It often happens that a man who has occupied a position for years finds the work in which he is engaged is injuring his health, for example, the labor he is performing has an effect on his lungs, like marble working, or some similar trade, and he desires a change. Or perhaps he is in some service that is not suitable to him and he is unable to progress. For such a man it is well to run over the preceding list very carefully and ascertain what field of work appeals to him. He should also read carefully plan No. 217.
I have in mind at the present time a man of good legal ability, but who did not possess business-getting qualities. He was somewhat discouraged, being unable to make his profession yield him a proper income. He was urged by one of his friends to take a Civil Service Examination in one of the departments. He took the examination and after a few months, his position was available, and he has occupied it for a number of years.
Work with the Government is always pleasant and the income steady and permanent.
A Federal Judge of the United States District Court is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, his salary is $7,500 per annum. He has one clerk, one assistant and one stenographer. The stenographer is appointed by himself. Then there are the various departments such as the United States Marines Recruiting Office, which employs three men; the United States Navy Recruiting Office, which employs three men; the United States Army Recruiting Office, which employs three men, and is under the Civil Service. These departments employ many emergency men at times.
This department is governed by the Civil Service and employs three persons, the salary being——.
The Government and Agricultural School usually name a woman for this position. She must be trained in her work and have an Agricultural College course to her credit. Here is a field where women can do as good work as men, and it offers an excellent opportunity for them.
Six persons are employed. At the present time the headquarters of this office is at Missoula, Mont. It is under the Civil Service, but from time to time emergency men are employed.
This man, for years, was unable to make much of a saving in his photographic work. His wife and he possessed ability in preparing photographs. He finally hit upon the following plan:
He hired two men called spotters, who took the pictures and went into different communities picturing men in the offices and at work at their desks. These two spotters were able to take at least fifty pictures a day each, making better than one hundred pictures per day. These men he paid $25.00 to $30.00 per week and traveling expenses. He saw to it that they had their supplies and everything ready when they arrived in town for work. Immediately following these men were salesmen who, after the pictures were printed, called and gave the price per dozen, which was $4.50 mounted size 9x7. Unmounted his charge was three pictures for a dollar. The salesmen were able to make the number of pictures actually taken average about $0.80 per picture.
The two salesmen were then followed by two delivery women. The photographer and his wife did all of the developing and finishing. A city of 125,000 would take about six weeks.
Great care must be taken by the man who is directing this work to see that his men are all kept busy and working. This man succeeded in keeping the spotters going fast enough, and everything was worked out in a systematic manner. He also gave the workers an opportunity of receiving a commission in addition to their salary.
I remember clearly the way the spotter approached me. “I would like to take a picture of yourself and office,” he said, but I protested that I did not care to have the picture. “That is all right, I would like to have the negative and I am paid just the same and it is no obligation to you.” He then took the picture relying entirely upon selling me the picture when I saw the finished product. In this he took very little chance, as he well knew that 80 per cent of the people who saw a picture of their office and themselves at work would be glad to pay the price for it.
There is a great field in this work and there is no reason why there should not be work in many different parts of the United States affording a good livelihood and a big saving for many photographers who are not now making a good living.
IMPORTANT NOTICE!
The following plans were compiled by the Federal Board for Vocational Education, U. S. A.
We gratefully acknowledge with thanks the Board’s permission to publish them.
For the material of this monograph the Federal Board for Vocational Education is indebted to the J. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, Pa., through its publication, “Training for the Newspaper Trade,” and the Collins Publicity Service, Philadelphia, Pa., through its publication, “Journalism,” School Edition, Teachers’ Auxiliary, of which this article is largely an abstract. This article was prepared by Dr. H. L. Smith under the direction of Charles H. Winslow, Chief of the Research Division of the Federal Board for Vocational Education. Acknowledgment is due to Dr. John Cummings, of the Research Division for Editorial assistance.
It is very important that the right decision be made, for one’s future success and happiness is largely dependent upon this choice. No two individuals have the same desires or the same ability or experience. Some like and are by nature and experience fitted to prepare for one line of work and unfitted for another, even for one in some instances which close acquaintances may urge them to take up. It is one’s duty therefore, to consider carefully the line of work one wishes to train for. Some may choose wisely to enter the field of journalism. It is hoped that this pamphlet may assist such to make the proper choice and may prevent those who are unfitted for this profession from undertaking it.
The main purpose of a newspaper is to give the day’s news. Another purpose is that of making the meaning of this news clear to the readers. Moreover, newspapers often furnish their readers with advice and with useful information as well as with entertaining reading. There was a time when the purpose of a paper was thought to be that of simply stating conditions as they are. At the present there is a rapidly growing tendency to use the newspaper to state conditions as they should be. A newspaper that tells what to do to make things better plays a great part in making democracy safe.
In any large newspaper plant there are three main divisions—the business office, whose duty it is to make the paper pay; the plant that must see to the actual printing of the paper; and the editorial department, which prepares all of the reading matter except the advertisements. It is with the editorial department that the term “journalism” is connected, and it is with the work of that department that this pamphlet deals.
There are two classes of reading matter in a newspaper, the news and the editorial comment, each class of material being prepared by a different force of writers. The editor in chief is at the head of the editorial staff, and since editorials consist of opinions rather than of bare statements of new facts, he holds the most important position on the paper. He is helped by men who are very well informed about all matters that are of interest to the public. The number of these helpers is from one to a dozen, according to the size of the city paper.
The managing editor looks after gathering and reporting news. His department is made up of several parts, each one in charge of an editor. The news editor looks after all out-of-town news, that is, all news from other countries or from this country outside of a distance 75 miles from the city of the newspaper. The telegraph editor looks over “copy” sent in by outside reporters and decides what is good and what is poor. The Sunday editor gets up the pictures and other “features” and special articles outside of strictly news articles. The art editor decides upon the pictures to be used and the method of making those pictures. The cable editor prepares the foreign news by filling in cable messages and making long articles out of them. The city editor hires and directs reporters on city work and on work outside the city but within a distance of seventy-five miles, having sometimes as many as seventy-five helpers within the city, and as many as that outside called local correspondents. The sporting editor looks after news of sports and has an assistant for each kind of sport. The night city editor covers late news, being in charge after 6 p. m. to receive copy brought in by reporters previously assigned to their duty by the city editor. The night editor is in charge of the “make up” of the paper and the getting of the paper to press. Most newspapers also have other editors called department editors for such departments as music, drama, society, finance, literary criticism, railroads, real estate, and stock markets. The department editors gather as much of their news as possible by themselves. Their work differs from that of other editors in that their copy goes directly to the printer and is not first looked over and corrected by the city editor.
The life of a newspaper man is not an easy life. A study[11]of newspaper work in Boston sums up the hardships and difficulties in the life of a reporter in the following way:
[11]Vocational Studies, Journalism, P. 11. School Ed., Teachers’ Auxiliary, No. 16, Collins Publicity Service, Philadelphia, Pa.
[11]Vocational Studies, Journalism, P. 11. School Ed., Teachers’ Auxiliary, No. 16, Collins Publicity Service, Philadelphia, Pa.
“The hours are long and irregular. On a morning paper they run from 1 in the afternoon until midnight, usually with an occasional evening off. But the free evenings can never be counted on in advance; they come only when the news happens to be slack. On the afternoon papers the hours are almost as bad, for, while they are only supposed to be from half-past 8 or 9 to 5, an assignment will very often come in at the last minute that will keep the reporter out until midnight. This means little or no freedom.
“The irregular hours also affect the meals. An assignment often takes the reporter out into the suburbs for hours at a stretch, where there are no restaurants, and where one can only work as fast as possible in order to get back to town. It means all kinds of weather, too, for suicides and elopements will occur, be it fair day or foul, in houses several miles from the nearest car track, and they have to be looked up at once. A long, hard trip, like this, is not only an every day matter, but it means no extra pay.”
The desk man or editor, while freed from the hardships of travel, has other difficulties to overcome. These difficulties are set forth in the following further quotation from the same report:
“As the time for going to press approaches, the copy pours in faster and faster, the composing room signals that the paper is already overset and yet perhaps, now, at the last minute, an item of first importance in the whole day’s events comes in, and room must be made for it. In the midst of all this clamor the desk man must keep his head, racing through the piles of copy, weighing its merits discriminately and giving as cool and careful decision as though he had all the leisure and quiet in the world.”
One must have good health to stand the hardships of long and irregular hours of work, under bad conditions, often long distances from the office and in all kinds of weather. There are also certain personal qualifications that one must have to succeed in the field of journalism. Chief among these personal qualifications is the ability to adapt one’s self to many different subjects and feel at home in each.
Unlike writers in other fields, the reporter is a writer of matter which lives today and is dead tomorrow. He is not so much in need, therefore, of the artistic quality in his writings as he is in need of the ability to pass quickly from subject to subject writing briefly but to the point on each.
Another thing one must have for success in journalism is what may be termed “the news instinct”; this is the ability to recognize news in any form, even in the most commonplace events, and to write these commonplace things up in such a way as to interest the reader. This ability is not found in the person who does not observe carefully.
A clear, easy style full of dash is necessary for the reporter. This style can usually be gained with a little practice by the man or woman with a sense for news. The reporter’s main aim is to catch the public eye, after that he needs most to produce copy at great speed, remembering all the while that his work is not likely to be read more than once.
Other qualifications a reporter should have are intelligence, and an understanding of people. He must have tact, and be a “good mixer,” capable of easily gaining the confidence of people in order to draw them out in his search for news.
A college education is a help, of course, but it is not absolutely necessary in the journalistic profession. One who wishes to become a journalist may enter the newspaper field as a reporter at almost any time after he has had enough experience and general knowledge to make him well acquainted with a number of subjects and when, in addition to this, he has learned to write his thoughts in clear, forceful language. Certainly a grade education is necessary and some high school education is advisable for the beginner. More and more as the field of newspaper work enlarges and broadens a full four-year high school course is becoming essential. The best opportunities will more and more open up only to those of wide experience and knowledge. Toward this experience and knowledge a college education adds very much, particularly if the college education deals with the theory and methods of newspaper organization, as well as with practical training in reporting and in editing work. Whether the foundation education is gotten in the grade school, in the high school, or in college, one must have acquired somewhere along the line the ability to write correctly and briefly in language that can not be misunderstood. Much of the ability to do this comes from the practical school of experience. Much of it, however, can be given in schools. More and more the emphasis is being placed upon thorough preparation before entering the profession of journalism.
Once the college man in a newspaper office was thought of as a joke by others in the office. They sneered at his style. Two things have happened to change that feeling. In the first place college men are now trained in a simpler style of writing than they once were. In addition to that they now get more practical training than they once did. Besides this, so many college trained men have done well in journalism that newspaper men are beginning to see that their success isdue largely to the college training. On many papers today one will find the staff made up very largely of college men. On many papers now when they are looking for a new man for the writing force they often look for a man with a college degree.
The first school of journalism in the world was started by Joseph Pulitzer in 1904 at Columbia University. In the words of its founder the purpose of this school was to raise the standard of newspaper work through better education of those who enter the profession. “I am deeply interested in the progress and elevation of journalism,” he wrote, “having spent my life in that profession, regarding it as a noble profession and one of unequaled importance for its influence upon the minds and morals of people * * *. It will be the object of the college to make better journalists, who will make better newspapers, which will better serve the public. It will impart knowledge, not for its own sake, but to be used for the public service. It will try to develop character, but even that will be only a means to the one supreme end—the public good.”[12]
[12]Vocational Studies, School Ed., Teachers’ Auxiliary, No. 16, Collins Publicity Service, Philadelphia, Pa.
[12]Vocational Studies, School Ed., Teachers’ Auxiliary, No. 16, Collins Publicity Service, Philadelphia, Pa.
Since the beginning of the Pulitzer School of Journalism at Columbia University, about 20 colleges and universities have put in courses in journalism. One of the requirements for entering these courses is the full four years of high school work. The course, itself, ranges from courses of lectures by newspaper men to a complete course, four years in length, which usually leads to a bachelor of arts degree, or its equivalent. Instruction in journalism includes a study of the English language, literature, and composition, the work of the reporter and editorial writer, the methods of gathering news, the technique of newspaper making, the general management of papers, the history of journalism, together with general history, economics, sociology, psychology. Typewriting and often stenography are also required for graduation. The college work in journalism is accompanied by actual experience on papers, either college publications or papers published in the city or town in which the college is located. Students trained in such courses know how to write a story, how to get up a headline, and how to write editorials, and because of this fact men so trained get promotions in shorter periods of time than others.
For the benefit of those journalists who have not the chance to take the full college course, several phases of journalism are given in the summer schools of many colleges, and special courses in newspaper and magazine writing are given in evening schools. Such courses can be taken at the same time that one is employed on a newspaper.
It is clear, therefore, from the above, that more and more journalism calls for education and training before one begins actual work as a regular reporter on a paper.
In few vocations is there greater difference in salaries than in the field of journalism. So far there does not seem to be any general standard that all the papers of the country attempt to live up to. The managers of certain newspapers follow the practice of employing only experienced men, taking them wherever they can be found from the staffs of other newspapers. Such papers, of course, pay good salaries. Other publications are willing to take on a few, or even a large number of beginners. Such papers naturally pay smaller salaries. Seldom, however, is the beginner in journalism paid less than $12 or $15 per week on the daily papers, though some receive as low as $10 a week. Often a paper works, not only on a basis of straight pay, but on the basis of the space the articles contributed occupy.
“Space rates” range from $2 to $10 per column, the amount varying with the standing of the newspaper, and with the character of the news itself. Promotions are very rapid and anyone with promise can hope to get a raise in salary from time to time until it reaches from $19 to $25 a week, which is the salary of regular reporters. Reporters who do special work are generally paid more. Their salaries range from $25 to $35 per week. On the very best papers there are very few reporters who draw salaries ranging from $35 to $50 per week. Such men are as well paid as men in the editorial department. The chiefs of the different editorial departments draw from $30 to $50 a week. Managing editors and editors-in-chief get salaries ranging all the way from $2,500 to $10,000 per year.
From the mere money point of view there are other lines of work far easier to master, and more certain to bring large money rewards than journalism. The tendency now, however, is to pay bigger salaries to newspaper men. As it is, the income is greater than that of the minister and equal to that of a lawyer.
With many men in journalistic work, however, ideals mean more than money. The public good with such men means more than private gain. Another reward to the young man in this profession is that he comes in contact with mature people. He learns to know even personally many of the great men in business, in politics, in law. The newspaper is one of the very greatest educational agencies. What it does for the adult in an educational way is like what the public schools do for children in an educational way. Among the mature there are masses of ignorant people, ignorant in letters and ignorant in citizenship. The journalist, through the newspaper, has all the people as his audience. Through his opportunity for instruction the journalist may exercise great influence in politics in connection with work for municipal reform, clean streets, better schools, etc., and against machine control in politics, with its bribery and election frauds. Some people have objected to newspaper work because they thought such work corrupted beginners. The truth is that journalism is to each man in it what he makes it. There is more freedom of action in journalism than in the ministry or even than in law or medicine, but a code of ethics is rapidly being developed in the newspaper world that compels each one to do more nearly the right thing. Certainly the reporter does not know the full significance of his stories, headlines, and editorials until he realizes the probable effect of his writings on the ideas and ideals of his readers. Especially is the opportunity for such influence by the journalist good in America, where there are twice as many papers published as in any other country, and far more than twice as many copies issued. It is estimated that more than 5,000,000,000 copies of newspapers of all kinds are printed in the United States yearly.
The newspaper reporter does not have the experience of a young lawyer or doctor, who must pick up business slowly and wait sometimes for years before he is satisfactorily established. The reporter succeeds or fails from the outset. In fact reporting is the work of comparatively young men, and is especially liked by those of from 20 to 30 years of age. Those who have been successful in this period of life are generally picked for promotions, and less uncertain assignments in the later periods of life.
Very often men who have been successful in early life as newspaper reporters take up magazine writing later. It is often stated that magazine writing is post-graduate newspaper work. The monthly magazine has become an importantinfluence in the modern world, many of the more popular magazines having a larger circulation than any newspaper. On the staff of each periodical there are usually several special editors in charge of separate departments. These editors are often assisted by a regular staff of writers. Frequently, however, those who write for magazines are not connected with the regular staff, but are “free lances” contributing articles from time to time on subjects which they are especially fitted to write about.
The question often arises, Where shall the start be made? Is it best to begin in the country or in the city? The editor of one of the New York dailies says that there are many changes in the staff on a city paper, so a man who is capable has a chance to get a pretty good position, in fact a very good newspaper position, within a half dozen years’ time. This editor also says that it takes about as long to get a good position on a country paper, and after that if one goes to the city he must begin at the bottom and work up, so that much time is wasted. The advantage in beginning on a paper in a small city rather than a large one is that one is more likely there to gain an all around knowledge of everything that must be done in a newspaper office.
There are in the United States and Canada at the present time approximately 25,000 newspapers and periodicals being published. Nearly 40 per cent of all such publications in the world are published in the United States and its outlying territories. In 1915 these publications in the United States gave employment to over 100,000 people, approximately 35,000 of whom were editors and reporters. The total circulation at that time aggregated 164,468,040. Moreover, newspapers are being circulated in larger numbers every day and are being read by an increasing number of people every day. The whole field of journalism is constantly enlarging and the claim is made by those who are expert in the field that the profession is not overcrowded with good workers.
If you are a soldier or a sailor discharged from the service since October 6, 1917, with a disability for which the Bureau of War Risk Insurance will grant you compensation, your education will be furnished free by the Government. The Bureau of War-Risk Insurance, through its compensation, will meet a part of the expenses and the Federal Board for Vocational Education will supplement that amount to a minimum of $65 a month with the purpose of meeting all of your expenses for living, clothing, transportation, tuition, and incidentals.
Lumbering is the felling and conversion of trees into lumber. The extraction of the timber from the forest is known as logging, and the manufacture of the logs into lumber is known as sawmilling.
The chief centers of the logging industry are in New England, the Lake States, the Southern Appalachians, the Southern pine region, the cypress swamps of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, the Inland Empire (Montana, Idaho, and Eastern Washington and Oregon), and the Pacific coast.
The methods of logging and the opportunity for employment in this work present many different aspects in these regions. Animal logging prevails in the Northeast, the Lake States, and the Inland Empire, and power logging in the other sections, although no one method is universally used in any of these regions.
The demand for labor, both skilled and unskilled, in every section is now greater than the supply, and competent men can readily find some form of employment to which they are adapted.
Conditions surrounding work in the forest vary greatly in the different regions, and one who is not familiar with local conditions should weigh carefully his own ability and the opportunities which each section may offer to him.
Logging work will appeal most strongly to one who has been accustomed since his early years to an outdoor life, and who is familiar in a general way either with outdoor manual labor or with some mechanical trade.
The best opportunities for men who wish to make lumbering a life work are with the larger companies, since they have organizations in which employment is more continuous, and in which there is the greatest possibility of advancement. Small lumbering concerns offer but little inducement, unless a way is open to secure an interest in the business.
Advancement to the beginner in the lumber industry is not rapid and, therefore, it holds more promise to the young, single man who can afford to serve an apprenticeship, than to the older man who has a family to support and whose financial requirements are greater at the beginning.
Felling timber is hard work, but appeals to strong, robust men, because the wages paid for it are among the highest paid in a logging camp. The work is too heavy for one past the prime of life, or for a young man who may be physically incapacitated.
Where logging is done by animals, the position of teamster may be filled by older men as well as that of swamper, grab setter, tong hooker, scaler, and like positions which do not call for heavy manual labor.
Power logging, which is common in the South and in the far West, affords an excellent opportunity for active young men with mechanical ability, since skilled operators are required to run the skidding machinery and to keep it in repair.
A northern logger should not consider employment in the cypress swamp forests, because it is work which appeals chiefly to those who have grown up in the cypress “brake” region.
Men who have had experience with railroad construction or operation will find a promising field in the lumber industry, since on most large operations the logs are hauled from the forest to the mill over logging railroads. Locomotive engineers and firemen are in demand and command a fairly high wage. The hours are long because it is necessary to deliver a certain quantity of logs to the mill daily, and in case of delays in schedule, the crews must work until the necessary quantity of logs has been delivered.
On large operations new railroad lines are continually under construction, and opportunity is afforded for employment to those who are familiar with railroad construction.
Where logs are transported down streams to the mill, log drivers are required during the spring and summer months. On “rough water” this work requires experience and skill, and is hard work which must be done often in inclement weather. It is not a class of work to which an inexperienced man would be adapted.
Social conditions in the different regions have played a prominent part in the distribution of labor in the lumber industry. The trend of labor migration has been from the East to the West, and not from the North to the South, because woods workers from the North and East have found both climatic and social conditions more to their liking in the West than in the South. Northern and eastern loggers have gone South in small numbers to fill positions of responsibility, but in general, the unskilled laborer has not found living and working conditions to his liking in the lowlands and southern pineries.
An important factor to be considered in this connection is the color line, which is more or less sharply drawn in the South. In some sections both whites and negroes work together on the same operations. The standard of work and the social conditions which prevail in southern logging camps, however, do not appeal to the northern man, and but few are content to remain for any length of time.
In the West the northern logger meets with conditions similar to those existing at home and, therefore, he is satisfied to become a permanent resident in the region.
Logging work in most sections is more or less removed from settlements and, in general, it is not possible for the logger to enjoy family life. The exception to this case is the logging camp of the southern pineries, which is a community comprising the loggers and their families. The buildings are small, portable houses, two or more constituting the home of a single family. Medical facilities are provided by the company, along with a school and a church and each community comprises a settlement in itself. Although both white and colored laborers may live in the same camp, the quarters are separated and the two races do not intermingle. The social advantages for an ambitious man with a family are not great and many northern and eastern men would not find conditions to their liking. Only men familiar with local conditions should seek employment in southern logging camps.
The mountain region of the Southern Appalachians appeals to many northern loggers, because the conditions in this region are not dissimilar to those with which they are familiar.
It is not practicable to point out any particular branch of logging work which might appeal to individuals. Each man after choosing the region in which he desires to work should try out the various classes of employment to which he may find himself adapted, expecting ultimately to find that class of work for which he is best fitted.
In general, one who desires to enter the field of logging should be young, have a robust constitution, possess a liking for outdoor work, and should seek employment in some region with which he is familiar, or in some section which is similar in climatic and social conditions to his home region.
The sawmill industry is scattered over a wide area in this country, but the chief centers of lumber manufacture are in or adjacent to the great forest areas of the country, in the southern pine region, which produces nearly one-third of all ofour lumber cut, and in the Pacific Northwest, which produces about one-eighth of our total cut. The sawmill business includes plants ranging from the small mill, cutting a few thousand feet daily, up to the plant which turns out nearly one million feet of lumber in twenty hours.
Lumber manufacture is centered in permanent settlements, a new plant usually having a normal life of at least 20 years. Some of these communities comprise only the lumber companies’ employees (a “one-man town”) while others are located at or near cities or towns. Merits are claimed for both systems, but it is true that some of the cleanest and most enlightened communities are those in which the control of affairs rests largely in the hands of the lumber company. In this way undesirables may be kept away from the settlement, better schools are usually maintained, and the entire tone of the community placed on a higher standard than exists in the “open” towns.
The work at a sawmill plant is extremely varied in character, and ranges from that requiring high technical and mechanical ability down through every degree of skill to work which can be performed by a low grade of common labor. The wage scale likewise shows a wide range. The highest technical positions, such as saw filer in a large mill, may command $12 per day and up, while the lowest wage is the minimum for common labor in the region. Sawmilling proceeds in all kinds of weather, except during the winter season in the northern regions. At all plants, however, some forms of work, such as lumber piling, trucking dry lumber to the planing mill, and loading cars, may be discontinued during short spells of inclement weather. The actual sawing of lumber, in most regions, seldom ceases except when the entire plant closes down, since this work is largely done under cover and the men therefore are sheltered.
Sawmill work should appeal to one who is interested in factory work; who desires employment which keeps him more or less in the open; and who prefers to live in a settled community. It offers a clean, healthful occupation for all degrees of skill, hence it affords opportunity for every industrious man.
The wages paid in the lumber industry vary with the region in which the work is performed and local wage scales, but the compensation is as great as in other industries requiring an equal amount of skill.
Logging work as a rule requires a man of robust constitution who can stand up under hard physical labor performed in the open in all kinds of weather. Loggers must as a rule be skilled in the use of ax, crosscut saw, and like tools, or to be competent teamsters, although considerable unskilled labor is employed in each camp.
Sawmill employees should in most instances be robust. They are not as a rule exposed to inclement weather to the same degree as loggers. A high degree of mechanical skill is required of saw filers, sawyers, mechanics, and persons filling like places, but the greater part of the sawmill work does not demand mechanical skill of even average degree and consequently the work can be satisfactorily performedby labor which has had but little previous experience. In most positions a man who is of average intelligence and has the ability to quickly adapt himself to new lines of work will prove successful.
Woods work as a rule does not appeal to the city born and bred man, because it takes him from settled communities. On the other hand, both logging and sawmill work often appeal to the country-reared man because it keeps him out in the open.
The scarcity of labor during the last year has necessitated the employment of many laborers who would not have been acceptable in former times. Women are now filling many places in the industry to which they were not formerly considered eligible. They are now driving teams on logging jobs, felling timber, laying railroad steel, surfacing railroad track, and doing other work in the woods, as well as filling very satisfactorily a large number of places in sawmills, box factories, and other woodworking establishments which were formerly filled exclusively by men.
There is promise of a readjustment of labor conditions in the industry, and it is certain that the discovery of the worth of female labor in the industry will have a marked effect on labor conditions. The entrance of female workers will mean that many forms of the lighter labor formerly performed by physically deficient males will be given over to women, and it is possible that this may have a marked bearing on the possibility of employing wounded soldiers for this purpose. Few soldiers will be advised to enter the lumber industry unless they were formerly engaged in a similar line of work.
The following tabulation shows in a very general way the minimum range of the technical and mechanical qualifications required for certain lines of logging and sawmill work. Experienced men with greater disabilities than those mentioned may prove efficient, but it is not believed that inexperienced men who can not meet the requirements would prove satisfactory in the industry.
Better Than 225 JobsLabor Classification—Lumber IndustryPhysical and Technical Qualifications