dustries were obliged to add thousands and tens of thousands to their armies of wageworkers. These additional workers had to be drawn from all parts of the country, and to be provided with homes near their places of work. That was the emergency. How it was met is told in detail in the reports of the Department of Labor for 1918 and

1919.31

The initial expenses were paid out of emergency war-funds which Congress had placed at the disposal of the President. But definite authority from Congress was early granted to the President to provide housing for war needs through such agencies as he might direct, and pursuant to this authorization the President placed the work under the direction of the Secretary of Labor. In order to facilitate promotion of the gigantic enterprise the Secretary of Labor organized a corporation under the laws of the State of New York. This was necessary for two principal reasons.

If all the details of the work had been done by or under the direction of the Secretary in his official capacity, the current income from rents, etc., would have gone directly into the Treasury as received and could have been paid out only upon congressional appropriation. There would, therefore, have been no current income out of which to meet current expenses in a businesslike way. This embarrassment was obviated by incorporating a business establishment which, resting upon congressional appropriations for working capital, could use its current receipts for current expenses and pay over into the Federal Treasury from time to time such profits as might be realized.

The other principal reasons for incorporating lay in the fact that these housing operations, if managed as an enterprise for the Federal Government (which is not subject to local taxation), would be dependent upon the public utilities of the localities in which the operations were carried on, yet with no pecuniary responsibility for a just share in the maintenance of those utilities the cost of which its operations would have greatly enhanced. Counsel for the Housing Bureau advised that a corporation owning and operating the housing properties would be subject to local taxation for local purposes, while the Government would not be, thereby placing the Department in a position where it could properly contribute its share toward maintenance of the utilities which it must use. The United States Housing Corporation was therefore organized. The Secretary was later advised by counsel for the corporation that the corporation itself was but an agency of the Government and was not subject to local taxation. Consequently, the second principal reason for the creation of the corporation was not achieved,

$1 Department Reports of 1918, pp. 132-138; 1919, pp. 187-196.

and later Congress directed that all money collected by the corporation for rentals, lodging, board, salvage, sales, or from other sources should be covered into the Treasury and its operations conducted solely through appropriations.

As the corporation was completely under the control of the Secretary of Labor, to whom its stock was issued and who held the resignations of its officials, expenditures of congressional appropriations were at all times subject to his official direction. The purpose and effect of incorporating was to give business mobility to an undertaking which, though governmental in its objects and capitalization, was a business enterprise in its operative details. There can be no question that in the development of the housing projects the creation of the corporation, which had been authorized by Congress itself, served a useful purpose.

Commission on Living Conditions.

This adjunct to the Housing Service did not come into existence until a few days before the armistice. Its plans for war work were therefore soon altered to adapt them to postwar conditions, and with the close of the fiscal year of its organization it dissolved.32

The Working Conditions Service.

Safety of labor conditions especially in the production of munitions was one of the emergencies of the war. To meet it Congress authorized the Working Conditions Service. It was organized at the beginning of the fiscal year 1919, but, notwithstanding its importance as a peace-time as well as war-time agency, it was allowed by Congress to dissolve with the close of the fiscal year of the armistice. The Department's Annual Reports for 1918 and 1919 show how valuable an adjunct to the Department of Labor this service was while it lasted.33

Division of Negro Economics.

Early in the war-even before our country entered it—a stream of Negro migration from the Southern States caused much concern with reference to the planting and harvesting of crops in that region. The attention of this Department had been called to the movement in June, 1916, when it appeared that employers at the North, chiefly railway corporations, were inducing an exodus in aid of their labor supply which had fallen off enormously. Some of this Negro migration northward had been effected through agencies of the United States Employment Service already established in the Department. Upon being informed of the circumstances the Department's facili

32 Department Reports of 1919, pp. 196-198.

33 Department Reports of 1918, pp. 138-140; 1919, 198-204, 1057-1089. The late Grant Hamilton was director general of this service.

ties were withdrawn from group migration, although they were continued at the service of individual citizens regardless of race. In addition the Department set on foot, in the summer and fall of 1916, an investigation into the causes of the exodus. For that purpose it utilized competent Negro investigators as well as immigration and employment officials. This exodus even then presented an acute phase of labor war-problems. It became more acute upon our entering the war. Great concern was immediately expressed at the probable loss of southern crops through the Negro migration northward. For this reason the Department instituted a further and more systematic investigation. This investigation was supervised by James H. Dillard, of Charlottesville, Va. (formerly a professor and the dean in Tulane University, and at the time of his call to this war service president of the Jeanes and Slater funds for Negro education in the South), who, at the special request of the Secretary of Labor, undertook the work as a volunteer. The report is an illuminating public document.

Later, upon recommendation by the Advisory Council, a Division of Negro Economics was established in the Office of the Secretary for investigating and advising the Secretary with reference to labor problems, both north and south, in which the interests of the 10,000,000 Negro citizens of this country might be involved. The work of that division demonstrated the importance-if not, indeed, the absolute necessity of maintaining this war-emergency agency in the Department of Labor in times of peace, and accordingly Congress was asked to provide for its continuance. The Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives recommended it along with like recommendations regarding the Women's Bureau and the Employment Service, but all three were excluded from the appropriations bill in the House as matter of parliamentary procedure, by one objection; and although the Women's Bureau and the Employment Service appropriations were restored to the bill by the Senate, that body failed to restore the appropriation for the Negro service. This service, however, has been continued by the Secretary as a necessary but temporary postwar service until the 4th of March, 1921. It will then dissolve automatically unless Congress may meanwhile provide for its

continuance.34

War Activities of the Permanent Bureaus.

Bureau of Labor Statistics.-War emergency work in the Department of Labor was not done alone by subdivisions established especially for that purpose. The regular and permanent subdivisions

Department Reports of 1917, pp. 79-81; 1918, pp. 111-115; 1919, pp. 132-135. As director of this division the Secretary appointed Dr. George E. Haynes, a graduate of Yale, a postgraduate of Columbia University, and at the time of his appointment a professor at Fiske University.

also, to the fullest extent of their limited powers, turned the currents of their several activities into war channels. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the oldest bureau of the Department, and, as already explained, the statutory nucleus of the Department itself, was especially serviceable in war time through its gathering and classification of facts bearing upon war-labor necessities and policies.35

36

Bureau of Immigration.-Another of the permanent bureaus of this Department, which engaged in war-emergency work, was the Bureau of Immigration. This bureau had the care of certain interned alien enemies, supervision of maintaining the integrity of the seamen's law under disturbing war conditions,37 and enforcement of passport regulations.38 It was also concerned with employment problems and a variety of other services incidental to war conditions.39

Children's Bureau,-This permanent bureau also had its full share of war responsibilities, its most conspicuous being its "Children's Year Activities." 40

Less conspicuous among its activities was its service with reference to war-risk insurance. When the United States entered the war, this bureau immediately began a study of child welfare in the belligerent countries so far as information could be gathered from official reports and other sources accessible in this country. The welfare of children, evidently of profound importance to warring nations, is seriously menaced both by absence of fathers at the front and hardships incident to civilian life; and in the various countries studied it was found that special war allowances for dependents were made and that Canada, our nearest neighbor, with whom we have many standards of life in common, had developed some new features in an effort to provide adequately for soldiers and their families. Especially unique was the Canadian provision for insuring the lives of soldiers. It was not governmental. Certain municipalities paid premiums for their soldiers, and at least one city insured directly. These examples in Canada appeared so important that it seemed wise to study them at first-hand because of their bearing on a possible governmental insurance for the military forces of the United States, and this country is indebted to S. Herbert Wolfe, an actuary of recognized standing, for his generous services in going to Canada at the request of the Children's Bureau of this Department in April, 1917, and pre

35 Department Reports of 1917. pp. 165-172; 1918, pp. 160-162 and 235-243; 1919, pp. 225-227.

26 Ibid., pp. 103-107 and 175-178; 1918, pp. 172 and 141-143.

37 Department Reports of 1918, pp. 170-172 and 487-497; 1919, pp. 236-237 and 581588.

as Ibid., p. 169; 1919, pp. 235-236.

Department Reports of 1917, pp. 173-178; 1918, pp. 169-177 and 247-258, 470-482, 1919, pp. 235, 330-334.

40 Ibid., p. 425; 1918, pp. 180, 191-194, 567-568, and 573-577; 1919, pp. 255, 724-730.

paring the report on "The Care of Dependents of Enlisted Men in Canada," which was published by the Department of Labor about 60 days after war was declared by the United States. That report shows that Canada had developed certain elements in a system of care for the soldier, including insurance, rehabilitation, and allowances to dependents which should be included in any complete governmental scheme designed to make the economic status of the soldier and his family at home secure. It was seen that the Canadian method could be extended and adapted so as to form a universal governmental provision creating a plan of voluntary insurance and recognizing the right of the soldier to compensation benefits upon a scientific basis analogous to that which the compensation laws for industrial workers had already recognized. A further report, "Governmental Provisions in the United States and Foreign Countries for Members of the Military Forces and their Dependents," was prepared at the special suggestion of the Secretary of Labor by Mr. (then Capt.) Wolfe, who had been detailed for the purpose to the Department of Labor by the Secretary of War. This latter report assembles the data regarding provisions in foreign countries which might be of value in drafting a provision for the United States. To effect its purpose a committee was formed under the committee on labor of the Council of National Defense, and the measure which resulted in the war-risk insurance law was drafted. While many distinguished authorities and specialists contributed to that final action, the preliminary work embodied in the reports mentioned above was a basic contribution.

Bureau of Naturalization.-The war services of this, the youngest permanent bureau of the Department and the only one the creation of which as a bureau was coincident with the creation of the Department, had to do principally with facilitating the naturalization of aliens in the military and naval service of the United States.11

United States Employment Service.

The nucleus for a national employment agency as a war service had been created in the Bureau of Immigration as early as 1907. But in the enactment of the immigration law of that year, recognition of the need for a Federal employment service had not gone further than the desirability of making a wise distribution of aliens. As already explained in this report, however,42 subsequent circumstances dictated the extension of that policy to citizens also. A public employment service having been organized in a limited way in the Bureau of Immigration in 1907, under the direction of the Division

"Department Reports of 1917, pp. 475-477; 1918, pp. 199-200 and 583-584; 1919, pp. 275, 753-754.

42 Ante, pp. 24-25.