How to face peace; a handbook of community programs

Preface

" Fragments of the future " patched into a narrative are usually suggestive reading at least, particularly when these fragments are borne out by chronicles. Although we have been reconstructing for some time, fragments of the future and chronicles of the war have both been necessary for the purpose of this little book. Since not too much is generally known about the reconstruction, readjusting, restoration — whatever you call it — that is upon us, it has seemed pertinent to collect what materials could be found which outlined or indicated the programs necessary to initiate in order to help communities and individuals to find their places in the big, constructive work before the nation.

Prophesying is not so safe as chronicling, but what might be called propheteering is less dull than writing accounts after the fact, and, to propheteer a little, it seems unquestionable that the great spirit of public service evoked by the war must carry over into a desire for permanent and somewhat altruistic effort.

To report a really full program for community reconstruction work is impossible at this time, but from the mass of poignant questions the war has left us to wrestle with, the writer has chosen a few intimately connected with what Lord Dunsany refers to as " those

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little beneficent things of which the happiness of men and children was made in the days before artillery altered the shapes of the hills."

These suggestions are decidedly intended for questing rather than complacent persons.

" We have found," says one well-known leader of Government war work, " that there are four types of volunteers. There are those who say, ' For Heaven's sake, send us orders.' There are others who say, ' We are very glad to get leadership from the Government. It is a great help to us to have definite work from the Government.' We have a third which says, ' We are much obliged to the Government. It is nice to know that Uncle Sam has awakened.' Then there is a fourth type that says, ' We are a highly developed suburb. Do you not think you might let us alone? ' "

For three classes of volunteers, therefore, the programs herein suggested may prove useful. The descriptions of how to effect these plans have no musts about them, although the imperative form of statement is frequently used for directness. In the case you are considering, perhaps entirely different methods will be needed. In order that the leader may at least have a suggested method at his disposal which may, at worst, serve as a point of departure, the writer proposes a definite course for each subject touched upon.

Before adopting any indicated procedure, look well at your neighborhood and fit the plan to the circumstance. What is the first demand of your locality?

PREFACE v

What are its lacks, what its abundances? Mark out jour problems, analyze the elements, then go forth and discuss with your neighbors the line of action to take, elect your leaders, and take it. Straight thinking and practical endeavor, fearlessly facing controversial questions, will help more than any other one thing to reconstruct us.

It is of little use in a single volume to discuss to any extent the technique of the various crafts of health, employment, housing, farming, etc. The writer's province is not to relate the merits of dipping hens in sodium fluoride, although that technical bit of work may so promote the reconstruction job of saving hen meat to feed the world that it may be well worth mentioning. But for all such matters the great Department of Agriculture exists ; of its excellence too much cannot be said. Equally important questions about employment or children should lead you to ring the door bell of the great Department of Labor. As to Americanization, you knock at the door of the Department of Education (and one frivolously hopes that is all you — oh, well — we will refrain from the obvious slang pun!) and so on through the list of Government services which every community should constantly use with the free confidence of possession.

Having confessed that this book has been written with fingers crossed, remembering the nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine types of communities besides all those that are typical of nothing, the writer nevervi PREFACE

theless acknowledges a full sense of responsibility for the attempt made to suggest some beginnings, procedures, and occupations for volunteers during reconstruction in both rural and urban communities.

The author wishes particularly to acknowledge a debt for assistance to the outlines on reconstruction prepared by Mr. W. D. Heydecker, Director of the Division of Research, American City Bureau, New York, and Mr. Dorsey Hyde of the Municipal Reference Library, and to the staff of the Field Division of the Council of National Defense, whose labor and thought have gone so largely into many of the investigations which resulted in certain recommendations herein.

Contents

I. The Community's Part in Reconstruction ..... 1

II. Find the Boys Jobs .... 18 III. Forward Reeducation ... 32 IV. Use Community Labor Boards . . 44 V. Help Women and Children in Industry 51

VI. Extend -Hospitality and Recrea-

CHAPTER I THE COMMUNITY'S PART IN RECONSTRUCTION General Outline

Are you one of the many million home-fire burners who have discovered a new United States during the war? To experience an exalting mental and spiritual revival was the common good fortune. Mixing with unknown neighbors who became new friends has served to create a strong appetite for real fellow-citizenship. Many of us, theoretical democrats, broadened our horizon a thousand per cent, by the forced contact caused by our need, in the name of some cause we represented, to smile a friendly smile, or to make a friendly speech, to persons we have never seen before. In the light of quickened love for our country we advanced a conscious pace along the road toward that brotherhood which is best of all the fruits of victory.

Complete relapse into indifference or self-centeredness on the part of the majority of the population after this experience is unthinkable. There is too much to do for the returning boys, and you yourself are going to do something about peace, anyway. Having known the splendid gratification which comes from mutual effort and the joy of doing one's part, you cannot again be content, whether you were a knitter, a builder of ships, a seller of Liberty Bonds, or any other useful sort of war worker, to sit thoughtlessly or idly at home, be that home " palace or hovel," house or flat, when you realize that the signing of peace terms not only finds none of the countries engaged in this war able to return to prewar conditions but facing tremendous new perplexities : you realize that we in the United States must stay on the job. We must " carry on " on our own account, but, just incidentally, the entire world is depending on our faithfulness and generous spirit. We must reenforce the stability of all other countries.

Each of us, in his own community, now desires to perceive his part in relation to these obligations. Often our accountability is mainly to improve conditions at home. It may be necessary to improve them so that those engaged in foreign work may go forward with it, or, in the light of the lack of civilization the war exposed, we may wish, in resuming our normal work, to put it upon a basis more enlightened, more just, more productive of happiness than our life has ever been. There are many services that we must render immediately. There are many services it will be wise to undertake. Most of us feel real gratitude that we can say we emerge from this war with some knowledge of how to " carry on " efficiently.

No matter whether we work for the people of recently war-ridden lands or for ourselves, it must be largely through community organization that we will do effective work. Each and every one of us has had an unforgettable lesson through our realization of the extent to which we need each other in our towns, our countries, our states, our Government, in the great world which has now conceived a plan for a successful, even though limited, League of Nations. Actually, the achievements of that League depend on the expansion and the broadening of that very neighbor spirit which has made your work in your community successful. Think back over your war work ; it was not done as an individual; it was done as part of a series of teams raised on a community basis. That is why this book is addressed to communities, assuming some community consciousness the whole land through. For the war has made us more human, better sports, infinitely more practical democrats in our own home towns. As a result, a new heroism seems again to have been poured into common life. It has resulted in new methods of common action upon which we are bound more and more to depend locally. Nationally and internationally the same methods must be applied.

But let us be specific. What are the practical tasks that you and I, your husband and mine, the children, " and the cousins and the aunts " must begin upon ? What are the new jobs sticking up their heads? What are the specific programs upon which the demobilized knitters and all other volunteers must immediately loose the energies hitherto employed on war work? What are the objectives we aim for?

In these pages jobs little and big are described, some extremely specific, some indefinite, all necessary. They will not separate themselves into decorous classes in parallel columns, but a large range of choice presents itself both for individuals and communities.

Many of us will think first of the aid we can give to our Allies. The devastation is so tremendous, human misery so incalculable, that we know that all we can do will seem but a puny effort to remedy the most obvious scars.

Raise money. The first task to help those lands which have suffered heavily from actual conflict is to back them financially. We want to give generously. We must also give wisely, as there are many uses for every dollar. When asked for funds by an unknown organization, consult the bulletins of the National Investigation Bureau, New York City. If the society has been investigated and approved its name will appear in the Bureau's list, probably on file at your home library. Investigation safeguards others as well as yourself. In general those societies which have been invited by foreign governments to work in their devastated areas and which have proved their ability to work harmoniously under foreign direction should receive especial support. Dimes as well as dollars are needed to restore the soil, to plow, to plant, to restock, and finally to rehabilitate families.

Sew for the households of devastated regions. One of the main lacks abroad until the wheels of industry can turn again full tilt must continue to be unemployment. Before all industries can resume, materials and money and transportation must be provided. Many societies giving relief prefer to transport materials and utilize the labor of the country in which they are working, yet a certain amount of housefurnishings and clothing may advantageously be made in America.

Before getting out your thimbles, put yourselves in the place of these foreign families. Suppose it had been America which had been devastated. Suppose it had been the Arabs who had plenty, not only of time but money and material and were benevolently disposed. Their natural impulse when they heard that we needed clothes would be, very likely, to make us turbans and sandals and tunics. Would we not prefer to have them find out the kinds of clothes we really want and either contrive to make them or else let us make them ourselves? This is the position of many of the peasant refugees. Enlightened societies which want work done here have brought the patterns from the regions to which the garments are to go. Baby clothes are a possible exception.

Cut and sew carpet rags. Rugs may be woven in your own town to help furnish thousands of French homes.

Knit for France. The French peasant women rejoice in black, circular, sea-shell stitch, knitted shawls. The

Red Cross and other societies issue detailed instructions for the knitting of sweaters, mufflers, and stockings for children and shawls for the women.

Give sympathy, above all, to these countries in trouble, sympathy which is more than the mere provision of money, important as that is. One of the appealing movements receiving express encouragement from the French Government is that by which an American town adopts a French town. Interested Americans should write to the French High Commission, 15th and N Sts., Washington.

Materials, ships, food, skill — these are the tremendous demands from many countries upon us. The needs are diversified and surprising. France called for a million pine seedlings to use in reforesting, a need the state of Pennsylvania speedily met. Unfortunately, other wants are not so easily satisfied. We cannot pick a million ships from their berths to lend to France. We can and we will send foodstuffs, whether we donate or sell them.

We can send skilled workers. Particular sorts of skill are going to count. Our builders and engineers can aid. Doctors, nurses, dietitians may help to rehabilitate the health of civilians. Bacteriologists, animal experts, farmers, and horticulturists are needed. The personnel of the first expedition to the Near East was indicative; not only the foregoing persons, but chauffeurs, child specialists, orphanage superintendents, and a beekeeper went along!

Only if the applicant is particularly well trained to meet any special need overseas and can pay his way for at least a year will any of the large organizations now even consider an application.

" Paris swarms with idle women. No more should go," advises Gertrude Atherton, who was the American President of Le-Bien-Etre du Blesse. There is no invitation for the untrained worker to go to France, Italy, Belgium, or the Near East.

Our greatest task, in spite of the many appeals from every side for the rehabilitation of Europe, is at home. Our own boys, returning, demand ideals and practice of democracy which will not cheapen the sacrifices made by the comrades who did not return, or the sacrifices they themselves were ready to make. Most of the boys have had soul-stirring experiences. The war created new standards for them. They have experienced different social, business, and political orders. They have experienced that teamwork, the admirable part of militarism, which would make the life of peace so vital were it carried over.

Military life has an ardent pulse. To live up to the Soldier's hour our task is, in the large, to secure an entirely healthy pulse in our everyday life. No man should return to his people to find that they give no evidence of having felt or thought of a bettered future, or to people who are unwilling to exert themselves to improve democracy.

Find them jobs. That first great task consists not only in helping individually to discover a desirable place for a soldier or a sailor, or a war worker who took his place, but in organizing extension employment offices according to Government direction. There is need for the effort of every man or woman in this work. While helping to find the jobs, urge the perpetuation, extension, and improvement of the United States Employment Service, one of the greatest facilities ever offered to the American people.

Will there be enough jobs to go around, considering our Home Army of men and women, greater in number than the other, who gave themselves quite loyally to sustain our forces? How can we make sure?

Stimulate business. For most of us reconstruction began by our men-folk scrambling to " unscramble " business. Two hours after the President finished reading to Congress the message which announced the armistice, manufacturers who had been regulated and restricted " within an inch of their lives " had the word to go ahead. The War Industries Board was able unexpectedly to lift the lid of what might be likened to Pandora's Box, in which businesses had been confined. Hope only remained with the Board — hope that these business men would immediately begin to expand industry as consistently, patriotically, and obediently as they had restricted it. Jobs for the demobilized troops in large measure depended upon their action.

You and your community are tremendously interested in that command of the War Industries Board. Every object from suspenders to houses is skied in price.

When plain baby carriages cost $49 in the United States, how is the race to keep on patiently giving hostages to fortune? And they won't come down in price until more suspenders, and more houses, and more baby carriages are turned out by our factories. And we can't escape unemployment and heartbreak and starvation unless our men-folk set and keep those factories at work. Therefore, every business should be stimulated to produce all it consistently can.

Urge that public projects be pushed. This means propaganda in each community. Manufacturers have been and will be faced with hard alternatives. At the beginning of peace they were forced to buy materials and labor when they were dearest, to chance selling at a loss, and to dare bankruptcy. As a result the resumption of work was slow. There were other deterrents, such as the necessity of checking up on Government contracts, which made it impossible, in many cases, immediately to resume peace-time manufacture. The employer was often in the position of the cook who has an omelet to bake and the stove is out of order; he is bound to face a loss if he does not bake the omelet, and if he tries to bake the omelet, he can't ! Therefore, municipal, state, and federal projects, thoroughly approved, should be undertaken at this time to furnish the work that certain businesses have legitimate reasons for not offering.

Learned pessimists predicted from the day of the armistice all the horrors of the bread line because big industries would count upon forcing unemployment, and would not attempt to increase production until lack of work had forced the price of labor down. These pessimists were prepared for a terrific situation for the women who with such surprising success had filled the positions of the men who were in the Service.

Equally learned optimists quite as confidently predicted that capital would take all the hazards so that no unusual amount of unemployment would occur. The fact that all nations needed articles of all sorts that we could manufacture, needed food, needed an immense amount of raw material, and that immigration had ceased, caused the majority of people to agree with the optimists. They were tired of being dismal; they insisted upon cheer. If there were work for everybody, the first necessity of a happy life was assured. Business men had been patriotic during the war — " Let's leave it to them to be patriotic now!" No insistent demand was therefore made upon Congress to set afoot the necessary Government projects to stabilize the labor situation.

At the time of the writing of this book, it is too soon to vindicate either the pessimist or the optimist. Unemployment is with us as usual; it looks threatening; the writer is inclined to prophesy further trouble in light of the visible facts. It avails little, however, to do more than to urge immediate preparation for emergencies. Public projects may be undertaken in such manner that work on them can be stopped when employment conditions become normal. So far as providing employment is concerned, our first hope lies with business itself. If business does not or cannot respond, your town may have roads to be made, school buildings to be put up; if the workers who have not jobs cannot be employed on these tasks, your state or the Federal Government can develop a multiplicity of others, what with railroads to be extended and improved, waterways to be developed and controlled, reforestation to be undertaken, and so on. The administrative end of these great tasks will employ clerks and professionals as well as laborers.

Organize a community labor board if you have not done so. These boards help both employers and workers. Consolidate the gains of the war. Our welcome peace is packed with the greatest variety of perplexing problems, new and old. Momentous potentialities, threatening disappointments, challenge us to performance in peace which shall match our heartfelt professions of democracy. These boards, made up of men and women, employers and employes, are instruments of the " get together " spirit which may be utilized in the adjustment of many community troubles before they boil over. Sustain these boards when created. Be ready to serve — serve them or serve on them.

Help to educate the public concerning the necessity for reeducating our crippled and maimed men. Induce disabled soldiers to take the available training. Help in the work of finding these men jobs. Extend the same work, both education and placement, to our industrial cripples, annually a greater number than the entire roll call of those injured in the war.

Help by influence, votes, and practical work to develop land colonies along the lines already demonstrated by California and New Zealand, and recommended by the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior. Encourage our men, those who are at all fitted, to enter the greatest industry, agriculture. It should no longer be necessary to impose the unalleviated loneliness of the frontier on those who love the land. Let this new era of our land history be worthy of the generous traditions of the country which instituted the Homestead Act for the heroes of the Civil War.

Register homes where houses and rooms are scarce, for the men and women who take the jobs we find for them. To remain contented, a worker must have a decent home. " Vacancy registries " and home-finding work was splendidly started in congested places during the war. Existing homes were improved through landlord and tenant tribunals. Continue these. No work bears a more direct relation to the contentment and happiness of the dwellers in your community.

Quicken local, county, state, and federal attention to food problems. Securing food at a cost consistent with minimum comfort standards for the families of our three million soldiers, our millions of other workers, is an outstanding necessity. America cannot allow a large proportion of its people to live on a ration which does not assure efficiency and sound health to those old enough to work.

Produce more food 011 farms. Recruit for the Boys' Working Reserve and the Woman's Land Army, to provide existing farmers with necessary help. If you live in the country, start community movements scientifically to grade and pack and collect all perishable foodstuffs ; to secure conservation of surplus perishable food in the home markets. Open farmers' markets. Encourage cooperative buying clubs. Improve agriculture and stock raising.

Catch health as a nation! In order that our returned soldiers who have borne the brunt of actual warfare and our children, who must suffer its consequences, may go on fighting the battle of peace with a better chance of ultimate victory, health forces in every community must be enlisted to assume responsibility for new and definite pieces of health work. Urge public health nursing.

Offer our boys the warmest hospitality, and organize permanent neighborhood facilities for recreation. Welcome our returning boys. Secure the welfare of even the last to leave a cantonment, both by entertainment and protective work. Our whole population needs every incentive to free expression and play. Recreation is also necessary to our health and to our cultivation of inventive talent. Do not drop recreation service in your community. Set to work on its reconstruction phases, greater in some ways than war needs. Replace the saloon by maintaining heart-warming activities of peace.

Erect appropriate memorials to commemorate the valor and idealism of our living soldiers and the heroism of our dead. A Community House, a public bridge, or park, or playground, living trees — useful and beautiful memorials are to a great extent displacing sculpture. Choose that which will mean most to your town.

Give organized aid to the dependents of disabled and wounded soldiers and sailors. During periods of illness or retraining or unemployment this is especially needed. Be ready to give relief if necessary to families of workers.

Supervise solicitation of funds.

Provide legal committees to untangle the business affairs of soldiers and sailors.

Urge men who have been in service to keep up their war risk insurance. Volunteer to do preliminary War Risk investigation on doubtful cases.

Help to prevent desertion and to detect deserters until demobilization is complete. " A. W. O. L." (absent without official leave) is the greatest reason given for desertions. Discourage the boy from " staying just a little longer"; help him to feel the discipline just. Keep boys from " making a total loss of it " by reporting detected cases.

Provide scholarships for returning soldiers who wish to continue or to complete their education. Scholarships are also needed by children who had to leave school to go to work. Look to making your local schooling both pleasanter to take and more likely to develop better individuals. Work for consolidated rural schools, improved negro schools, special education for " handminded " children. Women should have mechanical training.

Americanize America. Each and every one of us can do his part to correct an appalling lack of the unity and principle that should bind our states together.

Secure laws to forbid the labor of children. Our men should neither have their competition now, nor, later on, the responsibility for men and women rendered unemployable by their labor in childhood.

Promote general acceptance of Government standards for women in industry, and enact the necessary laws to enforce them in every state. Our natural well-being is concerned deeply in protecting women workers.

Continue the great campaign for thrift and saving. Promote salvage. Urge commercial economies, " return loads " for instance. Encourage highways transport. Prevent fires. Install safety devices.

Help to sell War Saving Stamps. Buy War Saving Stamps. Do not sell your Liberty Bonds. Promote savings societies.

Organize for continued community service. Hold together such war organization as may be devoted or diverted to community service. Vitalize it by an impartial, non-sectarian information bureau providing information in special demand on reconstruction matters. Relate various activities through a common council which recruits groups of workers for the several objects you locally are ready to undertake.

In any survey of our reconstruction task, however incomplete, we run the gamut from solemn and momentous problems to the personal and passing questions like—

What are we going to do when our adored Archie and Tommy and Bob bring home French wives?

What shall we do if, in their period of service, they have acquired the wandering foot?

What shall we do if a soldier or sailor displays a nicety of feeling about putting another excellent man or woman out of a job? Or if they think their superior experience now demands compensation superior to their old jobs?

These are the typical matters which will touch or amuse us. Reconstruction will not be a dull time. Whether the world is, like the old darkey preacher, trying to " ponder the imponderable, define the indefinable, and unscrew the inscrutable," or merely to deal practically with such a genuine prevailing perplexity about what we shall have to do (not what we would like to do) about the woman question, " living it out " is bound to be somewhat exciting.

If there is any doubt in our minds about the work cut out for us, a stolen look at the last chapter will silence the most daring. No, reconstruction will not be too dull, for complacency has, thank Heaven, been at least pierced and too many people are thinking, too many people are moving about, too many people aspire to get what they have a right to but have never had — a little of the glow of real living, a measure of pleasure which shall adorn the necessities of life even as the margin of profit adorns the business balance.

Chapter II

To induct a disintegrating army of millions of men back into work for private firms is not the task of a week or a year; it is a continuous performance which would be our duty as long as the disquieting influence of the war is discernible even if it were not both necessary and desirable to organize work-finding anyhow. The task to which every community is challenged to bend its energy is to find, lure, enmesh, pursue, and by every fair means catch jobs of every species and to deliver them still warm with life to the United States Employment Service. There they will, it is assumed, be gobbled up by hungry-for-work ex-soldiers, sailors, and war workers.

" Put fighting blood into your business." " Our Heroes, Welcome Home," and " Don't Just Cheer. Give Them Jobs " — these were the slogans with which the country rang in early 1919. In the Hall of Records in New York hundreds of boys, still clad in O. D. or " blues," applied to the United States Employment Service for work. A host they seemed, sturdy and slight, tall and short, from the tank, the airplane, the signal corps, all parts of the service. Most of them were jobless — that is, they were not going back into the jobs they had before they left. Many of them were broke.

One marine bravely presented his disfigured face. " Scarred for life by mustard gas," another soldier commented in a whisper.

" Mechanic," said the marine, as the employment manager asked a question. Running through the record cards the employment manager found a job for him at once in a big plant.