When Winter Comes (Cont'd)

Would you refuse a direct Federal appropriation, if Congress voted one?

That question was the most important one put last week to Walter Sherman Gifford, generalissimo of President Hoover's new Organization on Unemployment Relief./- It was popped by one of 40 Dole-conscious newsmen who faced Generalissimo Gifford down a long polished table in Secretary of Commerce Lament's office. A positive "yes," Mr. Gifford knew, was an answer that would greatly please President Hoover. But the President's relief director was determined to be more than a White House echo. Carefully he replied:

"You're asking too far in advance. We don't want to get into any controversies at the start. Our problem is to fight unemployment distress and not to waste time fighting theories. If a community finds itself unable to raise adequate relief funds, I should think that a job for the county and, after the county, for the State."

"But what if the State should fail to supply aid?" persisted the newshawks.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," snapped Director Gifford.

Generalissimo Gifford crossed many another new bridge last week, however, as he started up relief machinery. Constantly at his elbow, explaining, coaching, advising, was big-bespectacled Fred Croxton, who had been acting chief of the defunct Emergency Committee for Employment. After Assistant Croxton showed Director Gifford the ropes, he departed for West Virginia to inspect distress in the coal mines where the State said it was unable to give relief. Another Croxton idea: Letters to 26.000 school superintendents throughout the land urging them to keep their older pupils at their desks and out of competition with men who really need jobs.

After conferences with welfare workers Generalissimo Gifford set Oct. 19-Nov. 25 for a nation-wide drive for relief funds (unofficial estimate: $175,000,000), to be locally raised and spent. Over his own A. T. & T. lines he enlisted State representatives to direct the cash campaign. Many a retired businessman volunteered to help. Plans and suggestions poured in.

Meanwhile President Hoover strengthened his advisory committee by appointing to it Owen D. Young and four others. The Brotherhood of Brooklyn Edison Employes publicly protested the selection of their company's president, Matthew Scott Sloan, for this committee, on the ground that he had turned out 2,000 workers last spring, was not sincerely interested in unemployment relief. Retorted Mr. Sloan: "I don't know what the Brother hood of Brooklyn Edison Employes is." Not all of the President's advisory committeemen were as opposed as he to direct Federal aid. Declared President William Green of the American Federation of Labor: "We'll find later that appropriations will have to be made. ... It will require heroic efforts on Mr. Gifford's part to prepare for the heavy demands that will come with the first frost. It will require many millions of dollars." Next year it is altogether possible that Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt will confront each other in the Presidential election. In such a contest unemployment relief is likely to be a large issue. Last week while President Hoover, through Generalissimo Gifford. was building up in Washington what would become his "record" on this question, Governor Roosevelt at Albany was putting before the New York Legislature a relief plan to which he could point in a national campaign. His was the first program to be inaugurated by a State for the winter emergency. It might well become a model for other Legislatures, including the national one at Washington. Governor Roosevelt had devised a formula of sup plying relief and still dodging the dole. Important was the political philosophy he put into his message to the Legislature. It had undertones which might well be come the main motif in 1932. Some excerpts :

"Modern society, acting through its government, owes the definite obligation to prevent the starvation or dire want of any of its fellow men and women who try to maintain themselves but cannot. . . . To these unfortunate citizens aid must be extended by government--not as a matter of charity but as a matter of social duty. . . . Private charity will prove inadequate to meet the added burden of the next few months. The responsibility rests upon the State. It is idle for us to speculate upon actions which may be taken by the Federal Government. ... It is true the Federal Government may take action to eradicate some of the basic causes of our present troubles . . . may come forward with a definite construction program on a truly large scale . . . may adopt a well thought out, concrete policy which will start the wheels of industry moving. . . . But the State of New York cannot wait for that. It must itself make available a large sum of public monies to provide work for its residents this winter and, where such work cannot be found, to provide them with food against starvation and with clothing and shelter against suffering. . . . The time for platitudes has passed.''

Governor Roosevelt proposed that $20,000,000 be raised by a special 50% increase on income taxes. A $10,000 per year married man would pay an additional $26, a $100,000 per year bachelor $1,162. The Governor held that those "who are fortunate enough to have taxable incomes" should bear this burden proportionately. This fund would be administered through a temporary non-salaried commission. If public work can be found, jobs will be given the needy. If not, local welfare officers would purchase and give to them "food, clothing, fuel and shelter." Declared Governor Roosevelt: "Under no circumstances shall any actual money be paid in the form of a dole to any unemployed or his family." The State fund would be apportioned according to local needs and community initiative and generosity. The State would help most the town that helped itself.

To help New York City through the winter on private funds a score of financiers met last week at the House of Morgan. Hosts were Morgan Partners Thomas William Lament and Thomas Cochran. Among others present were Owen D. Young, George Fisher Baker, Alfred Emanuel Smith, Charles Hayden, Charles Edwin Mitchell, Myron Charles Taylor. They organized a citizens committee, made Harvey Dow Gibson, president of Manufacturers Trust Co. chairman, set out to raise $10,000,000 to give semi-public work to jobless married men. P: Describing the recently reorganized U. S. Employment Service as an "ineffective set-up," Fred I. Jones resigned last week as its director general, having held the post ten years. P: Bishop Francis J. McConnell, president of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, urged U. S. churches to pray this Sunday "for deeper sympathy with the unemployed."

/-President Hoover dislikes the word Unemployment. He named his last year's organization the Emergency Committee for Employment. This year there was no room for euphemism.

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