le and feasible, the of this serious

te to assist in t

UNEMPLOYMENT AND ITS TREATMENT-REMENYI

309

adjust his person into the ethical structure of America. His assimilation has stered by economic and social experiences favorable to his disposition.

ld be to of various nationalities, in groups or singly. My activities in the past kept me

thin the past seven months I have talked with about three thousand immi

de for dealing the war with that of the present. His value, while the war lasted, was determation regia by the usefulness he represented as a contributor to the contingent of the army, by occupation unition worker or employee of other industrial plants connected with war work, reted from tubscriber to liberty bonds, and as one who donated to the Red Cross and War of the most. The moral-self of the immigrant found or expected support and verification

tant touch with them. Thus I am able to compare the status of the immigrant

on and dis war activities in lofty principles, such as saving the world for democracy, or to few exceptinstrumental in establishing the independence of his native country.

ld attain at He felt that he was important. A conviction developed in him of being necessary is important the life of America. The immigrant-Punchinello liked to imagine that he could community we without someone pulling the strings. Captains of industry set value upon him, ployment aple spoke and newspapers wrote about him, he was suspected of being dangerous, Second, the he was also praised as being desirable. Whether he was denounced or praised, he mployments in the limelight, because he was considered necessary. In fact, scores of immibe eased ants confided to me that their interest in America, their desire to attend night school be usedter a heavy day's toil, their intentions to be acquainted with American history, to nce or handerstand the essentials of American politics otherwise than as imposed upon them mation kay ward leaders or their henchmen-that is, their eagerness to see the soul of America -was a reciprocal outcome of their consciousness of being important from an Ameriollection can angle. "Being important, I have to live up to it," was one of the most concise cienty statements I obtained. sary. Is

When the war ended, all of a sudden the immigrant's glory of importance vansiness:ished. With the increase of unemployment, his restlessness gradually grew. He entit began to sense the veil of pre-war obscurity. Theoretical references to the transitory period of reconstruction appealed to him as a vague encouragement. Actual conditions shaped his judgment, and the slice cut from his savings account to keep on living made him inclined to believe that the present situation needs a speedy operation to be performed by a business surgeon. His fear of pre-war times, of losing a job, is now multiplied by the trembling anxiety of not obtaining work in the near future. For some time he took cognizance of the often repeated statement that the restoration of normalcy must find its way, but with the increase of unemployment his docile patience and desire to understand present difficulties began to weaken. Although he may not know very much about Samuel Gompers as a labor leader, he would rather trust in his statement that five million persons are out of employment in the United States, than the report of the Labor Department that the number of unemployed has not yet reached the figure of two million. It is easier for him to believe the former statement, as he sees the majority of his friends and neighbors wandering aimlessly around without jobs. He is not panic-stricken as yet, but he is undoubtedly embittered.

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On one hand the contrast between the immigrant's prosperity during the war and his present economic depression, on the other hand his ethical standard heightened by stressing his importance then and the seeming or actual lowering of it now is so prominent, its effects so big, that the immigrant, in measuring his relationship to America, is apt to form an irrational judgment. Now what is the reaction of this state of mind?

The immigrant's mentality harbors grievances, based on real sufferings as well as fictitious chimeras. He is like a person with one molar aching, who imagines all his teeth are aching. Of course, to have one bad tooth is unpleasant enough, and if not treated in time it may infect the others too. The immigrant is bent upon adopting a morbid outlook toward his existence, and consequently toward America, unless we give him an approximately definite time in regard to betterment of industrial conditions. He does not gain by this attitude, but neither does America. Whereas the immigrant adds to the general confusion, and unnecessarily intensifies his calamities, America loses her rather meager hold upon an element which may soon be needed, and which unquestionably possesses valuable physical and mental qualities. To say this element will be needed soon would betray a credulous disposition without a proper foundation for such optimism.

The knowledge of the immigrant's present state of mind gives the clue to decisions and actions on his part, the real significance of which we could not otherwise comprehend. It would be silly to accept that comfortable prejudice as a serious accusation, that anarchism, bolshevism, or any other "ghostism" is the magnetic force to which the immigrant is drawn in his poverty. But he is liable to yield to a feeling, which I may call an awkward metaphysical obsession of his mind, that he is the victim of insidious circumstances. Lacking a sophisticated imagination, he responds with the eagerness and credulence of a primitive person to rumors of a lugubrious nature. For instance, he tenaciously sticks to the belief that the present industrial deadlock is the result of a systematically devised plan directed against the worker whom the necessities of war made all too powerful. As the overwhelming majority of the immigrants are unskilled workers, he feels this action directed especially against them. Without having essential evidence for this belief, in his adversity he gives unhesitating credit to it.

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It would be an exaggeration to state that my experiences make me believe that the average immigrant has reached the limits of his resources. He still has money, because true to the type of the pioneer, he was foresighted and thrifty. That healthy superstition of what the mysterious tomorrow may bring, is the source of his caution. To be explicit, I may say that the crystallization of his materialistic philosophy lies in the keenly developed instinct of self-preservation, which in his terms means that as an immigrant-in other words, as a person who does not feel the ground absolutely secure under his feet-he cannot afford to be extravagant.

As yet the demoralizing influence of unemployment upon the immigrant is of a weightier nature than the actual economic disaster it causes. Naturally, as long as he has some of his savings, no matter how restricted his expenses are, he can endure the economic pressure much easier. But the fear that his financial resources may be exhausted, which is the case with many of his kinsmen, and the waste of energy which would find outlet in work, makes him irritable, cantankerous, and impatient. As the number of those whose savings has been used up is daily increasing, the demoralizing effect of unemployment is growing more extensive. What does he see?

He sees men begging who could not be accused of being professional mendicants. He sees women buying meat and groceries on credit, and hears the threat of stopping it, as the shopkeepers cannot carry them on indefinitely. He witnesses the breaking up of homes, where the husband has left for other towns in search of employment. He meets women going out to clean and wash for others, and thereby being forced to neglect their children. He hears of instances where men committed suicide for being out of employment for months. He encounters people who are unhappy because they are called upon to help their destitute relatives abroad, and are unable to do so. He sees families taking in boarders or doubling up to reduce expenses, which, through the often injurious influence of close proximity, frequently ends in loosening of morals. His mind, being void of cynicism, commences to lose faith in the character of his industrious fellow-men whose unsuccessful hunt for employment reacts in their dissipation, which is manifested in reverting to abominable habits discontinued for years, such as overindulgence in liquor, or beating the vives or children, as if thus wreaking vengeance pon them for the adverse situ hich they find themselves. He knows of n for economic advantages.

of his fellow-workers eloping
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the past, but on a much smaller ppear normal in its undesirableof sufferings even on occasions him for this would be a cheap He seems to display a more f similar intelligence, withs not linked with America

nemployment as it affects ly as possible. Any conIf we do not apply the e average immigrant at a hed almost fatal dimenat Americanization has he immigrant's demo

cratic education is identical with the progress of his political and social culture, which, after all, should be the kernel of Americanization, and for this reason we favor the. immigrant's staying in America, then his present mentality, together with his justified or unjustified restlessness, has to be seriously considered and closely analyzed.

The business side of the issue is that America will need the immigrant in the future. I am convinced that this is not a haphazard prophecy, and of course, I look upon the restriction of immigration as an emergency action.

In the future the problem of Americanization, or to be more exact, the diminishing of the mental gulf between the immigrant and America, will be less difficult, if we convince him, by trying to understand his present situation, that he is not only useful, but esteemed and valued for all his human qualities.

People will come to our shores whose kinsmen here will tell them that America can be liked for her humane principles too; the latter as yet are not entirely discredited, but the danger of it is in sight. It seems to me what the native-born and the immigrant alike needs is this: that in an epoch of new and contradictory economic and moral valuations the only justification of democratic philosophy lies in its practical—that is, its humanitarian application. The admission fee to Americanism, if that means anything, is insight into human nature, inspired by the wish to understand and help wherever that person's cradle may have rocked. To be heedful of this in these critical times of unemployment, and when fate juggles with other similarly important questions, this conception of Americanism may not be called a travesty neither from a rationalistic, nor from an ethical point of view.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE GOVERNMENT EXPERIENCE IN HOUSING

Harlean James, Secretary, American Civic Association, Washington, D.C.

Because of the reluctance of our citizens to see the government embark in business, and because of the further delay in securing congressional action, it was not until March of 1918, almost a year after the United States entered the war, that the Shipping Board was authorized to spend money for housing purposes, and not until July of 1918, after we had been at war nearly sixteen months, and less than four months before the signing of the armistice, that the United States Housing Corporation was permitted to disburse funds. For this reason, the demonstration by the federal government that decent housing of employees is good business was less effective and useful than if houses had been built and occupied during the war work.

By the time that the government did enter the field, it had become apparent that only quantity production of houses would make any impression on the housing shortage in war industrial communities. The original estimates of time required for planning, ordering, and erecting the various classes of housing had to be revised.

Because the government only undertook housing after it had become absolutely impossible for private enterprise, except for a very unreliable and sometimes conflicting authority to secure materials, shipments, and labor, it had no advantage over private enterprise. The government, therefore, was not in a position to make any demonstration in the way of low-cost production of houses.

The United States Housing Company, which had in hand on November 11, 1918, >using for twenty-one thousand families at an estimated cost of nearly $150,000,000, id for nearly twenty-five thousand single men and women at an estimated cost of early $120,000,000, only completed housing for about six thousand families and ac>mmodations for about eight thousand single workers. Some of the dormitories mpleted were never occupied and others were occupied but a short time before ace did away with their need. The housing program of the Shipping Board was duced in like manner at the signing of the armistice.

We now ask ourselves what was accomplished by the building of these governent houses, few of which were actually occupied during the war. Undoubtedly any a man was kept on the job because he saw visible evidence that he would be ovided for, even though he might be sleeping in shifts in a bed occupied by others hile he worked and took his recreation. But this service was psychological and ided with the war.

Counting the lessons learned which hold over into peace times it may be said at the permanent houses were, on the whole, a good example in the neighborhoods here they were built. The government housing, even in its by-product for peace, nnot be said to be wasted effort.

But when we scan the whole field of the present housing shortage, when we analyze causes and recommend remedies, what shall we say of the future? How can the vernment be effective in the present situation? Shall we follow the example of igland and involve our government in an expenditure for housing which Mr. Thomas lams has estimated will reach a net loss of $100,000,000 each year for the next ty years, in order to provide less than half the houses we need now? Shall we bsidize the builders and occupants of cottages by a general tax in a time when high xation is automatically limiting production of houses?

If we believe the policy of subsidizing tenants, home-owners, and builders to be effective and wrong in principle, shall we drift with the tide and allow the housing ortage to multiply social iniquities until finally, in a frenzy of building, we hastily ct thousands of inadequate houses, illy planned, poorly constructed, designed finitely to lower the standard of living already achieved? Or shall we recognize arely that the government has had a hand in producing the housing shortage d should, therefore, take a hand in ending it?

While much of the decline in home building in the years before we entered the r may be traced to increased costs due to expanding opportunities for export of nmodities, the present deadlock has been due in large part to governmental interence with the established channels of investment. From the time when governnt bonds were made exempt from tax and the federal income tax on mortgages was at war levels, the flow of money into building enterprises has been obstructed. iring the war, of course, all building not for war production was first discouraged d then forbidden. The embargo on the manufacture of many articles used in nstruction of houses limited building supplies and in many instances our post-war Jubles with transportation, coal, and labor have led manufacturers to await a more opitious time to resume operations on a pre-war scale.

For the dislocation of credit and the new channels of investment, for the interrupon of physical production of building supplies, and for the arbitrary transfer of labor, e government has been primarily responsible. However justified we may believe