There are more than 200 private employment agencies in Chicago. There were, on August 14, 1922, 39 licensed private agencies of the type patronized by the homeless man. Eighteen of these were on Canal Street, thirteen were on West Madison Street, and the rest in close proximity to that area. In addition to these there are many agencies not operating on a commission basis which hire men for a private corporation and are maintained by that corporation. As such they are not licensed nor does the law affect them. No figures are at hand to show how many men these private agencies place during the year. Their records are not merely inadequate; they are a joke. In fact, few of them keep records that list all applicants, all men placed, jobs registered, etc., though the state law definitely declares that this must be done. The inclusion of the non-fee-collecting agencies will raise the number from 39 to over 50. If each agency sends out, at a low estimate, 10 men a day, and if each operates 300 days a year, a total of 150,000 men are placed in jobs annually. Over 57,000 men in 1921-22 were placed by the free employment agency. Many of these homeless men have access to other private agencies than those situated on the “stem,” and often they prefer to go to such agencies. If 100 of these agencies furnished jobs to 2 homeless men a day for 300 days a year, we would have an additional 60,000. About 250,000 homeless men pass through the Chicago employment agencies every year. Employment agencies fall into two classes--the public, or those operated by the federal government, the state, or the municipality and those conducted under private management. The private agency is the pioneer. It was not only the outgrowth of a certain condition in the labor market but it was the reason for the creation of the public employment bureau. PRIVATE EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES The idea is becoming general that employment offices have a social responsibility. They have duties to the applicants, to the employers, and to the public that are more than economic; more than a business of selling jobs to jobless men. It is a responsibility that is not imposed upon the ordinary business man and that has no prominent place in the code of business ethics. The private employment agencies that cater to the homeless men are chiefly located on the West Side. The 1919-20 _Report of the Illinois Department of Labor_[35] shows that during that period there were 295 licensed private employment agencies in Chicago. As we noted above, about fifty of these serve the homeless men. Most of these fifty agencies are located along Canal Street opposite the Union Depot, or along Madison Street between the Chicago River and Halsted Street. Some of these operate the year round, while others come and go with the seasons, opening up in prosperous times and going out of existence when the demand for labor falls.