The War Labor Policies Board was thus the organization through which spoke the voice of all the industrial agencies of the Government and behind its administration of industrial relations was all the power of the Government. It worked out a national policy for the distribution of labor which was executed through the agency of the United States Employment Service. By means of conferences between the representatives of organized labor and industrial management it did much toward the standardizing and stabilizing of wages. It endeavored to bring about proper standards and satisfactory conditions of labor. By anti-child-labor regulations in all Government contracts it kept a restraining hand on the evident tendency toward employment of children that had been induced on the part of employers by the need for labor and on the part of parents by the possibility of greatly increased earnings. It adopted a policy toward the employment of women in industry which aimed to keep women out of unfit occupations and to provide such standards and conditions in the occupations to which they were admitted as would conserve their health and welfare. It advised the more general employment of older men for many kinds of work rather than that of women or boys, and largely because of its support of this policy the age of engaging men advanced during the war by ten years, until men of fifty were able to find employment. The first task which the War Labor Policies Board undertook was that of bringing order out of the chaotic condition which had quickly developed through the bidding for labor against one another of all employers, both public and private, and the working out of a national policy for the distribution of labor. The existing machinery of the United States Employment Service, very greatly enlarged and strengthened as soon as funds for that purpose were available, was used in the execution of this policy. Offices were established in the several states, their number soon totaling 400, and a decentralized system was worked out consisting of state and community labor boards, upon all of which there was joint representation of employers, employees and the United States Employment Service. These made it possible to list and keep constant check upon the supply of labor and the demand for it in every part of the country and within a very short time to move an excess of the supply in one place to another in which there was need. These community labor boards were organized in every state of the Union and by the first of September, 1918, were at work in 1000 industrial centers. In every application for work the schooling and the occupational experience and training of the applicant were stated, thus making it easy to match the job with the man. By the end of the summer the U. S. Employment Service had made placements of almost 2,000,000 wage earners.