standards. Nor can it be justified upon the grounds that it will not affect industrial standards, since it involves comparatively few individuals.

From the experience of agencies which have attempted at a time of industrial depression to deal with unemployment and its hand-maiden, underpayment, certain conclusions may be reached. Central relief funds and the central registration of the unemployed involve great dangers. Where central relief and registration have been attempted numerous applications have made case work impossible, and the result has been indiscriminate relief. Bundle days, bread lines, and soup kitchens should be discouraged, since they tend to distract public attention from more fundamental considerations and are likely to do more harm than good. The unemployed should be carefully distinguished from the unemployable. This is necessary for a correct analysis of the problem, as well as in order to insure proper treatment.

All agencies engaged in relief work should use the registration bureau. Registration with a reliable employment bureau should be insisted upon as a condition to the granting of relief. Made work is as likely to have a demoralizing effect as is relief. To employ a man in moving a sand pile from one place to another is surely more demoralizing than to give relief outright. Relief employment should approximate employment under normal conditions, with regard to the utility of the work done, and should be organized under the direction of agencies accustomed to deal with similar problems. The unemployed man must be stimulated to be constantly on the lookout for other work, and for this reason relief work should not be given on a full time basis. It is unwise ordinarily to provide work for women who are not usually employed instead of for their jobless husbands, but the unemployed man should be expected to do the things he can do in his own home. Employment is the only adequate remedy for unemployment. Relief may lessen suffering but is no solution of the problem. The family agency in meeting its responsibility during a time of industrial readjustment must continually urge the necessity for making every effort to promote real work.

In view of the factors involved it is not surprising that some family agencies have refused during the period of industrial stress to accept responsibility for dealing with the unemployed, the underpaid, and the striker. Nor is it surprising that some of the agencies which have attempted to deal with such applications have been criticized on the grounds that their policies have tended to undermine industrial standards. The difficulty which the family agency encounters in the effort to adopt policies which will not undermine industrial standards arises out of the fact, already indicated, is impossible to deal on a case work basis with factors which are essentially

The public at the time of industrial readjustment may insist that no crisis exists. The fear that unwise action may follow should not deter the family agency from the effort to arouse the community to a realization of facts. The ostrich policy of burying the head in the sand must be avoided at all cost. The feeling that nothing constructive can be done to meet the situation should be combated in every possible way. The American Association for Labor Legislation will supply material which can be used effectively in showing that constructive measures for dealing with unemployment on a long time basis are not only possible but entirely practicable.

The view often expressed that there is no real unemployment, but that those out of work are either on strike or refuse to work at a fair wage should be met by a plain statement of the facts. Fluctuations in prices at a time of industrial readjustment result in misinformation and uncertainty regarding the cost of living. The publication of periodic statements showing clearly the facts about the cost of living is a constructive service which the family agency can render in the interest of a living wage. The family agency should continually bear witness to the importance of regular employment and to the demoralizing effect of unemployment on the worker and his family.

Immigration is a factor in the industrial situation upon which the family agency may throw light. The unskilled Italian workers living in the north end of Boston were the group hit first and hit hardest by the present industrial depression. Yet before the new immigration law became effective shipload after shipload of their countrymen arrived to swell the number of unemployed. If the facts about the labor market were available through the operation of an adequate national employment service the flow of immigrants might be regulated, at least to some extent, upon the basis of the demand for labor. This might be done on the present percentage basis by vesting in some administrative body the authority to increase or decrease the percentage within prescribed limits according to existing industrial conditions. In this way a logical relationship would be established between immigration and the possibilities for the industrial assimilation of the new arrivals.

The family agencies at a time of industrial depression must point out the need for additional facilities for the vocational training of young people who are unemployed and who will become either more efficient industrially or less so according to whether or not the opportunity and incentive for vocational training are provided.

The family agency should know something of economics. It should be able to show, not only how subnormal industrial standards affect family life, but how decrease in purchasing power tends constantly to widen the circle of depression.

The spirit of family social work is expressed by the axiom, "For every wrong there is a remedy." Unemployment, underpayment, and strikes are wrongs which have a pernicious effect upon family life. The family agency is justified in demanding action on the part of the community which will prevent industrial standards from falling below the point necessary for normal family life and for the development of individual powers. It can best perform its function by maintaining its own standards, by squaring its policies with the industrial situation, and by interpreting the facts of its everyday experience in such a way as to arouse the community to for dealing on a long time constructive basis with the industrial and econ presented by industrial readjustment.

PROBLEMS

WOMEN'S WORK AND WAGES: THE WOMEN'S BUREAU AND
STANDARDS OF WOMEN'S WORK

Mary Anderson, Director, Women's Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington

The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor was created as a war service. It was found from its work during the war and the demand made for the kind of service it rendered that it would be expedient to make this war service a permanent bureau, and on June 5, 1920, just a little over a year ago, Congress passed the bill making this bureau permanent. As the Department of Labor is the youngest department in the government, so too is the Women's Bureau the youngest bureau in the Department of Labor. As the industrial workers grew stronger and stronger, a more insistent demand for a department of labor was made until finally it was created. And so it was with the Women's Bureau-as the women workers entered into industry more and more, there also became an insistent demand that there should be created in the government a bureau concerned with the problems peculiar to women in industry.

The function of the Women's Bureau is twofold: first, to develop policies and standards which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment; second, to investigate and report upon matters pertaining to the welfare of women in industry and publish the results of these investigations.

While the Women's Bureau is charged with these responsibilities, the federal government has no legal power to enforce any regulation. That is left entirely to the several states. Practically speaking, the entire enforcement of the regulations or laws pertaining to wages and conditions of work for women in industry is in the hands of the various state departments of labor. Therefore, the enunciation of standards and policies by the Women's Bureau is a guide rather than a law, and serves also as a guide toward uniformity in legislation in the several states. No two states out of the fortyeight have uniformity in legislation. Eight states have the eight-hour day, but this eight-hour-day legislation does not mean that all the women in these eight states are working eight hours according facturing establishments in one restaurants and hotels in anoth have been who have piloted this Often they have been obliged to com their ideal, but have only done the best The pointing out of the inadequacy and the states are legi can best be done by a la have no adequat etting this all-arou advisory and poll tivities the Wom 285

It may mean that the laws cover only manutile establishments in another state, and pends upon how fortunate those the various legislative h

definite standards for women in industry. It advocates the eight-hour day as the longest day women can work and maintain their health. The eight-hour day is becoming more and more a uniform working day. Both the past President of the United States and the present President have announced in public speeches and otherwise that they believe in the eight-hour day for women workers. The platforms of the two major parties have also announced themselves in favor of the eight-hour day. A great many corporations have instituted the eight-hour day because efficiency is found to be greater in the shorter workday, and the labor turnover less. The Women's Bureau advocates equal pay for equal work regardless of sex. We feel that wages should be based upon the job, and that women should not be paid less simply because they are women. We are also advocating certain minimum working standards such as adequate lighting, both daylight and artificial light, and that lights should be placed in such a way that they will not be injurious to the eyes. Women should not work in extreme heat nor in extreme cold. There should be sufficient ventilation. There is nothing so fatiguing and therefore so injurious to a person's health as bad air. We advocate thorough cleanliness in the workrooms and safety devices on dangerous machinery, so as to get closer to the time when we shall have the minimum amount of injury in the industrial occupations. The industries of the country are taking a frightful toll both in human life and in accidents that incapacitate the workers. Greater responsibility and greater attention should be given to safety from accidents.

The standards thus formulated cover conditions only in a general way, but they are the fundamentals which apply to all industries and all occupations. More searching evidence and more minute details will have to be produced to meet special cases and peculiar conditions, but the fundamental standards necessary to insure health and efficiency should not be altered.

The Women's Bureau makes special investigations in the industries where women are working so as to get facts upon which to base conclusions, and also to give information to the people of the country in order that just and equitable standards can be had, based upon real facts. Studies are important. It was only after a caful study of a large number of cases of lead poisoning among men and women period of time which produced the evidence which established the f ing is more injurious to women than it is to men. It may result in of their children being born dead or in more of their babies dying of their lives. Because of this knowledge, in some states laws prohibiting women's employment in occupations where the danger o poisoning is very great. Women are working in many other occu they are exposed to poisonous fumes and dust, but no evidence is yet show to what extent these elements are pa such evidence there can be no just and w places. In this present day we are hea equal opportunities with men in all occup legislation should be passed for women alo that say that women belong in the home occupations. Neither one of these opinions 1 on facts. I think that any one of the expone presentation of the case for better protection o study of the effect on their health and that of th

g hours, low wages, and improper working conditions, all militate against a strong, Ithy womanhood. The working women themselves as well as the employers are going to be content with a sentimental or idealistic appeal that is not based upon ts, and if the facts are presented strongly and clearly, I am sure that action will be 1. But facts must be collected and must be presented in a fair and impartial way. e field is open and there is crying need for a more scientific application of health exts as well as for more industrial engineers. The social organizations and social rkers come in contact with the industrial problems in their work, and there should much more available information than we now have for this most important work. Social workers should at all times inform themselves on the industrial question. ey come in contact with it in the different communities. Low wages and long hours ɔduce poverty and distress, and it is this end of the problem that faces the social rkers when they go out on relief cases. It is very important that the social workers ould inform themselves and have information at their disposal in regard to the ndamentals of the industrial life of the nation. They cannot possibly deal adeiately with the situation unless they know what is wrong in the nation's life that oduces poverty and disease. Unless we know the fundamental reasons for this tuation the work is only half done.

The biggest question today and the most important is the industrial question, ad all citizens of this country should interest themselves to know and understand ie problems so that we may have a just, fair, and lasting solution. The Women's ureau is trying to do what it can in this field, but is handicapped both from newness f its creation and from lack of sufficient appropriation to make larger and more cientific studies.

Ellen Nathalie Matthews, Director, Industrial Division, Federal
Children's Bureau, Washington

robably no industry has

in which it is can

The industry m

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reater influence upon the future of the children of the than mining. By the very physical circumstances limits narrowly opportunities both for indusbliged to live within its environment, and the growing child. Until recently little mining town. Living for the most my branch of organized social work, surprising that this should have eral awakening of interest in the the eyes of a few to the unique open to the miner's child.

two field studies of the condimmunities, and it has seemed significant facts which have