The Citizen Republican

The Labor "Tragedy."
From the Kansas City Star.

The man who wants a job and can't find one is one of the big problems of this country. "Problem," of course, doesn't express the situation. "Tragedy would be nearer right.

The country hasn't done much to get rid of this sort of tragedy. But now it is setting itself the task. The beginning of the movement may be seen in the plan of the department of labor to make at least a limited use of postoffices as employment agencies.

The postoffices are the natural labor exchanges of the country. Some day this plan will be worked out extensively and efficiently. After the exchanges are established the jobless man will go to the postoffice to inquire, not for his mail, but for a job. In the same way the employer will go to inquire for the man to fill a position. Competent agents must, of course, be assigned to the employment bureau, who will make intelligent effort to familiarize themselves with the local labor conditions and to conduct the work efficiently.

England established its great system of labor exchanges in 1909. The country is divided into 11 divisions, each under the charge of an inspector, and with every postoffice an employment bureau. All these bureaus keep in touch with a divisional clearing house, so that labor can be intelligently directed where to go within the division, and the divisions themselves work together through the central clearing house in London. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are found each year through these government exchanges.

England has been making tremendous progress in recent years toward bettering the common lot through collective action. The United States is now seeing that it has the same industrial problem to face—the same in kind, if not in degree.