5,000,000 Jobless?

"You can make all the boots and shoes needed annually in America in about six months and you can blow all the window glass needed in America in seventeen days. You can dig all the coal necessary in six months with the men now in the industry. Because of our increase in population in the last eight or ten years it now should take 140 men to supply the needs of the country where 100 could do so. Instead of that and in spite of our having 20,000,000 more people, the needs of the country are fully supplied with 7% fewer workers than we needed in 1919."

Thus spoke last week Secretary of Labor James John Davis, spurred to vivid language by cries of "unemployment" rising throughout the land. Where, how much and why is "unemployment"?

Last month Baltimore sent policemen to every family in the city to learn exactly how many wage earners lacked employment (TIME, Feb. 20). Events justified their preoccupation. Last week the American Federation of Labor published its January table of unemployed union workers in 23 cities. Baltimore held first place with 42.5% unemployed. Of 23 cities Chicago was the only one where unemployment decreased. The table:

Oct. to Dec. Jan.

1927 1928

City per cent. per cent.

Baltimore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.2 42.5

Cleveland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.6 33.8

Detroit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.0 32.3

Philadelphia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.3 30.6

Buffalo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.3 26.7

Omaha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.7 26.0

New York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.6 24.2

Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.2 22.7

Jersey City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.4 21.6

Denver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.4 21.3

Boston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.8 19.6

Cincinnati . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.0 18.6

Pittsburgh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.1 17.6

Birmingham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.3 16.6

San Francisco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.7 14.3

Seattle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.0 13.0

Washington, D. C . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3 13.0

St. Louis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9-4 12.5

Minneapolis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 11.6

Milwaukee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 9.8

Atlanta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.7 9.7

San Antonio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.0 9.0

Chicago . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 7.8

-- --

Average . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.8 17.8

The American Federation of Labor expressed through its house organ, the American Federationist, the view that unemployment was much higher among nonunion workers than in its own highly organized ranks. Of the Federation's 3,000,000 members, 500,000 men and women were out of work, estimated A. F. L. officials. President William Green, speaking at Detroit on needed flood control and present unemployment, startled his audience by guessing that 5,000,000 U. S. workers are jobless. A Wall Street statistician, professional adviser to thousands of corporations, replied, anonymously, that Federation figures might be used to persuade non-union workers to join up, hence capitalistic statisticians do not rely upon them.

Dominick & Dominick, Manhattan bankers, circularized their clientele:

"UNEMPLOYMENT"

"No Reasonable Basis for Alarm"

"Fear of long bread lines has disturbed the peace of industry to a somewhat exaggerated extent in the past few days. Certain statistics of unemployment, particularly in New York State, have given rise to conclusions of a general labor depression not warranted by the scope of the statistics themselves. It is evident first of all that there is a unique feature in the present unemployment. Paradoxically, business is proceeding to a higher level of activity and wages generally are high."

Nevertheless, the learned Commercial and Financial Chronicle had an editorial: "The factory labor index number for January was below that of December and was the lowest for the last six years." Said Moody's Investors' Service: "Our Prosperity Index made its high peak for 1927 in March and our Employment Index also made its high peak in March. The employment of factory labor gradually decreased, subject only to seasonal variations or about nine or ten months before the public took any notice of it."

The U. S. is far behind many European governments in accurate, immediate barometric data. Unemployment, a prime factor in the present business situation, cannot be measured because the U. S. has no organized method of keeping track of workers who leave one factory for another or one occupation for another.

But in Washington, D. C., last week, U. S. Commissioner of Labor Statistics Ethelbert Stewart sat watching the falling curve on that labor chart which has absorbed his entire attention for 41 years. Most highly specialized of all observers of the rise and fall of the market for men, Wizard Stewart is credited with an unrivaled knowledge of U. S. employment conditions. He alone suggested a remedy:

"Every machine that is built to do the work of four men throws three out of work. Of course, new industries are created and production increased to absorb part of the surplus labor but sooner or later we will reach the saturation point. Whether we have reached that point now will be determined by the middle of April, and if we have reached it, there is only one solution, shorter working hours. Anything else will be suicidal."