Whoops of Righteousness

When the Congress heard President Roosevelt's special message on Relief last fortnight, requesting an additional $875,000,000 to operate WPA from February through June 1939, some of the biggest spenders on Capitol Hill widened their eyes. That would be spending at the same rate as in June of last year, when WPA plunged in to meet Depression II, now superseded by Recovery. With whoops of economic righteousness, the House of Representatives last week fell upon the President's WPA request.

Led by Virginia's fleshy Clifton Alexander Woodrum, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee in charge, the Representatives curtly dismissed an appropriation of $1,050,000,000 suggested by the Workers Alliance, of $1,000,000,000 by C. I. O., of $915,000,000 by Mayor LaGuardia of New York City, representing the U. S. Conference of Mayors. Without even taking a record vote on the President's figure, they lopped off $150,000,000, set their own figure: $725,000,000.

Administration whips stood idly by while coalitions of Democrats and Republicans rammed through anti-Administration provisions:

> The money must be made to last through June.

> No aliens might have any.

> Pay scales in the South must be not more than 25% lower than in the North.

> WPA supervisors must not play politics.

> The President's order binding 37,000 WPA employes over into the Civil Service (for lifetime jobs) next month, should not take effect./-

In a House where the Administration is still supposed to have a majority of about 100, this bill was passed, 397 to 16. It was the first Relief appropriation under the New Deal which the House has reduced below White House estimates. Representatives swelled their chests with pride.

It was by no means certain that Franklin Roosevelt had not outsmarted the House. Correspondents had a shrewd suspicion that he had asked for more than he wanted, that, so doing, he had deliberately given the House a harmless chance to display independence and, if economy should backfire, to take the rap from constituents --all of which might make Congress more tractable later.

Next Shot. Where the House left off, the Senate prepared to begin. Chairman Adams of the Senate subcommittee in charge of the bill said that he thought the appropriation might be cut as low as $600,000,000. A dozen Senators were eager to cram the bill with amendments against politics in relief. While they were questioning Harry Hopkins about his fitness to be Secretary of Commerce, they got him to admit that if he had to do it again, he would not have made political speeches as head of WPA; that politics-playing WPA supervisors in Kentucky should have been "kicked out on their ears," but weren't, "I don't know why."

He insisted that Recovery was the reason for the sharp decline in WPA rolls since November's elections, and thereby gave them an argument against a big new WPA fund. Meanwhile, Senators studied a report by a special committee under South Carolina's Byrnes which, if translated into law, would effectively wreck WPA as a permanent, billion-dollar political machine.

Works Department? Taking a long view, the Byrnes committee recommended that a new Federal Department of Public Works, working in conjunction with the Social Security Board, cope with unemployment in future. Into this department would go WPA, PWA, CCC, NYA.

First line of defense in periods of depression would be the unemployment insurance systems already paying benefits in all but three States (Illinois, Georgia, Montana). These would be coordinated by Federal law and bolstered by Federal payments to match State benefits paid. Proposed scale: $5 (minimum) to $15 (maximum) per week for 13 weeks of unemployment to workers certified as having held jobs for 26 weeks within a year and lost their jobs through no fault of their own. The Federal employment service, reorganized and refinanced, would be charged with finding jobs for these temporarily subsidized workers.

Social Security's present aid to the aged and the blind would be raised to make $15 the monthly minimum (instead of maximum, as now), with $20 (instead of $18) for dependent children.

A permanent public works program would be set up, expanded and contracted as economic conditions dictated, with one-third of the cost borne by States whose per capita income is up to the national average, less by States poorer per capita.* Project allotments would be made on a basis of population and Federal unemployment census figures.

Administrative employes of the Public Works Department would be put under civil service rules, to keep them out of politics, and all persons would be severely enjoined from offering jobs under the Department in return for political activity.

/- The majority committee report on the bill instructed WPA to oust "malingerers" from rolls, estimated them at one in ten.

* The present division of public works costs is for PWA, 45% Federal and 55% local, for WPA, 78% Federal and 22% local. The object of a uniform division of costs would be to end rivalry between PWA and WPA and "chiseling" back & forth by their clients.

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