¹ Cuff, Robert D., “The Politics of Labor Administration during World War I,” Labor History 21 (Fall 1980): 547–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² Ferrell, Robert H., Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 1917–1921 (New York, 1985), 99–102Google Scholar (quotation, p. 99). See also Kennedy, David M., Over Here: The First World War and American Society (New York, 1980), 304–5, 325–26, 329Google Scholar. Had the war lasted until 1919 or 1920, ship production would have been very impressive. In fact, by the time of the Armistice only 178 ships had been finished.

³ For general histories of the U.S. Employment Service see Lombardi, John, Labor's Voice in the Cabinet: A History of the Department of Labor from Its Origin to 1921 (New York, 1942)Google Scholar; Kellogg, Ruth M., The United States Employment Service (Chicago, 1933)Google Scholar; and Smith, Darrell H., The United States Employment Service: Its History, Activities and Organization (Baltimore, Md., 1923)Google Scholar.

⁴ The text of the 25 April 1917 agreement is reproduced in C. T. Clayton to Rear Admiral W. L. Capps, USN, General Manager, Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC), 27 July 1917, box 9, file “Employment Offices—Establishment of,” U.S. Shipping Board (USSB) Papers, Construction Organization, Industrial Relations Division, Service Section, Record Group (RG) 32, National Archives (NA), Washington, D.C. See also Clayton to Samuel L. Fuller, assistant to general manager, EFC, c. 19 July 1917, a copy of which Clayton also enclosed with his letter to Capps.

⁵ W. E. Blackman to James Hughes and F. A. Silcox, telegram, 11 Dec. 1917, box 70, file 53814/1 (“Labor—Location and Distribution of Supply”), USSB, Construction Organization, Industrial Relations Division, General Records, RG 32, NA.

⁶ For example, in December 1917 the joint session on “Employment and the War” of the American Economic Association and the American Association for Labor Legislation drew attention to the experiment. See Seager, Henry R., “Coordination of Federal, State and Municipal Employment Bureaus,” Papers and Proceedings of the Thirtieth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, Philadelphia, Pa., December, 1917, in American Economic Review 8, supplement (March 1918): 141–16Google Scholar. The essay is reprinted with a slightly amended title in Seager, Henry R., Labor and Other Economic Essays, ed. Gulick, Charles A. Jr, (New York, 1931; rpt. 1968), 293–302Google Scholar. Seager envisaged the Seattle office of the USES as a coordinating mechanism drawing all existing employment offices into “a really efficient mechanism.” He also commented: “There seems to be no reason, if men of the right type are secured for the task, why similar war emergency bureaus should not be opened in the other important shipbuilding centers.”

⁷ The best discussion of the prewar movement to rationalize the labor market is Udo Sautter, “North American Government Labor Agencies before World War One: A Cure for Unemployment,” Labor History 24 (Summer 1983): 366–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 371–73. See also William J. Breen, “The Labor Market, the Reform Impetus, and the Great War: The Reorganization of the State-City Employment Exchanges in Ohio, 1914–1918,” Labor History (1987—forthcoming).

⁸ Seattle Union-Record, 6 April 1918, 1. Shortly after his return from Seattle he addressed the annual meeting of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Chicago and enthusiastically reported on the success of the Seattle office. See U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Minutes of Sixth Annual Meeting, April 10-11-12, 1918. Chicago, Illinois. (Mtg. of April 11, 1918), bound copies of transcript of meeting found in U.S. Chamber of Commerce Building, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. In an article aimed at organized labor Bloomfield, commented: “In the northwest, a real labor exchange system is developing along the lines of the excellent British system which has been so helpful in this war.” Bloomfield, Labor and Ships on the Pacific Coast, American Federationist 25 (June 1918): 483Google Scholar. Bloomfield had not been directly involved in public employment office work in the prewar years, but he had been particularly influential in the vocational guidance movement, which was closely tied to the early personnel management movement. See Jacoby, Sanford M., Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in American Industry, 1900–1945 (New York, 1985)Google Scholar, especially chap. 3.

⁹ Friedheim, Robert L., The Seattle General Strike (Seattle, Wash., 1964), 57–58Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Bing, Alexander M., War-Time Strikes and Their Adjustment (New York, 1921), 20–21Google Scholar.

¹¹ The text of that agreement is reproduced in J. L. Hughes to C. Piez, 26 June 1918, box 205, file 13/117 (“Seattle Shipyards”), William B. Wilson Papers, Department of Labor Records, RG 174, NA. Charles Piez was the vice-president and general manager of the Emergency Fleet Corporation.

¹² Friedheim, Seattle General Strike, 59; see also 24–25.

¹³ See ibid., 62–67; Hotchkiss, Willard E. and Seager, Henry R., History of the Shipbuilding Labor Adjustment Board, 1917 to 1919 (Washington, D.C., 1921)Google Scholar [Bulletin of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, no. 283], chap. 2.

¹⁴ Second Annual Report of the United States Employment Service covering the fiscal year ended June 30, 1919. House Doc. 7734, vol. 63, 66th Cong., 2d sess., 896.

¹⁵ “Plan for Handling Needed Labor on War Emergency Work (December 14, 1917).” Appendix to 86-page verbatim report of conference of Piez and Charles M. Schwab with Seattle Labor Leaders, 18 July 1918, USSB-EFC, Construction Organization, General Records, Records of Charles Piez, 1917–19, file 128/3 (“Labor Conference—Seattle—7/18/18—Mr. Piez and Mr. Schwab with Labor Leaders—Duplicate Copy”), RG 32, NA. A copy of the agreement was published in the Seattle Union-Record, 22 Dec. 1917, 3.

¹⁶ Second Annual Report of the United States Employment Service …, 896–97. quotation on p. 897. Some of these circumstances were well understood by the Emergency Fleet Corporation. Charles Piez commented in September 1918 that in the Pacific Northwest the EFC had been “unwise enough to place contracts considerably in excess of the amount justified by the available labor supply. There is, in consequence, a serious shortage of labor which has resulted in a wholly unregulated competition among the shipbuilders, for the labor that is available.” C. Piez to E. N. Hurley, 25 Sept. 1918, box 93, file 4439, pt. 2, USSB, Subject Classified General Files, 1917–1920, RG 32, NA. In a conference with the Pacific Northwest shipbuilders in Seattle in July 1918, Piez had made the same point more directly: “You know this situation here has been induced by the employers; not by the men. They have simply taken advantage of an opportunity. I think you have got too damn much work in this district; that is what I am beginning to feel.” “Conference between Mr. Charles A. Piez and Northwestern Shipbuilders held at New Washington Hotel, Seattle, Washington, Thursday afternoon, July 18th, 1918.” (88-page verbatim transcript), 57, file 128/2, USSB, Construction Organization, General Records, Records of Charles Piez, 1917–19, RG 32, NA.

¹⁷ W. Blackman to E. Hurley, memorandum, “Report of the Division of Labor, William Blackman, Director (March 26, 1918)” (carbon copy, 4 pp.), 2–3, box 58, file 53710/4 (“Labor Supply Sections: Reports Weekly”), USSB, Construction Organization, Industrial Relations Division, RG 32, NA.

¹⁸ Friedheim, Seattle General Strike, 59.

¹⁹ See F. Frankfurter, chairman, War Labor Policies Board (WLPB), to J. B. Densmore, director-general, USES, 29 Aug. 1918. box 19, file “Fuel Administration,” War Labor Policies Board, RG 1, NA. See also related correspondence of Frankfurter with H. A. Garfield, Fuel Administrator, in same file; Densmore had received an affidavit about a similar incident in April related to the traveling examiners attached to the Seattle office. The incident took place in Minneapolis and the USES officer there told an applicant for work at the Seattle yards that his application “would not be accepted until he had joined the Carpenters and Jointers [sic] Union.” Densmore agreed that this statement was “wholly unauthorized,” although he added that it would have been correct to point out that the Seattle yards hired only union men. If the workman “desired to proceed to Seattle and take his own chances he could do so.” Densmore did call for a report on the incident from the examiner in charge of the Minneapolis office. See J. B. Densmore to J. S. Cravens, 27 April 1918. Copy attached to J. H. Winterbotham to D. R. Cotton, 6 May 1918, box 2, P617, Donald Reed Cotton Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minn.

²⁰ See Hearings before the Joint Committee on Labor. National Employment System, 66th Cong., 1st sess. Note especially the testimony of the secretary of labor, W. B. Wilson, 12–15. See also the accusation of James A. Emery, general counsel for the National Association of Manufacturers, concerning the efforts of USES officials to intimidate the editor of the Business Chronicle, 503. The editor, Edwin Selvin, was described by Robert Friedheim as “a well known opponent of labor.” See Friedheim, Seattle General Strike, 86.

²¹ Hearings…, National Employment System, 13–14.

²² G. C. Corbaley to W. Blackman (telegram), 24 Jan. 1918. Quoted in Blackman to Densmore (memo), 24 Jan. 1918, box 64, file 53793/1 (“United States Employment Service—Ceneral”), USSB, Construction Organization, Industrial Relations Division, RG 32, NA. In October 1917, the labor press referred to the “union-fighting Seattle Chamber of Commerce and Commercial Club. “ See Seattle Union-Record, 6 Oct. 1918, 1. Ferdinand A. Sileox received a master's degree in forestry from Yale in 1905 and joined the U.S. Forest Service. By 1917 he was in charge of the western district. He temporarily transferred into the Department of Labor in 1917 and was placed in charge of the Seattle office. Silcox was a Democrat and left government service in the 1920s. He was appointed chief of the U.S. Forest Service in 1933.

²³ W. Blackman to H. White, telegram, 24 Jan. 1918, box 64, file 53793/1 (“United States Employment Service—General”), USSB, Construction Organization, Industrial Relations Division, RG 32, NA. White was commissioner of immigration at Seattle between 1913 and 1921. During the war he also acted as a special representative of the USES covering the Northwest. Blackman had confidence in his judgment.

²⁴ G. Corbaley to W. Blackman, telegram, 28 Jan. 1918, ibid. Corbaley had been in contact with White shortly before telegraphing Blackman. Under the December 1917 agreement, officials from seven different shipyard unions were appointed to assist the Seattle USES office. These seven men resigned their positions as union officials in order to go into government employment as USES “examiners.” Four were chosen from the metal trades, one from the building trades, and two from the lumber and woodworking trades. See Seattle Union-Record, editorial, 22 Dec. 1917.

²⁵ Copy of Silcox telegram (unsigned) contained in C. T. Clayton to W. Blackman, 25 Jan. 1918, box 87, file 53832/1, pt. 1 (“Seattle District— Labor—General”), USSB, Construction Organization, Industrial Relations Division, General Records, RG 32, NA.

²⁶ G. C. Corbaley to W. Blackman, telegram. 13 Feb. 1918, box 64, file 53793/1 (“United States Employment Service—General”), ibid.

²⁷ W. Blackman to G. C. Corbaley, telegram, 14 Feb. 1918, ibid.

²⁸ G. C. Corbaley to W. Blackman, telegram, 14 Feb. 1918, ibid.

²⁹ W. Blackman to G. C. Corbaley, telegram 17 [?] Feb. 1918, ibid.

³⁰ J. F. Duthie to G. C. Corbaley, telegram, 24 Jan. 1918 (“Approved Blackman” inked in), box 87, file 53832/1, pt. 1 (“Seattle District— Labor—General"), ibid.

³¹ C. W. Wiley to W. Blackman, telegram, 17 March 1918, ibid. There is a copy of this original telegram in box 64, file 53793/1 (“United States Employment Service—General”).

³² George F. Russell, secretary-manager, Employers' Association of Washington, to C. M. Piez, EFC, 18 March 1918, box 87, file 53832/1, pt. 1 (“Seattle District—Labor—General”), USSB, Construction Organization, Industrial Relations Division, General Records, RG 32, NA. A copy of this original letter is also in box 64, file 53793/1 (“United States Employment Service—General”).

³³ Ibid.

³⁴ L. C. Marshall to J. B. Densmore, 29 June 1918, box 64, 53793/1 (“United States Employment Service— General”), ibid.

³⁵ J. F. Blain to C. Piez, 5 Oct. 1918 (headed “Labor Situation Seattle” and marked “Personal and Confidential”), file 120/1 (“Labor—General”), Records of Charles Piez, 1917–1919, ibid. Blain attached to this letter a list of eleven names of “Undesirables & Unpatriotic Labor Men” in the Seattle district: three of the men listed were attached to the Seattle federal employment office. He added that “I have no means of obtaining information whereby complaints could be substantiated and could be filed with the Department of Justice to the end that prosecutions could be successfully carried out.”

³⁶ Ibid.

³⁷ H. McBride to L. C. Marshall, 12 Oct. 1918, box 87, file 53832/1 (“Seattle District—Labor—General”), ibid.

³⁸ See, for example, the rebuff by employers of the effort by the EFC to organize a centralized shipyard office on the Great Lakes: M. E. Farr to C. Piez, 15 April 1918, box 70, file 53814/1 (“Labor—Location and Distribution of Supply”), ibid.

³⁹ J. B. Densmore to L. C. Marshall, 3 July 1918, box 64, file 53793/1 (“United States Employment Service—General”), ibid.

⁴⁰ F. A. Silcox to H. M. White, 7 Feb. 1918, ibid. Note that another copy is in box 87, file 53832/1 (“Seattle District—Labor—General”).

⁴¹ Hotchkiss and Seager, History of the Shipbuilding Labor Adjustment Board, 16. Seager and Hotchkiss do not name the company involved; it was, however, the Skinner and Eddy shipyard.

⁴² Some of the shipyard owners felt that they had good evidence for this view. The J. F. Duthie Shipyard, for example, had a sympathetic workman in the local union who made regular reports between April 1917 and February 1918. In January, he reported that the union had established a man at the USES office “presumably to give such information as applicants wish to know regarding the Union, but actually to hinder in every way possible any applicant whom this man thinks will not put the Union interests foremost in accepting a position regardless of his ability as a workman.” Carbon copies of these reports by Theodore M. Finch are in box 205, file 13/117 (“Seattle Shipyards”), Chief Clerk's File. Department of Labor Records, RC 174, NA. The workman was arrested in March 1918 on charges of bootlegging and possession of indecent photographs. See Seattle Union-Record, 30 March 1918, 1.

⁴³ British Labor's War Message to American Labor: Addresses and Discussions at a Meeting of the Committee on Labor of the Council of National Defense held in Washington, D.C. on 15 May 1917, Senate Doc. 84, 65th Cong., 1st sess. See especially the discussion by James H. Thomas, M.P., former general secretary of the British National Union of Railway Men, 91–92.

⁴⁴ Silcox was almost certainly pro-union, and it was rumored that his political philosophy was radical. Speaking to the Seattle Central Labor Council in March 1918, Silcox stated that “he believed if there is anything in industrial democracy it should be practiced instead of being merely preached, and he looked upon the employment service as a first step along that line.” See Seattle Union-Record, editorial, 2 March 1918. A confidential report on Silcox made in September 1918 commented: “It is understood that Mr. Silcox is a close friend and associate of one, Anna Louise Strong,. … a rank Socialist and an I.W. W. agitator. She has the confidence of the most radical, torch and dynamite members of the I.W.W. organization. This is merely called to your attention to indicate the influences entrenched in the Seattle Government Employment Bureau.” See confidential report dated 23 Sept. 1918, enclosed in D. Whitcomb, Fuel Administration, to G. Bell, War Labor Policies Board, 11 Oct. 1918, box 19, file “Fuel Administration,” WLPB, RG 1, NA For details on Anna Strong, see Friedheim, Seattle General Strike, esp. 30, 52–53, 110–11, 149–50.

⁴⁵ See especially Cuff, “Politics of Labor Administration,” 546–69.

⁴⁶ G. C. Corbaley to W. Blackman, telegram, 14 Feb. 1918.

⁴⁷ See, for example, J. B. Densmore, director-general, USES, to J. S. Cravens, State Councils Section, Council of National Defense, 27 April 1918. Copy attached to J. Winterbotham to D. R. Cotton, 8 May 1918, box 2, P617, Donald Reed Cotton Papers.

⁴⁸ H. McBride to L. C. Marshal, 12 Oct. 1918.

⁴⁹ C. Piez to L. C. Marshall, 14 Oct. 1918. Marshall commented in late March 1918: “The truth is that the West Coast workers are pretty much out of control, partly on their own fault but mainly because of perfectly assinine actions on the part of the employers.” L. C. Marshall to L. Howland, 23 Aug. 1918, box 87, file 53832/1, pt. 2 (“Seattle District—Labor—General”), USSB, Construction Organization, Industrial Relations Division, General Records, RG 32, NA.

⁵⁰ H. McBride to L. C. Marshall, telegram, 31 Oct. 1918, ibid. S. L. Boddy was the secretary of the Metal Trades Council at Seattle.

⁵¹ H. McBride to L. C. Marshall, telegram, 2 Nov. 1918, file 53832/1, pt. 3, ibid.

⁵² L. C. Marshall to H. McBride, telegram, 5 Nov. 1918, ibid. For a brief comment on the important role of Marshall in developing EFC labor policy, see Bernard Mergen, “The Government as Manager: Emergency Fleet Shipbulding, 1917–1919”, in Business and Its Environment: Essays for Thomas C. Cochran, ed. Sharlin, Harold Issadore (Westport, Conn., 1983)Google Scholar, especially 64–66. Mergen suggests that Marshall “may have been labor's strongest advocate in the Wilson administration.”

⁵³ The director-general of the USES thought that the War Department was the least cooperative of the government departments and wartime agencies. In early 1918, Stanley King, the private secretary to the secretary of war, in response to Densmore's request that all labor requests for War Department projects be funneled through the USES, “… just expressed the opinion… that he thought we could not do it.” See Hearings before the House Appropriations Committee, Sundry Civil Bill, 1919, 65th Cong., 2d sess., 1576–77 (testimony of John B. Densmore, 1 May 1918). Shortly after the Armistice another official who was responsible for the War Department's industrial policy voiced similar reservations concerning administrative capacity: “I feel increased regret to have the reputation of the Department of Labor so impaired abroad as it is through the lack of comprehension that attaches to the direction of the work in the Employment Service, as well as in the Conciliation Service.… the testimony is alike from all the states of insufficiency of comprehension in the work of direction.” See E. M. Hopkins to F. Frankfurter, 21 Dec. 1918, War Department series, file “War Labor Policies Board,” Ernest Martin Hopkins Papers, Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, N.H. Felix Frankfurter, chairman of the War Labor Policies Board, who was largely responsible for improving the administrative caliber of the USES during 1918, was well aware of the problem. In September 1918 he wrote: “My guiding purpose in connection with the Employment Service since I came here is to make of it a truly national Service expressive only of the national will and free from partisanship towards one side or the other. … I was aware of the tendency among certain elements of the employers to regard the Employment Service and the Department of Labor generally as unduly partisan towards trade union interests.” F. Frankfurter to H. Garfield, 4 Sept. 1918, box 19, file “Fuel Administration,” WLPB, RG 1, NA. In summer 1918, Frankfurter had been instrumental in bringing in a group of employment experts headed by Fred C. Croxton, the director of the Ohio state employment system, to scrutinize the organization and policies of the USES. This resulted in a major overhaul of the operation of the USES. See “Report and Recommendations” attached to F. C. Croxton to F. Frankfurter, 10 June 1918, box 18, file “Employment Service: May-June-July” WLPB, RG 1, NA; and F. Frankfurter to W. B. Wilson, headed “Memorandum for the Secretary,” 1 July 1918, box 19, file “Sec'y Wilson to August,” ibid. In a wartime emergency, efficiency is difficult to measure. However, much of the testimony concerning the administrative incapacity of the USES came from individuals, such as Leiserson, Marshall, and Frankfurter himself, who were very sympathetic to its aims and to the Department of Labor. The problems facing the USES were staggering and even a superbly efficient organization could not have avoided some criticism. To create a working national organization virtually overnight was a considerable achievement. A bitter internal wrangle between Louis F. Post, the assistant secretary of labor, and John B. Densmore, which was not settled until early July 1918, contributed substantially to the difficulties faced by the USES and no doubt helped to color its reputation. This general issue of the reputation of the USES is addressed in my forthcoming study of that body.