problem had been taken up last June or last September all the houses would have been built today and the productive capacity of our great factories turning out munitions of war would have been doubled in most cases. Instead of working eight hours a day these factories would be working twenty-four hours.

Every industry producing munitions and ships ought to be a continuous industry during the life of the war. There is not a citizen who doubts that, and yet what has happened? The unlimited number of both skilled and unskilled laborers, brought into this country as foreigners, green to everything, unfamiliar with the language and not knowing what they could earn, were forced to take any job that was offered to them. Wages were relatively low and manufacturers could get all the labor they wanted, so that these men were often forced to live like animals. They were frequently put into bunk houses, four men to a room, in double deck bunks, with inadequate air space, and often with the beds working three shifts in twenty-four hours. The beds were actually kept warm all the time-the fellow who turned in turned the other fellow out.

But today with the labor supply shut off from the beginning of the war, through cessation of emigration; with the withdrawal of men because of the draft creating a great dearth of labor of all kinds, both skilled and unskilled; with the sudden demand for increased industrial output made necessary by the war, the labor supply became seriously depleted, and now we find not only the mechanic, but the unskilled laborer who knows his power, asserting his manhood and saying, "I am not going to live like an animal any more. I won't live in your bunk house. I won't sleep four men in a room. I won't sleep with three shifts using the same bed;" and he goes to another job. So it is not now merely a problem of attracting labor but that of holding it, and the whole country has been forced to consider the question of what we can do to stabilize the labor supplynot how can we attract the kind of labor we want by increased wages but how can we hold it permanent by decent living accommodations. The providing of improved housing and opportunity for proper domestic life seem to be the most important methods of doing it. Men are human whether there is a war or not, and they want life that is life; they want amusements; they want recreations; they will be better fighting men and better working men for all of those things. No human being in contact with the pulsing life of

this country can seriously question that. In discussing this question of industrial housing the other day it was advocated that it was just as necessary to provide a moving picture show as to put in the water supply system. Things of this kind are essential to hold labor.

Think of men laboring and using up every bit of energy, working at great speed and under a high tension, having to live the life of a sodden beast without family or home or comfortable living and with absolutely nothing to amuse them. Of course, that is unspeakable and its natural result is the I. W. W. We not only have to build houses of the right type, houses that have light and air and are sanitary and safe, but we also have to provide some of the amenities of life. We want garden villages; we want trees and grass and shrubs and we want leisure for the workers and amusements and recreation for them indoors and outdoors both. It will make them fitter for their jobs and we will be better able to supply our armies. These are cold hard facts.

Getting the desired legislation has been somewhat complicated, because, in order to allow the government not only to build houses but whole communities in some cases; in isolated places to build streets and sewers, water and lighting systems, moving picture shows, and schools and places of public amusement;-in order to do this new powers had to be conferred, which seemed a vast departure, and made Congress loath to grant the legislation in question. The houses are being built to win the war. Only on that basis is Congress thinking of appropriating $110,000,000 and having the government go into the business of building houses. They would not for a moment have dreamed of considering favorably this project of the government's going into the housing business, which some of them term "state socialism," except as a means of winning the war.

One of the vital questions that has arisen is whether the houses should be built for temporary use or be permanent structures. Those who have studied the question know the advantages of permanent buildings. A permanent structure can be built almost as quickly and almost as cheaply as a temporary one.

Then the question came up of whether to house the workers or warehouse them-whether, for instance, we were to house each single man in a separate room or whether we should adopt the old-fashioned dormitory or barracks type with the men all in one big room;

or whether we should have private rooms with a single man in a room. The federal government in the new standards adopted as to how houses shall be built has set a high-water mark in that respect, which is going to be of value to the country for generations after the war is over. One of the interesting by-products of the war is the disappearance of the bunk house, the establishment of the right kind of hotels for single men and women, the declaration against the tenement house, and the preference for the small house as the normal domicile of the American working-man.

We hope that out of the situation will come the formulation of a national policy with regard to the housing of the working people of this country. The time has come when the people of this country should consider the question of a national policy for the housing of its workers. It is a great mistake to go on as in the past, housing people as animals, and with a sort of laissez faire policy that everything will come out all right. We have had too many concrete demonstrations of the fact that it does not come out all right, to let us be content with that sort of practice. So one of the things that is going to come out of this awakened interest in housing, because of dramatic war-time manifestations of its fundamental importance, is undoubtedly a wider recognition by the people of the whole United States of the fact that as are the homes of the people so is the citizenship of the country.

THE MOBILIZATION OF WOMEN

BY MRS. NEVADA DAVIS HITCHCOCK,

Pennsylvania State Chairman, Home Economics, National League for Woman's Service.

Women responded all over the country when war was declared by President Wilson. Their patriotism was manifested in various ways. The desire to serve their country was shown by organizations already engaged in war work pledging renewed energy and extended fields of service. Such organizations are the Red Cross, Emergency Aid and Navy League. Women's clubs and associations all over the United States offered their services to President Wilson with such an avalanche of letters and telegrams that our President saw this was

no matter for one man to handle alone even if he were able to take care of the rest of the country. With his usual wisdom he turned the matter over to the Council of National Defense with the result that the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense was formed as a clearing house for women's activities all over the United States. The selection of a chairman for this great body was most fortunate because in Dr. Anna Howard Shaw they have a woman who not only understands organization, but one who stands as an ideal of democracy. She has not only the admiration of both men and women for her intellectual ability, but she also possesses their confidence in regard to common sense and good judgment.

As has been said, the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense is intended to be a clearing house between women's clubs and organizations and the United States government. The object is twofold-first, to give out patriotic inspiration, second, to furnish educational assistance. In order to accomplish this a number of departments have been formed. The work is carried on by state divisions which in turn work through county committees. Each county committee has ten departments with a director in charge. The scope of these embraces registration, food production, food conservation, women in industry, child welfare, maintenance of social agencies, education, liberty loan, foreign relief, and the safeguarding of moral and spiritual forces. Under the department of registration a system has been established by which it is expected to have listed and entered in a cross-indexed file the name, address and qualifications of every woman in the country. If a woman is already employed there is no intention of disturbing her, but should she be desirous of obtaining a position either volunteer or salaried, the Registration Department will try to find a suitable niche where her special qualifications will be used to the greatest possible advantage.

The departments of food production and food conservation are most important. Under food production we have the land army units which have become so great in number that they require study as a separate division. The work done under food conservation also is in a class by itself and will be touched upon later. The Council of National Defense recognizes that child welfare needs special attention at this crucial period in our history. At this time women are going into industry, because they must take the place of men who

are in the trenches. Family life is more or less disorganized. Children are in danger of becoming weak morally and physically; morally because they are allowed to run the streets, and to take care of themselves to a greater degree; physically because their mothers are unable to secure and prepare the proper food owing to the necessity of working away from home and the increased cost of living. Child welfare and women in industry are insolubly linked.

Under women in industry the relations between employer and employe are studied and often adjusted by the Woman's Committee through women's associations which aid in securing proper sanitary conditions, equal wages for equal work and the protection of women against unwise zeal and enthusiasm of taking positions where they are not yet needed. The other departments have been carried on with equal zeal and enthusiasm by the committee.

The National League for Woman's Service stands in a position by itself. It had just been formed when war was declared by our President. As an outgrowth of the work of the National Patriotic Relief Committee during the Mexican crisis a plan was formed for the mobilization of the woman force of this country and Miss Grace Parker was sent to England to see what the women were doing over there. She found that in munition plants alone over a million and a half girls and women were employed. They also take the places of men as porters, conductors, letter carriers, street sweepers, telegraph messengers, lamp lighters, chimney sweeps, clerks in grocery shops, carpenters, cab drivers, window cleaners, etc.; they are, in fact, in every department of industry.

Miss Parker learned from English women that the great handicap of many thousands of women for nursing, industrial, social and welfare work was lack of training and experience. To meet this need women's organizations were formed in England with such success that Miss Parker returned to America with a plan for mobilization of American women based on the English women's organizations. At the invitation of the National Security League this plan was presented in Washington at the Congress of Constructive Patriotism on January 26, before one thousand delegates from all over the United States. It met with instant approval and the National League for Woman's Service was organized by the delegates present with Miss Maud Wetmore as Temporary National Chairman. Service and training are the keynotes to the work of the National