The success of the project was beyond question. The so-called bureaus for discharged soldiers, sailors, and marines were set up in practically every community in the United States. Since the work was so largely voluntary work, no strict system of reports was ever put in force, but the figures from 500 principal American cities and towns showed that when the year 1919 ended, 1,326,000 discharged service men had applied to the employment agencies, and more than 927,000 had been placed in jobs by the organization. A general survey in the autumn of 1919 disclosed only about 20,000 ex-service men out of work.
The men of the A. E. F. came in contact with the Government’s employment organization before they left foreign soil. The United States Employment Service sent several representatives to France soon after the armistice. These advance agents carried cards, which were distributed to the troops of the expedition as they came to the embarkation ports in France. With the cards went the Government’s assurance that it would use every effort to restore every soldier to a useful place in civil life. Any soldier who desired to avail himself of these good offices was instructed to fill in a card during his voyage home, telling his qualifications, what sort of job he desired, and where he wished to be employed. Hundreds of thousands of these cards were collected by the federal employment agents at the ports of debarkation in this country. The cards were sorted and sent to the proper local employment bureaus throughout the United States. Thousands of men were engaged for work before they received their discharges. The fact that jobs were waiting for them undoubtedly helped to avert the congregating of idle service men in cities after they had been turned off at the demobilization centers.
The overseas soldier had been serving his country for a dollar a day while others had stayed at home in bomb-proof jobs and drawn the highest wages ever paid in America. The returning veteran often felt, and felt justly, that it was his turn now to reap some of the financial rewards. Travel had broadened these boys; the harsh experiences of war had sobered them and often quickened their ambition. Such men were not content to go back to the jobs they had left in 1917 and 1918. They demanded something better, and often they got it, because employers were prone to accept their point of view. Events justified this attitude, too, as was testified to in hundreds of letters received by the employment bureaus from satisfied employers, who wrote that the demobilized soldiers were better and more ambitious workmen for their war experiences.
Photo from Federal Board for Vocational Education
DISABLED VETERANS TAKING FEDERAL TRAINING
Photo by Signal Corps
EDITORIAL CONFERENCE OF STARS AND STRIPES
The success of the reëmployment campaign was largely an achievement for publicity. The publicity was directed both to the soldier and to the employer. For reaching the soldier one of the most valuable devices proved to be a booklet entitled Where Do We Go from Here?, written by Major William Brown Meloney. This pamphlet was filled with good advice for the demobilized soldier. It took into account his stirred ambition, but showed how impossible it was for every man to get the place in civil life he desired, and therefore urged each man to take what job he could get and make the most of it. The War Camp Community Service printed and distributed 3,000,000 copies of this booklet.