Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 312, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1918 — 3,000,000 Workers To Be Mobilized. To Speed War Contracts [ARTICLE]

3,000,000 Workers To Be Mobilized. To Speed War Contracts

Washington, Jan. 7.—Mobilization of three millibn workers for agriculture, shipbuilding and war contract plants was- efitrxrStSd today to the United States employment service by the department of labor. Tremendous expansion ”of the service is in progress in preparation for recruiting men necessary to carry on the economic work' in support of the military forces in war. Solution of labor shortage problem by this means is confidently proposed by the department and the co-operating labor organizations in answer to suggestions that conscription of labor is necessary. One early result is\ expected to be the placing of 400,000 mechanics in shipbuilding plants to aid in hurrying to completion the merchant marine program.

John B. Densmore, of Montana, labor, .vill be national director of the employment service by appointment of Sec -evury .Vikson. He will have as his assistan: Robert Watson,of Massachusetts, and Charles T. Clayton, of Maryland. Samuel J. Gomper3, of New York, son of the labor leader, will succeed Mr. Watson as the department’s chief clerk. Organization plans of the new service were discribed in an official statement which said: “The United States employment service has been divorced from the bureau of immigration, under whose control it has been since its establishment and made a separate arm of the department. Through the utilization of existing and projected federal, state and municipal employment offices, and the labor supplying facilities of the various state councils of defense, the federal employment service will cover the entire continent with a net work of inter-related labor exchanges. These will ‘recruit’ and transfer workers from one section to another and eliminate the present chaotic situation of a surplus of workers in ope region and a shortage in another. “Supplementing this labor distribution work the expanded federal servicer will create a vast reservoir of labor to meet' the increasing demands of the various industries by means of its two auxiliary bodies, the United States public service reserve and the United States boys’ working reserve. The creation of this labor surplus already is under way.”