ENLARGED WAR WORK FOR PRESIDENT HOPKINS

President Hopkins has been asked by Secretary of War Baker to increase the scope of the work he has been doing in Washington. He is now serving as Assistant to the Secretary of War in charge of Industrial Relations and to supervise the industrial service work in all Army Corps Quartermaster, Ordnance, Signal and Aviation, Construction, etc.—to the end that the production necessary for war needs shall be interrupted as little as may be by labor disturbances, and that where these appear they shall be settled as promptly as possible on as permanent a basis as may be.

The work requires, in behalf of the Secretary of War, that knowledge shall be at hand in regard to the labor conditions of all industries at work on supplying and equipping the army through its billions of dollars of worth of contracts, and in safe-guarding against the breaking down of labor standards which have been proved through experience in times of peace as vital for sustained production and the best morale of workers.

The bulk of the work is preventive. The settling of disputes is the less important though a very necessary phase. President Hopkins' new responsibility is to supervise through all Army Corps such work as he has hitherto been doing himself in the Quartermaster Corps.