SOLDIER WELFARE
The World War brought to America a new and enlightened discernment of
the Government’s responsibility toward the men whom it had called to
the uniform. In former wars the military hierarchies had, in effect,
regarded the individual soldier as a piece of cannon bait; and when he
was no longer able to serve this purpose, they were done with him. In
the World War the attitude of the Government toward its four million
soldiers was much less impersonal, much more paternalistic. Its first
solicitude was, to be sure, the soldier’s expertness as a soldier, but
after that came a real and helpful regard for his physical, mental,
moral, and economic well-being.
Particularly was this true after the armistice. Before that day the
various welfare activities conducted by the Army and its auxiliaries
had been mainly directed to the end that the soldier might be made
physically and morally fit as a fighter. After the armistice the
undertakings in soldier welfare began looking to the time when the
troops would resume their places in the workaday world once more.
When the fighting stopped, the American Expeditionary Forces faced a
long interval which was bound to elapse before the shipping of the
United States could possibly repatriate the two million Americans in
France. This might easily have been a period of stagnation for the
temporary exiles. Those in command, however, seized the opportunity to
establish within the A. E. F. a vast school system. Wherever American
soldiers were quartered in any numbers, classes were organized and
instruction proceeded, the curriculum including practically the
entire range of subjects taught in the public schools of the United
States, from the three elementary R’s to the Latin and algebra of
the high schools. Those who desired it could receive instruction in
trade and business subjects. As an auxiliary to this system the Young
Men’s Christian Association conducted at its huts courses similar to
those given by that organization in its buildings in this country. A
surprising amount of illiteracy was discovered among the troops raised
in 1917 and 1918, foreign-born soldiers being classed as illiterates if
they could not read and write the English language, even though they
might be proficient in reading and writing their own. It is estimated
that, during this period when the expedition was waiting for the ships
to take it home, 100,000 men of the A. E. F. were taught to read and
write English.
The public school system of the A. E. F., to call it that, was rounded
out by a great soldiers’ university established after the armistice
at Beaune. In the ranks of the expedition were thousands of young
men who, in order to join the Army, had interrupted their studies in
colleges and other institutions of higher education in America. For
these and for others to whom it was practicable to give such training,
the General Headquarters of the expedition organized the A. E. F.
University, occupying French army barracks, schools, and other public
and private buildings at the town of Beaune. A large faculty was
recruited almost entirely from the men in uniform, although a few
college professors came from the United States to assist in the work.
The faculty organized a curriculum which in scope would do credit
to any large university in the United States. About 10,000 soldiers
registered as students. Distinctions of rank ended at the classroom
doors, and it was not uncommon to see private soldiers conducting
classes in which sat officers of as high rank as lieutenant colonel.
The university’s brief career ended with the advent of the summer of
1919. Colonel Ira L. Reeves was president of the university.
Besides these educational advantages, the A. E. F. arranged for
scholarships for some of its men at various French and English
universities. Practically every university in France, including the
Sorbonne, admitted designated A. E. F. soldiers to its classes during
that winter and spring, as did also Oxford and other famous educational
institutions in England. Brigadier General Robert I. Rees was in charge
of all educational activities of the A. E. F.
Yet it was not all study and work and no play for the men of the
A. E. F. during the waiting time after the armistice. Athletics were
organized on a tremendous scale. Near Paris the expedition established
a great athletic field, called the Pershing Stadium. There, in the
spring of 1919, were held the military athletic championship contests,
to which the British, French, and other armies of the Allies sent
their competing teams. Military drilling after the armistice became
competitive in spirit, and out of such competition came the crack drill
regiment of the Third Army Corps, known as “Pershing’s Own Regiment,”
which paraded with the First Division in New York and Washington in
September, 1919. The drill regiment was organized and trained by
Colonel Conrad S. Babcock. Nearly every division in France conducted
a horse show after the armistice. The expedition numbered among its
members men of high talent in almost all callings, including that
of the stage. At Tours the A. E. F. organized an expert theatrical
producing company, the performances of which equaled in merit the
productions seen on the American stage. This central troupe also
conducted a training school for amateur actors of the expedition.
The various areas in which the American soldiers were concentrated
sent their local Thespians to Tours for training, after which they
returned to their stations to organize and produce plays. It was a
small community indeed which did not have its theatrical performances
at regular intervals. The taste of producers and audiences alike ran
strongly to musical comedies.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
COLONEL IRA L. REEVES, PRESIDENT OF BEAUNE UNIVERSITY]
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
STUDENTS AT BEAUNE UNIVERSITY]
There was nothing which contributed more to the welfare of the men of
the American Expeditionary Forces, or to their spirit and morale, than
the _Stars and Stripes_, the service newspaper of the A. E. F. This
unique adjunct to a modern army originated in the ranks, was written,
edited, and published by men from the ranks, and to the end of its
famous existence was primarily and always the organ of the enlisted
man, with the enlisted man’s point of view. No other army in Europe
possessed an expeditionary newspaper, but it is unlikely that any great
American army of the future will ever be without one. The value of the
_Stars and Stripes_ was beyond dispute.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
ART STUDENTS IN A. E. F. TRAINING CENTER, PARIS]
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
A. E. F. STUDENTS IN UNIVERSITY OF LYON]
Three men--Private Hudson Hawley, Field Clerk James A. Britt,
and Corporal John T. Winterich--were the founders of the _Stars
and Stripes_. All three had had training in the making of
newspapers--Winterich had been one of the editors of the Springfield
_Republican_. At Neufchâteau one winter night early in 1918 these three
foregathered to descant upon the growing American Expeditionary Forces
and--like the fraternity of reporters the world over--to talk shop; and
these men agreed that the chief need of the expedition was an agency
which might put the various American military elements in France in
touch with each other, tell every man what the expanding force was like
and what it was trying to do, and build homogeneity and singleness of
purpose within the expedition such as no other agency could evoke--in
short, the A. E. F. needed a newspaper. The idea was communicated to
General Pershing, who promptly approved it. Thus was the _Stars and
Stripes_ officially born.
The first number was published in Paris on February 8, 1918, and
regularly every Friday thereafter the paper appeared until June 13,
1919, when it was discontinued, and the editorial staff joined the
homeward migration. At its summit of popularity the _Stars and Stripes_
attained to a circulation of 526,000, which was close to the permitted
limit of one copy for every three soldiers in the expedition, a
stricture made necessary by the shortage of paper in Europe. This was
all paid circulation, obtained without direct solicitation other than
the advertising appearing in the paper itself. The _Stars and Stripes_
was printed in the Paris plant of the London _Daily Mail_. The total
net profit earned by the newspaper was about $700,000, a sum which went
to the credit of the Quartermaster Department. After the armistice
the collectors in America awoke to the historical value of this
publication and offered large sums for the few complete files which had
been saved.
At about the third issue of the _Stars and Stripes_ Private Harold
W. Ross, who had had an extensive experience as an executive in
newspaper offices of the Pacific coast, became the editor-in-chief.
The three originators of the newspaper were on its staff until the
end. Sergeant Alexander Woollcott, who before and after his army
experience was the dramatic critic of the New York _Times_, became the
battle correspondent of the paper. His accounts of the engagements in
which the American troops appeared were not excelled by those of any
correspondent with the Army. After the armistice Sergeant John W. Rixey
Smith joined the staff. These names all became well known to the men of
the A. E. F. Nor should the two artists, C. LeRoy Baldridge and A. B.
Wallgren, both private soldiers, be forgotten. Their work on the _Stars
and Stripes_ resulted in fame and fortune for both of them. The latter,
as “Wally,” made himself, with his whimsical nonsense, about the most
popular figure in the American Expeditionary Forces. Baldridge was the
possessor of a delicate and subtle talent. Practically unknown in his
own country before the war, he returned after it to take his place
among the foremost American illustrators.
These and other men connected with the publication were formally
organized as a unit of the A. E. F., bearing the name 1st Censor and
Press Company. The officers in charge were Major Mark Watson and
Captain Stephen T. Early, both of them experienced in newspaper work.
The military authorities granted an extraordinary editorial freedom
to the _Stars and Stripes_. At one time the paper was making a
satirical onslaught against the army practice of fencing off the rank
and file from the more desirable cafés and other gathering places
with the placard “Officers Only.” A high general of the expedition
took umbrage at this campaign and sent to the publication office a
peremptory order for the attack to cease. The editorial staff at once
appealed to General Pershing, who replied with a written order that
there was to be no interference with the editorial direction of the
_Stars and Stripes_. With such a charter the _Stars and Stripes_
threw itself whole-heartedly into various projects for the good of
the A. E. F. and its _personnel_. Its chief military contribution was
its “Berlin or Bust” campaign, undertaken in the summer and autumn of
1918. In this it directed its energies chiefly to the improvement of
the unloading efficiency at the American ports in France. By citing
publicly the labor units which made good records in the unloading of
vessels, the newspaper created, among the stevedore troops, a spirit
of competition which had a marked effect upon the efficiency of the
ports. The newspaper induced American troop units in France to “adopt”
for one year more than 3,000 orphans of deceased French soldiers, and
many of the units continued their guardianship after they returned to
America. In this campaign the _Stars and Stripes_ raised over 500,000
francs for the care of French war orphans, and most of this money was
contributed by men in the trenches. The newspaper also conducted a
service department in which it answered more than 500,000 enquiries
coming from American soldiers. After the armistice it coöperated in the
expedition’s educational enterprise.
In this volume, however, we are not so much interested in welfare
activities within the Army as we are with those which bore directly
upon the difficult business of demobilizing the troops without shock
to the economic organization of the country. The activities in
soldier welfare directly connected with demobilization were of two
classes--those benefiting the sick and wounded and those helpful to the
able-bodied.
To the officers and enlisted men of the Medical Corps in this country
the armistice meant only an increase of work. Therefore, in common
with the other military departments the _personnel_ of which after the
armistice could see no immediate prospects of discharge, the Medical
Department experienced a sharp drop in corps morale. Many of the
officers and enlisted men attempted to get out at once, and some of
them succeeded, but for the most part they were held in uniform; and
later, when the men realized how badly their services were needed and
what good they were accomplishing, they became contented and worked
with good spirit until the corps could be placed on its permanent peace
footing.
While the Army was expanding, the most noticeable work of the Medical
Corps in this country had been that of examining the men who sought
entrance to the training camps, sorting out the physically fit from
the unfit. The care of military patients did not become a predominant
medical activity in the United States until the late summer of 1918,
when, simultaneously, the A. E. F. began sending home its first
shiploads of wounded men and the influenza epidemic invaded the
training camps. Meanwhile the care of war’s disabled had taken on a new
meaning for the American military medical authorities. In former wars,
as soon as a sick man or a wounded man had gained strength enough to
travel, he was usually furloughed to his home, there to win his own way
back to health if he could. In the summer of 1918 the War Department
adopted the policy of not discharging disabled men from the Service
until they were as nearly rehabilitated physically as medical science
could make them; and even then a patient was not turned adrift, but
might seek the services of other governmental agencies for specialized
treatment and for reëducation that should enable him to take a place
in civilian life at least as useful as the one he had left in order to
join the military service. This policy had a marked effect upon the
layout of the machinery which conducted the demobilization of the Army.
It not only resulted in maintaining the Medical Corps, equipment and
_personnel_, at war strength for many months after the armistice, but
it also set up within the Government great new agencies for carrying
out the Government’s beneficent purposes toward the ex-service men.
On the day of the armistice there were 200,000 patients in the A. E. F.
hospitals in France. It was at once realized that the best interests
of these men demanded their prompt return to the United States; for
nowhere else could they secure the treatment most certain to restore
them to complete health. The Medical Corps at home was ready for them.
For months it had been constructing throughout the United States
a great chain of specialized hospitals in anticipation of a heavy
American casualty list in France.
Many of the 200,000 hospitalized members of the A. E. F. recovered
in time to recross the ocean as members of regular military units,
but more than half of them returned as patients needing more or less
extended treatment in the military hospitals in this country. The
policy in France was to move these men either in ambulances or in
hospital trains from the interior hospitals up to hospitals near
the ports of embarkation. There they were placed aboard the special
hospital ships or given accommodations on the regular transports.
Practically all of them debarked either at New York or at Newport News.
New York could accommodate 24,000 patients at once in its regular and
special debarkation hospitals. The two regular debarkation hospitals
in New York--one located in the Greenhut Building and the other in the
Grand Central Palace--each had beds for over 3,000 patients, and in
addition the Army could call upon thirteen additional hospitals in New
York in an emergency. At Newport News there was a regular and emergency
equipment of 10,000 hospital beds for incoming overseas patients.
Harbor hospital boats and ambulances distributed the patients from
the ships to the debarkation hospitals. There they were classified
according to the sort of treatment they required. There were eighty
interior hospitals which received overseas patients. The policy of
the Army was to send patients whenever practicable to the hospitals
nearest their homes. In the distribution of patients from the ports
to the interior hospitals, the Medical Corps operated four hospital
trains--three out of Hoboken and one out of Newport News--and twenty
unit cars, one of which, attached to a train of regular Pullman or
tourist sleepers, enabled such a train to serve as a moving hospital.
Each of the regular hospital trains was made up of seven hospital
cars, and carried comfortably 141 patients and 31 doctors, nurses, and
orderlies. The unit cars were equipped with diet kitchens, in which
could be cooked food enough for 250 patients. With this equipment
139,000 overseas patients were handled up to the end of the year
1919, and of these, 103,000 entered the country through the port of
New York. On the first anniversary of the armistice thirty-six of the
eighty general hospitals had been closed, an indication of the rate of
convalescence among the military patients.
[Illustration:
_Photo from Engineer Department_
AIR VIEW OF PERSHING STADIUM, PARIS]
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
AMERICAN SOLDIERS AT UNIVERSITY OF GRENOBLE]
In its treatment of patients in the military hospitals, the Medical
Department of the Army went beyond the realm of pure surgery and
medication in order to reconstruct physically and mentally, when
necessary, the men left disabled by the war. To this end it enlarged
its Sanitary Corps to include persons skilled in physical and
occupational reconstruction. The plan permitted the employment by the
Corps of civilian women, who, after putting on the distinctive blue
uniform adopted for them, were known as reconstruction aides. These
women were skilled in two branches of therapy--occupational therapy
(the teaching of new occupations to invalids as a curative measure)
and physiotherapy (including baths of various sorts, massage, heat and
electric treatments, and gymnastics). Most of the general hospitals
were fitted with workshops, gymnasiums, physiotherapy departments, and
educational buildings. An elementary school system was inaugurated
at the general hospitals, and several thousand illiterate patients
were taught to read and write during their convalescence. Organized
recreational activities were conducted at each general hospital
engaging in reconstruction. Outdoor games, setting-up exercises and
other gymnastic exercises, military drills, and organized play of many
sorts vied with concerts, plays, boxing matches, and other amusements
for the interest of the convalescents. One important work of the
physiotherapists was to teach men with amputated limbs how to dress,
feed, and otherwise care for themselves, and how to use the artificial
legs or arms which the Government supplied to them. Nineteen former
training camps were converted into convalescent centers operated by the
Medical Department. To these places the general hospitals sent 50,000
convalescent soldiers to be finally hardened by curative work and
play for their reëntrance into civilian life.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
A. E. F. SOLDIERS AS COMEDIANS]
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
JUDGING COMEDY HORSE AT 4TH ARMY HORSE SHOW]
After patients were finally discharged from the Army and from the
army hospitals, the Government by no means washed its hands of them.
Congress had set up three great new federal agencies looking to the
welfare of the discharged soldier. One of these was the Bureau of
War Risk Insurance, which, in addition to offering low-priced life
insurance policies of the standard sorts to all ex-service men,
determined, granted, and paid the monthly allowances given by the
Government to all Americans disabled by service in the uniform during
the World War. Then, too, Congress had greatly enlarged the function
of the old Public Health Service by making it responsible for the
medical care of all ex-service men discharged from the Army or Navy
and from the military hospitals but still needing attention on account
of disabilities incurred during the war. Finally, Congress established
by law the Federal Board for Vocational Education, an act which outdid
in gratitude and generosity anything which the American Government had
ever before offered to disabled war veterans.
After the Public Health Service began expanding its facilities for the
care of disabled veterans, the Medical Department adopted the policy
of discharging its patients rapidly and turning them over to the
Public Health Service. Not only were those two classes of war victims
requiring extended medical treatment--the mental and nervous cases and
those suffering with tuberculosis--so treated, but men still suffering
from wounds and sometimes requiring major operations and long periods
for convalescence thereafter were released from the Army and committed
to the ministrations of the Public Health Service. The immediate result
of such a transfer was to entitle the disabled soldier to receive
from the Government his disability allowance, which could be paid
only after a man’s discharge from the military service, and it often
allowed him to secure medical care in the vicinity of his own home.
Another important result was that, during 1920, although thousands of
the victims of the war still required constant medical attention,
the Medical Service of the Army rapidly contracted toward its prewar
proportions, with a consequent expansion of the branch of the Public
Health Service which dealt with disabled veterans.
There was not nearly so much tuberculosis in the Army as the medical
authorities had anticipated. In the expectation of a wide prevalence of
the disease resulting from the severity of field conditions in France,
the Medical Corps established nine tuberculosis hospitals in the United
States. Afterwards, although 100,000 of the 4,000,000 men were sent to
hospitals as tuberculosis suspects, the positive diagnosis of pulmonary
tuberculosis was confirmed in less than 15,000 cases. The result was
that at no time did the Army use more than seven of its tuberculosis
hospitals, and after it adopted the policy of discharging tubercular
patients on certificates of disability it maintained only two of these
hospitals. Discontent and homesickness are deterrents to the cure of
tuberculosis, and the Medical Corps generally allowed sufferers from
the disease to continue their own cures at home under instructions or
to enter the hospitals and sanitariums of the Public Health Service
near their own homes.
The other class of disabled ex-service men in need of extended medical
treatment were the nervous and mental cases. Such victims were turned
over to the Public Health Service, and they constituted the largest
class of cases treated by that agency after the armistice.
After a disabled man was discharged from the Service, he automatically
became eligible for vocational rehabilitation under the direction of
the Federal Board for Vocational Education. The only four conditions
were that the man must have been honorably discharged after April 7,
1917, that he must have a disability incurred in, aggravated by, or
traceable to, the military service, that the disability must be, in the
opinion of the Federal Board, an actual vocational handicap to him,
and, lastly, that vocational training was a feasible thing for him. In
other words--to clarify the final condition--the Vocational Board would
not give training to a lunatic or give training of any sort beyond
a man’s mental capabilities. Within these necessary restrictions,
however, there was practically no limit to which the Federal Board
could not go. Most of its beneficiaries, to be sure, received training
in the purely mechanical vocations in shops and factories; but the
Board could and did send men to colleges and even to the postgraduate
schools of universities. The objective of the Board was not only to
overcome by training the man’s physical handicap, but also to carry him
forward in training as long as his progress and his mentality warranted
it. More than one war veteran found that his disability brought to him
educational opportunities which might otherwise never have come his
way. The Board possessed funds to pay not only for tuition, textbooks,
and incidental expenses, but also for the maintenance of the student
and his family, if he had one, while he was in training. According
to the number of persons dependent upon the student, the Board was
authorized to pay for maintenance as much as $150 a month. At first the
disabled men were slow to make application for vocational training;
but, once they understood the advantages which were theirs for the
asking, there was a great rush to avail themselves of the opportunities
thus freely offered by the Government.
The three rehabilitation services, though interdependent in their
operation, were independent of each other in their management and
control. The Public Health Service conducted the physical examinations
on which the War Risk Bureau rated men for their disability allowances.
The War Risk Bureau certified men to the Public Health Service
for medical treatment, and for vocational training to the Federal
Board for Vocational Education. A man could not legally receive his
disability allowance from the War Risk Bureau while receiving a
training maintenance allowance from the Federal Board. While in effect,
therefore, conducting three branches in the single main enterprise of
caring for the men left disabled by the war, the three federal agencies
were independent in their executive managements. This anomalous
arrangement resulted in such distressing delays and stirred up so
much discontent among the ex-service men that in the spring of 1921,
upon the insistence largely of the American Legion, the veterans’ own
organization, the three services were brought together under a single
direction.
The agitation which led to the amalgamation of the three welfare
services undoubtedly created a wide impression that the Government had
neglected the ex-service men. Nothing could have been farther from the
truth. The complaint was not against the generosity of the Government,
but against the method of administering that generosity. It was often
difficult for the ex-service man to obtain the benefits which Congress
had provided for him. The lavishness of the hand of Congress is shown
by the fact that up to the present (June, 1921) its appropriations of
money for ex-service men have amounted in sum to about $800,000,000.
This is more money than the Government provided for veterans of the
Civil War during the first thirty years after the conclusion of that
conflict. The appropriations to date include the money for the physical
and vocational rehabilitation of disabled World War veterans, for death
claims paid by the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, and for allowances
paid by the War Risk Bureau to disabled ex-soldiers, but they do not
include the sixty-dollar bonus paid to all ex-service men in 1919.
This bonus accounted for about $200,000,000 of the Government’s money.
Altogether, therefore, the Government has either paid out or obligated
itself to pay out about one billion dollars for the benefit of men who
served in the American forces during the World War.
So much for the post-armistice care of the wounded and otherwise
disabled. The other principal phase of welfare work for the Army after
the armistice had to do with the able-bodied soldiers; and, concretely,
it meant getting jobs for them. The War Department did not regard a
soldier as completely demobilized until he was once more placed in an
occupation in civilian life. The Department could exercise no authority
over the veteran once he had received his discharge, but it could and
did exercise a friendly solicitude as to his economic future. Therefore
the War Department led a nation-wide movement under the slogan, “Jobs
for Soldiers”--and that meant jobs for approximately 4,000,000 men
thrown suddenly into the labor market just at the time when industry
was going through the critical transition from war to peace.
In demobilizing the men of the Army, the War Department adopted a
policy the diametric opposite of the British policy of discharging
soldiers by trades as they were needed in industry. With our enormous
and varied industry, we had everything in our favor to make a success
of the industrial plan of troop demobilization; but, nevertheless, the
War Department settled upon the questionable policy of discharging
the troops by military units, regardless of the effect such a policy
might have upon general industrial conditions. As it was, the United
States faced an economic crisis in the transition of its war industry,
and to inundate the country with unemployed ex-soldiers was only to
add to the difficulties of those who were trying to bring industry
safely through the readjustment. Later on, the War Department modified
its policy by providing that any soldier who faced unemployment after
discharge might, upon his own request, be held in the service for a
reasonable time while he tried to locate a job for himself in civilian
life, and that, on the other hand, if work were waiting for any man not
yet in line for immediate discharge, such a man might, upon submitting
proper proof that there was a civilian demand for his services, receive
his discharge forthwith. The Department permitted officers to take
thirty-day leaves of absence with pay while they sought work.
There was, of course, danger that the wholesale outpouring of
ex-soldiers upon an industrial field already complaining of a labor
surplus would precipitate a business crisis; yet it seemed certain
that a wise guidance of the internal affairs of the nation could avert
such a calamity. The world was short of almost everything which man
consumes, and it seemed evident that it would take several years of
brisk production in every field to build up the reserves wasted by war
and overtake industrially the demands of the consuming public. It was
evident, in short, that there was plenty of work for all, if business
did not become hysterical in the face of a difficult transition. The
part for the Government to play was to conduct a skillful graduation of
war industry into the pursuits of peace and at the same time to take
the lead with its own agencies in infiltrating the demobilized troops
into the ranks of trade and industry.
Fortunately, for this latter purpose, the Government possessed an
agency at hand--the United States Employment Service, a branch of
the Department of Labor. The war had built up this organization to
great size and usefulness. Its branches covered the United States.
Before the armistice it had been instrumental in staffing some of the
more important war industrial establishments, particularly the new
shipyards and the government powder plants. This agency would have
been competent alone to secure employment for all discharged soldiers,
but for the circumstance that, in the spring of 1919, there came into
office a Congress of a political complexion the opposite to that of the
administration. This Congress at once adopted a program of economy, but
it was a spurious economy to the extent (which was considerable) that
it arbitrarily cut down appropriations needed for important projects.
The United States Employment Service received a scant $5,000,000 with
which to finance the work of securing civilian employment for 4,000,000
men, when twice that sum would not have been overabundant. The result
was that in this final scene of the war the Government was forced to
call upon outside and volunteer aid in the conduct of an essential war
activity.
At this point the semi-governmental Council of National Defense stepped
into the breach. Shorn of most of its purely industrial functions, the
Council of National Defense had become largely an organ consolidating
and directing all volunteer civilian effort in aid of the Government
in its war and demobilization problems. It had built up a field
service covering the entire United States, consisting principally of
the state and local councils of national defense. Meanwhile, with the
expansion of the United States Employment Service restricted by lack
of money, the Secretary of War made plans to use some of the emergency
war funds in the soldier-employment project and called to Washington
Colonel Arthur Woods, the former police commissioner of New York City,
making him an assistant to the Secretary of War in charge of all war
department activities in reëstablishing service men in civil life. The
Director of the Council of National Defense created, in March, 1919,
its emergency committee on employment of soldiers and sailors, with
Colonel Woods as chairman. The membership of the committee linked up
the United States Employment Service and other interested governmental
bodies in an emergency organization for Colonel Woods to command. The
committee also tied in all state and municipal employment agencies,
welfare societies everywhere that were taking part in the solution of
the employment problem, and also the thousands of community councils
of national defense. Thus was evolved in brief time a fairly efficient
employment service of national scope.
The success of the project was beyond question. The so-called
bureaus for discharged soldiers, sailors, and marines were set up in
practically every community in the United States. Since the work was
so largely voluntary work, no strict system of reports was ever put in
force, but the figures from 500 principal American cities and towns
showed that when the year 1919 ended, 1,326,000 discharged service men
had applied to the employment agencies, and more than 927,000 had been
placed in jobs by the organization. A general survey in the autumn of
1919 disclosed only about 20,000 ex-service men out of work.
The men of the A. E. F. came in contact with the Government’s
employment organization before they left foreign soil. The United
States Employment Service sent several representatives to France
soon after the armistice. These advance agents carried cards, which
were distributed to the troops of the expedition as they came to the
embarkation ports in France. With the cards went the Government’s
assurance that it would use every effort to restore every soldier to a
useful place in civil life. Any soldier who desired to avail himself
of these good offices was instructed to fill in a card during his
voyage home, telling his qualifications, what sort of job he desired,
and where he wished to be employed. Hundreds of thousands of these
cards were collected by the federal employment agents at the ports of
debarkation in this country. The cards were sorted and sent to the
proper local employment bureaus throughout the United States. Thousands
of men were engaged for work before they received their discharges. The
fact that jobs were waiting for them undoubtedly helped to avert the
congregating of idle service men in cities after they had been turned
off at the demobilization centers.
The overseas soldier had been serving his country for a dollar a day
while others had stayed at home in bomb-proof jobs and drawn the
highest wages ever paid in America. The returning veteran often felt,
and felt justly, that it was his turn now to reap some of the financial
rewards. Travel had broadened these boys; the harsh experiences of
war had sobered them and often quickened their ambition. Such men
were not content to go back to the jobs they had left in 1917 and
1918. They demanded something better, and often they got it, because
employers were prone to accept their point of view. Events justified
this attitude, too, as was testified to in hundreds of letters received
by the employment bureaus from satisfied employers, who wrote that the
demobilized soldiers were better and more ambitious workmen for their
war experiences.
[Illustration:
_Photo from Federal Board for Vocational Education_
DISABLED VETERANS TAKING FEDERAL TRAINING]
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
EDITORIAL CONFERENCE OF _STARS AND STRIPES_]
The success of the reëmployment campaign was largely an achievement for
publicity. The publicity was directed both to the soldier and to the
employer. For reaching the soldier one of the most valuable devices
proved to be a booklet entitled _Where Do We Go from Here?_, written by
Major William Brown Meloney. This pamphlet was filled with good advice
for the demobilized soldier. It took into account his stirred ambition,
but showed how impossible it was for every man to get the place in
civil life he desired, and therefore urged each man to take what job he
could get and make the most of it. The War Camp Community Service
printed and distributed 3,000,000 copies of this booklet.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
POSTER USED IN REËMPLOYMENT CAMPAIGN]
[Illustration:
_Felix J. Koch Photo_
EMPLOYMENT OFFICE AT CAMP SHERMAN]
The American Red Cross sponsored a poster by Dan Smith, the artist,
bearing to employers the slogan: “Put Fighting Blood in your Business!”
A file of helmeted Yanks obliquely below a shield on which were
inscribed the names of the principal engagements in which the A. E. F.
participated; below that, the lines: “Here’s his record. Does he get a
job?”--such was the display.
Publications of every sort, motion picture theatres, ministers in
their pulpits, and school-teachers in their classrooms joined in the
effort to make the whole United States think of its obligations to the
returning troops. The War Department conferred a so-called citation
upon employers who agreed to take back all of their former employees
who had joined the Army or Navy. The leading business organizations of
the country worked with their members to secure a complete reëmployment
of former service men. The thoroughness of the effort accounts for the
large degree of its success.
At the same time the War Department constituted itself an employment
agency for placing soldiers with technical training in the best
positions that could be obtained for them. Such soldiers were usually
commissioned officers. The Department asked these men to send to
Washington statements of their qualifications and their wishes as to
employment. The Department then circularized some 25,000 business firms
of the United States as to their needs for men with technical training.
By this method about 8,000 men were placed in responsible positions at
good salaries.
The employment organization encountered and overcame an abuse of the
army uniform that was particularly flagrant for the first few months
after the armistice. On the streets of most large cities were men in
uniform, wearing the red chevron indicating their honorable discharge
from the service, selling cheap or worthless articles or begging
outright. There may have been a shadow of excuse for this during the
early weeks of the winter of 1918–1919; but as industry recovered and
revived it became possible for every ex-service man who desired a
respectable job to secure one. Street solicitation, however, was highly
profitable, and many professional beggars and sharpers, who had never
been in the Service at all, secured uniforms and posed as discharged
soldiers. The American Legion instituted a campaign against these men,
urging the public not to give money to them. The reëmployment forces
persuaded local authorities to refuse peddling licenses to men in
uniform. Thus the evil was largely stamped out after a few months.
Not even the assurance of an immediate job and the other official
inducements which made the road home the path of least resistance
could always induce the discharged soldier to go home directly,
particularly if he left the demobilization camp with his pockets full
of money. Around some of the demobilization centers ranged bands of
thieves and outlaws who, having evaded military service, now during the
demobilization wore the army uniform and posed as discharged soldiers
in order to prey upon the ex-service men. If a soldier leaving the camp
listened to their fraternal “Hello, Buddy!” and fell in with them, he
usually later found himself fleeced to his last penny. To offset this
evil the American Red Cross established a chain of soldiers’ banks at
the principal demobilization centers. In these banks the discharged men
could deposit their money, drawing it out by check after they reached
their homes. The deposits in the camp banks passed $4,000,000 in amount.
In one respect only was the reëmployment campaign unsuccessful. The War
Department had hoped to use the demobilization of troops as an offset
to some extent to the steady drift of population from American farms to
the cities. In pursuance of this ambition the Government distributed
among the troops at the demobilization centers nearly 1,000,000 copies
of a booklet entitled _Forward to the Farm! Why Not?_ Yet, although
most country boys in the Army were willing to return to the farms, the
Government could not induce the city dwellers to take up country life.
However, it is noteworthy that in June, 1919, when the Kansas wheat
crop was in danger for want of labor to harvest it, the reëmployment
organization was able to send nearly 50,000 ex-service men into the
Kansas wheat country during the harvest at wages of $5 to $7 a day,
lodging and board thrown in.