Speech #880010920

Originally an orphan agency of Government grown to cabinet rank only after adventures as a subordinate bureau wandering through the organizational charts of other agencies. the Department has remained relatively smallyet today it has assumed a central responsibility for a major decision we face as a people: Can we make our economy a human as well as a technical success? This is not unlike the questions that through the years have helped shape and form the department. In its formative period. the overriding issues were immigration. child labor. and producing some accurate system by which to measure the changes in jobs and wages and hours and conditions of work. It was from the first the condition of the individual working man and his family that gave the Department its meaning. It was an agency that sought to realize the dream of America held by the immigrants with whom it dealt. its purpose has varied little in the years since. Yet its constitution has changed several times. almost in exat proportion to the A753 changes in American life. During World War I. the concerns were primarily with manning the war effort and insuring needed production. In the peace that followed. the Secretaries of Labor considered the evolving technology of mass production and mass manpower needs and sought ways and means by which the security of individual workers could be vouchsafed. With the depression came a proliferation of departmental activitiesthe national employment service. wages and hours law enforcement. apprenticeship and training. the development of appropriate labor standards. With these changes. some of the older agencies were removedImmigration and Naturalization. the Childrens Bureau. the Mediation and Conciliation Service. none are today a part of the Department. New ones took their placeEmployment Security. Labor Standards.