how much they consider their services worth and what position they are in to back up their demand. All classes of labor seek recognition for their services through the office, educational, mechanical and common labor.

"Before this office was started it was considered a bonanza to run an employment office in this city. It is hard to tell how many of those offices are in this city, as they are scattered all over. Any person can go into the business, hang out his sign, advertise in the daily papers that he secures good positions for men, women, boys and girls. He will have plenty of applicants and be in a good position to swindle innocent and unsuspecting people.

"There is no doubt that their advertisements bring them quite a number of applicants. I have received a number of letters from different parts of the state from persons who were taken in by their advertisements and who sent them money to secure some of the good and responsible positions which they claim they can secure. Many come to the city through their advertisements, thinking it easy to secure work, only to find that they have been duped and have come to a place where there are thousands of men out of employment." Another report:

"It is generally conceded by employers of mechanical labor as well as employers of domestic help that the office is not only beneficial, but just at present a necessity. Ladies, who heretofore could not be induced under any circumstances to patronize an employment office, seem to have the fullest confidence in the ability and willingness of this office to furnish them with competent and acceptable help. This office is looked upon in high city official quarters as an institution of great seeming benefits to Toledo, inasmuch as it relieves, in procuring help for distressed families in need of work, the city infirmary and other charitable institutions supported at the expense of the public. Another beneficial factor of the free employment office is this. Prior to the establishment of this office, employers of labor in this city and the surrounding towns were obliged to pay in sums said to aggregate $5,000 per year as tribute to the alleged private bureaus which then existed. This sum is saved annually, it is safe to say, to the citizens of Toledo and the suburban towns by the fact that this office exists.

"When this branch of the bureau was established eighteen months ago, we had in this city several private labor offices, so-called, where applicants were charged from 50 cents to $5.00 for services promised. The result was that the commission paid was retained, while the positions promised were never secured for applicants. Consequently, upon the establishment of this office these offices have totally disappeared.

"The office referred to gave us but little trouble after the establishment of this branch, although the proprietors for some time made a vigorous kick, at what they were pleased to term an infringement on the rights of private citizens."

THE MONTANA LAW.

Montana was the second state to create free public employment offices by legislative enactment. The creating act as it finally passed was an amendment to one section of the law creating the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and was as follows:

"And it shall be the further duty of said commissioner within thirty days after the passage of this act, to establish and maintain in connection with the said bureau, a free public employment office. Said commissioner shall receive all applications for help made to him by any person, company or firm, and all applications made to him for employment by any person or persons, and record their names in a book kept for that purpose, designating opposite the name of each person the kind and character of help wanted, or the kind and character of employment desired, and the postoffice address of the applicant.

"It shall be the duty of said commissioner to send by mail to all applicants for help the name and postoffice address of all applicants for employment, and such other information as he may possess that may bring to their notice the names and postoffice addresses of such unemployed laborers, mechanics, artisans, or teachers as they may require. No compensation or fee whatsoever shall, directly or indirectly, be charged or received from any person or persons applying for help, or from any person or persons applying for employment to said office. Said commissioner or any clerk or other person in his employ, charging or receiving any compensation or fee from any applicant for employment whomsoever, as provided in this act, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be fined in any sum not exceeding one hundred dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding thirty days. Any application for help, or any application for employment made to said office, shall be void after thirty days from its receipt by said commissioner, unless renewed by the applicant. Every applicant for help shall notify said commissioner by mail within three days after the required help designated in his or her application has been secured. Said notice shall contain the name and the last postoffice address of each employe secured through said employment office; and any refusal or failure by any applicant for help to so notify said commissioner shall thereafter bar the applicant from all further rights and privileges of said employment office, at the discretion of said commissioner.

"Applicants for help shall be construed to mean employers wanting employés, and applicants for employment shall be construed to mean persons wanting work to do.

"It shall be lawful for the common council of any incorporated city within this state to provide by ordinance for the establishment of a free public employment office, to be conducted on the same general plan indicated by the provisions of this act, and to provide for the expenses thereof out of the revenues of the city in which the same is so established: Provided, That any free employment office established by the common council of any city in this state

shall be required to report weekly to the commissioner, giving a detailed account of the transactions of said office and the names and addresses of all applicants; and said commissioner shall be required to make a corresponding report weekly to each free employment office so established by any incorporated city within this State.

"The annual report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, Labor and Industry shall contain a detailed account of the transactions of all free employment offices within the state, showing the number of applicants for help, and the number of applicants for employment, male and female, and the number securing employment through said offices, and the expenses thereof.

"It shall also be the duty of the commissioner to post a printed notice of this act in a conspicuous place in each employment office so established. It shall also be his duty to post in front of such office on a sign board, or in a conspicuous place on the outside of the buildings where such offices are located, the words "Free Public Employment Office."

"The privileges of this section shall extend only to those out of employment and residing within the state."

The Fourth Annual Report of the Montana Bureau of Agriculture, Labor and Industry contains the first report of the employment office at Helena, which was started under this act. Commissioner Hill says, page 18:

"At the fourth session of the legislative assembly the house committee on labor took up the bill prepared by Hon. Michael Corbett, one of its members, providing for a free public employment office at the capital of the state, to be conducted in connection with this bureau, and also making optional provision for auxillary offices in other cities of the state, and succeeded finally in getting a bill through, not wholly as they desired, but in somewha: better form than at one time seemed possible. It was deemed better to so accept it and trust to future remedial legislation, than to have the matter altogether fail. The general features of the bill introduced were not laid on the lines of the Ohio system, which had been in operation some years, but on those of the measure presented to the Iowa Legislature by Labor Commissioner Sovereign. The provisions relating to it appear in section 765 of the political code, as an amendment to the act creating this bureau, and were at first added to its duties without making any provision whatever for the additional expense of maintaining it. An amendment was finally secured through the efforts of the labor committee, permitting and providing for the employment of a clerk to attend to the duties in a location necessarily separate from the statistical department of the bureau, but no additional provision was made at any time for rent, fuel, light, postage, printing, telephone, messenger service, or that very necessary item in efficiently conducting a public employment office-advertising. Especially is this latter essential in establishing a new system, to bring it and keep it before employers, as well as those seeking employment, until they have become thoroughly familiarized with the idea. The alternative, to keep the matter vividly before the public, is to rely on the gratuitous services of the newspaper press, and when it is considered that the pay agencies, and many

persons seeking employment or help, do largely advertise in the newspapers and pay for the same, and that such business would decrease in proportion as the free employment business increased, it would be asking more than is reasonable from the press that it should gratuitously and continuously advocate the free office even in general terms. The state should do business in a business way, as individuals have to do. This same difficulty presented itself in Ohio, although the offices in other respects were well equipped and maintained, and the recommendations of the commissioner had early and favorable attention by the legislature.

"The conduct of the Montana office was therefore undertaken under very inauspicious conditions for developing the best possibilities, but no more liberal measure could be obtained. It was believed by those who had given the subject thought that the free public employment system, although having as yet scarcely passed the experimental stage in the one or two states that had tried it, had much merit, and that it might be advantageously adopted in Montana. It was therefore deemed better to accept the measure, insufficient as it was for the most favorable results, and trust to future remedial legislation than to have the measure altogether fail, especially as the provision relating to auxiliary offices in other cities was sufficiently flexible to permit the municipal authorities to establish and maintain them under more favorable conditions.

"Following are given tables showing the applications made and filled and the classes of occupation sought. Blanks are sent out to those desiring situations; similar blanks are furnished those seeking help; but numerous instances have come to the notice of the clerk in charge where neither employer nor employé made returns to the office, and it is his belief a much larger number of applications have been filled than those given below, which are only of the returns actually made to the office. While, as a matter of fact, the securing of the situation to the applicant is the important consideration it would benefit the office and enable a fairer showing of the results were all applicants considerate enough to make returns:"

Free Public Employment Office in Montana from April 1 to December 31, 1895.

*The figures given in these columns only include those of whom actual return was made to the office.

The following table shows the work done by this office from the date of the preceding table to the close of the office by the repeal of the law:

The expense of the office from December 1, 1895, to November 301896, is here given:

Salary of clerk in charge 12 months, $1,200; rent of office, $240; printing and posting, $20; fuel and lights, $11.88; postage, $10; total, $1,481.88.

The law was repealed March 4, 1897, and one enacted which enables municipalities to establish such offices if they so desire. This law follows:

"Section 776. It shall be lawful for the common council of any incorporated City within this State to provide for the establishment of a free public employment office to be conducted on the most approved plans, and to provide for the expenses thereof out of the revenues of the city in which the same is established. The annual report of the commissioner of agriculture, labor and industry shall contain a detailed account of the transactions of all free employment offices within the State, showing the number of applicants for help, the number of applicants for employment, male and female, the number securing employment through said officers and the expense thereof."

So far no city in the state has established such offices. The defects of the Montana law are sufficiently glaring, and would pre-destine offices established under it to failure in any state. The degree of success attained by the office, established as a part of the labor bureau, with its office in the state capitol, in a town the size of Helena, without reasonable funds for its maintenance, is to be taken rather as a tribute to the possibilities of free public employment offices under reasonable conditions, and in cities sufficiently large to require them. Under date of November 18, 1898, Commissioner. Calderhead of the Montana Bureau of Labor writes: