Mr. OVERMYER. I may say in that connection that I have had more or less active participation in fairs in Ohio for a number of years, and those exhibits are all of great value. I think there is a great deal of education in them that ought not to be overlooked.

Mr. OUSLEY. We estimated that we reached over two million people, that over two million people saw our exhibits last year.

Mr. YOUNG, of Texas. It brings the information to them in concrete form.

Mr. OUSLEY. They are very helpful. I nearly always go to the State fair in Texas. They have perhaps the greatest State fair in the United States, and the Government exhibit is always swarmed with people.

Mr. RUBEY. Do you attempt to do any demonstrational work in connection with these fairs?

Mr. OUSLEY. Yes, sir. For instance, we had such an exhibit over at the Baltimore, "Over There" show, a very interesting exhibit that occupied the whole of their Armory Building with some patriotic exhibits of various kinds. They had guns from France and trophies captured from the Germans, and we had a food exhibit and an agricultural exhibit and some demonstration work. For the most part the State agriculture college furnishes the demonstrators. The Agriculture College of Maryland, furnished the home economics demonstrators there. The Department of Agriculture always works in cooperation with the State agriculture college. So, in a big exhibit in New York the Cornell people furnished the demonstrators to put on the cooking and drying and canning demonstrations.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Have you found it necessary to send somebody to each one of the exhibits?

Mr. OUSLEY. Yes, sir; it is always to be desired and is always done where the exhibit is of any volume, because you can not depend upon the local people to pack them up properly, or even to display them properly. There is a good deal of art in the display of these exhibits, and our men have had experience in that and can do it more effectively.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Does that take a great many men?

Mr. OUSLEY. No; this scheme of 34 fairs that we have arranged for this next fall can all be taken care of by about two men. They go in a circuit.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. That would be for the State fairs?

Mr. OUSLEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. But how about the other numerous exhibits? Mr. OUSLEY. We frequently send out small exhibits without anybody to go with them. Where it is an established institution that gets an income, we make them pay the railroad fare of our people, too. Otherwise that $18,000 would not go very far. I think I am warranted in saying that this exhibit department is about as economically conducted as any enterprise of which I have information. I think we are getting as much for our money as for any work we are doing, because we make the local communities pay the greater part of the expense.

Mr. HARRISON. You recall that it was the practice to appropriate $20,000 for one exhibit for many years. This $18,000 will cover many fairs and exhibits.

Mr. OUSLEY. It is estimated that in this schedule of 34 States, where we hope to make exhibits at the regular fairs, we will reach. 12,000,000 people with an impressive exhibit.

Mr. RUBEY. If there are no further questions on that, please take up the next item at the bottom of page 50.

ASSISTANCE IN SUPPLYING FARM LABOR.

Mr. OUSLEY. We had an allotment last year of $97,250, and we are asking for $162,000 for 1919. We have farm-help specialists now, I believe, in every State; there may be one or two vacancies; and we need supervisors for the groups of States, and we need some additional clerical work in the office of farm management, which is the office through which this activity is directed. The farm-labor problem is a serious one, and while we have no desire to assume responsibility, there is a certain responsibility that comes to us inevitably, because our county agents are in touch with the farmers and the farmers naturally look to them for advice and help, We are not encroaching upon the Department of Labor; we are working in close cooperation with them; but the Department of Labor offices are in the cities and our farm-labor demand is in the country. The county agent is, therefore, the best qualified man to give advice on that and to give information about it, and it is necessary for us to have in each State a farm-help specialist to work in cooperation with the county agents and bring their demands to the attention of the Labor Department, or to the attention of any other source of farm labor. The farm-help specialist is also helpful in the fact that he can assemble the county agents in groups in a given region and by conference ascertain that a certain number of farm laborers may be moved from one county to another as the season changes, as in wheat harvesting the harvest shifts from one county to another county, and this farmhelp specialist is enabled to aid in that movement of labor. Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. That is largely temporary work?

Mr. OUSLEY. Yes.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. What about supplying permanent help on the farm for a season?

Mr. OUSLEY. We aid in bringing to the attention of available laborers the demands of farmers.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. How do you do that?

Mr. OUSLEY. Only by taking the reports of the county agents and communicating them to the labor agencies. We can not compel anybody to go, and we can not create any labor.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. The labor agency here in Washington, or most cities.

Mr. OUSLEY. All over the United States. There are labor agencies in every city, and the Department of Labor has its own agencies in most cities.

Mr. WILCOX. Our State man in New York placed 13,000 last yearpermanent men. Our man in Ohio just told me he had placed 900 during the month of March; that is permanent men, not temporary

men.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. What report do you get as to whether or not these men are satisfactory?

Mr. OUSLEY. You mean, whether the men that are being placed now are satisfactory?

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yes; or have been. You have had an perience of several months.

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Mr. OUSLEY. Well, I should say that they are about as satisfactory as men for permanent employment would be, taken without personal knowledge in any business. There are just about as many that made good or who failed as in any other field.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. How do you receive reports as to whether or not they are satisfactory?

Mr. OUSLEY. We have no minute report on that. We do not attempt to keep minute reports on that; it is too small a detail to give any attention to. All we can do is to furnish men who appear to have good qualifications and are willing to go for the wages. I do not think it would be practicable for us to follow up every man and have a report of every man as to whether he is satisfactory to the farmer. Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I thought possibly you had reports from those who had employed the men, some of them anyway, possibly a large number, indicating in a general way that the work had been successful.

Mr. OUSLEY. But I may say in a general way that the large proportion of the laborers who are secured are satisfactory.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. How do you learn that?

Mr. OUSLEY. We learn it from the county agents.

Mr. RUBEY. We get reports from the farmers complaining of the men employed that way.

Mr. OUSLEY. That is true, and many have reason to complain. On the other hand, some of the laborers complain that the living conditions are not quite satisfactory. There is undoubtedly room for improvement there.

Mr. RUBEY. The probabilities are that when you do not hear anything they are all right?

Mr. OUSLEY. The man who is satisfied never says a word; it is the man who is dissatisfied who makes a noise.

Mr. RUBEY. Some time ago I had a statement from the department about the work in Kansas. It seems that they had some very thorough work in the way of canvassing.

Mr. OUSLEY. We are carrying on a very extensive campaign now through the county agents, through chambers of commerce, and through councils of defense, to get men of farm experience in the towns and cities to pledge to give a certain number of days. Many of the States report that they have sufficient pledges to care for the harvest. North and South Dakota I think have reported, and Kansas has reported; they report at least progress enough to assure them that they have enough men to do it.

Mr. WILCOX. They report in Kansas that they have gotten 50,000 people of farm experience pledged to give from 2 to 15 days of their time to the harvest, but that they will not be quite sufficient. There is a moving army that comes from the southwest and joins the forces in Kansas to make up the required number.

Mr. RUBEY. We had a bill in the House some time ago that passed the House. One section of it appropriated $2,500,000 for this character of work. I have not much idea as to whether that bill will be passed by the Senate or not; I rather think not, because the principal

feature of it related to furnishing seed, and the season is probably passed for that and the bill not being acted upon by the Senate, because of that section will not be acted upon. What do you think of the proposition to make a larger appropriation to cover the work along the lines of that provision of the bill?

Mr. OUSLEY. If you think that there is a doubt that that bill will pass, I think you ought to provide for it here. We have been expecting that act. Our information was, so far as you can forecast what a legislative body is going to do, that the act would pass. If your guess is correct that it will not pass, by all means I would urge a very large increase in this amount.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. That bill contemplates a different kind of work in some respects.

Mr. OUSLEY. It contemplates advancing money for transportation. Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. For paying railroad fare, and so on. Has the work that you have been carrying on involved any of that?

Mr. OUSLEY. We have frequent requests for such accommodation, but we can not furnish it.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. In no case have you furnished it?

Mr. OUSLEY. No; we have no authority to furnish it.

Mr. WILCOX. In one or two of the States the cooperating agency in the States has been allowed a revolving fund which would be used by cooperation between our men and their men.

Mr. OUSLEY. Not Federal funds. That has been done, as Mr. Wilcox states, from some local funds, but not from our funds.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Have you made investigation enough to determine that it is a feasible proposition?

Mr. OUSLEY. It is a feasible proposition; yes, sir; and in many instances would be very helpful. You can always get the local bank or groups of farmers to do it if you have time, but that means days. If the department had a fund that it could advance and take a little risk, there would not be any time lost, and you would have quick action. There would be very little loss in the way of money.

Mr. WILCOX. This fund I am speaking of was operated by the Public Safety Committee of Minnesota. As I remember, it was a $10,000 revolving fund, in constant use, and the last report I had was that only $34 had been lost.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Is this money advanced as railroad fare to be paid back?

Mr. WILCOX. Yes; and it has all been paid back. Only $34 has been lost.

Mr. OUSLEY. It is to be used in the same way that we use the seed fund. We have been buying seeds and selling them to the farmers. Mr. RUBEY. Your idea would be that whatever appropriation we might make along that line would be used as a revolving fund? Mr. OUSLEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. RUBEY. That is, to pay the railroad fares in advance, and then let the laborers repay them?

Mr. OUSLEY. Or the farmer, as the case may be.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. When the bill was before the House several of the gentlemen from the South feared that negro labor might be induced to leave the sections of the country where they were employed if there was a promise to pay railroad fare. Have you found any difficulty of that kind?

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Mr. OUSLEY. I have not heard of any movement of that kind. I should say, knowing the negro as I do, that if he saw a chance for a free ride he would be likely to go; but if I were administering that fund I would not let him have the money unless there was a farmer at the end of the line.

Mr. RUBEY. Is it the policy of your department to take a farm laborer from one community where he is employed to another community?

Mr. OUSLEY. No. On the contrary, we have secured very readily the consent of the War and Navy Departments to instruct their contractors in getting labor for Army and Navy activities, for construction work, not to advertise or solicit labor in the farm regions immediately around.

Mr. RUBEY. And if you were given authority you would not use that fund to bring labor from one point where it was employed in agriculture to another point?

Mr. OUSLEY. Oh, no. We would only move the labor that had finished its task in one community to another community. It is like the berry pickers that start down in Florida and move up the Middle States, and like the wheat harvesters, where they start in Texas and move up to Kansas and Nebraska.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I did not speak facetiously about this matter. Gentlemen were really afraid that laborers in large numbers might be induced to leave the South.

Mr. OUSLEY. I think Mr. Young will agree with me that if we were to let it be known in Texas that negroes could get a free ride up to Kansas we would have several trains of them every day.

Mr. YOUNG of Texas. That is the nature of the negro.

Mr. OUSLEY. But the Department of Agriculture would not furnish transportation for that class of laborers.

Mr. CANDLER. It was not so much the fear that they might be moved, but we were fearful that there would be a conflict betwen the National and State governments, because we have in the States of Alabama and Mississippi local laws prohibiting the offering of inducements or using any influence in any way, or sending people in, in order to offer inducements to carry labor out of the State; we were fearful of that more than anything else. So far as moving men out is concerned, 60,000 men moved out of that section of the country last year. Of course, if they want to go they have a right to go. As you said a moment ago, if you let it be known abroad that the Government was furnishing transportation you could fill a train a mile long every day.

Mr. OUSLEY. Yes; and some white people might do the same thing. But of course the Department of Agriculture is not going to run any excursions. We would not want to create any disturbances with agricultural labor. The department is interested in the agriculture of the entire United States, and the agriculture of the South is as important as the agriculture of the North.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. To some extent, at least, there would have to be solicitation; notices would have to be published; the attention of labor in one part of the country would have to be attracted to the fact that their services were needed in another part, and these laws Mr. Chandler speaks of are still in force in the South. Do you think