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[FORM U-4]

THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

By Proclamation of His Excellency, SAMUEL W. McCALL, Governor

Issued, June 12, 1918, pursuant to the provisions of

THE COMPULSORY WORK LAW

(CHAPTER 286, GENERAL ACTS OF 1918)

All Able-Bodied Males

between the ages of 18 and 50

MUST WORK 36 HOURS EACH WEEK
AT SOME USEFUL OCCUPATION,


such employment being necessary for the public protection and welfare. All such persons unable to obtain employment and to be in pursuit of some regular, useful occupation within 30 days after the issue of said Proclamation, must so notify

THE DIRECTOR OF THE BURUEA OF STATISTICS or AN AGENT DESIGNATED BY HIM,

whereupon they will be registered and assigned work in accordance with the provisions of the law.
For information as to the agent and place of registration in your community, apply to the City or Town Clerk.
Application for employment may be made at any time in person or by mail to

THE STATE PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT OFFICES
8 KNEELAND ST., BOSTON, - 48 GREEN ST., WORCESTER, - 47 WATER ST., SPRINGFIELD
or to any office of the U. S. EMPLOYMENT SERVICE.

The object of this act is to require persons subject to its provisions to engage in some useful occupation, and persons possessed of independent incomes which may not make it necessary for them to work for their own support or those dependent upon them are, therefore, included within the
scope of the act.
Persons failing to comply with the provisions of the law are LIABLE TO A PENALTY OF A

$100 FINE, THREE MONTHS IN JAIL OR BOTH

The following classes are, under certain conditions not included within the provisions of the law:
a) Persons temporarily unemployed by reason of differences with their employers.
b) Bona fide students during a school or college term.
c) Persons fitting themselves to engage in trade or industrial pursuits.

Citizens are requested to report immediately cases of suspected violation of this law to the Mayor, Board of Selectmen, or Local Police Authorities, or to this Office.

CHARLES F. GETTEMY,
Director, Bureau of Statistics

State House, Boston, June 20, 1918.

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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In the massive mobilization during World War I (1914-1918; U.S. involvement 1917-1918), the state of West Virginia passed the nation's first compulsory work law in May, 1917, just a month after U.S. entry. A number of other states, including Delaware (1917) and Massachusetts (1918), followed with their own compulsory work laws. Similar peacetime laws had been found constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1916. Ironically, these laws came as similar laws were created in Russia by the newly dominant Bolshevik (later Soviet) party. All of the U.S. state laws were repealed after the war. In 1930, the United States signed conventions outlawing compulsory labor and the idea of compulsory work in the United States was not reintroduced during World War II. One of the charges laid against the leaders of Nazi Germany during the Nuremberg Trials after the war related to the compulsory labor that regime required of its conquered peoples. Compulsory labor has been banned in most of the world since.

 

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Proclamation by the Governor of The Compulsory Work Law

publisher   State House
creator   Samuel W. McCall (1851-1923)
date   Jun 20, 1918
location   Boston, Massachusetts
width   15.0"
height   27.5"
process/materials   printed paper, ink
item type   Public Announcements/Broadside
accession #   #L02.146


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See Also...

"The World's Work" - War Manual of the Great 1914 European Conflict

Hospital in Vladivostok

"Shorter Hours for Women"


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