124 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 
The subcommittee appointed then on the subject of business cycles 
and unemployment endorsed the same principle again, and the chair- 
man of that committee was Mr. Owen Young, and Mr. Matthew Woll, 
vice president of the American Federation of Labor, was one of its 
members. The Secretary of Commerce was the chairman of that 
meeting, now President of the United States. 
Then on March 3, 1928, the Senate adopted a resolution in the Seven- 
tieth Congress which directed the Committee on Education and Labor 
to investigate the causes of unemployment, the methods of relief, 
including organization and extension of the system of public employ- 
ment agencies, Federal and State. The committee held extensive 
hearings and made a unanimous report on February 25, 1929. Sum- 
marizing its views, the committee expressed the following conclusions 
with respect to the feasibility of cooperation of Federal, State, and pri- 
vate agencies with respect to all the subjects related to the unemploy- 
ment program. That is the title of their conclusions: 
Your committee has discussed this phase of the survey as it has proceeded with 
this report, and there is little to add. In general it is the opinion of your com- 
mittee that the responsibility should be kept as close to home as possible. Private 
agencies should make first effort and should do everything they ean for them- 
selves. The States should contribute only that service that private agencies find 
impossible, and the Government— 
that is, the National Government 
should merely coordinate the work of the States and supply any effort which is 
entirely and purely of a national character. 
Then it says further in summarizing its recommendations: 
The States and the municipalties should be responsible for building efficient 
unemployment exchanges. The Government should be responsible for coordina- 
ting the work of the States so as to give a national understanding of any condition 
that may arise, and so as to be able to assist in any national functioning of un- 
employment exchanges. 
The committee further _ emphasized repeatedly throughout. its 
report the fact that the private operators and agencies present the 
source of employment and the responsible means of meeting the 
problem of stabilization. Thus referring to this the Senate committee 
Bays: 
The organization to handle the disease in this form— 
that is, unemployment— 
should be local, it seems to your committee. It should be one which would be 
responsible for local conditions, one which is responsible also to local officials, 
to local employers, and to local employees. 
It could not be more emphatic in condemnation of the plan here 
proposed. ew 
And finally the committee quotes Doctor Commons, who advised 
your committee that the States and cities should establish and operate 
the unemployment exchanges, and that the Federal Government 
should merely establish an organization of experts to coordinate 
the work of the local exchanges. 
Your committee is in accord with the idea that the Federal Government 
should remain as far away from the operation of these local offices as is possible. 
The employment exchanges should be local. 
Now, that is repeated over and over again, Mr. Chairman, in the 
course of that committee’s report, and I bring it to vour attention