144 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES
off private initiative in the employment field is to remove one of the
most effective mediums for helping the unemployed to find suitable
employment.
Mr. Green stated yesterday that no one should be forced to pay for
ajob. Iagree with Mr. Green. But no oneis forced to pay an agency
for services in locating and negotiating employment. There is hardly
an industry of any size that does not maintain its own employment
department where men and women may apply direct. Schools,
colleges, Young Women Christian Association, Young Men’s Christian
Association, employer's associations, in great numbers, labor and
fraternal organizations; maintain free employment bureaus and, in
addition thereto, there are the State and municipal offices. The help
wanted columns of the news and trade papers are effective mediums
for locating employment. With all these avenues open, through which
employment may be secured without cost, is there any reason why the
unemployed should not be privileged to pay for emplovment services
if they so elect?
Mr. Green criticized fee-charging agencies, because, as he stated, it
served the employer to the disadvantage of the employee. He stated
that private agencies, in filling the requirements of the employer,
discriminated against the man and woman 45 years and over; that
they directed the unemployed to employers who, in times of business
depression, paid low wages and required long working hours. I
wonder, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, what the
public employment offices would do in such instances? Would they
refuse to serve the employer; would they pigeonhole the order and
thereby perhaps hold up production, or would they use their best
judgment and serve the employer and the employee for the best inter-
ests of all concerned?
The organization I represent takes no position in respect to the crea-
ting of a federal service on a permanent statutory basis, or for a trial
period, or the expansion of State offices. We are not afraid of competi-
tion. But it does oppose being made a part of the clearing house plan
or in any way coming under the jurisdiction of the Department of
Labor, or the Director General of the United States Employment
Service, and coutend that S. 3060 indirectly includes fee-charging
agencies.
If I heard a statement correctly put by one of the Congressmen on
my left yesterday, it was to this effect, that the Labor Commissioner,
or the head of the labor department for the State.of West Virginia,
had approved S. 3060. If that was the Congressman’s statement, I
would call to the attention of this committee the fact that the State
of West Virginia must first change a law before it could accept S.
3060; for that State and several other Southern States have laws
which go so far as to prohibit by a heavy tax the taking of labor from
one county to another, to say nothing of from one State to another.
Lest my judgment savor of prejudice and thereby be of no value,
I make no attempt to pass judgment on the practicability of a Federal
clearing system; but I would, however, recommend for your consider-
ation two very enlightening articles on the subject by Mr. Kenneth
Colback, superintendent of the Philadelphia Employment Office
which is maintained by the State of Pennsylvania. One article is
entitled ‘Unemployment Statistics” and appears in the Saturday
Evening Post of February 16, 1929. The other is an article entitled
