IRREGULAR EMPLOYMENT 105 



National Farm Labor Exchange. The National Farm Labor 

 Exchange was organized at Omaha in 1915. Its second annual 

 convention was held at Kansas City in 1916. It is the plan of this 

 National Exchange to ascertain through the means of sub-agencies 

 the needs of the harvest fields of the several States, from Oklahoma 

 to North Dakota, in their order as grain ripens. Next, it plans 

 to direct the laborers to the place where they are needed, and 

 to inform them as to the conditions and nature of their employ- 

 ment. It is believed that through this method it will serve the 

 unemployed advantageously. 



Federal Government and Farm Labor. The United States has 

 adopted the policy of directing laborer to employer, and employer 

 to laborer. This is done by means of Employment Bureaus estab- 

 lished in cities and towns throughout the country. Such a vast 

 administrative scheme will need careful attention to save it from 

 the usual bureaucratic extravagance. There is danger of a maxi- 

 mum of outlay and a minimum of results. 



The County Farm Bureau. The counties that are enjoying the 

 services of a county Farm Bureau and a county agricultural agent 

 are conducting employment bureaus for farm laborers. Since these 

 county bureaus are in direct contact with the farm labor problem, 

 their services bring the maximum of result with the minimum 

 of outlay. 



Mr. H. J. Hughes, former editor of the Farm, Stock and Home, 

 diagnosed the need of the State as comprising a state-wide clearing 

 house of labor, functioning and cooperating with the farmers' 

 clubs, the commercial club of the village or city, and the railroads. 

 And five conditions, says Hughes, are essential to the satisfaction 

 of the hired man, namely: (1) good food and regular meals; (2) 

 good sleeping quarters; (3) not over nine or ten hours of work per 

 day; (4) fair wages; (5) steady time from day of hiring till job is 

 done. Yet usually not more than two of these conditions are met. 



Irregular Employment. As long as any community depends 

 chiefly on one or two or three staple crops, a situation is created 

 whereby irregularity of employment of labor is inevitable. "Long 

 hours, small pay, and irregular employment are what the immi- 

 grant can expect on the farm," says Hourwich. 3 Hence the 

 laborer's preference for work in the city. In consequence of limited 

 demand for it, says the Industrial Commission Report, 4 "agricul- 

 tural labor is the least paid of all great groups of occupations, even 



3 Hourwich. Immigration and Labor, p. 112. 



4 Report of Industrial Commission, vol. X, p. xx. 



