There is still another essential condition. Equipment for farming and education in farming, as well as a place for farming, are needed. All three, however, could be met by an appropriate unification of some of the activities of the Departments of the Interior, of Agriculture, and of Labor. Pursuant to such unification, Congress might provide a “rotary fund" for lending purposes; that is, a fund to be used over and over again for those purposes, and to be maintained by repayments of loans. Out of this fund Congress could authorize the departments named above to make loans, through the Department of Labor, to settlers placed by this Department upon lands set aside for that purpose in accordance with the authorized plan for thus augmenting labor opportunities. Those loans could be safeguarded, without commercial collateral, by resting them upon the best possible basis of industrial credit--ability, opportunity, and character-and by establishing in connection with them a system of community credits adapted to the circumstances.

By their educational processes the Department of the Interior and of Agriculture could make efficient farmers of inexperienced but otherwise competent workers seeking that vocation. By its marketing plans the Department of Agriculture could guard borrowers from the "rotary fund" against commercial misfortune in disposing of their crops. By its labor-distribution functions the Department of Labor could bring the right men to the right places on the soil and settle them there under favorable circumstances. And by their several appropriate functions these three departments, cooperating under appropriate legislation, could multiply demands for labor in rural regions and minimize labor congestion at industrial centers.

It is a reasonable prediction that such a policy would develop in country and city an economically independent and socially progressive population. The results would be analogous in our time to those of the homestead laws at an earlier period.

This subject, growing in importance with succeeding years, attracted general attention toward the close of the war and with reference especially to provision for returning soldiers. Meanwhile, expert investigations resulted in two reports on the subject which this Department has published in pamphlet form. One is entitled "Disposition of the Public Lands of the United States with Particular Reference to Wage-Earning Labor" and the other "Employment and Natural Resources." Further investigation became impossible from lack of appropriations, but those reports lay a firm foundation for legislative action and offer abundant material for general as well as official thought."9

DEPARTMENTAL RECOMMENDATIONS PRIOR TO 1920.

From the period of its organization the Department of Labor has made recommendations to Congress on various subjects related to its functions. Attention may properly be recalled to them at this time and in this place.

Department Reports of 1915, pp. 43-45.

40 Department Reports of 1916, pp. 70-73; 1917, p. 153; 1918, pp. 145-148; 1919, pp. 205-209.

15283-LAB 1920- 4

Interstate Commerce in Private Policemen.

Inasmuch as by the white-slave act, which the courts have sustained, Congress has recognized the principle that interstate commerce is not confined to commodities, the subject of interstate commerce in private policemen, troops, guards, etc., for industrial purposes was presented to Congress in the first annual report of this Department, from which the following quotation on the subject is made:

There would seem to be no reason now why the transportation of private troops, or private police, or armed guards, or armed mobs, whether by employers or strikers, from one State to another, under commercial contracts, should not be regarded as coming fully within the scope of congressional authority over interstate commerce. Though Federal control of such interstate traffic was regarded as unconstitutional in 1893, it would appear by analogy to be regarded as within constitutional sanction now. The evil being still great enough to demand such congressional legislation as may be constitutional, I hereby commend the subject to Congress for consideration.

This recommendation was repeated in 1916.50

Receipts and Expenditures.

In 1914 the Department called attention to the fact that by some of its work it passes into the Treasury large sums annually which ought to be credited to its support.51 This subject is more definitely referred to in Part II of this report.

Destructive Explosions at Ellis Island.

A recommendation proposed in the report of 1913 and repeated in that of 1914 called attention to the fact that the immigration station at Ellis Island was in almost daily danger from the near-by loading and unloading of explosives.

Congress had lodged no power anywhere to regulate the handling of explosives in interstate commerce on water, although it had regulated the handling of explosives on land. This recommendation and its repetition were inspired by a damaging explosion near Ellis Island prior to 1913. A subsequent explosion-July 30, 1916-caused the recommendation to be again repeated and with added urgency in the Department's Reports of 1916 and 1917.52 Congress has not yet acted on the subject.

50 Department Reports of 1913, p. 67; 1916, pp. 121–126.

51 Department Reports of 1914, pp. 17, 89, and 90.

52 Department Reports of 1913, pp. 39-40; 1914, pp. 96–97; 1916, pp. 101-103 and 126; 1917, pp. 195 and 367-368.

Delegation of Administrative Authority.

To facilitate administration a recommendation was made in 1915 and subsequently repeated, asking that section 179 of the Revised Statutes be amended by adding a clause empowering any official assigned by Executive order to perform such duties as the head of the department to which the President assigns him may prescribe."

Alien Voting.

53

In 1916 a former recommendation that Congress take steps to put an end to voting by aliens who have gone no further toward citizenship than making the required preliminary declaration was repeated.54

Retirement Pensions.

Another recommendation of 1916 subsequently repeated was to the effect that there be provided through legislative enactment an equitable system of retirement from the classified service of the Government, a system which would best subserve the interests of efficiency and economy, and at the same time insure fair financial provision for those who, through long and faithful service, are entitled to some consideration in their declining years.55 This has now been done, though somewhat imperfectly.

Employment and the Public Lands.

A recommendation of the same year, made to enable this Department to improve its work of labor distribution, proposed legislation with reference to the utilization of public lands and community credits so as to enable the Department not only to seek " manless jobs" for "jobless men," but to open opportunities for "jobless men" to employ themselves.56 This recommendation was again urged by the Department with reference to probable demands upon the public domain for soldier settlements. In the latter recommendation the following statement was made:

Land grants to soldiers of earlier wars have passed into the hands of land speculators without much benefit to the soldiers for whose relief they were intended. A better system would seem desirable now. Returned soldiers should be placed upon public land and helped to make their living there, but without investing them with absolute tenure rights, useless to them, but attractive to

53 Department Reports of 1915, p. 87; 1916, pp. 127-128; 1917, p. 153; 1919, p. 303. Department Reports of 1914. p. 98; 1916, p. 127.

Department Reports of 1916, pp. 128-129; 1917, p. 153; 1919, p. 304.

Department Reports of 1915, pp. 43-45; 1916, p. 128; 1917, p. 153; 1918, pp. 221224; 1919, pp. 305-306.

speculators. For this purpose the Crosser colonization bill, now pending in the House of Representatives, seems well adapted in principle and easily adaptable in terms. Without explicitly recommending the enactment of this particular bill, the Department urges legislation of the colonization type for rehabilitation of soldiers who earn such recognition in the war, as well as for wage earners in general."T

In a recommendation of 1918 the Department explained that it had been for more than three years engaged upon a comprehensive study of the problem of discovering new and profitable opportunities for employment, and proceeding it said:

In the course of its investigations it has availed itself of the expert assistance and advice of many persons in other departments. Although the war has intensified the basic problem and introduced certain new factors, it has in no essential respect altered any of the chief elements. Consequently, I believe that the plans already formulated will require extension rather than alteration. Although novel expedients have been suggested, it has seemed best to proceed in accordance with historical precedents, and to pursue a course that is justified by our own experience and by that of other nations. Such experience, as well as the undoubted necessity for a continuous augmentation of the world's food supply for many years to come, indicates that a more extensive as well as a more intensive use of our natural resources must be made. The soil is and must remain the chief working opportunity for large numbers of the Nation's wage earners. It is therefore desirable and imperative that a comprehensive policy with regard to the public domain be established. The same problem was before us more than a half century ago. Access to the public domain was provided by the homestead law of 1862 and further privileges extended specifically to soldiers in 1872. The results of this policy were beneficial in that they provided work for unemployed persons, but such benefits were also accompanied by grave evils. Too frequently the efforts of the settler, who was not inured to the hardships of the frontier or familiar with agriculture, resulted in failure.

Isolated from his fellows and remote from the advantages of the city, the pioneer achieved only after a long struggle such form of organization as rural life now possesses. Other nations have profited by our bitter experience in this respect and have, in consequence, abandoned homesteading or the method in which the settler is merely provided with a land title and left like Robinson Crusoe to work out his own salvation. For the uncertainties of homesteading there should be substituted an orderly, properly planned scheme of colonization, in which the Federal Government shall establish and equip not only individual farms but also link them together into organized communities. Rural planning should be brought into play in order to make life in the rural districts attractive and in order to stem the movement from the farms to the cities. Settlers should likewise be protected from the evils of land speculation. The liberal grants of former years to soldiers were of almost no value to the supposed beneficiaries, because of the speedy transfer to persons who were primarily interested in the resale of such lands at higher prices. Speculation and inflation are evils which it has been found possible to correct in the experience of our associated belligerents. I therefore favor the adoption of some form of tenure which will lay less stress upon titles and more upon actual use by occupants. The absolute tenure does not seem to be well adapted to public colonization since it is useless to the working settler and attractive to

Department Reports of 1917, p. 153.

the speculator. There are several other forms of tenure, including the perpetual leasehold, better adapted for our purposes. I therefore recommend the early enactment of such legislation as may be necessary to permit the preparation of the public domain for this purpose. Such legislation should provide for the purchase of such privately owned areas as it may be found desirable to add to the public areas. Nor should our efforts be considered as limited to agriculture. Great areas are, by reason of natural adaptation, necessarily destined for forest uses. The wasteful methods in vogue in the past in the lumber industry have resulted in the practical destruction of our finest forest areas. The policy has been to treat trees as deposits of wood above the surface and of the same nature as mines, which are deposits of mineral below the surface. These deposits have been destroyed one after the other without regard for the needs of the future.

At the same time the industry has been a movable one, operated in the main by men the nature of whose work denies them homes or marriage or even votes. No one who has the interest of America at heart can look forward with tolerance to the growth or continuance of a body of migratory workers who in the nature of the case must have lower social and moral standards than their fellows and a hatred for the law which they have never known except in its repressive aspect. Happily, the possession of the national forests gives us an opportunity to apply the principles of colonization to timberlands also. The substitution of scientific silviculture for timber mining will give us an opportunity to establish permanent forest communities where local self-government, marriage, and education are possible. In presenting these recommendations at this time, I regard it unnecessary to point out further possibilities, of which the foregoing will serve as an example. In setting forth the necessity for land settlement I am not unmindful of the vast numbers who must again find places in our complex industrial organization. It is too early at present to forecast accurately the industrial organization or needs of our Nation after the war. All the properly adapted facilities of the Department of Labor are at present engaged in the study of those problems of reconstruction peculiar to manufacturing and secondary industry; and from time to time I shall have recommendations and conclusions to present based upon such studies. No such doubt, however, exists with regard to primary industry, and I urge legislation in accordance with the principles laid down in the foregoing paragraphs. Legislation upon this important subject should include three minimum provisions: (1) Possibilities of commercialized speculation in titles must be guarded against. (2) Colonists must be given access not only to land but to farms, not the bare soil, but fully equipped agricultural plants ready to operate. (3) The farms themselves must be welded together into genuine communities by provision for roads, schools, and markets, under the general supervision of the Federal Government. The primary principle involved is not the use of men for the development of land. but the development of land for the use of men. With regard to machinery for putting these provisions into effect, I reccommend the organization of a board consisting of the Secretaries of the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, and Labor for the further organization and supervision of the general plan. Regardless of the machinery by which it is put into operation, whatever legislation is granted should recognize the cardinal principle that the natural resources of the Nation are for the common good of all and should be accessible on such terms as to discourage speculation and exploitation and to reward diligence and thrift."

* Department Reports of 1918. pp. 221–224.