Unemployment in the United States

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1828236179

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-226169

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Unemployment in the United States

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: United States, Government Printing Office

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: II, 193 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Statement of James A. Emery, Washtington, D.C., representing the National Association of Manufacturers, and others

Collection:: Economics Books

122 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES only to a very small extent public. The National Government itself is a large employer, and it becomes the stimulator of employment, and so you have given consideration to another bill here which under- takes to make a contribution to the regularization of employment in periods of depression by timing Government construction to syn- chronize with that condition. To the extent that that may be actually brought about it is an excellent policy, but it is one which I understand the administration has been undertaking to carry through as the result of the large appropriations made already for building construction. I know 1t was a policy that was advocated ‘and fre. quently made the subject of addresses by the President of the United States while he was Secretary of Commerce, and we say to any policy of that kind that can be worked out within practical terms, “God- speed; let us all undertake to help it along and time our public expendi- tures to take up the slack of private employment.” But I say secondly that the problem of employment is local largely and that, as the Senate Committee on Education and Labor said, the remedy ought to be administered close to the disease. The distin. guished gentleman from Chicago, referring this afternoon to the some- what complex problem of how to keep a number of longshoremen at work, alluded to what Seattle did. Exactly. Seattle solved a local problem in local terms. Every greater problem of employment is largely local. It does not answer the question to say that you are going to provide for the circulation of labor. Do gentlemen mean that they are going to provide railroad transportation to move workers from place to place? That might result in very serious consequences to particular States. But more than that, Mr. Chairman, we can only move them to a job after the job has been found. Employment agencies can not make jobs; they can only undertake to connect men with the jobs, and so far as any coordination and cooperation between the National Government and the States is concerned, it will best work out a problem of that character as the conferences, whose conclusions I shall directly call your attention to, have said. They have stressed at all times that there must be voluntary action, not coercion, not compulsion, and that the Federal Government should never under any circumstances enter into the work of local placement. That has been condemned, as I want to call your attention to now, in the conclusions of the President’s Conference on Unemployment called in 1921. Parts of that report have been read to you but the significant parts have apparently been omitted or did not attract the attention of the readers. There were 100 representatives in that conference called by the President jn Washington in September, 1921. The list discloses representative men in every calling, leaders in the great labor organizations, manufacturers, bankers, business men in all the various walks of life, economists, professional specialists who had een intimate students of this problem. Their conclusions were expressed in a resolution adopted unanimously by the conference on the 11th day of October, 1921. I ask that this may be inserted in the record at this point, Mr. Chairman, for the information of the committee, so that I may not read the entire resolution to you. I will refer only to the pertinent passages. The CrarrmaN. Perhaps you had better read it at this point. Mr. Emery. Very well, sir. [Reading]

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