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238 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. v (1945)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0238 and id is 1 raw text is: FOREWORD

THE magnitude of the impending vet-
eran  re-employment problem, joined
with an awareness of the exceptional
arduousness of the service which many
veterans will have performed, can well
give rise to feelings of bafflement and
even consternation concerning the feasi-
bility and the consequences of their re-
absorption  into  civilian  life.  After
World War I a brief period of intense
concern was quickly dissipated by the
ease with which all but a few of the
discharged men found their own way
back into a peacetime existence. The
end of World War II, however, will
leave a veteran population several times
greater than that of 1919. The stresses
and shocks of the war upon both vet-
erans and nonveterans have been far
more intense and prolonged. The ma-
jor shifts in economic and social atti-
tudes which have occurred over the past
two decades may be still further modi-
fied before a full peacetime status is
restored.
There are, however, important posi-
tive factors which in the coming situa-
tion may well more than counterbalance
the negative ones. The enhanced aware-
ness and concern which have already
been   manifested  are  in  themselves
strongly in contrast with the casual way
in which the demobilization problem was
last faced in the United States. Govern-
mental and other machinery in the fields
of placement, vocational counseling,
credit facilities, social insurance, and
welfare has developed far beyond the
rudimentary beginnings of twenty-five
years ago. Governmental plans and
measures specifically addressed to the
problems of the returning veteran have
been discussed and devised well in ad-
vance. Perhaps in the end even more
important are the active concern shown
and the detailed preparation undertaken
by individual communities, employers,
V

and labor unions, and the fact that we
do not even yet know fully how elastic
our economic and social structure may
turn out to be.
The very dimensions of the task
ahead may in the end simplify its solu-
tion. It must be kept in mind that pres-
ently a third or even two-fifths of the
male labor force of the country may well
consist of men who have had at least
some service in the armed forces. In
many communities, industries, and oc-
cupations, and of course especially in
the age brackets in which most of the
veterans fall, the proportion will be far
higher. It is therefore with good reason
that several of the articles in this volume
point out that one can hardly speak of
postwar jobs for veterans unless one is
really speaking of the problem of as-
suring sufficient jobs for all workers in
the total population.
Under these circumstances it is also
well constantly to bear in mind that
whatever is done for or to the veteran
group is being done for or to the en-
tire national economy. Special services
provided for veterans and their families
will be well on the way toward becoming
services for the entire population. Spe-
cial provisions or devices affecting ac-
cess to jobs or the retention of jobs may
well become permanently crystallized
into the whole pattern of management
and trade union relationships. The spe-
cific applications of general policies will
require the exercise of an exceptionally
high quality of wisdom and co-operative-
ness on the part of the veterans, the em-
ployers, the trade unions, and the gov-
ernmental agencies.
It is to be hoped that the articles in
this volume will aid in stimulating fur-
ther discussion of those problems which
are as yet unsolved and of the conflicts
of attitude and interest which will have
to be adjusted. It has obviously not

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