for these bills provide that the administration of the reëducation, refitting and returning to industry shall be in charge of the Board mentioned. It is interesting to recall that the American Federation of Labor for a number of years stood sponsor for and urged the adoption by Congress of a Federal vocational educational law, and its efforts were finally crowned with success. This Board during its infancy (for it has only been in existence approximately a year) has extended the work of aiding the states in establishing systems of vocational training. As it is now equipped with data and an experienced personnel, it is capable to administer the provisions of the rehabilitation and reeducation bills if they are enacted into law. The American Federation of Labor is particularly interested in the reeducation and reëntry of disabled soldiers and sailors into industry. The members of our organizations will have an opportunity to perform an invaluable service to society in coöperating with the Federal Board for Vocational Education in carrying on its work. In all the countries actively engaged in the present war, work of a similar character is being performed, and in those countries the organizations of labor are giving their hearty support and coöperation. It is perhaps unnecessary to bespeak the coöperation of the American labor movement in this great humantarian work, for it can be confidently expected that in every locality of our country where our organizations are located, there the members of those unions will give material assistance to the carrying out of this great national humantarian work. Representatives of the American Federation of Labor assisted in the framing of the bill, and the membership will without doubt assist in the execution of the law when it is placed upon the statute books. That there may be a close coöperation, it has been suggested (and that suggestion is offered for approval) that the three resident members of the executive council located in Washington be authorized by the convention to coöperate with the Federal Board for Vocational Education in assisting and administering the law when it shall have been passed. The duty of the hour requires that all classes of citizens, whether they be employers or employees, give a full measure of support and active coöperation in administering a law which has for its purpose the making of disabled soldiers and sailors productive members of society. Thus the great council of organized labor recorded itself squarely in favor of the project. Subsidiary organizations have vied with one another in the endeavor to be helpful in realizing the full aims of the Government as regards the retraining of disabled soldiers and their absorption into the skilled trades or occupations for which they have been trained. The magazines and publications of the various branches of union labor have been hearty and cordial in their endorsement of the plan. Individual workers in shops and elsewhere have taken great interest in helping to give the disabled men instruction and in assisting them to master the intricacies of various trades. On the whole, the attitude of organized labor has been brotherly, helpful and patriotic, nor has it been grudging or half-hearted in any phase of the programme in which it has been concerned. CHAPTER XXI OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE RETRAINED IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE The Federal Government as an employer of labor-Its functions enormously extended under war conditions - Probable permanent extension of the civil service - Positions and appointments in the Federal service in normal years Opportunities open to the disabled in the competitive positions Preferential appointment from lists of eligibles proposed - Opportunities in state and municipal civil service-Public service in France reserved for the disabled. One immediate and impressive effect of the war has been the tremendous enlargement of the function of the Federal Government as an employer of labor. Waging war is a supreme function of every state, that function of sovereignty that, more than any other, has determined the continuous development of the state's eminent powers as they are defined in existing governments. As war has become largely an industrial enterprise, involving the manufacture and transport of the machinery and munitions of war and the maintenance of all the various services necessary for the support of armies, the war powers inherent in every government have accordingly become largely industrial powers. These powers are latent and potential in every state, but they are not exercised in full in any state except in the actual emergency of war. Especially in a democracy they may be, as they were in our own case, so remote from the practical programme of politics as to be disregarded and even very generally denied during long periods of peace. But upon the outbreak of war every restriction upon the power of the state weakens and yields to the pressure of the emergency. In the case of our own democracy, the abandonment of traditional restrictions upon the power of the Federal Government has been complete; it was accepted as a matter of course in the first months of the Legalistic definitions of the respective powers of the Federal Government, of the several state governments, and of private individuals have had no meaning since the outbreak of the war; the absolute supremacy of the Federal Government has been unreservedly conceded in the emergency. Inevitably the exercise of these latent powers is a social experience in which conventions and traditions are dissolved. With the restoration of peace certain powers which have been exercised in war time may be resigned by the Federal Government, but it is quite inconceivable that this nation, or any other nation that has waged war on any such scale as measures our recent engagement, will emerge from the experience with its political philosophies unaffected. Even if the Government does not retain permanently under its direct control the railroads and the wires, and does not proceed from the policy of Government control and operation to the policy of Government ownership, it is inconceivable that the old régime of private ownership and control as it had developed before the war will be completely reëstablished; and it is inconceivable, further, that the Government will completely resign its newly assumed powers of regulation in other industries and in domestic and foreign commerce. The nation at war commandeers industry, and the government becomes for the time being the ultimate employer of all labor, directly or indirectly. Private employers are permitted to continue to operate in the industrial field on suffrance, subject to such government direction and control and as may seem expedient for war purposes. This enlargement of the character of the government as an employer of labor involves social adjustments that are in their nature more or less permanent, and the assumption of social responsibilities of which the government cannot immediately divest itself under any policy that may be adopted upon the termination of the war. It may safely be assumed that the functions of the Federal Government as an employer of labor will be permanently and considerably enlarged in consequence of its war activities, and this enlargement may have important consequences in effecting the demobilization of the overseas forces and the return of men discharged from military service to civil employment. Through its enlarged powers the Government will be able to control the whole process of demobilization. For a considerable period after the war the Federal Government will certainly continue to operate in the industrial field as an employer of labor more extensively than it has done in the past, and it is during precisely this period that the problem of providing employment for men disabled in the war and vocationally retrained will be most acute. In its character as an employer of labor the Government cannot and will not avoid those obligations to the disabled that it seeks to impose upon other employers. Clearly |