of boys and girls under 21 years of age, the designation or appointment of duly qualified counselors and the provision of suitable methods and organization for the proper counseling of such appli

cants.

Economic and other conditions are yearly driving increasing numbers of boys and girls into industry. Their immature minds and partly developed faculties need proper direction. A word of counsel and guidance or lack of it, at this time, may make or mar their future. Here exists a fruitful field for operation, and herein lies the need for promoting a practical and helpful organization.

The Junior Section organized and operated junior placement and vocational guidance offices in nine States in the Union. Through lack of funds these offices were greatly handicapped in their work, but the results accomplished fully demonstrated the value of junior placement work.

Boys' Working Reserve. Since its organization under the Department, in April, 1917, the reserve has enrolled upward of 300,000 boys between 16 and 21 years of age, nearly all of whom went out from cities and towns to work in seasonal labor upon the farms.

By March, 1919, the reserve had completed its organization with a Federal State director in every State, the District of Columbia, and the Territory of Hawaii; had enrolled and placed about 300,000 boys; given intensive training in farm practices and farm machinery to more than 50,000 city high-school boys; promoted many successful supply camps; supervised the leisure time and provided for the improvement and safeguarding of the young workers; and had returned to the schools a greater proportion of the boys than would have returned under normal conditions.

A conservative estimate of the economic value of the reserve indicates that its members added a hundred million dollars' worth of food to the world's supply at a time when food was most greatly needed. The following excerpts from reports will indicate this economic value.

A definite record was kept of about one-fourth of the Indiana reserve boys. These 6,055 boys earned a total of $1,111,722. They worked an average of 114 days each at an average of wage of $1.51 per day, exclusive of board. A verified record of 3,500 boys in Colorado shows earnings amounting to $609,823. Reports from farmers in Massachusetts, based upon the cost of labor for each $1,000 worth of farm products raised, showed that 2,500 boys added nearly $2,000,000 to the food supply in Massachusetts last season. Reports on 600 boys give their average earning as $166.66 per boy. In Oregon, 1,950 boys earned $253,778. New York City boys of whom records were made, earned $368,938.76 net. Their average production in acres was 16.4 per boy. Over 3,000 reserve boys in Texas

averaged a little over 90 days' work each, and earned an average of $1.10 per day net. A record of 860 Oklahoma boys showed 79,537 days' work, earning $111,198.38, exclusive of board-about $1.40 per day net. Many instances of liberty bond buying and money saving were reported. Of 145 reserve boys in a South Dakota high school, 117 have bank accounts, and saved $10,040 last season.

Reserve high-school boys made good on the farms in over 90 per cent of the cases studied. Farmers everywhere declared these boys, when imbued by the patriotic spirit and training provided in training camps and schools, constituted the best form of emergency labor. Training was necessary if the boy was to fill the place of a farm hand released for the front and meet the reasonable expectations of the farmer.

This anticipation of the actual work done by courses in the elements of farm practices and in farm machinery becomes one of the most significant items in the reserve's program. Farm-craft lessons introduced into high schools in many States have become famous as a most significant educational development arising from the war emergency. Reports indicate that over 100,000 were in use this past winter. They are issued by the reserve in loose-leaf form and deal with farm practices generally throughout the United States. Used as a manual of instruction in the schoolroom they became a text to be taken to the laboratory, the barns, livery stables, implement stores, shops, and to the fields, in order that contact with the actual conditions and equipment of farms might illustrate the elements of farm practice.

Training of boys was also furthered by the establishment, in cooperation with agricultural colleges and schools, of Central Farm Training Camps. In these camps they were taught by the faculty; brought into contact with the superior equipment of the schools; given physical exercise by which they became muscle-hardened, sun-bronzed, and "fit"; and attained a viewpoint which prepared them for new and unusual rural social and working conditions. Through the cooperation of the Young Men's Christian Association and other welfare agencies, and with the assistance of school men in nearly every State, reserve boys were everywhere safeguarded. In all training and supply camps leisure-time activities were well organized.

Women's work. The recognition of the permanent importance of woman labor has led to striking developments in women's work during the past fiscal year. The war by July, 1918, had made woman labor a recognized industrial necessity. Because of this fact much. effort has been expended to create adequate facilities to supply the demand for woman labor. Reconstruction months have continued, in the main, conditions created in the last months of the war. Regis

trations have not approached the level of help wanted calls. In November registrations were 50 per cent below help wanted; in January, 30 per cent; June, 29 per cent; year (10 months), 37 per cent. Weekly reports on labor surplus in industrial communities have not specified in 1919 any extensive period of unemployment among women. A study in May, 1919, showed that 22 per cent of employers' calls and 18 per cent of applications handled by the United States Employment Service are women. Twenty-one per cent of persons employed are women (Census, 1910).

Previous to July, 1918, service policies for women had been largely protective. They had led to a separate women's division, to separate placement offices, and to cooperation with organizations whose interest lay largely in protecting women workers from exploitation. Since the war has led to a keener interest in and developments for protecting women workers, the women's divisions of the United States Employment Service have been able, without neglecting this feature of women's work, to put a great deal of emphasis upon business methods, internal growth, and widening the field of opportunity for women. Offices placing women increased from about 50 to more than 400 in November. Placements jumped from 9,000 in January to 90,000 in October. Employers have been aided in trying women in Placement of large numbers in more settled lines has been successfully carried on. It has been proved that professional and skilled business women will gladly come to the Department of Labor for employment aid if facilities can be offered.

new lines of work.

The registration and placement of women are shown in the following table:

Statistical report on women's work, July 1, 1918, to June 30, 1919.

a Figures not compiled.

Month.

Help Registra- Reported wanted. tions. placed.

New statistical system not in complete operation accounts for placements being greater than registrations.

Women's Land Army.-The Women's Land Army was created in the spring of 1917 to meet the serious lack of farm labor. An experimental unit was placed in Bedford, N. Y., with attention to housing supervision of the unit and recruiting of girls from colleges and seasonal trades, and the adoption of standard wages and working and living conditions. In December, 1917, the Woman's National Farm and Garden Association, the Garden Club of America, and the Women's Committee of the Council of National Defense cooperated in the naming of an advisory council and an executive committee. In 1918 chairmen were appointed in 40 States and 15,000 women were placed on farms in 20 States.

In December, 1918, an agreement between the Women's Land Army and the United States Employment Service of the Department of Labor was signed to continue the Land Army on a peace basis under Government supervision. Plans for this agreement had been nearly completed before the armistice was signed. Continuing need for farm products and the Land Army's equipment for meeting shortages in seasonal emergencies led the Employment Service to adopt the plan at the later date. Under the supervision of the United States Employment Service, recruiting was carried on in offices of the Employment Service, but training and supervision were managed by the Land Army.

FARM AND HARVEST WORK.

Farm Service Division-The Farm Service Division was created on December 13, 1918. The Farm Service Division received reports at regular intervals from the Assistant to the Federal Director in charge of farm work in each State as to the agricultural needs in each State and was thus in a position to direct special efforts toward meeting the demands in localities where the situation became acute. During the period of the war the Department authorized the importation of Mexican labor, under certain conditions, for agricultural pursuits, railway maintenance of way, and mining in localities where such labor had been employed in the past. Shortly after the signing of the armistice the provisions for importing Mexican labor were canceled, with the exception that laborers from Mexico might still be admitted for the purpose of working in sugar-beet production. A special agent of the Employment Service was stationed at El Paso, Tex., to cooperate with the supervising inspector in charge of the Immigration Service at that place in reaching a decision as to the necessity for the importation of Mexican labor and supplying information as to conditions under which laborers would be required to work.

When the curtailment of the service became necessary in March, 1919, the services of many of the assistants to the Federal directors

in charge of farm work in the various States had to be dispensed with, and in cases where the particular employee was retained he was assigned to duties relating to the general office work of the Federal director. In view of the limited funds at the disposal of the service it was considered entirely futile to attempt to conduct a special branch throughout the entire organization relating solely to farm work. There was set aside, however, a specified amount of the available appropriation to continue the organization of an Assistant to the Director General in Kansas City, Mo., for the purpose of mobilizing workers to handle the wheat crop in the grain belt.

As the main purposes for which the Farm Service Division was created no longer existed, that division was temporarily abolished in April, 1919, and the matters theretofore handled by it were referred to the Division of Operations or to other divisions to which they properly belonged.

A summary of the operations of the Farm Service Division from July 1, 1918, to April, 1919, when it was discontinued, shows that during this 10 months' period the Employment Service was called upon for 393,933 farm laborers and that it placed in agricultural work during the same period 221,096 persons. This record of placements does not include the thousands of harvest hands directed to employment through the Kansas City field office, concerning whom it is impossible to obtain a complete statistical report.

Harvest work, Kansas City field office. The principal work of this office was in connection with the recruiting and distribution of harvest labor in the States of Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South and North Dakota, although surveys and investigations as to the labor needs of other States have been made, notably in Louisiana and Montana.

Following the completion of the 1918 harvest in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska the field officers attached to this office proceeded northward for the purpose of assisting in the distribution of harvest labor in the States of Iowa and South and North Dakota. Distributing offices were opened in South Dakota in the following cities: Sioux Falls, Aberdeen, Mitchell, Watertown, and Redfield. Most of the labor used in South Dakota comes from the Kansas and Nebraska fields, through Sioux City, Iowa, and the majority of men stop off and call at the permanent office of the Employment Service located in that city for definite direction as to where work may be had. This office, together with the permanent office at Huron, S. Dak., and those temporarily established in the cities mentioned above, report the placement of 7,708 harvest hands during a period of four weeks, commencing about July 12.

Late in the fall of 1918 this office took an active part in recruiting labor for the sugar-beet and potato fields of western Nebraska.