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]