184 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 
to-day, one year ago, two years ago, and eight years ago, extent of immigration, 
and other themes engross it. Railroad and public-utility officials, 5-and-10- 
cent stores, theatrical booking agencies, life-insurance companies, welfare associa- 
tions, economic foundations are but a few of the interest that, by letter or per- 
personal representatives, seek to glean what they can of unemployment. 
Why is so much of the information they seek unavailable? So many of the 
figures they accept unreliable? And where, if anywhere, are the best charted 
channels for getting what they want or really need? 
‘At the kick-off, the main reason much of the information and many of the 
statistics they seek are unobtainable is that rarely do we have a clear concept 
of what we mean when we use the word ‘“unemploved.”” Take almost any day 
at any office—an employment mart where men seek work and work men. An 
acetylene welder asks for a job at his trade. He's been out of work a week. 
The moment holds no job in his craft, but the window’s bulletin boards show a 
couple he could have if he would—orderly, laborer, for instance. He leaves, 
still without a job. A mechanical engineer calls, but at the moment there is 
nothing for him. A drafting job is offered him. Does he take it? ‘‘No, I don’t 
want to go back to the board,” he says, and leaves jobless. Pride of craft or 
common sense—call it anything you wish—makes each stick fo the vocation 
he’s mastered. Millions like these cherish the same fetish. Hunting jobs some 
of them are, but only because they prefer to hunt rather than take what they 
can get. Should they, then, be termed unemployed? 
A carpenter strolls in; work in former jobs we've given him attests his com- 
petence. 
‘“ Anything in my line to-day?” 
“Yeh, construction work out at —— 
““Whaddasit pay?” 
“Righty cents, time and half.” 
“Not for me. brother.” 
WHERE DOES A DEFINITION END? 
A salesman calls. Selling jobs, good and indifferent, await him. He can just 
about take his choice, but no one of them strikes him foursquare. ‘If they'd 
make it seventy-five I might consider it,” he says. He, too, leaves. Like them, 
also, there are millions. Men and women here, there, everywhere, who, when 
jobless, reject positions because they feel they are worth more than the positions 
offer. Unemployed should we call them? If so, how come? If not, why not? 
A textile worker shuffles in. He quit his last job, en masse with a hundred 
others. It’s his again for the asking, but he won’t ask. Neither will another 
textile worker of the same trade take the striker’s job if offered him. What of 
them? 
A youth just out of high school or college enters. He wants a job, his first. 
For a week he’s been trying to land one. Unemploved? Possibly, and vet he 
never has been employed. 
To augment a dwindling family income a woman asks for part-time work. 
Husband or son is out of work. Perhaps at one time she has worked. There 
are hundreds of thousands like her, eager to earn however and whatever they 
can. Wage schedules, strikes, pride of craft are beyond their ken. Unemployed? 
A pensioned locomotive engineer, jaded by inactivity, wants a whack at any- 
thing—bank guard, night watchman, elevator operator—anything that will crowd 
drab thoughts from his mind, give him an appetite, keep him from going to seed. 
The wages matter little. How many are there like him, hunting for a something 
to avert mental and physical atrophy? Keener to work, many of them, thap 
those who have never worked. Unemployed? 
An electrician, his last job finished the day before, drops in to ask when hiring 
will start on a building operation he is anxious to connect with. He's told he'll 
have to wait a week or two. He decided to make some needed repairs about 
his home or motor, fish, or gun until that particular operation is ready for him. 
Unemployed? 
Comes scores of privates in the army of casual workers; men and women, the 
very nature of whose vocation is casual—stevedores, tally clerks, truckers, gar 
deners, building mechanics whose trades are seasonal. Comes, too, the never 
depleted battalion of the unemployable—the halt, the feeble, the aged. Those; 
in short, whose state only a well-endowed sympathy can alleviate. They crave 
employment. many without reservations. . If thev’re not unemploved. who is?