Likewise, the Relief Administration's offer to provide transportation was rejected. The Relief Administration was unwilling to recruit families, since that would mean forcing child labor into the berry fields. Investigation could not discover a single relief client who had refused a berry-picking job. The latest charges made against WPA workers are typical. Recent press reports stated that nine out of every ten sugar-beet workers were refusing work in the beet fields of Colorado, the assumption being that these people preferred working on WPA projects to taking beet field employment.
Investigation reveals a different story.
Other dismissals followed, and by May 15 about 3,000 beet-worker families had been dropped. Workers usually employed in the beet fields obviously could not be refusing beet-field jobs in order to remain on WPA for the simple reason that they were no longer on WPA jobs. Yet not a single farmer could be discovered who was unable to obtain all the labor that he could use. WPA and CCC employment prompted an investigation this Spring by the National Employment Service and the United States Employment Service in the State. This report shows that no shortage existed and that the lively demand for farm labor had been met without difficulty.