In his annual report for the year 1918, the Secretary of Labor declared
that “had the Department of Labor not existed at the beginning of the
war, Congress would have been obliged to create such a department.”
During that year, mainly under the stress of war conditions, the number
of bureaus in this department increased from four to thirteen, and
immense efforts were put forth by it to promote the smooth running
of industrial machinery at home, so that the military forces might
successfully prosecute their great task abroad.
In normal times the chief purpose of the Department is, as stated in
the Act creating it, “to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the
wage-earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions,
and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment.” To
this end the Department collects, digests and publishes statistics
and information concerning labor at home and abroad; supervises the
admission of immigrants into the country and their naturalization; and
aids in the adjustment of disputes between workmen and their employers.
One of the most interesting branches of this Department is known
as the Children’s Bureau. The law provides that this Bureau “shall
investigate and report upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of
children and child life among all classes of our people, and shall
especially investigate the questions of infant mortality, the birth
rate, orphanage, juvenile courts, desertion, dangerous occupations,
accidents and diseases of children, employment, and legislation
affecting children in the several states and territories.” The
Children’s Bureau has been especially identified with efforts to secure
effective laws restricting child labor, and it furnished the machinery
for administering the United States Child-Labor Law which went into
operation September 1, 1917, only to be set aside the following
June, when it was pronounced unconstitutional by the United States
Supreme Court. The Court unanimously agreed, however, that child labor
is an evil, and Federal legislation on this important subject not
inconsistent with the Constitution will doubtless be eventually enacted.
A notable development of the war was the United States Employment
Service. The Department of Labor had previously maintained an
employment service in a small way under the Bureau of Immigration
for the purpose of helping newly-arrived immigrants to find work.
During the war this expanded into a vast organization for mobilizing
the labor resources of the country. About eight hundred public
employment exchanges were opened, and labor was moved from place to
place as required, whether for war industries, for harvesting the
crops, or for other purposes. During the year 1918 nearly two million
wage-earners were placed by this service in positions for which
they were qualified and in which their services were needed. After
the armistice an important branch of the work consisted in finding
positions for discharged soldiers. As a means of recruiting workers
for the industries of the country and helping solve the problem of
unemployment, this service is one of the most promising undertakings
of the Government, but its future depends upon further legislation by
Congress.
During the last year before the war began in Europe the number of
immigrants admitted to the United States was 1,218,480. The laws
relating to immigration and the Chinese-exclusion laws are administered
by a branch of the Department of Labor known as the Bureau of
Immigration. Immigration stations are maintained at the principal
seaports, where physical, mental and moral defectives, as well as
persons likely to become public charges or afflicted with contagious
diseases, polygamists, anarchists, contract laborers and Chinese are
eliminated. The most important immigration station is at Ellis Island,
in New York Harbor.
The Bureau of Naturalization, besides supervising the work of the
courts in naturalizing aliens, is in charge of an extensive campaign of
educating and Americanizing prospective citizens.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 7, No. 11, SERIAL No. 183
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
[Illustration: EQUIPMENT OF A POSTAL MOTOR TRUCK ROUTE]
_THE STORY OF UNCLE SAM_
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