Your Job And American Victory

YOUR AND AME RICAN VICTORY BY THEODORE BARRETT GEORGE W. STEWART, PUBLISHER, INC. NEW YORK CITY INTRODUCTION AFTER MANY YEARS of wandering in the wilderness of depres sion, when youth was the lost generation 3 and their elders smug and contented, came the preparedness program of 1940 and the nation began to change from an economy of recovery to an economy of preparedness, with the ultimate goal of be coming a nation in arms. Then came the 1941 pronounce ment of the President which placed the nation in a state of unlimited national emergency 2 as the arsenal of Democracy for all embattled free nations, and industry was put on an undeclared war footing. Finally came the tragedy of Pearl Harbor and America was engulfed in world war as the chief of the United Nations. American youth is no longer the lost generation. Instead, in khaki uniform and mechanics dungarees, youth must defend the nation from attack and must vanquish its enemies abroad in the most terrible conflict of all time. Millions of their elders, toppled from commonplace smugness through the loss of their jobs by priorities unemployment, must begin life anew through retraining for defense jobs. This sudden shift repre sents a major cataclysm in our industrial life. This chain of dramatic events has swept away all our com placent, ideas of the usual peacetime jobs. Every job today must be reexamined in the light of its value to the nation at war, rather than its value to the individual. Much past job infor mation is obsolete, some completely misleading, in view of present conditions, and parents, educators, youth, and ex perienced workers are all eager for the facts of todays job situation. Our youth today most certainly facemore serious and per plexing problems than at any previous time in our history more immediate and perplexing than in the dark days of the VI INTRODUCTION millions of unemployed young men and women Now every normal man and woman from eighteen to sixty lttr may look forward to some part in the war of the United Nations for final victory, either as a member of the armed services, the defense industries, or in services essential to carrying on national life or civil defense. Rationing pf labor means that every employable person eventually will have a job. Every man from eighteen to sixty-four is faced with the un certainty of the draft, with its effects upon his job possibilities or his education. Will a young man be able to finish college What courses shall he take He may have spent long years preparing for some job, now useless to defense, or in an in dustry which will be closed for the duration of the war owing to the loss of priority, since its products may be valueless to arms or defense production. Can he make plans for marriage and the creation of a home Girls planning marriage face, with their sweethearts, the same uncertainty. Priorities unemploy ment is costing millions of workers their jobs. Automobile and tire salesmen, for example, must retrain for wartime produc tion jobs, since this conflict may last for years. But what jobs Even linotype operators lose their jobs as newspapers shrink in size due to paper shortage. Yet everyone, young and old, is eager to help in the nations ultimate victory. Where are the job opportunities What train ing is needed How to get a wartime job From the long-range view, the present situation is even more complex and disturbing. No one doubts thatwe shall win the war, but are we in danger of again losing the peace Will there be a great depression after this war is over If so, what present day jobs will carry over into peacetime and be open to our youth, who then will be the veterans of the present World War, or of the preparedness army of industrial soldiers The effect of the present crisis upon parents is especially perplexing...