Mr. Sherman C. Kingsley, general superal ntendent of the United Welfare Societies of Chicago, says that such great numbers of people are applying at his office for jobs, and he exerts himself in vain in his efforts to find jobs for hundreds of applicants. Mr. Kingsley adds that it is a long time since conditions were as they now are. The directors of the Bohemian Charitable Association, with its office in the "Cesko Americka Svobodna Skola" (The Bohemian-American Liberal [Free thought] School) is likewise overcrowded with people, begging for work when that is impossible to obtain work for those asking for help.

"Inquiries for employment are at present twenty-five per cent greater than at this time last year," said Mr. Kingsley, "and by investigation, I have found that the city shelters have twice as many applicants than formerly.

The saddest part of it all is that they are mostly young people who are willing to work, and would be satisfied with any kind of work. When we try to find work for these people with the railroad companies, they show us hundreds and hundreds of applications already on file, to say nothing of the crowds in their employment offices every morning. The steel mills are working only at about one half capacity, and the Pullman factories are operating at about sixty per cent. People are not buying much, and factories are able to keep up with the demand by operating half time. An agent of a certain Jewish Charitable Society assured me that inquiry for jobs is fifty per cent more than usual. The lady says, that at no time during the past ten years has there been so little work in the wholesale clothing industry as this year. To be sure, most of the people applying to us for jobs have no trades, but what can be done about it, such people also must work and earn."

The officers of the Bohemian Charitable Association, which has done so much good for our unemployed and disaster-stricken countrymen, appeals to everyone who may know of a job to report it to their office immediately.