Jim Jobless

The third week in November, 1929, he, aged 39 and having a wife and two children, lost his job. He had been earning $37.50 a week as clerk in the accounting department of a manufactory. He had put $1,413 in the savings bank, so he was equipped for a short layoff, and he had bought his last suit (for $32.50, at a sale) just two months before. He went home in November to his by-the-year lease apartment, cheered up his wife, chaffed the children. But he began earnestly to look for another position.

After two unsuccessful weeks, he felt a little out of it when he met his employed friends. He would say: "Oh, I'm all right. I'm just trying to decide if I'll take this job or that." But after two weeks more he was ducking around corners to avoid the same people, for he was proud. At the end of three months, he stayed away from the reproachful glances of his family as much as possible, though in mid-summer of this year he suffered the humiliation of moving them into two furnished rooms. In September, his savings were all gone. Now for the first time he was willing to accept manual labor, any labor. He was lonely, afraid, undergoing a mental and moral breakdown. But he could not find a job.

Such, according to averages published last week by the municipal employment bureau and the Jewish Social Service Association of Manhattan--such is the composite story of today's unemployed, of Jim Jobless of New York City. Doubtless it closely resembles the averages to be drawn from data gathered in other cities. Last week Jim Jobless in most U. S. cities shivered in the year's first real cold snap as he joined the breadseeking or jobseeking lines. But relief work everywhere was getting under way and Jim Jobless could read the following in the news:

P: In New York City, with 300,000 idle, Banker Seward Prosser's committee had raised $2,512,000, given park-cleaning jobs to 10,000 Jims. Police distributed 1,500,000 Ib. of food in 65-lb. portions.

P: For the 150,000 jobless in Philadelphia, Banker Horatio Gates Lloyd's committee announced it would supervise a free lodge, and ordered that every family in need should be cared for.

P: Cleveland, whose unemployed number some 60,000, authorized $1,550,000 in public works at once.

P: Detroit, with 86,000 idle, had found 11,000 jobs, expended more than $2,000,000 in relief, but the number of unemployed was 4,000 greater than when Mayor Frank Murphy's compaign started about seven weeks ago.

P: In Chicago Banker Philip Ream Clarke's committee had raised more than $1,000,000 to give jobs to some 200,000 unemployed. Governor Emmerson's Illinois commission had helped 18,000 families, spent $600,000.

P: Seattle launched $2,000,000 worth of public works.

P: In Washington, D. C.; Chairman Woods of the President's Employment Relief Commission announced that in Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wyoming bond issues had been approved for emergency roadbuilding.

P: A football game was played between New York University and Colgate, proceeds from which were donated to help the unemployed. Similar games, designed to make relief money, were planned between Army and Navy in Manhattan on Dec. 13, between Knute Rockne's Notre Dame Stars and the New York Giants Dec. 14.

P: Cotton-mills throughout the South had increased their payrolls 30%, according to George Simmons Harris of Cotton Textile Institute of America.

P: An emergency committee of Federal Public Works was formed to urge on Congress a $1,000,000,000 bond-issue, to be called the Prosperity Loan. Money thus obtained would increase Federal building. Head of the committee of tycoons, bankers, civic leaders, was Editor Harold Sinley Buttenheim of The American City Magazine.

P: The President's message to Congress and the prompt introduction into the House of Representatives of a big drought-relief bill promised Jim Jobless work in the near future.

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