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An Appropriation of 450 Millions Recommended to House
NOT ENOUGH?
Hopkins Fears That Sum Is Insufficient For Needs
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Washington, Feb. 2 — (AP) —-House leaders today decided to postpone until Monday consideration of the $950,000,000 CWA-relief appropriation.
No reason was given immediately, but it was understood that the measure would be taken up Monday under procedure forbidding amendments.
Had the resolution been brought to the floor today, it would have been subject to amendments, and a number of members had indicated they wanted to increase the total appropriation so as to assure a longer extension of the CWA.
Only Short Debate
Under present plans, however, the measure may be brought in Monday under rules allowing only 40 minutes of debate. Members then will have to choose between voting for $950,000,000 or nothing.
The resolution authorizing the appropriation, however, earlier was approved by the appropriations committee.
Simultaneously, the committee released an account by Harry L. Hopkins, CWA and relief administrator, that even with the civil works request $100,000,000 higher than originally intended it was improbable the CWA program would last through May.
Hopkins told the committee that unless immediate action was tak-en the $400,000,000 originally allotted for the CWA would be exhausted on Feb. 9 and there would be no funds for that huge payroll.
Spend 70 Million Weekly
The present rate of expenditure, he said, was about $70,000,000 a week.
In its formal report, the appropriations committee admonished the house to remember “that these relief measures are not a permanent policy of the federal government,” and added:
“They are temporary and only | the extreme emergency justifies them.
“Summarizing the direct and indirect aid furnished by the civil works program as supplemented by state and local money and the federal emergency relief administration activities, it provides relief for 7,000,000 families representing 25 to 30 million people.” Confine To Local Projects
The committee said it was of the opinion that the civil works fund “should be confined to state and local projects except in such cases as it may be necessary to allot funds to some federal agency to administer, supervise, inspect, etc., the execution of work on state and local projects.”
The administrator testified as head of the federal relief organization that last March there were 4,560,000 families in the United States on public relief rolls representing “something over 20,000,-000 people or one person out of every six.”
The number of families on the federal relief rolls in December, he said, had decreased to 2,650,-000.
“Suppose you reach May 1 and the number of people you have employed on your civil works rolls has increased and you find a considerable decrease on your relief rolls,” Chairman Buchanan (D. Tex.) asked. “To stop your civil works would necessarily throw those same people back on your relief rolls?”
“That is right,” Hopkins replied. “We might extend civil-works a little longer. My own thought would be, however, with a fund of this size, you could not possibly keep this running all the time between now and next winter; that you would either diminish it sharply during the summer time or demobilize it entirely during the summer time. It will reach a marked decrease in the numbers.
“We have not yet reached any administrative decision as to precisely the method that will be adopted. It wall be done on a realistic basis and in the interest of the whole national economy.”
Hopkins said that many people who needed relief had been ashamed to ask for it until the CWA was created last November by President Roosevelt.
In describing the situation, he said:
“A strange thing happened in connection with work relief. We had been taught to believe in the study of the poor laws that the way to get people off the relief rolls is to offer them a job, because if you give them work they will duck and run, and they will not want any relief.
“Well, just the opposite happened. We found that when we started work relief many people, fine people, who could not come to us for direct relief would come for work relief, because they said it was a job.”
93 CWA Employes to Lost Their Jobs Friday
Arkansas City will lose 93 CWA employes Friday in this week’s demobilization order.
Bulletins carrying the names of 128 workers who have been dismissed were distributed to local officials Wednesday. Thirty-five of the Arkansas City men who were originally on the CWA payroll but who lost their places last December in the attempted rotation will be put back to work Friday, however, making a net reduction of 98 persons here.
The demobilization schedule called for the dismissal of 150 employes this week in the county. The present county quota is 903 workers, a drop of 333 from the original 1,236. The Arkansas City district has lost 203 places for a new quota of about 535.
The dismissal list is selected by L. L. Petticord, county CWA administrator, upon the recommendation of the county case workers. Employes needing the work least are being removed from the payroll in the initial cuts.
CWA Families Can’t Get Food From U.S.
Families that are represented on the CWA payroll no longer will be eligible to participate in the distribution of federal surplus commodities, according to instructions received by the assistant poor commissioner’s office here from John G. Stutz, executive director of the Kansas Emergency Relief committee.
Only families receiving direct relief and approved marginal families will be eligible to receive the commodities. CWA families which had been carried on the old federal relief rolls formerly were allowed to share in the plan. The order became effective Thursday.
A consignment of 250 sacks of | flour is expected in Arkansas City | immediately, and a large ship- ment of various commodities is looked for in the near future.
First Aid Course Ingle Stephans, Red Cross instructor, conducted a first aid school for CWA foremen in the recreation room of: the Arkansas City fire department Wednesday evening. The meeting was attended by 25 persons. The first aid course is required by the state and federal CWA officials, and is a 15 hour course of six sessions, two and one half hours each. A certificate will be issued at the close of the course to those taking
it. 3-1-34