[3] After a few months Smith was promoted by the Civil Service Commission to be the private secretary to the Chief of the Division of Scientific Inquiry with a pay increase to $1000 a year, making Ethel Smith one of the highest paid women in civil service.

[3] When she brought the issue up to her superiors she was told that they had no intention of promoting her or increasing her pay because of the belief that as a woman she could not be the primary bread winner.

[3] Smith was appointed to her position after Alice Paul left NAWSA to start the National Woman's Party (NWP) leaving the position of chairwoman of the Congressional Committee open to Ruth McCormick who then appointed Ethel Smith as Secretary.

She sought “to join forces with labor unions and organizations that promoted collective action to educate and unite working men and women.”[3] In November 1917 Smith became active in the National Federation of Federal Employees which engaged in a range of actives to establish modern standards of wage and working conditions in the civil services.

[3] Smith became a member of their Legislative Committee to further education on social and economic welfare for Federal employees.

[3] While on the Legislative Committee she was recognized as an effective lobbyist for minimum wage laws, the creation of the Women’s Bureau in the Department of Labor, and the eight-hour work day.

For the next few years Ethel Smith worked for the passing of a minimum wage law for women and children in Washington, D.C. and the Child Labor Amendment.