Mobilizing Woman-Power | Page 7

in gainful occupations are giving a paltry one million,
five hundred thousand in service with our Allies. The situation is not
creditable to us, and one of the things which stands in the way of the
United States reaching a more worthy position is reluctance to see its
women shouldering economic burdens.

[Illustration: They wear the uniforms of the Edinburgh trams and the
New York City subway and trolley guards, with pride and purpose.]
While it is quite true that shifting of man-power is needed, mere
shuffling of the cards, as labor leaders suggest, won't give a bigger pack.
Fifty-two cards it remains, though the Jack may be put into a more
suitable position. The man behind the counter should of course be
moved to a muscular employment, but we must not interpret his
dalliance with tapes and ribbons as proof of a superfluity of men.
The latest reports of the New York State Department of Labor reflect
the meagerness of the supply. Here are some dull figures to prove
it:--comparing the situation with a year ago, we find in a corresponding
month, only one percent more employees this year, with a wage
advance of seventeen percent. Drawing the comparison between this
year and two years ago, there is an advance of "fifteen percent in
employees and fifty-one percent in wages;" and an increase of "thirty
percent in employees and eighty-seven percent in wages," if this year is
compared with the conditions when the world was suffering from
industrial depression. The State employment offices report eight
thousand three hundred and seventy-six requests for workers against
seven thousand, six hundred and fifty applicants for employment, and
of the latter only seventy-three percent were fitted for the grades of
work open to them, and were placed in situations.
The last records of conditions in the Wilkes-Barre coal regions confirm
the fact of labor scarcity. There are one hundred and fifty-two thousand
men and boys at work today in the anthracite fields, twenty-five
thousand less than the number employed in 1916. These miners, owing
to the prod of the highest wages ever received--the skilled man earning
from forty dollars to seventy-five dollars a week--and to appeals to
their patriotism, are individually producing a larger output than ever
before. It is considered that production, with the present labor force, is
at its maximum, and if a yield of coal commensurate with the world's
need is to be attained, at least seventy percent more men must be
supplied.
This is a call for man-power in addition to that suggested by the Fuel

Administrator to the effect that lack of coal is partly lack of cars and
that "back of the transportation shortage lies labor shortage." An order
was sent out by the Director General of Railways, soon after his
appointment, that mechanics from the repair shops of the west were to
be shifted to the east to supply the call for help on the Atlantic border.
Suggestive of the cause of all this shortage, float the service flags of the
mining and railway companies, the hundreds of glowing stars telling
their tale of men gone to the front, and of just so many stars torn from
the standards of the industrial army at home.
The Shipping Board recently called for two hundred and fifty thousand
men to be gradually recruited as a skilled army for work in shipyards.
At the same time the Congress passed an appropriation of fifty million
dollars for building houses to accommodate ship labor. Six months ago
only fifty thousand men were employed in ship-building, today there
are one hundred and forty-five thousand. This rapid drawing of men to
new centers creates a housing problem so huge that it must he met by
the government; and it need hardly be pointed out, shelter can be built
only by human hands.
One state official, prompted no doubt by a wise hostility to coolie labor,
and dread of woman labor, has gone so far as to declare publicly that
any employer who will pay "adequate wages can get all the labor he
requires." This view suggests that we may soon have to adopt the
methods of other belligerents and stop employers by law from stealing
a neighbor's working force. I know of a shipyard with a normal pay-roll
of five hundred hands, which in one year engaged and lost to nearby
munition factories thirteen thousand laborers. Such "shifting," hiding as
it does shortage of manpower, leads to serious loss in our productive
efficiency and should not be allowed to go unchecked.
The manager of one of the New York City street railways met with
complete denial the easy optimism that adequate remuneration will
command a sufficient supply of men. He told me that he had introduced
women at the same wage as male conductors, not