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UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 161 
ment to solve and it particularly recommends itself to the Federal 
Government for its is our duty to consider the problems that are 
nation-wide in scope and that affect the very lives, rights, and happi- 
ness of our people. In the past during periods of widespread unem- 
ployment such as the country is in to-day Congress failed in its duty 
with a result that this recent period of hard times struck the country 
with very serious effects bringing in its wake great suffering, poverty 
and want. Truly last winter can be termed ‘America’s winter of 
want.” Therefore our responsibility to act and to act at once is so 
pressing and urgent that no Member of Congress can fail to recognize 
his duty and to perform it without delay. Unless we take action 
within the next two or three weeks, at which time I am informed this 
session of Congress will have taken its place in history, the United 
States will face another winter of misery, suffering, poverty, and want 
which may exceed the unhappy winter just passed in its number of 
unemployed. 
Many bills have been introduced both in the House and in the 
Senate bearing upon this all engrossing subject but the most important, 
of all of the bills of this nature, the bills that provide the first step 
toward the ultimate solution of the greater problem, are those 
sponsored by the junior senator from the State of New York which 
only recently received the approval of the Senate. One of these 
measures authorizes the Bureau of Labor Statistics to gather and 
publish at monthly intervals accurate and comprehensive employment. 
figures which would serve as a national barometer and enable the 
authorities to deal more intelligently with the question. The second 
bill provides for long range planning of public works, authorizing a 
maximum expenditure of $150,000,000 a year for that purpose and 
by its provisions periods of depression would be anticipated and the 
public works initiated in the very beginning of times of unemployment. 
The third bill provides for a nation-wide free employment service 
which would be operated in cooperation with the States. It would 
bring the idle man and the job together in a most effective and 
practical method. 
The three measures mentioned are all of fundamental importance 
in any intelligent and constructive effort looking toward the ultimate 
solution of the unemployment problem. The adoption of these 
bills will enable the Government to intelligently apply its power and 
resources to the alleviation of this serious evil. They have been 
recommended by the leading newspapers and magazines of the coun- 
try, by economists and authorities on labor legislation, by committees 
of Congress and commissions appointed by the President of the 
United States. The New York Tribune of May 3 last published an 
editorial from which I quote the following paragraph: 
Obviously, what the Government can do in this sphere is limited. But to the 
extent of its powers it should be permitted to function effectively. And to this 
end, it seems to us, every one of the Wagner bills should be enacted into law. 
Moreover, now is the time to put them through before the situation is sufficiently 
Sad to allow Congress and the country to forget the plain lessons of our “ winter 
18content. 
When Mr. Hoover was Secretary of Commerce he appointed a 
group of distinguished men, of which Owen D. Young was chairman, 
to study the question of business cycles in unemployment. That 
conference reported in favor of unemployment exchanges as an impor-