World's War Events Volume II Part 43

[Sidenote: Commission for labor adjustment.]

"WASHINGTON, D. C., June 19, 1917.

"For the adjustment and control of wages, hours, and conditions of labor in the construction of cantonments, there shall be created an adjustment commission of three persons, appointed by the Secretary of War; one to represent the Army, one the public, and one labor; the last to be nominated by Samuel Gompers, member of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense, and President of the American Federation of Labor.

[Sidenote: Consideration given to scales in locality.]

"As basic standards with reference to each cantonment, such commission shall use the main scales of wages, hours, and conditions in force on June 1, 1917, in the locality where such cantonment is situated.

Consideration shall be given to special circ.u.mstances, if any arising after said date which may require particular advances in wages or changes in other standards. Adjustments of wages, hours, or conditions made by such board are to be treated as binding by all parties."

[Sidenote: Labor difficulties easily adjusted.]

[Sidenote: Early completion of cantonments.]

The contractors throughout the country were notified of the existence of this agreement and of the determination of the Government to carry it out faithfully. The scope of the agreement was subsequently enlarged so as to include other emergency construction done by the War Department, and a board of adjustment was appointed which, at the beginning, consisted of General E. A. Garlington, formerly General Inspector of the Army, Mr. Walter Lippmann, and Mr. John R. Alpine, to whom all complaints were referred, and by whom all investigations and determinations in enforcement of the agreement were made. The personnel of this board was subsequently changed, and its activities a.s.sociated with a similar board appointed by the concurrent action of the Secretary of the Navy and Mr. Gompers, but I need here refer only to the fact that, by the device of this agreement, and through the instrumentality of this board, labor difficulties and disputes were easily adjusted, and the program of building has gone rapidly forward, with here and there incidental delays due sometimes to delay in material, sometimes to difficulties of the site, and doubtless to other incidental failures of coordination, but in the main, the work has been thoroughly successful.

When its magnitude is appreciated, the draft it made upon the labor market of the country, the speed with which it was accomplished, and the necessity of a.s.sembling not only materials but men from practically all over the country, it seems not too much to say that the work is out of all proportion larger than any similar work ever undertaken in the country, and that its completion substantially on time, is an evidence of efficiency both on the part of those officers of the Government charged with responsibility for the task and the contractors and men of the trades and crafts employed to carry on the work.

[Sidenote: Camps for training military engineers.]

This great division of the War Department in times of peace devotes the major part of its energy to works of internal improvements and to the supervision of, improvement, and maintenance of navigable waters; but in time of war it immediately becomes a fundamental part of the Military Establishment. It was, therefore, called upon not only to render a.s.sistance of an engineering kind in the establishment of training camps, but had to establish camps for the rapid training in military engineering of large additions to its own personnel, and to undertake the rapid mobilization and training of additional engineer troops, of which at the beginning of the war there were but two regiments.

[Sidenote: Importance of railroad transportation in war.]

[Sidenote: Regiments of engineers sent to France.]

One of the earliest opportunities for actual a.s.sistance to the countries a.s.sociated with us in this war was presented to this department. In the war against Germany transportation, and particularly railroad transportation, is of the utmost importance. It was easily foreseen that our own army in France would require large railroad facilities both in the operation of permanent railroads for the handling of our equipment and supplies and in the construction and operation of temporary roads behind our Army. In the meantime regiments of engineer troops, if speedily organized and dispatched to Europe, could both render valuable a.s.sistance to the British and French Armies and acquire the training and experience which would make them valuable at a later stage to us.

Accordingly nine such regiments were organized and have for some months been rendering active and important service along the actual battle front. In addition to these, a tenth regiment, composed of men skilled in forestry and lumbering, was organized and sent abroad, and is now operating in a foreign forest cutting out lumber supplies for the use of our a.s.sociates and ourselves.

[Sidenote: Arrangements to operate our own railways in France.]

[Sidenote: Creation of entire transportation system.]

Concurrently with the formation of these special engineer troops the department undertook the collection of material for the establishment and operation of our own lines of supply abroad. The railways of France have been maintained in a state of high efficiency by the French people, and they are performing the tremendous transportation task imposed upon them by the French and English military operations with complete success; but in order not to impose a burden which they were not designed to meet, by asking them to expand to the accommodation of our services, it has been found necessary for us ourselves to undertake the acc.u.mulation of railroad material for our own use in the theater of war.

This work is on a large and comprehensive scale. Any detailed description of it would be inappropriate at this time, but it involves the creation of entire transportation systems and the actual construction and operation of railroads with the elaborate terminal facilities needed for the rapid unloading and dispatch of supplies, equipment, and troops.

[Sidenote: The Quartermaster General's problem.]

[Sidenote: Vast equipment needed.]

[Sidenote: Intensive production of food and clothing.]

[Sidenote: a.s.sociated nations must be supplied.]

[Sidenote: Emergency appropriation.]

[Sidenote: Great extent of purchases.]

The problem facing the Quartermaster General has been serious. For the small Regular Army of the United States a well-defined and adequate supply system had been created. It was large enough and flexible enough to permit us to make gradual acc.u.mulations of reserve as Congress from time to time provided the necessary money; but when the mobilization of the National Guard on the Mexican frontier took place, such reserves as we had were rapidly consumed, and the maintenance of the military establishment on the border required an increase which quite equaled the entire capacity of those industries ordinarily devoting themselves to the production of military supplies. When the present enlarged military establishment was authorized it involved an enlarged Regular Army, an enlarged National Guard and the new National Army, thus bringing upon us the problem of immediate supply with adequate reserves for an Army of 2,000,000 men; and these men were not to be stationed about in Army posts, but mobilized into great camps under conditions which necessarily increased the wear and tear upon clothing and equipment, and correspondingly increased the reserves needed to keep up the supply. In addition to this these troops were a.s.sembled for overseas use, and it therefore became necessary to acc.u.mulate in France vast stores of clothing and equipment in order to have the Army free from dependence, by too narrow a margin, upon ocean transportation with its inevitable delays. As a consequence the supply needs of the department were vastly greater than the capacity of the industrial organization and facilities normally devoted to their production, and the problem presented was to divert workshops and factories from their peace-time output into the intensive production of clothing and equipment for the Army. Due consideration had to be given to the maintenance of the industrial balance of the country. Industries already devoted to the manufacture of supplies for the nations a.s.sociated with us in the war had to be conserved to that useful purpose. Perhaps some aid to the imagination can be gotten from the fact that 2,000,000 men const.i.tute about one-fiftieth of the entire population of the United States. Supply departments were, therefore, called upon to provide clothing, equipment, and maintenance for about one-fiftieth of our entire people, and this in articles of uniform and of standardized kinds. The great appropriations made by Congress tell the story from the financial point of view. In 1917 the normal appropriation for the Quartermaster Department was $186,305,000. The emergency appropriation for this department for the year 1918 was $3,000,000,000; a sum greater than the normal annual appropriation for the entire expenses of the Federal Government on all accounts. Another ill.u.s.tration can be drawn from the mere numbers of some familiar articles. Thus of shoes more than 20,000,000 pairs have already been purchased and are in process of delivery; of blankets, 17,000,000; of flannel shirting, more than 33,000,000 yards; of melton cloth, more than 50,000,000 yards; of various kinds of duck for shelter tents and other necessary uses, more than 125,000,000 yards; and other staple and useful articles of Army equipment have been needed in proportion.

[Sidenote: Resources, industry and transportation mobilized.]

To all of this it has been necessary to add supplies not usual in our Army which, in many cases, had to be devised to meet needs growing out of the nature of the present warfare. It was necessary, therefore, to mobilize the resources and industry, first to produce with the greatest rapidity the initial equipment, and to follow that with a steady stream of production for replacement and reserve; second, to organize adequate transportation and storage for these great acc.u.mulations, and their distribution throughout the country, and then to establish ports of embarkation for men and supplies, a.s.semble there in orderly fashion for prompt ship-loading the tonnage for overseas; and to set up in France facilities necessary to receive and distribute these efficiently.

[Sidenote: Civilian agencies cooperate with government.]

The Quartermaster General's Department was called upon to set up rapidly a business greater than that carried on by the most thoroughly organized and efficiently managed industrial organization in the country. It had to consider the supply of raw materials, the diversion of industry, and speed of production, and with its problem pressing for instant solution it had to expand the slender peace-time organization of the Quartermaster Department by the rapid addition of personnel and by the employment and coordination of great civilian agencies which could be helpful.

[Sidenote: The Council of National Defense is aided by men of great ability.]

The Council of National Defense, through the supply committees organized by it, afforded the immediate contact necessary with the world of commerce and industry, while men of various branches of business and production engineers brought their services freely to the a.s.sistance of the Department. The dollar-a-year man has been a powerful aid, and when this struggle is over, and the country undertakes to take stock of the a.s.sets which it found ready to be used in the mobilization of its powers, a large place will justly be given to these men who, without the distinction of t.i.tle or rank, and with no thought of compensation, brought experience, knowledge, and trained ability to Washington in order that they might serve with patriotic fervor in an inconspicuous and self-sacrificing, but indispensably helpful way.

[Sidenote: Sound beginnings made.]

The problems of supply are not yet solved; but they are in the course of solution. Sound beginnings have been made, and as the military effort of the country grows the arrangements perfected and organizations created will expand to meet it.

[Sidenote: The American Railway a.s.sociation's special committee.]

In this general connection it seems appropriate to refer to the effective cooperation between the department and the transportation agencies of the country. For a number of years the Quartermaster General's Department has maintained close relations with the executives of the great railway systems of the country. In February, 1917, a special committee of the American Railway a.s.sociation was appointed to deal with questions of national defense, and the cooperation between this committee and the department has been most cordial and effective, and but for some such arrangement the great transportation problem would have been insoluble. I am happy, therefore, to join the Quartermaster General in pointing out the extraordinary service rendered by the transportation agencies of the country, and I concur also in his statement that "of those who are now serving the Nation in this time of stress, there are none who are doing so more whole-heartedly, unselfishly, and efficiently than the railroad officials who are engaged in this patriotic work."

[Sidenote: Codes established for the garment industry.]

One other aspect of the work of the Quartermaster General's Office has engaged my particular attention, and seems to me to have been fruitful of most excellent results. The garment working trades of the United States are largely composed of women and children, and of men of foreign extraction. More than any other industry in the United States it has been menaced by the sweatshop system. The States have enacted codes and established inspection agencies to enforce sanitary conditions for these workers, and to relieve the evils which seem everywhere to spring up about them. To some extent the factory system operated under rigid inspection has replaced home work, and has improved conditions; but garment making is an industry midway in its course of being removed from the home to the factory, and under pressure of intensive production, home work in congested tenements has been difficult to eradicate.

[Sidenote: Dangers in home work system.]

The vice of this system is not merely the invasion of the home of the worker, and the consequent enfeeblement of the family and family life.

Work done under such circ.u.mstances escapes the inspector, and the crowded workers in the tenement are helpless in their struggle for subsistence under conditions which are unrelieved by an a.s.sertion of the Government's interest in the condition under which these workers live.

Moreover, wide distribution of garments made under such conditions tends to spread disease, and adds another menace from the public point of view.

[Sidenote: Standards inserted in contracts.]

The department determined, therefore, to establish minimum standards as to wages, inspection, hours, and sanitation. These standards were inserted in the contracts made for garment production, and a board was appointed to enforce an observance of these standards. The effect of this has been that it is now possible to say that no uniform worn by an American soldier is the product of sweatshop toil, and that so far as the Government is concerned in its purchases of garments it is a model employer.

[Sidenote: The worker feels a national interest.]

This action has not delayed the acc.u.mulation of necessary supplies, and it has added to our national self-respect. It has distributed national interest between the soldier who wears and the worker who makes the garment, regarding them each as a.s.sets, each as elements in our aggregated national strength.

[Sidenote: The Ordnance Department.]

On the 1st day of July, 1916, there was a total of 96 officers in the Ordnance Department. The commissioned strength of this department increased substantially 2,700 per cent, and is still expanding. The appropriations for ordnance in 1917 were $89,697,000; for 1918, in view of the war emergency, the appropriations for that department aggregate $3,209,000,000.

[Sidenote: Most difficult problems of the war.]

This division of the War Department has had, in some respects, the most difficult of the problems presented by the transition from peace to war.

Like the Department of the Quartermaster General, the Ordnance Department has had to deal with various increases of supply, increases far exceeding the organization and available capacity of the country for production. The products needed take longer to produce; for the most part they involved intricate machinery, and highly refined processes of manufacture. In addition to this the industrial agencies of the country have been devoting a large part of their capacity to foreign production which, in the new set of circ.u.mstances, it is unwise to interrupt.

[Sidenote: Organization of the Council of National Defense.]