Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 141, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1918 — Safeguarding American War-Workers [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Safeguarding American War-Workers

Great Britain, Early in Conflict, Learned the Importance of Maintaining Former Labor Standards

(From Women of the National Council of Defense.) IN VIEW of the urgent necessity for prompt increase in the volume of production of nearly every article required the conduct of the ilance is demanded of all those in any way associated with industry lest the safeguards with which the people of this country hqye sought to protect labor should be unwisely and unnecessarily broken down.” This sentence sounds the keynote of the industrial policy of the two great divisions of the United States army—today placing numberless contracts of fabulous size and value — the ordnance department and the quartermaster’s department. In “General Orders No. 13,” from which tills sentence is quoted, issued "not long ago by the ordnance department and later adopted by the quartermaster general, are set forth in some detail the principles of this policy, and in no uncertain words the reason for its existence. “It is a fair assumption,” it goes on to say, “that for the most part these safeguards are the mechanisms of efficiency. Industrial history proves that reasonable hours, fair working conditions, and a proper wage scale are essential to high production.” Enlightened patriotism, in other words, demands not that the workers shall work long hours at top speed for the least possible wages, but that for the sake of output they shall make a steady reasonable expenditure of strength for a reasonable length of time under proper conditions. We have long heard these things demanded for the good of workers, but now a new partnership has been formed. Efficiency and humanity go hand in hand.From the time of our entrance into the war, the importance of conserving labor standards has been emphasized and re-emphasized by important officials in the government. The president himself, in welcoming at the White House the British labor commission which visited this country last spring, said that “nothing would be more deplorable” than “to set aside even temporarily the laws which have safeguarded the standards of labor and of life,” when we are fighting in,a cause which “means the lifting of the standards of life.” Secretary Baker, as chairman of the council of defense in April of last year, stated in a letter addressed to the governors of the states a resolution passed by the council, “That the council of national defense urge upon the legislatures of the states, as well as all administrative agencies charged with the enforcement of labor and health laws, the great duty of maintaining the existing safeguards as to the health and welfare of workers, and that no departure from such present standards in state laws or state rulings affecting labor should be taken without the declaration of the council of natlonal defense that such a departure Is essential for the effective pursuit of the national defense.” The council has since strong-, ly reaffirmed this stand, and the woman's committee Of the council has taken, as its official standards for the employment of women, the standards

issued' by the ordnance department as part of General Orders No. 13. The departments of women in industry of the woman’s committee throughout the country are doing and will do all in their power to put this Indorsement into practical effect, with the co-opera-tion of the? department of women in industry of the woman’s committee at Washington. What are these standards, and why are standards for working women of such prime importance to the nation at this time? Proper conditions of woman’s labor have always been of peculiar importance to the state. In peace times the United States Supreme court held that, for the sake of future generations, it was constitutional to limit the working hours of women to eight hours a day. Today in wartime limitation of hours it is important for an additional reason. Modern warfare is not fought in the trenches alone. The army at the front is helpless if the second line 04 defense, the army in factories, is not able to keep up production of supplies. In emphasizing the necessity of rigid enforcement of existing legal standards, and urging that “even where the law permits a nine or ten-hour day, effort should be made to restrict the work of women to eight hours,” the ordnance department has in mind primarily the output of munitions. In urging the prohibition of night work, they state that “English investigators have found that nlght«work for women involves proportionately larger costs for supervision and protection.” The human cost of night work has long been known to ■ social investigators. A world war has brought out its pecuniary extravagance. The Saturday half holiday—“an absolute essential for women under all conditions” —adequate meal and rest periods, and one day’s rest in seven, also find place in this government list of industrial standards. Even with the best will in the world, and despitethe most ardent spirit of sacrifice, human beings cannot do continuous work without losing their efficiency. The English workers, who tolled such long hours at the beginning of the war, did so willingly for the sake of their soldiers. In the words of J. H. Thomas, member of the British labor commission to this country: “We got reports of our lads being mowed down, unable to defend themselves, simply like rabbits In a hole, being mowed down all for want of munitions. You can quite understand that public sentiment was that we had to give them some protection, and our men arid our women were working 14, 16, 19 and all manner of hours, 120 hours a week, not so much because they were compelled, don’t get that into your heads, but because the very circumstances, the moral Influence of doing something for these gallant lads to give them a chance compelled us all to forget hours and everything else. “Now, as the war went on the sickness rtturns showed an alarming increase. /The general health of the peo-

ple was going down. * Holidays you must remember were abandoned and the strain was beginning to be felt. The government set up a committee composed of employers, trade union representatives and government officials, an Impartial tribunal. They I came to the unanimous decision that! long hours and Sunday labor were dis-1 astrous, not only to the health of thei men and women, but to the efficiency! of the service and they were unanimous in condemning long hours. Andi we say without hesitation, having regard to that experience, that it is uneconomical, ft is unwise and it is bad, management to work men or women, abnormally long hours because it does< not pay in the end.” Proper regulation of hours alone,, however, will not solve the problem. The ordriance department knows that it will not help production to limit hours if the men and women who work these hours are not secured in th®' fundamental necessities of life —if they are hungry, poorly clothed and improperly housed. Therefore, it is urged that, standards of wages “already established in. the industry and' in the locality should not be lowered,”' “that minimum wage rates bear a constant relation to Increases in the cost of living,” and that, in the case of replacement of men by women, there should be equal pay for equal work. In justice to our soldiers at the front, the standards of the jobs they have left behind must not be lowered by these new recruits, who will, in increasing numbers, take their'places in the industrial army. British official estimates state that since the war began, some 1,400,000 women have directly replaced men, and some 600,000 are employed directly on munitions. The replacement of men by women has, comparatively, not been extensive In the United States as yet. But day by day we hear of new occupations entered, and old ones extended. Women are the reserve labor power of the nation, and, if the war goes on, will inevitably be called into Industry in greater and greater numbers. Increasing demands will be made upon them, unwise sacrifices will without doubt be demanded, short-sighted attempts will be made to break down labor laws. But because. In the light of England’s experience, and of our own best industrial practice, we know that exhausted workers mean decreased production—arid because in the case of women workers, they mean, too, a deterioration of the race, the people of the country must be cn guard with that “vigilance” demanded by Its chief of ordnance “lest the safeguards with which the people of our country have sought to protect labor should be unwisely and unnecessarily broken down.”