UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 51 
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Take the hosiery industry, for instance, which is now suffering from over- 
production. It would not have the least difficulty in selling its product if the 
thousands of women who want silk stockings could buy enough to satisfy their 
needs. The cotton industry would not be calling for drastie curtailment if wage 
earners could buy all the cotton goods they need for clothes and household 
supplies. Automobile manufacturers could keep on expanding production instead 
of reducing, if the 7,000,000 families who have no cars were able to buy. And 
so with other industries. 
Here is an immense potential market for our goods. Developing this market 
will mean higher living standards for thousands who have not yet shared in 
American prosperity. It will mean human progress along with industrial progress; 
the creation of better homes, happier families, a higher quality of citizenship, 
greater opportunity to develop the fine human qualities latent in thousands of 
our underprivileged citizens. 
The market of the future is with the wage earners. Mass production calls 
for mass buying, and our problem is to make it possible for the millions who 
are not yet customers to buy according .to their needs. How can their buying 
power be financed? 
ADVANCE PLANNING AND REGULATED CONSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC WORKS TO MEET 
CYCLICAL UNEMPLOYMENT 
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The American Federation of Labor has repeatedly indorsed the principle of 
deferred programs for construction of public works ready to be initiated when 
there is need to meet unemployment rising with cyclical business depressions. 
Such programs would provide employment for many and would stimulate indus- 
tries furnishing the materials for construction and indirectly aid other industries. 
Initiation of public construction undertakings would check or retard depression 
forces. Such a proposal has been before Congress a number of times. 
Although the principle has been discussed for years and generally approved, 
the depression last year came upon us without provisions for initiating local or 
national programs. 
During the severe unemployment crisis of 1914-15 and 1921, programs of 
construction of public works were launched after depression had developed and 
unemployment was serious. 
The President’s Unemployment Conference of 1921 achieved the formulation 
of a cordinated plan for dealing with unemployment and crystallized the proposal 
to anticipate cyclical unemployment through deferred plans and the machinery to 
initiate their execution. We realize that not all public works can be deferred to 
serve as a balance wheel to industry and that cyclical unemployment must lock 
for relief through the speeding up of construction undertakings already under 
way. 
The measure now before this committee would provide a Federal agency to be 
charged with the responsibility of providing employment during periods of 
business depression. The American Federation of Labor wholeheartedly in- 
dorses it. 
NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT SYSTEM WITH THE COOPERATION OF THE STATES 
The most constructive aid that can be given the unemployed is to help them to 
find jobs. This service can be done efficiently through a national organization. 
At present it is left to local undertakings or private initiative. A privately 
operated employment service is managed to bring in profits—a worker's mis- 
fortune or necessity is its opportunity. When a worker’s finances are at low ebb 
he must pay a fee for a job. 
Losing employment is often due to no fault of the worker, but to the nceds of 
industry or to social or scientific progress. The consequences of unemployment 
are felt in interdependent industries and markets. On the other hand all society 
benefits when workers prosper. To tell workers where they can get jobs for which 
they are suited, seems the obvious thing to do. Industries could be served 
efficiently and quickly by a national employment service. Such a service would 
be a boon to workers. 
The American Federation of Labor heartily indorses the bill before the com- 
mittee providing for a national service with the cooperation of the various States. 
Such a service would meet the normal needs of industry and workers as well as 
help in meeting emergency situations. An adequate national system of em- 
ployment services must establish the standards and practices to be followed in 
local offices.