was 4,359. Of this number 3,039 were men and 1,320 were women. The applications for help, counting each application and not the number wanted, were, men, 2,214; women, 1,172.

With regard to the matter of records the management feels that it is better economy of time to get the business, to see employers, to study their needs, and to adapt the applicants for work to the various positions than it is to register every transaction carefully and to transfer the items from application blanks to record books, and from these to the monthly reports.

MISSOURI.

The free employment system was established in Missouri in 1898, without sanction of the law. It proved a satisfactory experiment, and the next year a law was enacted providing for the establishment of offices in cities containing 100,000 or more inhabitants. The labor unions were not the sponsors of the movement, but since the passage of the law they have adopted resolutions favoring the extension of the system to cities of 50,000. There was no popular demand for the office, the movement having its inception with the commissioner, the object being to combat the abuses practiced by the private agencies.

"Cities of 100,000 or more" includes only the cities of St. Louis, St. Joseph, and Kansas City. The selection as well as the dismissal of superintendents and clerks is in the hands of the commissioner of labor statistics, making each office an integral part of the bureau of labor. They are thus able to be of considerable service to the bureau, the aim in this particular following the lines adopted in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Connecticut.

Among the duties of the superintendent is the usual one requiring him to "record, in a book kept for that purpose, the names of all persons applying for employment or for help," etc. The law states that every application for employment or for help "shall be void after thirty days." It is necessary, therefore, for the superintendent to inquire, "Have you registered?" If the applicant has not done so within thirty days he must register or reregister, as the case may be, before any further business can be transacted. The fact that the Missouri offices carry out this provision of the law is attested by the excess of applications for employment over positions secured, and consequently over the number of positions unfilled. For purposes of study the entire published results of the Missouri offices are given below for the year 1905:

APPLICATIONS FOR EMPLOYMENT AND FOR HELP AND POSITIONS SECURED THROUGH THE ST. LOUIS FREE EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT, BY OCCUPATIONS AND SEX, YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 1905.

APPLICATIONS FOR EMPLOYMENT AND FOR HELP AND POSITIONS SECURED THROUGH THE KANSAS CITY FREE EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT, BY OCCUPATIONS AND SEX, YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 1905.

APPLICATIONS FOR EMPLOYMENT AND FOR HELP AND POSITIONS SECURED THROUGH THE ST. JOSEPH FREE EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT, BY OCCUPATIONS AND SEX, YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 1905.

In the matter of obtaining correct returns as to positions secured, the Missouri offices are not so successful as they are with applications, about 75 per cent of the cases being verified. It is doubtful, indeed, if any free office can succeed in this particular, and the only remedy thus far discovered is a fee.

Another noticeable feature of the Missouri offices is that no loafing is permitted about them. Applicants for employment are encouraged to come again and to come often, but not to remain standing or sitting about the office. This is considered a good policy for several reasons. When an office becomes a rendezvous for the unemployed, such a condition of despondency and discontent is bred that no healthy minded man can afford to enter it, and the

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office soon acquires an unfavorable reputation. Again, if the office has no work for a man he should be out looking for it himself and should never be encouraged to hang around for short jobs, because this cultivates shiftlessness.

The expense of maintaining the free employment offices of Missouri can not be precisely stated, because it is not separated from that of the remainder of the bureau of labor. The entire expense of the bureau of labor, including the central office at Jefferson City and the three employment offices mentioned, is $16,000. Each employment office assists in collecting statistics upon manufactures and industrial conditions, trade unions, surplus products, etc. The superintendents receive $1,200 each and the clerks not more than $900 each per annum. Monthly reports are sent in by the three offices as required by law, and a compilation is made and published in the annual report of the commissioner of labor.

ST. LOUIS.

Common unskilled labor in St. Louis is considerably in excess of the demand, the city being overrun with a floating population: from November until March of each year. Yet common laborers receive about $1.75 per day, sometimes as low as $1.50. For street work, in which as a rule, here and elsewhere, the wages are higher than other common labor, $2 per day is paid.

The St. Louis office endeavors to win the attention and patronage of employers by sending out circulars to them, and this plan is said to have been very successful, but there is the active competition of dependable private agencies to meet, to say nothing of the insidious methods of the dishonest ones. The latter, for instance, have a practical monopoly of the railroad construction work through collusion with the contractor, and this decreases greatly the numerical showing the State office would otherwise make. There is a field for work outside of the, offices, to be done with employers, not only in soliciting their patronage, but also in becoming familiar with their wants and the qualifications required in employees.

Difficulty is experienced in regard to advertising. The State has appropriated the sum of $2,000 for this purpose. In many cities the press has generally pursued a liberal policy toward the free employment agency, often giving free space to its advertising matter. The St. Louis papers, on the contrary, take the ground that such advertising is in competition with their "want-ad." pages, maintained for the same purpose. Hence, they charge the highest rate if they accept it at all. One paper even refused to carry out a contract already made for nearly $100 worth of advertising. The legislature in 1905, amended the law governing private agencies

so as to

bel them to furnish employment within three days after