plenty of work to be had in private business to the winter months when industry and business are at an ebb, and the demand for labor is correspondingly weak, so that the city will be able to take on people upon its municipal projects when the private employer is laying them off. In this way the city will aid in regulating the labor market. During times of unemployment, capital is unemployed to as large an ex- tent as labor. Public enterprises and improvements undertaken by our city should be planned so that most of these enterprises and improvements can be put under way when business is depressed, and, in consequence, capital is idle, and the city can borrow funds at the cheapest rate. If the city, in years of depression, when business and industry are unwilling to engage in new undertakin.gs, should borrow some of the capital and employ some of the labor which is lying idle and fallow, it would, to a certain extent," aid in pre- venting production and consumption from becoming stagnant. The city could administer its resources with an eye to maximum efficiency by taking advantage of these recurring periods of unemployment of capital and labor, by doing its public work and improvements during the lean years of trade and industry, and set aside for this purpose each year a certain amount in a re- serve or sinking fund, which should be drawn upon during years of abnormal and unusual trade depression for accomplishing and performing such public works and improvements. It would thus, in an efficient manner, take ad- vantage of such trade and business depressions for the benefit of the taxpayers of the community, and also have a decided effect on each industrial and busi- ness depression by aiding in stimulating and regularizing the demand for both capital and labor. It is needless to repeat that such public works and im- provements should be executed by wage earners and employes hired solely on the basis of competency, and at the prevalent standard market rate of wages for such work. DAY. LABOR VERSUS CONTRACT LABOR UPON PUBLIC WORKS. It is not intended in this chapter to enter into a discussion of the relative merits of the question of day labor against contract labor. Even though it should be admitted that day labor costs the city more than contract work, there is still the great question of whether expediency would not require the public authorities to undertake public work on a day labor basis as a con- cession to certain controlling factors of policy and sentiment. These controll- ing factors of policy and sentiment would urge the city to do its work directly by day, instead of by contract labor, as a means of furnishing work to and rendering self-supporting a certain part of its population which would other- wise be required to obtain relief and aid from public and private charity. Day labor upon municipal public works would enable the city to employ its resident unemployed population and tend to diminish the objectionable casual, homeless laboring element which is nearly always brought into the city by private contractors upon public works. These casual laborers engaged by thc-^ private contractors are usually made up of transients and irresponsibles and become a charge upon the community when the public work under private con- tract is completed, instead of being returned to the city from which they were obtained by the private contractor. They, as a rule, remam and help congest 37 an already stagnant labor market and crowd our municipal lodging houses. Invariably the least desirable men employed by private contractors remam behind after the work on which they had been employed is finished and become a burden and problem to the municipal authorities as well as endangering public security by increasing the total amount of crime and vagrancy in the city. The City of Chicago should install the day labor system upon its public works to as great an extent as is possible. There are 'certain important con- siderations, however, which should be emphasized in putting any day labor plan into effect. The city should pay an honest day's wage to all who do an honest day's work. No more men, however, should be employed in day labor than are really needed; idleness and incompetence should not be tolerated under any circumstances, and no one should be paid for work which he does not perform. Every dollar paid to the unemployable unemployed upon the public works, to the idlers, the shiftless, and shirkers, is a dollar taken from the man who is willing and competent to do the work. The competent and faithful employable unemployed, when placed in direct competition with the unemployable classes referred to, would soon realize the injustice of being placed in the scale and footing of the latter. The ambition of the former would be lessened and their entire morale would be lowered in its standard. Little blame therefore can be attached to these competent, employable wage earners if they fail to put their best efforts into the work, when, on pay day, they see the group' of unemployable, incompetent, and incapable unemployed draw the same or greater pay for less or no service rendered. The entire success of the day labor plan is dependent upon the good faith with which it is carried out by those who have it in charge. Should political or personal influences be allowed to interfere with the right and duty of superiors to discharge' the incompetent and inefficient laborers, or if influence should be allowed to restore them to their positions even after discharge, the failure of day labor upon the public works would soon be spelled. Heads of departments, as well as foremen in charge of day labor work, should be held to a strict accountability for the accomplishment of results and should be upheld in matters of discipline. This implies, as a necessary consequence, that the latter should be men of capacity, experienced in construction work, and absolutely trustworthy. All spoilsmen and others should be eliminated from the day labor service. The City of Chicago, by doing its own work by day labor, would be in position to keep a large number of men and women employed in things that need to be done for the municipal departments or in repairing streets and alleys. The methods used by the city in day labor work should not differ materially from the methods employed by private contractors, save that the day labor shall be done by residents of the city to as great an extent as is con- sistent with efficiency. PART TIME WORK. The three principal remedies suggested for combating unemployment are the establishment of public employment offices, public work for the unem- ployed, and unemployment insurance. It should not be understood that the foregoing remedies, when put into effect, will entirely solve the problem of unemployment. Many other projects must still be acted upon after the foregoing three remedies have been placed in operation.^ The fluctuations and irregularities in industry and business conditions will still make the wage earner liable to periodic unemployment. The establishment by our city officials of a public employment office, of public work for the unemployed, and public unemployment insurance, will, to an appreciable extent, aid in regularizing the labor market, and, in consequence, have a pronounced influence on the extent and volume of distress and misery caused by unemployment. Consideration, however, should be given to other measures which have an equally favorable effect in mitigating unemployment. After all, business and industry will suffer depression or inflation according to certain well-established economic laws. Each establishment in industry has a certain time each year when it is necessary to lay off wage earners and limit its output. These annual fluctuations in the demand for labor, as a rule have serious consequences to those thus made unemployed because of such cyclical demands. To a very large extent, therefore, society must rely upon 38 the sense of responsibility and duty which employers may recognize and feel ■AS being due from them to their employes. Society, through its legislative bodies, has, in a large number of instances, declared emphatically against the policy of employers working their employes over time. It will be but a short time until the moral sense of the community is equally strongly aroused against the present- prevailing policy of employers working their employes under time. The business man and employer who is alive to a sense of duty and responsibility which he owes both to the com- munity and his employes can aid in easing the distress and suffering caused by unemployment by an elastic arrangement of working hours among his wage earners during times of business and industrial depression. It is unfair to the wage earner that the loss of employment should be borne by a certain portion of the workers. The employer can, by a reduction of the working hours or, by the installation of a system of part time work, spread the results of any business depression over the entire body of his working force, instead of concentrating the dire effects of unemployment upon those who are disr missed, while others are kept in employment the full time. The policy of keeping men in employment on part time during periods of business depression 's not novel at this late day. Certain employers, in response to the demands of conscience and humanity, do not shut down their plants and establishments when business is dull or continue the same on full time for the benefit of a few wage earners, but have operated their factories on part time or by an elastic distribution of the working hours among employes, so that the entire working force, or as many as possible, may be kept on a subsistence basis and above the border line of destitution during evil and unfavorable business periods. Such plans of part time work for the benefit of all wage earners would, if wisely apportioned, hardly involve the dismissal of any workmen, and would cause the minimum of human suffering and privation. A very effective means of having the consequences of unemployment fall as lightly as possible on the shoulders of those who are compelled to bear its burdens during the dull seasons, which at intervals sweep over every in- dustry, is the curtailment of the hours of labor during the slack periods. This procedure is followed to a considerable extent in the leading countries of Europe and should readily appeal to American employers. Short or part time work during occasions of industrial dullness and quietude have, in a number of instances, received the co-operation and support of associaticins of employers. It is therefore greatly to be desired that the plan of shortening working hours and the giving of part or short time work to wage earners during periods of business and industrial depression in order that the maximum number of toilers may be assured of a bare livelihood, if no more, should receive the general co-operation of all employers of labor in the City of Chicago. The great power and influence which employers may exert m removmg or limiting the baleful consequences of trade depressions is evidenced by the adoption of the six or four-hour day for all employes instead of an eight- hour day for a few employes during the bad periods. The difference between a six-hour working day for all and an eight-hour working day for a few would decrease unemployment among the wage earners by practically 75 per cent, whereas the adoption of a four-hour day for all wage earners in lieu of an eight-hour working day lor the benefit of the few would decrease unemploy- ment a full SO per cent. . , . ,• , Unquestionably a great deal can be done by private and public employers in keeping unemployment at a minimum by the adoption of a policy of short or part time work. While short or part time work is indefensible during normal and favorable business years, still, in times of industrial and business crises and depressions, such a plan is highly commendable. Private and public employers should do everything within their power to keep their wage earners and employes busy and occupied in unfavorable years, if not on full time, at least under some arrangement whereby these men can be employed on part time This can be done either by reducing the number of days per week or the number of hours per day, and will secure to the wage earners and their families a bare existence, if nothing more. Likewise, employers should be in- duced to make the necessary improvements in their plants, equipments, build- ings and grounds during unfavorable business periods and thus help to widen the field of employment in the City of Chicago to a very large extent. A few progressive employers have already recognized this responsibihty and duty, 39 and in their own factories have so reorganized their business throughout the entire year as to do away with the former seasonal fluctuations in labor. The private and public employers of labor in the City of Chicago, by adopting a system of short or part time work, can aid in solving the problem of unemployment to a krge extent. It should be possible for employers, during the slack season, to make a number of much needed iinprovements in or about their plants, such as painting, cleaning, repairing, clearing and beauti- fying the open grounds and spaces surrounding factories, and in this manner aid in absorbing some of their own employes who otherwise would be thrown upon the community as idle, and thus help to conserve the efficiency and physical well being of these employes until the resumption of normal business conditions. Property owners in Chicago should likewise consider it their human duty to undertake, during times of industrial stress and great_ unemployment of wage earners, odd jobs of cleaning, repairing and improving their premises, and in this way assist in tiding many workers over the periods of unemploy- ment. The city likewise can do its share towards avoiding the suffering which widespread non-employment is certain to entail, by placing its own day la- borers and out-of-door workers on a part or short time basis of employment when it is unable to keep its entire force employed on full time. The adoption of this policy by the municipality will help reduce the number of the enforced idle as well as the range of possible suffering and family distress. It is believed that if the foregoing plan is adopted by both private and public employers and householders in the City of Chica,go, a very long step will have been taken in the direction of reorganizing conditions of employ- ment. EMPLOYMENT OF RESIDENT CHICAGOANS. In providing ways and means for relieving the unemployed, the first duty of the City of Chicago is to its own people. Employers, both public and private, should give preference to men and women who are resident in the City of Chicago. Every fall and winter, Chicago has been the resort of a large number of men. Some of these are but vagrants; others are seasonal laborers who work in the fields and on railroad and other outdoor construction work during the milder portion of the year. These strangers in our midst during the period when industrial conditions are at their lowest ebb, take a good many jobs away from Chicago residents. They encroach upon an area of activity which otherwise would be limited to the people who live in Chicago and who have families to support. Strenuous efforts should be made by the community in impressing upon the adjoining areas and communities that the City of Chicago, through its employers, both public and private, will give preference to its own residents and citizens when hiring employes. It isbut just to the class of men and women who have "a stake in the community" and who have acquired a per- manent residence that they be given the advantage over outsiders and be taken care of first during times of destitution and unemployment. The policy of the city in furnishing work for citizens and residents of Chicago, primarily, should be advertised widely and emphatically by the authorities. Complaint has been made by the workmen of Chicago that oftentimes contractors doing public work send out of the city for men, and, in consequence, the permanent resi- dents of Chicago walk the streets looking for work. In all public work done by and for the City of Chicago, it should be the settled policy of the city authorities to give preference to local, as against outside, labor, and contractors on such public works should be prohibited by ordinance from employing other than local workmen and in using material produced or manufactured outside of the State of Illinois, excepting where such workmen cannot be obtained in the City of Chicago, or the material cannot be obtained or purchased within the limits of the state. The City of Oakland, California, by ordinance provides that: "Every contract for work to be performed for the City of Oakland or for materials to be furnished in the performance of any public work or in the construction of any public building or other structure for the City of Oakland, shall provide, in the 40 performance of such contract, no workmen except workmen resid- ing in the City of Oakland shall be employed and no materials except materials produced or manufactured in the State of Cal- ifornia shall be used, except in case such material cannot be obtained, and all materials required to be used or furnished as aforesaid, shall, so far as possible, be purchased from material dealers in the City of Oakland." The City of Baltimore, Maryland, has a regulation to the effect that pref- erence shall be given by contractors furnishing municipal supplies or doing public work for the city to laborers who are not only residents of the city, but who are also registered voters. The settled policy of European cities in relieving destitution and unem- ployment has been to give preference to residents of the city who are entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizenship. In the City of Basel, Switzerland, the unemployed, in order to be eligible for employment upon public work and for municipal aid, must show at least one year's permanent residence in the city. It is likewise compulsory upon contractors ~doing public work to take their employes from the list of the registered unemployed on file at the municipal employment agency. Basel likewise prohibits single persons, not having anyone dependent upon them and who are transients, from receiving the benefits of the municipal employ- ment bureau. The municipal ordinance in Basel provides that a contractor is obligated during the winter and in times of unemployment to employ at a fair wage such laborers and workmen as are residents in the city or in its immediate vicinity for a year or more. In the City of Nuremberg, Germany, a special committee was appointed to determine the manner in which work should be apportioned among the unemployed. It was ordered that all men of family, entitled to the rights and privileges of those permanently domiciled in the city, should receive em- ployment on the public works, while single persons, who were transients, were refused that privilege. A concession, however, was made in favor of single persons who were native to Nuremberg, and whose parents or friends and relatives were unable to care for them. Likewise it was decided that men of family, although native elsewhere, be preferred who could show a residence in the city for a reasonable length of time, insofar as the quantity of labor required on the public works made this permissible. : The following were not permitted to register at the public employment bureau in the City of Munich: - 1. Transients. 2. Single men or women who were not required to care for a,ged parents or other dependents. Single persons, however, over fifty years of age were exempt from this provision. ■ 3. Those resident in the city for less than one year. "4. Married people without children. ,,S. Widows and widowers who possessed children capable of earning their own living. Many others refused registration were those whose unemployment could not be. charged to the severity or cold of the winter and who had occupations upon which the winter months had no influence. In the City of Strassburg, Germany, there is a municipal ordinance to the effect that contractors or employers who are engaiged in doing public work or furnishing -municipal supplies shall provide themselves with laborers and employes who are natives and residents of the city. Exception is made to this rule only where the contractor cannot find residents in the city com- petent to do- the work, but the condition is added to this exception that, under no circumstances, can such contractor and employer bring in from outside of the city limits a number of workmen and employes which will exceed one- third of the total number of persons employed by him on city work. _ -The jealous care with which German cities guard their unemployed is illustrated by the City of Strassburg, which provides that each contra.ctor who employs his own help on the public works of the city without having made inquiry at the municipal employment bureau for such help as he may require, is liable to a fine of ten marks for every employe thus privately and inde- pendently enga,ged. This ordinance has worked decidedly well and it is but 41 seldom that it is necessary to prosecute an employer or contractor for a breach of the same. Contractors and employers on public works of the city are thus prevented from providing themselves with laborers and employes who are not natives or residents of the City of Strassburg. Similarly the City of Chicago should use every effort in limiting the em- ployment on its public works to local people — men and women with families resident in Chicago. By making it inviting for the unemployed to cnme to this city from all parts of the country in order to obtain charitable relief or work, we are sacrificing the well-being of those permanently in our midst. • Through unwise agitation in the past, Chicago has been overrun with men from other communities who are lured on here in the hope of finding work or of obtaining relief. It is absolutely necessary at the very beginning of any plans the city may undertake for relieving unemployment to impress upon the cities and villages throughout the land that all the effort being made by the City of Chicago toward solving the problem of unemployment and of obtaining relief for sufferers, is in the interests of local, bona fide residents of the city alone. The mistakes that Chicago has made in this respect in the past should be avoided, and stringent, definite rules should be adopted which should be, religiously adhered to for the localizing of relief measures and employment in a manner which will- benefit the bona fide residents of the city. UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE. While the establishment of a municipal employment bureau, part time work, anH^ public works for the unemployed will do much toward solving the problem of unemployment, there are, however, periods of severe business depression and cyclical fluctuation in industry where these methods of com- bating unemployment are to- a certain extent practically ineffective. There will still remain an excess of wage earners for whom no part or short time work is available, and the municipal employment bureau will bring no relief, inasmuch as jobs and work are scarce and at a premium. In order to reach this excess group of wage earners and protect it against the distress and misery incident to prolonged unemployment, it is advisable that the com- munity establish some form of public insurance against unemployment. Society has long stood aghast at the annual toll in deaths and injuries caused by industrial accidents; it has attempted to decrease these accidents by passing legislation designed to safeguard the wage earner against death and itijuries while employed. Notwithstanding that various kinds of safety devices and the like have been installed in industrial plants, there are still more than half of the industrial accidents which occur annually for which neither the employer nor the employe can be held responsible or blamed. Professor John Graham Brooks has said that "They come with the regu- larity of the tides and can only be dealt with by exact, actuarial methods." As a means of indemnifying the employe against injuries caused by acci- dents over which he has no control, the tendency has been to throw the cost of such accidents upon the industry or business and make the consumer pay the expense, due to industrial accidents, by the establishment of a system of regulated accident insurance. Similarly the City of Chicago should shift the burden and the cost of unemployment which cannot be prevented by well established and efficiently conducted municipal employment bureaus, part or short time work, and public works for the unemployed, so that such cost will fall indirectly upon the general public through the establishment of a system of public insurance for the unemployed. Unemployment for the head of the family is in a large measure supplanted by the toil of little children and of women, from savings and assistance re- ceived from friends and neighbors. Unemployment insurance would at least see that the rent of the unemployed wage earner is paid and in this way pro- long the wage earner's powers of resistance against the final extremities of privation and want. By insuring the wage earner against unemployment it will be necessary for him to demand additional wages in order to enable him to pay the cost of the assessments required of him. In this way the wage earner is able to shift onto the business or trade the cost of at least a part of the burden of unemployment. It should, however, be urged at this point that the first and prime requisite to the establishment of insurance for the unemployed is a municipal employment bureau. This has been called a point of fundamental importance, inasmuch as no scheme for the insurance of the 42 unemployed can be a success unless founded upon the adequate and efficient control of the labor market by a complete registration of all the unemployed existing in the community. The municipal employment bureau should be the guardian and watchdog over the fund providing for public insurance of the unemployed. No wage earner should be eligible to unemployment insurance unless he is registered at the employment bureau, nor be able to, as is the case in German cities, draw a penny from such fund. one moment after the municipal employment bureau is assured that there is work available for him to do somewhere in the city. Insurance against unemployment has well been termed the second line of action on the problem of unemployment after the establishment of a municipal employment bureau. The municipal employment bureau, which is the first line of action, flanked by a system of part or short time work and public works for the unemployed, should receive the undivided attention of our public officials before any schemes for the establishment of public employment in- surance are elaborated. The first line of action, it should be said, will require years of steady effort and perseverance before any considerable inroads can be said to have been made upon the problem of the unemployed. RELIEF WORK. ~ There are serious objections to the establishment of relief work by the community which is undertaken, not because it is necessary, but merely for the purpose of giving employment. Relief work should never be put under way by a city except as a last resort and after all other plans and proposals have been exhausted for the utilization of the natural resources for finding employment. Relief works have been tried extensively in European countries and in some places in the United States. The European experience on the whole has been that the works which are undertaken by the city or state, as an ex- cuse for the purpose of furnishing employment, have not paid; this was the experience in Chicago after the World's Fair and in Boston after the panic of 1893. Relief works should be distinguished from public works in that the former are undertaken by the community in order to furnish work to the unemployed regardless of fitness and competence, whereas the latter are undertaken in order to give work to the employable workman, who is then judged by the common standard of competence and fitness in order to hold his job. Where- ever relief works have been undertaken, it has been found that they were over- run by the .great class of casual laborers and that the employable resident workmen, for whom the relief works were primarily established, were hardly benefited at all. Furthermore, it was not deemed feasible to hold the men up to a general standard of competency and fitness. Inasmuch as they were given work because they were unemployed, it was not possible to discharge them on the grounds of incompetency. Skilled men would not work with these in- competents nor at useless labor, which, because of the very nature of its use- lessness, bore the stamp of charity. Soup kitchens and bread lines for the unemployed should be discouraged because they are, as a rule, indiscriminating and do more harm than good. Relief works for the unemployed, it has been said, represent only a counsel of despair in a community which has, or knows, no better alternative. Relief work of this nature is almost wholly useless for benefiting the persons thus relieved While organized society is thus lax in its care for the unemployed and those in want for the bare necessities of life, the city authorities should dis- courage the creation of new charitable machinery, either private or public, and aid in the strengthening of the present agencies doing work of this character The City Council should avoid, by all means, appropriating money for charitable purposes, inasmuch as the bare announcement of such an ap- propriation would be designed to defeat its purpose by bringmg to the city a large number of needy from outside of Chicago; a scramble for free and easy relief and charity would result, with its consequent congestion of applicants. It should rather be the aim of the public authorities to encourage existing public and private agencies of relief to expand and strengthen their machinery. The Board of Cook County Commissioners should put larger facilities at the 43 disposal of the County Agent and the general public should support adequately the private charitable organizations which have proved their efficiency and reliability in the past. Indiscriminate relief, however, whether of money or work, it should be remembered, usually causes more harm than good. Mr. Eu,gene T. Lies, General Superintendent of the United Chanties of Chicago, has stated, at a public hearing before the Commission, that: "Charitable workers in Chicago, from experience, will all agree that the starting of soup houses or anything of that sort- would be a great mistake. Possibly it would be a mistake for the city itself to go into relief work other than what it does for homeless men at the municipal lodging house, and it certainly would be a mistake to start new relief machinery under an appro- priation by the city for relief purposes. I believe the Cook County- Agent would be willing to do everything in his power to enlarge the scope of his work, if that were necessary, and certainly, private charities, like the United Charities and similar organiza- tions, would strain every nerve to do their part in meetin.g the troublesome situation, but to start new machinery by the city for relief purposes among families would be_ folly — would affect the whole situation and make it worse than it is." In such places where the community has undertaken public relief works, the experience has been that the unemployable who cannot do the work and who are neither physically or mentally able to maintain themselves, are given employment, with the result that they are merely paid for pretending to clean or sweeps the streets, or in pretending to break stone. Dr. Edward T. Devine, in his report previously quoted, says: "Fortunately there is no general agitation in this country at present for the establishment of labor colonies or relief work for the unemployed. The objections to the establishment of relief work, organized not because the undertaking is justified on its own account, but for the sake of giving employment, are so obvi- . ous and so familiar that they need not here be recapitulated. Even those who advocate them would certainly prefer that as an earlier intermediate step employment should be found in ordinary occupations under ordinary economic conditions for as many as possible. To use a forcible figure originally applied to a different proposition, the opening of public relief works as a means of helping the unemployed is like tying on the flowers, while the opening of an employment bureau on a business basis is like watering the plant." THE TRANSIENT LABORER AND THE MUNICIPAL LODGING HOUSE. Chicago each year receives in its midst a great number of immigrants and transient, migratory, casual, and odd-job laborers. The latter class of laborers leave Chicago each spring for construction work on railroads and manufacturing plants, harvesting, river, and dock work, fruit picking, hop picking, oyster dredging, and the like, and returns to Chicago each fall to overcrowd cheap lodging houses. They are a class of men who are a constant prey of private employment agencies and who have no means of finding out where men are needed and how many are responding. At present, when word is sent out that men are needed in a given part of the country, this type of laborer either responds in droves, resulting in too many coming, or they dis- trust the information and refuse to come at all. Chicago is a storage place during the fall and winter months for this class of laborers and a distributing point from which they are sent to various places of employment throughout the United States, and where they return when the work for which they had been engaged is completed. The presence of this class of casual, migatory, and transient laborers is felt very acutely in our midst during the winter months when outdoor construction work, farm labor, road building, and the like, are at a standstill. A municipal employment office established in Chicago could do much to properly distribute this class of labor and thereby aid in relieving the local •44 problem of unemployment considerably. This group of laborers is not com- posed of heads of families striving to maintain homes, but is largely composed of homeless men. It is estimated that 90 per cent of the casual laborers in Chicago are transients and that fully 80 to 90 per cent are single men. This f ,, ""P,^ °"* '^y ^^^ statistics of the municipal lodging house, which show that fully 33 per cent of the men receiving lodgings had been in the city less than five days; 25 per cent had been in the city from six days to one month, or a total of 58 per cent who had been in the City of Chicago less than one month. These men will be shipped out of Chicago by private employment agencies as soon as the construction work on railroads and elsewhere opens in the spring, when the risk of frost is gone. They will then toil at this and other kinds of work during the balance of the year until the arrival of cold weather late in the fall. About November they will begin to return to the city for their yearly hibernal stay. In German cities, farm colonies and labor yards are provided where the non-resident transient class of laborers, vagrants, and others are lodged and fed for short periods in return for physical labor performed. The men apply- ing for lodgings at the Chicago Municipal Lodging House are largely rail- road construction hands, steel mill workers, deck hands, farm hands, and other kinds of lowest paid laborers. As a rule they are the first laborers to be discharged in the autumn and the last class to be taken on in the spring. Chicago is made a dumping ground for the transient, migatory, casual, va- grant class of laborers from other towns and cities which shirk their responsi- bilities. They become a considerable burden to the City of Chicago during the winter time, and, unless preventive steps are taken, Chicago will be saddled with a much greater burden in the care of this class of laborers with each succeeding year.' While the unfortunate group of men who flock to Chicago during the ■ winter months should be cared for and our municipal lodging houses should be capable of expansion to meet the needs and requirements of the situation, it should,_ however, be the policy of the public authorities to provide that all who receive food and lodgings at the municipal lodging house undergo a work test, which, although humane, shall be sufficiently drastic to deter the unem- ployed of other cities from coming to Chicago. Arrangements should also be made whereby the inebriates, sufferers from venereal diseases, and vagrants of all types may be given employment on a work-farm or colony, as well as adequate treatment tending to restore them to the ranks of the employable. It is well known that a work test for this class of labor would cause the va- grant, shiftless class of laborers to shun Chicago. If the migratory, transient, vagrant class is aware of the conditions prevailing in Chicago whereby they will be required to do manual labor for food and lodging received at the municipal lodging house each day, they will give the city a wide berth and congregate in those cities which will receive them with open arms and without any onerous work test. In Kansas City it was found that the system of providing work for this class of laborers in return for food and lodgings received, caused a large num- ber of men who were unwilling to meet this kind of test to go to other cities where they were informed a large amount of free lodgings and free meals were being distributed. It was proved that a large number of men went to the latter class of cities when they found that they were compelled to work for what they obtained in Kansas City. A work test applied to the class of men who congest the municipal lodg- ing houses would serve to decrease beggary throughout the city and prevent the clogging of the machinery of the private charitable agencies, which have all they can do to look after the resident families in need of relief and prevent crime and other extreme measures among 'men who have become desperate on account of the hopelessness of their condition. Chicago, similarly to New York, Kansas City, and Seattle, has been termed one of the reserve cities where the unemployed congregate during the winter awaiting distribution to new lines of employment. New York is the distribut- ing point for unskilled labor for the territory east of the Alle,ghenys; Chicago, for the middle West; Duluth, for the Northwest; Richmond, Memphis, and New Orleans for the South, and San Francisco and Seattle for the Pacific coast. In view of Chicago's central geographical position, the problem of caring for the non-resident, homeless, transient, migratory, vagrant, casual type of labor should not be considered a rnunicipal problem of the City of Chicago, but 45 rather an interstate problem in the care and handling of which the states and cities within the Chicago area should each render an adequate and propor- tionate share. Chicago, because of its position as a reserve center for the dis- tribution of labor, is annually burdened with an unduly large proportion of transient and migratory laborers. No city in the United States is situated so near to both the centers of area and population as is Chicago. There are about 50,000,000 people within a night's ride of Chicago, or practically half of the entire population of the continental United States. The territory which may be described as within the Chicago area is Omaha in the West; Pitts- burgh in the East; Minneapolis and St. Paul in the North, and Nashville in the South, containing more than twenty large" cities, all of which are tributary and dependent upon Chicago for the supply of the casual, seasonal, odd-job type of laborers. The care of this type of labor which resorts to Chicago during the winter months, only to leave it with the coming of spring, for practically eight months of the year, is an unfair charge and burden to be placed upon a city even of the size and importance of Chicago. It is hoped that a bureau of employment will be established in the Fed- eral Department of Labor in accordance with the plans proposed by the Com- mission on Industrial Relations, which will co-operate with the state and municipal employment offices and establish clearing houses for distributing information and uniting all public employment offices into one national system. It is especially important that such co-operation be effected with the municipal employment offices, maintained in what is known as the reserve labor dis- tributing centers. Some plan should be evolved whereby the homeless type of transient, migratory laborer, non-resident in Chicago and in other cities within the Chicago area, resorting to this city annually during the winter months, could be maintained and supported by the financial contributions from the cities in the Chicago area into a fund for the maintenance and care of this class of laborers during the winter months. The Department of Labor of the United States Government could more readily do the work connected with the care of these transient, homeless laborers in the various reserve cities which are distributing centers of labor of this kind. Each city in the industrial area adjacent and surrounding such reserve city should pay its proportionate share toward the cost of maintaining, feeding, and lodging these homeless, casual laborers during the winter months until the government agency maintained in such reserve city distributes them early in the spring from one city and state to another. It seems unfair that the City of Chicago should bear the entire burden of maintaining the seasonal laborers who flock here during the winter months. It is a matter which should receive the co-operation of the Federal authorities and of the authorities of the various states and cities ad- jacent and surrounding Chicago, lying within what is known as the Chicago industrial area. These transient, homeless laborers, to a large extent, make up the population of our municipal lodging houses and annually are a heavy drain upon the resources of the city. They are lured to Chicago during the winter months in anticipation of being distributed to various fields of employment in the early spring, and are fed, housed, and clothed by the city during the entire winter season. It is but just that the states and cities contributing this floating class of laborers to Chicago should aid in maintaining them during the winter. THE PRIVATE EMPLOYMENT AGENCY. Private employment agencies fail to solve or ameliorate the problem of unemployment. They are maintained by private interests for pecuniary" reasons and it is to their interest that unemployment should continue and that both employers and employes call on them for employment whenever necessary. The methods of private employment agencies in Chicago and elsewhere are designed to yield them a financial profit and for this reason they are keenly interested in keeping the market for the manless job and the jobless man rest- less at all times and in a contin-ual state of flux. It has been shown that the private employment agenices frequently reduce the duration of jobs in order to secure additional fees, first, by holding up ofifers of better employment to those already employed, and, secondly, by mak- ing arrangements with employers or foremen to dismiss the employes after they have worked for a short time and to hire others. 46 The Mayor's Commission on Unemployment found that: "The private employment agencies have failed very signally m organizing the labor market, and a .general organization of the labor market, such as is desired by the students of unemployment, would be very foreign to their purpose. They are business enter- prises working for profits, and therefore have found it impossible to co-operate with other private agencies or with other types of employment agencies; on the other hand, they have been in the most aggressive competition insofar as they have been engaged in the same kind of work. They have found it profitable to specialize in a particular kind of work, and have set up various occupational, national, or racial, local and other conditions; par- ticularly they have specialized in the field of short time employ- ments and have attempted to make engagements as short as pos- sible in order to increase the frequency .of the fees. Consequently, they have been centers which are distinct, and thus have divided the labor market into relatively separate parts, between which there has been little communication. They have organized certain parts of the labor market, but it has been done in such a way as to present a series of conflicting and segregated organizations in- stead of the one central and all-inclusive institution in which all demands and supplies might be represented. And they have ac- quired,, either justly or unjustly, such a reputation for fraud and dishonesty that general, patronage by employers and employes is not conceivable.. Moreover, the helplessness of the applicants for employment and the consequent great possibility for fraudu- lent and dishonest practices have convinced tl*e students of unem- ployment that the general organization of the labor market cannot be expected to result from the private employment agencies." Inasmuch as the state and city have ofifered no effective means of combat- ing the' work of the private employment agencies, it is ill-advised to con- template any steps seeking to abolish the latter. That there is a field for their work is evidenced by the great number of private employment offices in Chi- cago today. It has been well said that the multiplicity of private employment agencies has the same deteriorating effect as the multiplicity of labor markets. They merely make more places to look for work, and the more of such places there aire the greater are the chances that the man seeking for work and the job seeking the man will miss each other. Private employment agencies fail to meet any of the needs of the unem- ployed. As a rule, their standards are low and the service rendered by them to wage earners and employers in nearly all instances is negligible. One of the principal arguments for the establishment of public employment agencies has been found in the unsatisfactory service rendered by the private agencies. Dr. Edward T. Devine, in his report on the desirability of establishing an employment bureau in the City of New York, states that: "At however high a price and with whatever fraudulent prac- tices, these private employment agencies, even the disreputable ones, do, to some extent, serve the purposes of an intermediary. To deprive them of their licenses or to maintain over them such an oversight as puts them^ practically out of business, is to impose some injury along with undoubted benefit." The city should pass suitable ordinances strictly regulating private em- ployment agencies in order to. eliminate the grave misrepresentation, extor- tion and dishonest practices frequently complained of, and found to prevail. Germany has passed a law prohibiting the establishment of a private employ- ment agency in any community where there is a public employment office supplying the kind of help the private agency proposes to deal with. This is the first" Step i;i the direction of abolishing all employment bureaus in Ger- many which are operated for individual profit.' Yoiir Commission believes that the only efifective means of eliminating private employment agencies is by the establishment of efficient and com- petent public employment offices in their stead. It is idle to talk of abolishing 47 private employment offices while the community has nothing to offer to em- ployers and employes in lieu of them. An efficient municipal employment agency will be the surest means of eliminating private employment agencies with their resulting dishonesty, fraud and unlawful practices. ILLINOIS FREE EMPLOYMENT OFFICES. The State of Illinois has maintained for a number of years free employ- ment offices. Three branch free employment offices are maintained by the state in the City of Chicago, an office being located in each of the three divisions of the city. Chicago offices have been in operation since 1899, and, similarly to the free employment offices maintained in other states, have never been adequately supported. Mr. William M. Leiserson, at a public hearing before your Commission, said: "Why are not your three state employment offices actually doing the job? It is because the people have a notion that an em- ployment office is nothing. All that need be done is to put a man in charge, and the jobs and the men will come in. I do not think there is any more important or vital work for the community, out- side of the public school, than the employment office, and you need the same kind of men or women that you have running your school system to run the employment office. "The reason why the Illinois free employment offices in Chi- cago are not accomplishing as much as they ought to accomplish is because they deal with the lowest classes of labor. By lowest classes I do not mean unskilled labor, but the most unemployable of all classes. If you were to look up the records of your free em- ployment offices you would find that all your big factories are not taking their men from the free employment offices. When it comes, to sending men to the big places, your free employment offices are not doing their job. I beat them out myself when I ran the Milwaukee free employment office. The Knickerbocker Ice Company has its headquarters in Chicago. It takes probably 5,000 men every winter for six weeks, beginning about January 9th, down into February. We sent our superintendent to Chicago and made arrangements with the Knickerbocker Ice Company whereby we placed every one of the men unemployed in the city of Mil- waukee in their employ. The ice fields of the Knickerbocker Ice Company are nearer to Chicago than they are to Milwaukee, still the company sent us $300.00 at one time to pay the fare of these men from Milwaukee. This business should have been taken care of by the. Illinois free employment offices located in Chicago. "Some of the reasons why the Illinois free employment offices are not doing their job are: First, politics. The appointments are made on the basis of political standing. Political appoint- ments in the free employment offices in Chicago is one reason why they are failures. Second, the employers and the working people have not the proper confidence in the offices. These are the rea- sons why your state free employment offices do not amount to anything, and when you get rid of these reasons, I am quite sure that you will get rid of more than 20 per cent of your unem- ployment." The free state employment agencies maintained by the state in Chicago have been practically worthless since their organization in 1899. In this re- spect they have not been much different from the free employment offices maintained by other states, with the exception of those maintained in Massa- chusetts and Wisconsin. As a rule the public employment offices maintained in the United States are issuing inaccurate statistics, are slipshod in recording information, and are catering too much to the lower grade of casual laborer^ odd-job men and vagrants — thus driving away the better class of workers. They are located in poor quarters, insufficiently lighted and ventilated. They fail to supplant private employment agencies; nor do they exchange informa- tion with one another, even when very near each other. They fail to bring 48 themselves to public attention, either by advertising or otherwise. Their superintendents are inactive, and they have failed to arouse the slightest in- terest in their work. The appropriations received by these free employment agencies from the state are usually low, and, according to a special agent of the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, an investigation showed that no state free employment office was found which was adequately financed. In conse- quence they have not accomplished the things expected of them. The salaries paid have been too low to attract capable men. It is believed, however, that in general -these free employment offices are increasing in efficiency and in the amount of work they do every year. Dr. Edward T. Devine has stated that the free employment offices "are everywhere in politics and are too perfunctory and inefficient in their methods to become factors in bringing about any real adjustment between work and workers." The free employment offices, as at present administered in the various •states, with the foregoing exceptions, are negligible factors in dealing with the problem of the unemployed. THE POLICE STATION AS A BRANCH OF THE MUNICIPAL EMPLOYMENT BUREAU. The ideal organization of the labor market, it has been shown, is achieved mainly by the establishment of a municipal employment bureau. Not only should a central office of such bureau be maintained in the business district of the city but branches should be established in various residence districts, conveniently located to be of benefit to wage earners and employers. A very large part of the work of a municipal employment bureau would consist in investigating the applicants for employment in order to show that they are bona fide working men of family and residents of Chicago. If our public school houses each possessed a director of social' center service, he could be given the necessary facilities and equipment for maintaining a branch employment bureau at the same. The working men residing in the vicinity of the school house, by going there to register, could be immediately placed in touch with the central office in the business district. The central office would know that a wage earner is out of a job and the kind of work he is best able to do. The employe likewise would soon learn if there is a vacancy for Tiim anywhere in the city, and by keeping in touch with his local branch of the employment bureau it will not be necessary for him to trail hither and thither through the city streets, nor to expend useless sums on car fare at a time when every nickel means a great deal to the unemployed wage earner. Our public- schools not possessing the proper facilities at this time for doing work of this nature, it should be possible to use the police station as a branch employment office. All unemployed wage earners possessing families, and residents of Chicago, could be urged and instructed to register as unem- ployed at the police station nearest to their respective homes. The police force could then be used to verify the statements made by these unemployed workers at the time of their registration. This could be dpne readily by consulting the City Directory or the list of registered voters. In case the statement made by the unemployed wage earner could not be . corroborated by the foregoing records, it would then be possible for the officer on the beat to look up the unemployed applicant for work in the vicinity of his home and confirm the statements made. In this manner it may be possible to put every unemployed wage earner registered at the police .station at work within twenty-four hours of his application. Should if be impossible to complete the investigation during this time, the applicant should be .permitted to continue at work during the period of inquiry. If the inquiry shows the unemployed wage earner as ineligible for employment through the municipal employment office by reason of his non-residence, he would be referred to the County Agent for return to his place of residence, while the homeless non-resident man would be referred to the Municipal L&dging House. It has been urged that the converting of the police stations into cen- ters where the wage earners resident in the vicinity could apply for work 49 would have a wholesome effect on the community by encouraging the eco- nomically weaker part of our population to regard the police as their friends. Such a plan would also tend to socialize the members of the police force. JUVENILE EMPLOYMENT AND VOCATIONAL TRAINING. The establishment of vocational training, trade and continuation schools for juveniles should receive the increasing attention of the public authorities. A large proportion of the transients, tramps and unskilled laborers who drift about from city to city have become such largely because they in youth never were directed into proper avenues of employment or taught to do any sort of wprk in an efficient and competent manner. The American youth _ leaving school at the age of 14, as a rule, is given no guidance in the selection of a suitable occupation or trade, and is required to search for himself in choosing a means of livelihood. He is taught no trade nor is any way pointed out to him for knowing how to dp a certain kind of work well. A boy. after leaving school is easily led into what has been called "blind alley" employment where he earns comparatively high wages for his years, but which fails to lead him into a permanent and assured occupation, upon the arrival of the boy at a grown man's years, responsibilities and requirements. He is then shunted into the already crowded ranks of the common laborers and of the unskilled. It is a decided social waste to permit boys and girls' out of school to enter avenues of employment where they can only remain for a half dozen or more years without being fitted for any regular trade or occupation. It has been pointed out that a large percentage of those who annually suffer through unemployment are persons whose early years have been spent in following occupations which offered alluring financial rewards, but upon their arrival at man's estate, relegated them unceremoniously to the ranks of the unskilled. Efforts should be made whereby minors employed at various sorts of labor should be given some means and facilities during their years of minority of preparing for a permanent, lasting, useful and remunerative career. The German vocational, continuation and trade schools have become celebrated for the' thorough manner in which youthful workers are given opportunity or industrial training. These schools have practically converted the entire population of Germany into efficient and competent artisans. It has well been said that the industrial schools for minors established in Germany have marked "the passing of the unskilled." One of the most general causes of casual labor is the hiring of boys in occupations which give them no industrial training whatever. 'While they may afford minors relatively large wages, still upon reaching the years of manhood they will be left stranded among the large number of unskilled. A remedy should be devised for guarding against the employment of boys and girls in occupations from which they can derive no usefiil industrial training. It is now practically impossible for the main body of employed minors to obtain a technical education. The duty of training and developing boys and girls between 15 and 21 years of age should be assumed by the City of Chicago itself through the establishment of effective vocational, con- tinuation and trade schools. It is evident that a large number of parents are unable to supply training in the manual arts to their children, and that em- • -ployers will not do this, or even if willing are not in a position to do so. It is well known that the vast body of the unemployed and those receiving charitable aid from private organizations show a lack of industrial training. Experience has shown that during ■times of great industrial and business de- pression very few of the applicants for relief are among those possessed of any sort of industrial or technical training. The trained workman, while occasionally in need, by reason of his industrial training is able to earn a higher rate of wages, which enables him to tide over periods of industrial quietude, and he can more readily turn his hand to some other occupation when unemployed. All of these advantages which he derives from his indus- trial training serve to take him out of the ranks of the unemployed at the earliest possible moment and to render him less likely to need or ask for public or private relief. The municipal employment bureau, when established, should be an aid to juvenile wage earners, and have a division devoted to juvenile employment which should secure the co-operation of the schools, employers and trades SO unions. Employers and wage earners could report to the juvenile employment division of the municipal employment bureau the opportunity that may exist for minors to learn trades and the teachers in the schools should fill out the applications for employment of the boys and girls about to leave school and call the attention of the juvenile employment division to special inclinations and aptitudes shown by them. An expert should be placed in charge of the juvenile employinent division who is capable of judging the qualifications and fitness of children. It will be seen that a juvenile employment division of this character in a municipal employment office can even now accomplish a great deal in keeping boys and girls out of "blind alley" occupations, prior to the establishment by the city of a system of continuation or trade schools. After a thorough system of technical schools has been established, such a jiivenile employment division would be absolutely necessary in guarding minors against the danger of entering occupations and trades which will event- ually relegate them into the ranks of under-employed, unskilled labor. The Boston Free Employment Office possesses a juvenile employment division of this character, while in Germany the continuation trade schools co-operate with the official employment bureaus of the empire in endeavoring to direct minors into those trades where the greatest opportunities for em- ployment are to be found. A juvenile employment division in a municipal employment bureau would substitute for the present haphazard manner in which b^ys and girls enter industry and business, a condition where fuller information and a larger knowledge of the prospects and possibilities obtain- ing in' various occupations and trades can be secured. THE REDUCTION OF PEDDLERS' LICENSES IN THE CITY OF CHICAGO. The sale of food by hucksters, peddlers and push-carts affords the buyer an opportunity to choose between the wares offered by these itinerant mer- chants arid by the retail store. The main value of the service rendered by these open-air vendors lies in the comparison which the consumer is able to rdake with the quality and prices of the goods which they offer for sale with tliose prevailing at the retail store. The competition of other vendors _due to the low operating cost of their business should aid in regulating prices "charged the consumer by other selling units in the community. Street vending by hucksters, peddlers and push-cart men should be encouraged freely, subject only to the necessary sanitary and police regulations and such rules as may be required to prevent undue congestion of vehicle traffic in our streets. They should be considered an economic necessity, inasmuch as they tend greatly to reduce the high cost of living to the people residing in certain sections of the city. Vending of food supplies by these classes should be considered an established and legitimate business and should be encour- aged by the municipal authorities. The New York Committee on Push-Carts found that the foodstuffs sold by the peddlers is nearly uniformly wholesome, and that the commodities sold by them can be obtained at a considerably less cost than in the retail stores. The peddler has become an established feature in trade, and the people engaged in the business are self-respecting merchants carrying on a legitimate business. Peddlers are as much a necessity in certain sections of the City of Chicago as our large department stores and shops in other sections. The City of Chicago, through onerous license fees, has made it exceedingly difficult to enter into the business of peddling, whether by horse-drawn vehicle, push- cart or basket. The annual license fee required of one or two-horse wagon peddlers in Chicago is $50.00; push-cart peddlers must pay a yearly license fee of $2S, and basket peddlers must pay an annual license fee of $10.00. The peddler possessing a one-horse wagon is also required to pay an annual vehicle or wheel tax of $5.00, while the peddler possessing a two-horse wagon must pay an annual vehicle or license tax of $10.00. Inasmuch as no reduc- tion in the license fee is granted by city authorities for the renewal of a license after the first year, the man peddling with a one-horse wagon is sub- ject to an annual license fee of $55.00, while the man peddling with a two- horse wagon is compelled to pay an annual license charge of $60.00. SI Two-horse Basket Vehicle Push-cart Peddlers $ 8.00(b) $ 4.00(c) $ 2.00(d) 50.00 25.00 10.00 15.00 5.00 2S.G0 lO.OO 10.66 .50 .50 24.00 24.00 24;66 25.00 5.00 5.00 10.00 5.50 The contrast between the license fees charged peddlers in the City of Chicago and in New York City is striking. New York City charges citizens desirous of engaging in the business of peddling from wagons, whether one or two-horse, the sum of $8.00 for the first year and only $4.00 for a renewal of the license for either a one-horse or two-horse vehicle after the first year. Push-cart peddlers must pay a license fee of $4.00 for the first year, and a renewal charge of $2.00 for the next year. Basket peddlers are required to pay the sum of $2.00 as a license fee for the first year, and. the cost of re- ,; newing the same is $1.00 for the succeeding year. The following table will show the comparative license rates charged peddlers of foodstuffs in a number of large cities in the United States: Annual License Rates Charged Peddlers in Foodstuffs in Eight Large Cities in the United States. One-horse City Vehicle 1. New York City. ..$ 8.00(a) 2. Chicago, III. 50.00 3. Philadelphia, Pa... 10.00 4. St. Louis, Mo 15.00 5. Cleveland, Ohio 50 6. San Francisco, Cal. 24.00 7. Cincinnati, Ohio... 25.00 8. Newark, N. J.... 10.00 (a) Cost of renewal after first y^r is $4.00 (b) " " " " " " ■' 4.00 (c) " " " " " " " 2.00 (d) " " " " " " " 1.00 St. Louis exempts all peddlers duly licensed from the payment of an an- nual vehicle tax. If the opportunity of entering the peddling business in the City of Chicago were made financially easier to its people it is believed that a large number of unemployed during times of unemployment or slack periods would enter the peddling business, and thus be enabled to earn a living. These unem- ployed would quickly avail themselves of the chance of entering a business for whose commodities there is a permanent demand, as well as prove a de- cided benefit to the consumer and buyer of foodstuffs. Basket peddling should likewise be made relatively easy to our people, because nearly all of those who would enter this field are widows, deserted women, the aged and decrepit, and those possessing a physical defect or who are handicapped in various ways and are unable to earn a living at ordinary labor or at a trade. It is believed that by making the peddling business of easy access and entry, public and private charities will be relieved of a considerable element which is now more or less a charge upon it. The statistics, furthermore, show that the local license fees required of peddlers are unusually higher than those prevailing in other cities. THE HANDICAPPED. In addition to the opportunity of earning a living which wagon, push-cart and basket peddling would present to the handicapped classes in the com- munity, it is urged by Miss Amelia Sears, director of the Bureau of Public Welfare of Cook County, that plans be devised whereby licenses to peddle newspapers at the open public street news stands be given to cripples and handicapped people by the police department instead of as is now the practice, to the highest bidder. This would tend to eliminate able-bodied, employable men from these positions and serve to remove the handicapped from the ranks of dependents. A municipal employment bureau could sift the industrial and business world for positions where the handicapped can be safely employed. Places of employment could be visited by agents of the public employment bureau in order to ascertain the feasibility of placing certain specified classes of the handicapped into positions, and thus assist in advising the latter intelligently 52 concerning the sort of employment which they can seek with strong proba- bility of safety to themselves and satisfaction to their employers. It is be- lieyed such an investigation will absorb into the ranks of industry and busi- ness a large number of individuals who, while only handicapped, are now practically placed within the ranks of the dependent classes. APPOINTMENT OF AN EMERGENCY CO-OPERATIVE ADVISORY COMMITTEE. The City of Chicago has within its borders a large number of public gov- erning bodies, civic, charitable and labor organizations, commercial associa- tions, railway, manufacturing, mercantile, contracting, banking and other in- terests which should be brought into correlation, co-ordination and co-opera- tion in order to sustain and enlarge the facilities now existing for dealing with the problem of unemployment. It is the opinion of your Commission that an emergency advisory com- mittee consisting of ten members be appointed by His Honor the Mayor, whose function it shall be to co-operate with this Commission in placing the practical plan for dealing with destitution and unemployment in the City of Chicago as outlined in this report into operation and execution during the present winter. It is urged that the emergency advisory committee of ten members include representatives of the following private business interests: (a) Manufacturing interests. (b) Mercantile interests. (c) Railway interests. (d) Contracting interests. (e) Banking interests. (f) Organized labor. It is believed that a representative emergency advisory committee of ten members, if appointed as outlined above, could, to a very considerable extent, aid in placing the practical plans and recommendations, described by your Commission in this report, into effect at this time. It should be impressed upon this emergency advisory committee that its function shall be chiefly to stimu- late employment among private employers, encourage part or short-time worV in private industry during the. present winter, and strive to dovetail seasonal occupations so as to provide for as great an amount of continuity of work as is possible, and to appeal to private employers to increase the number of their employes as far and as soon as may be feasible. The emergency advisory committee should discountenance any attempt that may be made for creating new private and public agencies of charitable relief, and the committee itself should not undertake any plans for dispensing charity. It is believed that the present existing public and private charitable agencies are fully competent and able to afford relief to the unemployable unemployed and dependents in the City of Chicago, if adequately supported anl sustained. Such emergency advisory committee should fight the problem of imemployment in terms of business, and not of charity and philanthropy. The remedy suggested in this report should be considered nnnoti-nrtive and permanent, and not merely palliative and temporary. Soup kitchens, bread lines and new charitable machinery should not find favor with the committee nor should competitive projects among the agencies now existing be tolerated. CONCLUSIONS. 1. The present prevailing unemployment in the City of Chicago is not entirely due to the European war, but rather a chronic, constant result of the maladjustment of industry and trade. Unemployment is an annual, re- curring, ever-present, normal condition of such maladjustment, and merely one form of the enormous waste and inefficiency caused by the existing un- organized and planless method of conducting private industry. Unemploy- ment is and should be considered generally as a usual attribute and phenom- enon of private industry and business. The absence of unemployment in in- dustry and business should rather be considered unusual and extraordinary, and not its presence in our midst. S3 2. It is the duty of the city to provide for its unemployed an honorable means of earning a livelihood. The sole manner by which unemployment can be solved is by PROVIDING EMPLOYMENT. No determined, Systematic effort has been made by any of the cities or states in the American Union for effecting an enduring and lasting remedy in the only way' a real and complete remedy is possible. Unemployment is not an emergency matter, and cannot and will. hot be solved by any sporadic and emergency devices and proposals. Therefore, the City of Chicago should lead the way in putting into effect at the earliest opportunity the practical plan herewith submitted. It is believed that a planned, well-ordered systein of municipal care for the unemployed will relieve and mitigate the consequences of unemployment to a pronounced and appreciable extent. 3. There are three agencies which the municipality can by intelligent action place under way in combatifig unemployment at this time, viz.: 1. An efficient, well organized and supported municipal em- ployment bureau. 2. Public works and improvements. 3. Part or short-time work for the unemployed by private and public industry. It is needless to point out that the foregoing agencies should .deal, only with the class known as the employable unemployed resident of Chicago. 4. Private and public charity, if inadequate at this time, should receive sufficient support from the people of Chicago to enable it to care for the unemployable unemployed and dependent groups in the community. 5. The organization and administration of these agencies of governmental and private care for the unemployed should be placed in operation each year at the very moment and hour when unemployment becomes discernible and con- spicuous. RECOMMENDATIONS. 1..' M!unicipal Emplpyrnent Burpau. The first requisite toward solving the problem of unemployrnent .is the organization of a municipal employment bureau on an efficient basis. While the establishnjent of an efficient, employ- ment office by the municipality is not in itself an absolute remedy for unem- ployment, it is, nevertheless, tbe foundation of- all proposals for the relief of .the unemployed. It is an indispensable condition for any real constructive work in this direction. A municipal employment bureau would organize and regularize the labor market with its present confusion, waste and monetary loss to both employers and employes. The City of Chicago has failed to develop any adequate, sys- tematic machinery whereby the manless job and the jobless man may be brought face to face. The state free employment offices in Chicago should not be considered, inasmuch as they have been practically worthless in relieving general unemployment since their establishment. A municipal emplbyment bureau of the first rank would serve as a clearing house where the jobless man and the manless job would be brought" into contact, no matter how far within the City of Chicago these two may be separated. The City of Chicago should establish a municipal employment bureau in the Department of Public Welfare, by providing adequate funds' to- make it efficieht in the' highest possible degree. It should be kept free froin the influence and machinations of political spoilsmen, factions and parties; and an advisory group, or board of citizens representing employers, employes and the general public should be appointed to direct the general policy and watch over the efficiency of its administration. The public should "consider the mere establishment of a municipal employment bureau as not sufficient, but great stress should be laid upon the organization of such municipal em- ploymeiit office in an efficient, systematic and thorough manner. A municipal employment bureau, connected and ramified with state and federal employ- ment offices, offers the most efficient, economical and expeditious method of bringing workers and work together in a central market. It would eliminate the evils of the private employment agencies; open up opportunities for work in the city and country; ascertain the surplus and scarcity of various kinds of labor; shorten the time and energy now spent in obtaining jobs and the con- 54 sequent unemployment between jobs; strive to dovetail the seasonal occupa- tions so ,as to provide for practical continuity of work; provide the resident unemployed with employment upon the public works; guide children leaving school into suitable occupations and employments, and furnish trade schools and continuation schools maintained by the Board of Education with infor- mation as to openings in trade and industry, which will provide each youth with the maximum amount of annual employment in his maturer years. 2. Public Works for the Unemployed. The City of Chicago has never adequately considered the possibility of relieving and preventing unemploy- ment by dividing and allotting its public works during periods of industrial and business depression. In this particular it has but followed the example set by other cities in the United States, which increase their public construc- . tion and improvement works during favorable business years and decrease the same when private industry is suffering from depression. The city should act more wisely by considering and studying labor conditions and the state of employment among the wage earners, and undertake municipal irhprove- ments and other public works during dull times, which will act as an impetus upon the labor market and prove an incentive to business conditions gener- ally. Public work carried on by the city for the benefit of the unemployed should be so regularized as to be performed chiefly during times- of industrial depression. By regulating the time of constructing public works and improve- ments during the involuntary idleness of the employable unemployed, busi- ness conditions would be stimulated. Inasmuch as the greatest amount of unemployment occurs in the City of Chicago during the winter months, the city authorities should, early in the summer or fall of each year, compile an official list showing all municipal works the contracts for which have been let but which have not been put under way or completed, so that the construction can be commenced at the beginning of or during the cold weather season. This would insure the postponement of public works during favorable times to less favorable periods, so that when private industry and business become dull and quiet the city can release the necessary means for raising a stagnant labor market by undertaking extensive public works and improvements. The public works and improvements of the City of Chicago should be divided with the greatest care, so that as much of the work as can possibly be carried out during the winter months be postponed to this season of the year. The adoption of a comprehensive, well-ordered, and definite plan for dealing with the problem of unemployment by the City of Chicago during the dull periods would also prove an example and a stimulant to private employers, who likewise would be prevailed upon to plan new buildings and equipment in advance, so that work of this nature could be put under way by them dur- ing the periods of greatest unemployment. Reserve or sinking funds should be maintained by the city, set aside as a trust fund to be released upon public works and improvements during periods . of unusual business and industrial depression and unemployment. These pub- lic works and improvements should be conducted for the benefit of the employable resident population in the City of Chicago in-order to aid in regu- lating the local labor market and to relieve destitution and misery, due to unemployment in our midst. Such resident unemployed wage earners should be hired by the city solely on the basis of competency and efficiency and at the prevailing standard market rates of wages for such work. 3. Employment of Resident Chicagoans. The first duty of the City of Chicago is to its own people. It should therefore be impressed upon the cities and areas adjacent to Chicago that the City of Chicago, through its em- ployers, both public and private, will give preference to its own residents and citizens when hiring workers. This policy of the city's employers of furnishing work to its own citizens and residents, as against outsiders, should be adver- tised far and wide and emphatically by the authorities. Contractors furnishing municipal supplies or doing public work for the city should be compelled to give preference to competent resident unemployed workers. 4. Part or Short Time Work. A great deal can be done by private and public employers in keeping unemployment at the minimum by the adoption of a policy of part or short time work. While short or part time work is indefensible during normal and favorable business years, m times of mdustrial and business crises and depression such a plan has every thmg m its favor An appeal should be made to the public and private employers of the City of 55 Chicago to use their utmost efforts toward keeping their wage earners and employes busy and occupied in dull seasons, if not on full time, at least under some arrangement whereby these men can be errjployed on part time. This can be done either by reducing the number of days per week or- the number of hours per day and will secure to the wage earners and their families a bare existence if nothing else. A policy of this character, adopted by public and private employers, will go a very long distance toward relieving distress and misery in the City of Chicago. 5. Relief Work. The City of Chicago should not create any new chari-j table or relief machinery for combating the effects of unemployment. Experi-; ence has shown that soup kitchens and bread lines for the unemployed are, as a rule, indiscriminating and do rhore harm than good. Work undertaken, by the city as a means of relief or charity should be considered as a last! despairing effort to aid the unemployed when it has or knows no better alter-| native. Relief work of this nature, while blameless and uncensurable, so long as human beings are starving and homeless, is almost wholly useles for benefit- ing the people thus relieved. The City Council should avoid, by all means, appropriating money for charitable purposes. The Community, however, 1 should aid in strengthening the present agencies engaged in relief and chari- { table work, and their facilities should be expanded and made more effective. The Board of Cook County Commissioners, in an increasing measure, should support the work of the Cook County Agent and the general public should aid in an adequate measure the j)rivate charitable organizations which have proved their efficiency and reliability in the past. 6. The Municipal Lodging House and the Transient Laborer. All ap- plicants for food and lodging at the Munici-jJal Lodging House should be required to do a certain amount of work in- return for such food and lodging received from the city. Such a work test shouldbe sufficiently severe todeter the vagrant, shiftless unemployed of other cities from coming to Chicago. Arrangements should also be made whereby the inebriates, sufferers from venereal and other diseases, and vagrants may be given employment on a work farm or farm colony, as well as receive adequate medical treatment, in order to make them physically fit and employable. Steps should be taken to obtain the co-operation of the federal authorities and of the authorities of the various states and cities adjacent and surrounding Chicago, in the matter of contributing toward the support and maintenance of the transient, homeless laborers who flock to Chicago during the winter months. It is unfair that a city, even as large and important as Chicago, which, because of its geopraphi- cal location, serves as a distributing center of this reserve army of casual laborers, should be solely charged with the expense of maintaining, feeding, and lodging these unfortunate men. 7. Vocational Schools. Vocational training and trade schools should be established by the Board of Education, giving technical education in the in- dustrial arts to boys and girls between fourteen and twenty-one years of age. No young person under eighteen years of age should be employed in a public or private industry for more than thirty hours per week, and all young persons so employed should be compelled to attend public continuation, and vocational training schools for at least thirty hours a week. A system of, vocational trainin,g and trade schools will prepare minors in an efficient way for industrial life and the number of unskilled workers will be greatly reduced. 8. State Free Employment Offices. The three free employment offices maintained by the State of Illinois in the City of Chicago have been practically worthless in relieving general unemployment in the City of Chicago since their establishment in 1899. In^ this respect they are not much different from the free employment offices maintained by other states, with the exception of those established in Massachusetts and Wisconsin. They are unable to apply standardized, efficient methods in the conduct of these offices. They are in- adequately supported in a financial way, honeycombed with politics and manned by incompetent, untrained, and incapable officials. It is the belief of your Commission that the free state employment offices should be radically reorganized and the employes placed under Civil Service. 9. Private Employment Agencies. The City of Chicago should pass suitable ordinances strictly regulating private employment agencies, in order to eliminate the grave misrepresentation, extortion, and dishonest practices frequently complained of and found to prevail. Your Commission, however, believes that the only effective means of eliminating private employment 56 agencies is by the establishment of efficient and competent public employment othces in their stead. An efficient municipal employment office is the surest means of eliminating private employment agencies with their resulting dis- honesty, fraud, and unlawful practices. , ^''•j .T^^ Reduction of Peddlers' Licenses. If the opportunity of entering the peddling business in the City of Chicago were made financially easier to Its people. It IS the opinion of your Commission that a large number of un- employed during times of unemployment would enter the peddling business and would thus be enabled to earn a living. The present prevailing license rates for peddlers in Chicago are unusually higher than those prevailing in other cities in the United States. It is recommended that the present annual license fee of $50 for one-horse wagon peddlers be reduced to $10 per year; that the annual license rate for peddling with a two-horse wagon be reduced from $S0 to $15 per year; that the annual license rate for pushcart peddling be reduced from $25 to $5. a year, and that the annual license charged basket peddlers be reduced from $10 to $2 per annum. 11. Day Labor vs. Contract Labor. Controlling factors of policy and sentiment should cause the city to do its public work and improvements by day labor instead of by contract labor, as a means of furnishing work to and rendering self-supporting a certain part of its population which would other- wise be required to obtain relief and aid from public and private charity. 12. Unemployment Insurance. The city should promote insurance against unemployment in order to prevent destitution and misery when unemploy- ment cannot be prevented by the operation of a municipal employment bureau, public work for the unemployed and part time work, and is inevitable in spite of these. Provision should be made for the honorable maintenance, at public expense, of the surplus laborers who cannot be placed in employment by the municipal employment office, on public works or on part time work. After the City of Chicago has established a municipal employment bureau on a sufficiently extensive scale, designed to insure efficient work, systematically planned its public works and improvements during the time of greatest un- employment, and both public and private employers have been prevailed upon to keep as many employes on part or short time work as is possible, there will still be periods of a certain amount of inevitable unemployment which none of the foregoing agencies can counteract or prevent. It is urged that the City of Chicago undertake a system of insurance for the unemployed after the municipal employment bureau has accumulated a sufficient amount of exact data concerning the amount of unemployment prevailing in Chicago annually in excess of those who can be placed in employment through the agencies suggested in this practical plan. 13. Appointment of an Emergency Advisory Committee. In view of the great amount of destitution, misery, and distress prevalent at this time, due to the large number of unemployed in our midst, it is urged that His Honor, the Mayor, immediately appoint an emergency advisory committee of ten mem- bers, consisting of representatives of railway, manufacturing, mercantile, bank- ing, contracting and organized labor interests. The chief purpose of this emergency advisory committee shall be to stimulate employment in private trade and industry; encourage part or short time work among private employ- ers; strive to dovetail seasonal occupations so as to provide for as great an amount of continuity of work as is possible and obtain the co-operation of private employers to increase the number of their employes as far and as soon as this may be practicable. 14. Reference of Recommendations to Committees of the Chicago City Council. Your Commission would respectfully suggest that the following recommendations be re-referred to the Chicago Municipal Markets Commis- sion: Recommendation No. 1 on the establishment of a municipal employment bureau. Recommendation No. 2 on Public Works for the Unemployed. Recommendation No. 4 on Part or Short Time Work for Employes. Recommendation No. 11 on Day Labor versus Contract Labor on Public Works. Recommendation No. 12 on Municipal Insurance for the Unemployed. 57 Your Commission believes that it will be able to suggest ways and means of carrying into effect the foregoing recommendations after conferences are had with the proper officials of the various municipal departments concerned. Your Commission would suggest further that Recommendation No. 3, re- lating to the Employment of Resident Chicagoans, be referred to the Com- mittee on Judiciary; that Recommendation No. 7, relating to Vocational Schools and Juvenile Employment, be referred to the Committee on Schools, Fire, Police, and Civil Service, and that Recommendation No. 10, relating to the Reduction of Peddlers' Licenses in the City of Chicago, be referred to the Committee on License of the Chicago City Council. Respectfully submitted, JAMES H. LAWLEY, Chairman, Alderman 14th Ward. JOHN TOMAN, Alderman 34th Ward. AUGUST KRUMHOLZ, Alderman 24th Ward. GERTRUDE V. SOULE, University of Chicago Settlement. MRS. C. FRANKLIN LEAVITT, Eli Bates House. MRS. JOHN C. BLEY, Woman's City Club. GRAHAM TAYLOR, Chicago Commons. FRED A. CURTIS, City Club of Chicago. Secretary: FREDERICK REX, Municipal Reference Librarian. 58 APPENDICES Page APPENDIX A. Report by Miss Amelia Sears, Director of Public Wel- fare of Cook County to the Chicago Municipal Markets Commission on the problem of unemployment and pos- sible destitution 60-66 APPENDIX B. Letter from Mr. Eugene T. Lies, General Superintendent United Charities of Chicago, to the Chicago Municipal Markets Commission, submitting plans for dealing with the problem of unemployment and destitution 66-67 APPENDIX C. Supplementary letter from Mr. Eugene T. Lies, General Superintendent United Charities of Chicago 68-69 59 APPENDIX A. REPORT BY MISS AMELIA SEARS, DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU OF PUBLIC WELFARE OF COOK COUNTY, TO THE CHICAGO MUNICIPAL MARKETS COMMISSION ON THE PROBLEM OF UNEMPLOYMENT AND POSSIBLE DESTITUTION. Before any discussion of the problem of unemployment, as it exists at | present, and the pending destitution this winter, resulting from the labor ! situation, is possible, it is necessary to clear the ground of certain miscon- ceptions which always confuse those discussions. The first erroneous idea is, that unemployment can be discussed in the same terms as relief. Unemployment cannot be cured by relief giving — any plans that are de- signed to simultaneously extend relief to dependents and give employment to wage earning men out of employment are deleterious. The second is the failure to differentiate between the groups needing relief and the unemployed. The former comprise two specific groups: 1st. The incapacitated bread winner and his family. 2nd. The casual laborer or odd-job man. These two groups offer problems, but they are problems to be solved along totally different lines than those of the able-bodied workman out of employ- ment. Therefore, I have devoted some pages to defining these groups and suggesting remedies for their ills in the hope that by so doing the impos- sibility of solving their difficulties in the same manner or simultaneously with those of the unemployed workman might be irrefutably shown. GROUP I— HABITUAL DEPENDENTS. Group one consists of the normal dependency of a great city and deals with families in their homes. It could be classified as follows: CLASSIFICATION OF TYPES OF HABITUALLY DEPENDENT FAMILIES. Family in which bread winner is dead. Family in which bread winner is incapacitated. Family in which bread winner is criminally negligent. Family in which bread winner has deserted. Family in which bread winner or mother is feeble-minded. Family in which bread winner or mother is insane (either in an asylum or non-committably insane or on parole.) Family in which bread winner or mother is tubercular. Family in which bread winner or mother is sick or conva- lescent. It is evident this committee can have no concern with group one. Disaster alone follows when an effort to deal with the unemployed is in any way con- fused with the problem of caring for the dependent group of the city. This group of people represent, in the majority of instances, households, each house- hold containing an average of 4.3 persons, all making a struggle to maintain their integrity as a family. This group is constant, static, existing irrespective of hard times and good times, andits care should be left to the agencies, public and private relief agencies, in the field equipped to give sustained and con- tiuued care through summer and winter, year in and year out. This intricate and perplexing group should be considered entirely apart from the subject of unemployment. In fact, this group does not contain an appreciable number of able-bodied men; and were employment ever so plenti- ful, it would profit no whit thereby. Clear thinking on the subject of unemployment demands that a line of demarcation be drawn between this group and group III, The Unemployed Workman. Big as this group of habitual dependents is, it is not out of proportion with the curative powers of the agencies organized to aid it. Ttie eighty or so relief, medical, and legal agencies and institutions, both public and private] 60 Sick or Incapacitated Bread Winner employing six hundred workers to care for this group, report an annual 120,000 cases (families or individuals) — a city of dependents, with one guardian for every two hundred units (sometimes the unit is a family, sometimes an in- dividual). The burden, if distributed evenly, would demand that each social worker care for four units (families or individuals as the case may be) each week. There is no occasion here to discuss the duplication of effort and ineffi- cient Q.rganization and repetition of work by which six hundred social work- ers, each caring for four units per week, are all over-burdened. That is a problem for the social agencies, and is merely referred to here to emphasize the fact that the workers are on hand to care for group I, and that wisdom and common sense demands that group I be left to their care. Certain of these individuals are peculiarly public charges because they fall into groups selected by statute for special care, such as the widows with young children, provided for under the Funds to Parents Act; the insane, pro- vided for in part under the Lunacy Act, and the petty criminals on probation from the minor courts. It seems legitimate in cases where court action has been instituted or is pending, to regard the depleted family as a responsibility for public outdoor relief, since public officials are already concerned in their care and since the community has recognized its responsibility in passing laws relative to these cases. Cases which might be regarded as public charges on this basis fall into the following classes: Description of Case. Widows with children under fourteen years. Law Applicable in Part. Funds to Parents Act. Agency Responsible. Juvenile Court. Woman with capacitated children. husband in- and young Funds to Parents Act. Juvenile Court (provi- sion adequate). (Many admirable cases of above group refused aid for technical reasons. County Outdoor Relief, Private Societies (provision i n s u f - ficient). Deserted women with young Abandonment Act, etc. County Agent, Private children (if man can be Societies (provision found and warrant taken insufficient), out). Women with young children whose husbands are in- carcerated or on probation from Municipal or Crim- inal Court. Contributing to De- pendency Act (the operation of this act is usually involved to this form of de- pendency). County Agent, Private Societies (provision insufficient). Heads of families suffering Illinois Municipal Tu- from tuberculosis. berciilosis Sanitarium Law. Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium, Oak For- est Infirmary, Coun- ty Agent, Private Agencies (provision insufficient). Heads of families insane, Illinois Lunacy Act. either in an asylum, non- committable or paroled. Countv Agent, Private Societies (provision insufficient). Heads of minded. families feeble- No Law. No orovision. (For this group per se.) Widows with young children and women with young children whose husbands are incapacitated are admirably cared for under the Fund to Par- ents Law, but the very operation of this law reveals constantly women whose 61 circumstances are as distressing as those given aid, bflt who are denied this aid because of some technicality. Clearly it is a public responsibility to see that life is made possible for this group. If they cannot be aided under the Funds to_ Parents Law, but if their need is as great as those so aided, the responsibility must be faced, and that by a public agency. The care of deserted women with young children has not been, standard- ized to the same extent as the care of the above group. However, in cases which present a legal aspect, and in which the whereabouts of the man is determined, it would be legitimate for public relief to shoulder the responsi- bility, as by so doing it would be merely supplementing the work of other public officials of court and police department. The same argument is applicable to the wives of petty criminals, since in caring for the wives and children of these men the county would be merely supplementing the work of the court and in many cases strengthening it. For ten years Illinois has recognized its responsibility for the tubercular dependent individual. If the perpetuating of the disease is to be stopped, it will be through resolute removing of the infected member from the family and adequate support of the household on his departure. This supplementing of the work of the Municiife.1 Tuberculosis Sanitarium law seems a legitimate func- tion for public outdoor relief. For decades the state has undertaken the care of the insane^ Today the program for his care includes home treatment, care prior to commitment and after care. Too often all this prophylactic care fails not because the oversight and medical advice is wanting but because the anxiety over the financial situation and the actual deprivations preclude improvement. In such cases the public outdoor reliet should be organized to ably supplement the work of physician and nurse and Psychopathic Hospital and Judge of the Insanity Branch of the County Court. The final group, the family of the adult feeble-minded woman, is just com- ing into recognition. At present, there is neither a law by which she may be forced to accept care nor provision for her support. The manifestations of her lack of mentality, shiftlessness, immorality, incompetence, all tend to exclude her from the ministrations of all relief agen- cies—with her children, she is left unguided and unsupported, repudiated to a certain extent by the agencies, public and private, which should aid her above all. The opportunity is here for the public relief, to work out a program for this group of unfortunates which shall provide for their humane treatment and protection and as rapidly as possible their withdrawal from competition with the mentally competent and their care in institutions. The idea of relief here does not necessarily mean money relief, but it means the developing of a plan for the care of each such woman and her household that shall look towards some solution and shall make life possible for her pending such solu- tion. GROUP II— CASUAL LABORER AND ODD JOB MAN. The discussion of the unemployed is further confused by the presence of group II. This group is more difficult to handle than group I for the reason that it is not fixed, it is transient, its needs is seasonal, and, as a whole, the indi- vidual members of this group are not heads of families struggling to maintain homes, but comprise the lodging house man group. The problem here is as distinct from the unemployed workman problem as in the case of group I. The solution of the problem of this group must be on radically different lines than for group III for two reasons. First, because these casual laborers are 90% transients, and second, because they are 80% to 90% single men. This is peculiarly a problem for the city administration. It involves pro- vision for: 1 — A Municipal Lodging House (so organized as to be able to expand in time of need to care for thousands). 2 — A work test (humane but sufficiently drastic to deter out-of- works in other cities from coming to Chicago. 3 — A Farm Colony (which will provide a place of cure and com- mitment for the vagrant, and tramp, and drunk, thus strength- ening police and court authorities). 62 4 — A method of correlating existing agencies and institutions for the care of this group of casual laborers with special reference to medical agencies. 5 — A consideration of labor conditions throughout the entire country and a Federal Employment Bureau. Not -until these far-reaching changes are made in the present provision for these homeless men will it be possible for such agencies as we have to function properly. The casual laborer from all parts of the country will con- tinue to flock to Chicago. Begging on the streets will continue, bread lines and ineffective relief measures will be instituted in a haphazard manner. Police officers will continue impotent because the courts release vagrants when officers bring them in for want of any provision for their care. Chicago today is far behind other cities in the care of this group. It is a group which will not be denied. The family man (out of work) may sit at home in a rear tenement with his family around him and suffer in silence, while the casual laborer, with only himself to care for, is marching upon the city hall demanding work or food. As long as society permits some forms of industry to so organize as to create the homeless man, using him as long as. convenient and then throwing him off, estranging him as a boy from his home and rendering the establish- ment of his home as a man impossible, so long must society pay the bill by supporting the employes of those industries during the periods of unemploy- ment. The first step in planning for this group would be to call together all de- partments concerned in their care; that would include representatives of the police department, and of the lower courts, of the Board of Health, of the industrial homes and missions, of the County Hospital and Oak Forest, of the Bridewell and the employment offices, both private and state, and relief organ- izations. From such a conference, it is conceivable, would emanate a practical plan along the lines suggested applicable to the situation of the moment and capable of expansion to meet any emergency. GROUP III— THE UNEMPLOYED CHICAGO WORKMAN. Efforts to relieve unemployment should be addressed to men who are heads of families, who have lived and worked in Chicago with the intention of becoming residents and who through industrial conditions over which they have no control and for which they have no responsibility, have suffered havoc equivalent to the disasters of fire, flood and earthquake. Their problem is not alone a municipal problem, it is a state and federal one as well. , Plans for its solution should recognize this fact and recognize also the inter-dependence of the public agencies and the commercial organiza- tions in the field. Plans for. dealing with the unemployed could well be formulated along the following lines: A — Strict definition of term "unemployed," distinguishing clearly between the unemployed and the unemployable. ^ B — Provision for public work through the city departments by which heads of families out of employment could be given continued work. This provision is the "sine qua non'' of the discussion through formulating a plan which would insure immediate employ- ment of heads of families, confidence would be established in the efficiency of the committee, public anxiety would be allayed, and the confusion in the public mind between the problem of unemployment and the problem of relief work would be eliminated. The details of such a plan would be most interesting — they would comprise appropriation for wages, implements, etc., plans for suitable work, and plans for determining status of man seeking employment. The first requisite is dependent upon a reasonable plan ably presented to the city council and backed by public opinion. The second requisite is dependent upon opportunities for work — grant for discussion that street sweeping is the work pro- vided. 63 The third requisite would necessitate organization of investigating department. In this case since employment only was involved (and not relief) the investigation need cover only three points — evidence that the man applying for work is habitually a workingman and that he is a family man and that he is a resident of Cook County. Conceivably the police and police stations could be so equipped with clerical help as to conduct this inquiry. All unemployed (keeping in mind that unemployed means heads of families and working men) should be instructed to register at nearest police station, setting forth their residence, length of resi- dence in Chicago and former place of employment. The first two points, to a great extent, could be verifi'ed through consultation of the city directory or the list of registered voters. In cases where statements were not corroborated by those records, the officer on the beat could confirm state- ments. As opportunity offered, it would probably prove de- sirable to have the officers look up every man given employ- ment to determine of whom his family consisted and whether or not he owned the property in which he lived. The third point, employment, if genuine, could be verified almost invariably by telephone and when that proved impossible, either a letter or a call from the officer in the district in which the firm was located would secure the desired infor- mation. It would be advisable to put every man at work within twenty- four hours of his application — ^if the investigation was not completed by that time permitting him to continue to work during the period of inquiry. If the inquiry revealed him as ineligible for the employment by reason of non-residence he should be referred to the County Agent for return to his place of residence. If he and his family were destitute, pending such action, they should be given institutional care. If the inquiry revealed him of the homeless man group, he should be referred to the Municipal Lodging House for care. If the inquiry revealed him as one of a "colony" of foreign men without families but Chicago residents and not casual la- borers, a very interesting experiment could be tried which was successful last winter in Cleveland. There, men living in this way and applying for relief work, were grouped into parties of six — each six forming a unit — each unit was entitled to six days work per week. In this way, sufficient could be earned weekly by the group to feed and house them on the co-operative basis on which they were already living. All matters of selecting which member of the unit should work and of apportioning the pay were left to the unit itself. The converting of the police stations thus into social centers in the poorer communities could not fail to have a wholesome effect on the community by encouraging it to regard the police as their friends; it would also tend to socialize the police and it would introduce into the police stations through the clerical work, filing, card indexing, cross referencing and street index system, an idea of accurate clerical work with difficulty attained in the precinct station. Furthermore, it would probably be feasible to utilize the police stations as pay stations. Under such a plan, it would be necessary to pay only once a week, since as soon as the un- employed man had his card indicating his employment, he could secure credit at the local stores or with friends or neighbors or relatives. In this plan, the department in whose hands the organization of relief work was placed would receive these accredited men daily, carrying some form of identification, and assign them to their proper places. The responsibility of the temporary 64 organization in the police stations being limited to registra- tion and investigation. C — Data secured from industrial centers within radius of 500 miles of Chicago as to their present industrial situation and their plans for dealing with unemployment, as well as from employment agencies of neighboring states as to the situation in the rural communities. D — Reliable and accurate information from the employment agen- cies as to their — 1. Applications at present in comparison with this time a year ago. 2. Per cent of applicants being placed now in employment as compared with 1913. 3. Fluctuations they are noting in labor market and in demand for labor. 4. Lines of industry which they know authoritatively to be throwing out employes. E — Review of all state laws and municipal ordinances on subject of employment agencies to determine what existing legisla- tion, if any, can be revived and enforced. F — Minute and comprehensive inquiry into the State Employ- ment Agencies to determine why they are not more efficient and what pressure can be brought and where to develop their efficiency. Information concerning their appropriation and organization. G — Co-operation with the License Department of the city in de- vising plans by which licenses for newsstands, etc., shall be given to cripples and handicaps instead of to the highest bidder, gradually eliminating the able-bodied men from these positions and thus gradually removing the handicapped from the ranks of dependents. H — Invoking the aid of the Manufacturers' Association and the Association of Commerce to: First — Determine the extent of unusual unemployment and its probable duration. Second — To consider the possibility by which larger num- bers of men can be kept at work for shorter hours. Third — Enlist all public-spirited employers in an effort to keep the employes at work. I — Establishment of a Municipal Clearing House for all employ- ment agencies, state and private. J — Passage of ordinances, if necessary, for registration and con- trol of all private employment agencies in matters of location, •provision for comfort of applicants and fees collected; also for complaint department equipped to secure redress in all cases of exploitation of individuals; and to ferret out cases of illicit practice by foremen and bosses and submit the same to firms and corporations concerned, and further to discover any alliance existing between the employment agencies and the vice interests of the city. Dr. pdward T. Devine, in writing on the "Desirability of Establishing an Employment Agency in New York" (same to be subsidized until fully self-supporting), writes: "Aside from the main purpose of helping the unemployed to get work an employment bureau would have three indirect and incidental but ex- ceedingly important functions: 1 — By competition it would help to eliminate the evils of the ordi- nary commercial employment agencies. 2 — By opening up opportunity for employment in other com- munities, both urban and rural, it would_ contribute to the solution of the overshadowing and increasingly serious prob- lem of congestion of population in New York City. 3 It would gradually establish standards of work which might eventually, if the establishment of a State Bureau or even 65 a National Bureau is found expedient, be taken over in the management of such official business bureaus. 4 — It would help to decasualize labor, if we may use a phrase which has become more familiar in England than in this country, but which implies a lamentable condition towards which a large part of our unskilled labor is unfortunately tending. S — Eventually the Employment Bureau might exert an important influence on the critical period in the lives of boys and young men when they first begin work." -Dr. Devine furt^r states: "Fortunately, there is no general agitation in. this country at present (1908) for the establishment of labor colonies or relief works for the unemployed. ''The objections to the establishment of relief work, organized not because the undertaking is justified on its own account, but for the sake of giving employment, are so obvious and so familiar that they need not here be recapitulated." Relief work must be the last resort. Let plans be inaugurated now de- signed to utilize all natural resources for employment and to expedite the finding of employment through agencies. If relief work is deemed neces- sary as winter approaches, let it be remembered no plan is without its dan- gers and any consideration of relief work should be accompanied with a lively appreciation that the necessity marks the break-down of the existing social order. APPENDIX B. LETTER FROM MR. EUGENE T. LIES, GENERAL SUPERINTEND- ENT, UNITED CHARITIES OF CHICAGO, TO THE CHICAGO MUNICIPAL MARKETS COMMISSION, SUBMITTING PLANS FOR DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM OF UNEMPLOYMENT AND DESTITUTION. Chicago, September 9, 1914. Hon. James H. Lawley, Chairman, Chicago Municipal Markets Commission, 1005 City Hall, Chicago. Dear Sir: In compliance with your invitation, may I present the following ideas regarding plans for dealing with the problem of poverty this coming fall and winter? 1— WAYS OF CARING FOR UNEMPLOYED: When thousands of men are forced out of employment through the curtailing or closing down of regular lines of industry, there appears to me to be only two important ways of meeting the situation. These are through the provision of public works and through charitable relief. 2— PUBLIC WORKS: For able-bodied men, work is of course, always better than charity. A careful study might show that needed public works could be started now and conducted throughout the fall and winter by the following bodies: Park Boards, Sanitary Canal Board, School Board, Board of Public Works, Street and Alley Committees of the Council, Harbor Commission. Of course, the work undertaken should be such as is absolutely required. It could be such as was contemplated to be done one or two years hence. Of course, funds must be available for whatever is undertaken. 3— CITY EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE NEEDED: To further the public works plan suggested above and also to fill a genuine need in Chicago, there should be started immediately a city em- ployment exchange. This should be conducted along the highest lines and with a view to efficiency only; must be kept absolutely free from politics The requirements for director and assistants of the same should be clearly 66 stated and the appointments should be made under civil service regula- tions. A citizens' committee representing employers, employes and the general public should be appointed as an advisory group to work with the employes of such an exchange. This is in accordance with recommendations of experts and would imitate the plan now followed in Milwaukee arid, I believe, in Columbus, Ohio. The influence of such a committee would be that the office would be conducted on strictly impartial lines in the securing of employ- ment. The fundamental consideration in placing men would be fitness; second, need; and it should be understood clearly that residents of Chicago are the ones intended to be the beneficiaries of the plan. Such a city labor exchange would bring the needs of employers and the needs of employes together wherever openings in regular industries ap- peared. It would learn of opportunities for employment in towns within a considerable radius of Chicago, It could provide a considerable number of men needed in public works undertaken by the various local governmental departments. Even if the present emergency situation did not confront us in Chicago, such a city employment exchange would be absolutely called for. If created now, it should be created on lines of permanence. 4— APPEAL TO EMPLOYERS: There would probably be some results from an appeal made through the Association of Commerce to the employers of the city, urging them to do everything within their power to keep their employes busy, if not on full time, then on part time, either reducing the number of days per week or the number of hours per day. This would carry men and families along at least on a subsistence basis if nothing more. Furthermore, employers might be induced to make necessary improvements in their plants, buildings and grounds during the next six months, things which they had in mind doing next year or two years hence. 5— LARGER RELIEF MEASURES: It is understood that the County is able under the provisions of the law to increase its food allowance to families who are really dependent, thus relieving to an extent the calls upon private agencies. The latter in turn will have plenty to do, and can devote themselves to the types of cases of need which cannot secure relief from the county under our laws and those who, for personal reasons, should not be required to go to a public relief office. Both the County Agent and the private relief agencies will neces- sarily need more funds for the increased amount of destitution remaining even after the above measures to secure employment have been carried out. Multiplication of new relief centers should be strictly avoided, since they would lead to demoralization and duplication of work. Certainly no soup kitchens of the old sort should be started. Finally, it should be made plain that both employment and relief measures are being developed for Chicago people only and not for the whole country. 6-MUNICIPAL LODGING HOUSE: The Municipal Lodging House should have three or four experienced social workers added to its stafl. These are to analyze carefully the cir- cumstances of every applicant for lodgings and food, and make an attempt to solve each case upon the basis of facts so secured. Each legitimate case should be given every consideration possible to the extent of full food allow- ance. Further, some feasible work test should be developed. I am of the strong opinion that the city as such should not undertake any new charitable relief measures. The County Agent, together with the leading private organizations can, in co-operation with the Municipal Lodging House, take care- of the situation, I believe. All the above suggestions are respectfully submited for your consideration. Very truly yours, EUGENE T. LIES, General Superintendent. 67 APPENDIX C. SUPPLEMENTARY LETTER FROM MR. EUGENE T. LIES, GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT, UNITED CHARITIES OF CHICAGO. October 12, 1914. Alderman James H. Lawley, Chairman, Chicago Municipal Markets Commission, lOOS City Hall, Chica.go. My Dear Sir: In response to your request I take pleasure in presenting herewith some of the important conclusions unanimously arrived at in a conference recently held in New York City of executives of a considerable number of general charity societies, like the United Charities of Chicago, to consider the wide- spread unemployment and poverty conditions in the United States. They may be of value to your Commission in formulating its final report. A number of these conclusions are in accord with opinions expressed at your public hearings both by myself and others. But it is_ worth while re- emphasizing them, for they touch, as I know your Commission realizes, mat- ters of grave importance to our citizens. I state them as tersely as possible. 1— AS TO PHILANTHROPIC MEASURES. A. Discourage such things as soup kitchens and bread lines for the un- employed, since they are mass methods, as a rule, indiscriminating, and do more harm than good. B. Discourage the creation of new charitable machinery to fill a tem- porary need. Hence let the City Council avoid appropriating a large fund for charitable purposes this winter. Since the very announcement of such an appropriation would very likely defeat its purpose for it would bring hordes of applicants from every direction outside of Chicago and many people in the city who are not in genuine need would also be tempted to try their luck at getting a share of the money. In other words, it would mean a congestion of applicants, a large force to handle them and indiscriminating treatment. Furthermore, it would be exceedingly difficult to keep politics out of the scheme. Rather, encourage existing public and private agencies to expand and strengthen their machinery, if necessary. Let the County Board put larger means at the disposal of the County Agent, and let the general public give adequately in funds and volunteer personal service to the private organizations that have proved their efficiency and reliability through the years, and that are necessary to supplement the work of the county, doing those many things, both in the way of material relief and personal service called for by the limitations in public official charity departments. Furthermore, public appro- priations out of tax funds to subsidize private charities would be unwise. C. Let the private charities take pains to avoid one of the mistakes often made in the past, here and elsewhere, of advertising that they are about to raise large funds to take care of the unemployed, for the same reasons as stated with reference to the announcement of large public appropriations. D. Adequate preparation should be made to take care of such homeless men as may properly claim Chicago as their residence. This may mean planning to enlarge the municipal lodging house facilities, both as to sleeping quarters and to food. It also means proper equipment of men with training^ in social work to deal fittingly with each applicant according to his peculiar needs, physical, mental, moral, and economic. By all means a work test should be applied. This can be in the form of labor on the streets or odd jobs in public institutions, so many hours a day for so many days' accommodation at the municipal lodging house. Such adequate facilities to care for this class means suppression of beggary all over the city, prevention of clogging of the machinery of private agencies who have all they can do to look after resident poor families, and prevention of depredations of all kinds by men grown desperate on account of their condition. 68 E. Let the churches, the smaller relief societies and the specialized chanties throughout the city continue to function in their usual way with the unfortunates who properly are their charges, rather than deliberately dump- ing them upon the general relief agencies, as they are tempted to do in an emergency like the present. Let each continue to do its proper part of the task confronting us all and the task will be properly done. II.— AS TO UNEMPLOYMENT MEASURES. A. Bring home to all private employers of labor their patriotic and humane duty to keep on the payroll all their workers as long as possible into the winter season, or if they must curtail, then to put all or most of the men on part time, giving them at least a subsistence income for themselves and families. If some men must actually be cut from the payroll, employers could in many instances provide sufficient relief to the genuinely needy ones among them. Furthermore, some employers might find it possible at this time to make some much needed improvements in or about their plants, such as painting, cleaning, repairing, clearing and beautifying grounds, thus absorb- ing some of their_ men who otherwise would be idle. All such measures will mean the conserving of efficiency and physical well-being of employes for the time of returning prosperity. B. Study existing public employment agencies to see if they are func- tioning efficiently at a time like this and if found not to be, see if they can be strengthened. If for any reason this is impossible, then establish on a basis that is in accord with the best expert opinion available a supplementary public agency that will be capable of doing the work of bringing as many men as possible who are out of employment in touch with whatever jobs are actually available, whether in the city or outside of it. The Wisconsin system suggests the method. C. Encourage the women citizens of Chicago who are householders to undertake at this time as much cleaning, whitewashing around the house and improvements of yards and lawns as possible and call upon the charity offices, state employment offices and the municipal lodging house for men to do the odd jobs. Many men could be tided over short periods in this way. D. Let Public Departments arrange, as far as is possible, to continue work now in progress to a more distant date than is usually done, rather than merely follow precedent as to the time of cessation of such work. This will mean continuing hundreds of men on an independent footing, conserving manhood, and keep them away possibly altogether from charity offices. E. Let Public Departments begin now on needed public works or im- provements in order to absorb some of the unemployed, rather than post- poning them to a future date. The precautions necessary are these: 1. — Be sure that these public works are of a sort that will be of permanent value to the community. 2. — Let the work be for citizens of Chicago primarily and advertise this fact widely and emphatically or men will flock in' from all points of the com- pass again and so clog the machinery as to cause defeat of the very purpose for which the emergency work is being undertaken. 3. — Let the pay of the men be at standard rates for the various kinds of work done. 4. — Let the ability of the man to do the job available be the first consid- eration in employing him — not his need of an income. This can be the second consideration. If two men of equal ability are applying for a specified job, then, of course, take the Chicago man who has a family dependent upon him. All of these precautions experience has shown, are of first rate importance. If ignored unfortunate results of several sorts are bound to follow. All of which is respectfully submitted. Very truly yours, EUGENE T. LIES, General Superintendent. 69 DATE DUE GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. Cornell University Library HD 5726.C4A5 Report to the mayor and aldermen, 3 1924 002 405 417 ;9-.S