Union Labor Bulletin

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR.
Information and Education Service
Educational Division,
Washington.

The Broad Industrial View.
The United States is primarily an industrial nation. While its chief source of wealth is agriculture, the majority of its people derive their living through industry. The great cities of the country are built upon manufacturer and commerce. When the factories close and commerce is stagnant the cities soon show a pinched face. The easy care-free swing of the people passing to and fro disappears, and in its stead the parade ambles in slouchy lines, unkempt, ambitionless, apparently without purpose. Dogged responses replace cheerful greetings; sullen silence chides merry laughter.
The sunlight of nature cannot penetrate the gloom. Men's souls are heavy with the burdens of life. Plans for the future are thrust aside. Selfishness clutches at the heart.
The attitude of mind changes. Men think of themselves and of their own small interests. Confidence is lost. Industry has received a severe blow. It has cliffs to scale to reach its normal level.
Against this attitude of mind, against this poison in the blood of industry, the U. S. Department of Labor raises its voice and bids men to look forward, upward, beyond the scope of their own vision.
The world is passing through the greatest economic change in its history. And in this change the workers of the world have already advanced to a new position. They have taken a place in the constitution of the League of Nations. Their interests and their aims have been recognized by the countries of the world. Never before in the life of this republic have so many agencies been put to work to relieve labor, to tide over economic obstructions that have arisen from the war.
The U. S. Department of Labor has established employment agencies everywhere to unite the job and the job hunter; it has applied its energies to urging the governors of all the states, the mayors of all the cities, and all public spirited organizations in the country to resume the public work that was stopped by the war; it has, after careful scientific surveys of industry, selected building as the basis for restoring the country to its normal pursuits.
The department from its investigations and its understanding of conditions, knows that confidence now is the basis of industry. Busy industry brings happiness to the people.
This country is the richest in the world. Its influence is universal. Its industrial advantages were never so good, for never before has it had the chance of entering the markets of the world through the gateway of sentiment. Its ideals and its purposes in the great war command the gratitude of civilization, and the writing of those ideals and purposes in the constitution of the League of Nations places it at the head of world affairs, political and industrial.
Viewed in its broad aspect, America today occupies the highest points of human progress. The world and all the interests of the world look to her for guidance.
Americans shall rise with their country. They shall burst through the primitive shell of their past vision and look out upon the vast forces that call upon them to release their tremendous industrial powers. But hope must supplant misgiving. Confidence must take the place of doubt.
Americans must know their own industrial capacity as the world knows it, and, knowing, live up to it.
The broad industrial view, supported by the logic of her position, discloses American industry leading the world, her ships weighted with cargo for every land, her people prosperous and her way to progress cleared by the force of her national character.