Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-02-11
COUNCIL AND
COUNTY AID
UNEMPLOYED
APPROPRIATE $4,000 MORE
FOR PUBLIC WORK
PARKS AND STREETS WILL GET
BENEFIT
organizations Plead for Jobs, Not
Aims, in Behalf of Idle
Heads of Fami-

Both the city council and the county
board OF supervisors yesterday voted
$4,000 each additional to be spent in
hiring men at $150 a day to do public
work.
The council decided to divide the
$4,000 equally between the park de-
partment and the bureau of stree
maintenance.
President Pease named committee
consisting OF Councilmen Healy, Lyon,
Blanchard, Dromgold and Yonkin, in
whose wards most of the money! will
be spent, to cooperate with the board
in selecting places for the men to work.
Alameda, West Temple, Sunset boule-
ward and other thoroughfares are
among those which will be given at
| tention first.
The council authorized that five
teams be hired out of the funds, these
drivers to cooperate with the city's
teams
At the morning session Rev. Dana
Bartlett of Bethlehem institute, Mai
w. A. Hughes of the Volunteers of
America and Fred Wheeler, secretary
| of the carpenters council, but repre-
senting the Trades and Labor council.
addressed the lawmakers on the ne
cessity of appropriating money to for
ward work-not aims.
Bounty for Hundreds
Bethlehem is feeding 500 persons in
families and SO single men. Many of
the patrons are Mexicans who have
children in the public schools, AMI
hence do not wish to leave.
The Volunteers are feeding free soup
and coffee to 60 families and IT'S men.
Funds are needed TO help the heads of
| 70 rf1n1f1'c
Secretary Wheeler said he spoke for
thousands of mechanics out Of work
who are doing laborers' work tempo
rarily. Many had gone to the ranches
to pick oranges and do other tasks.
Secretary Wheeler told the council
men that they made the laws; the peo-
pie paid the penalty. Now the council
violated it's own laws by cutting down
the legal wage scale.
In twenty-three out of the seventy
FIVE skilled trades there were 6349 men
out of employment today. He be-
lieved that $4,000 was a conservative
estimate of the number of men out of
employment here.
On False Pretenses
you have invited thousands of men
to come to the coast to start life
anew" continued Mr.. Wheeler. "They
nave given up JOBS Indt pdlQ IneH
more, many of them, bought houses
after they got here with promises to
make certain fixed payments ant
now you force them to break their con-
tracts and forfeit their homes because
they cannot keep up the installments
'They pay their transportation tc
! Los Angeles and bring their families
here, and look at them now!
"I see advertisements in eastern pa
pers saying that carpenters are want
ed in Los Angeles-500O of them-at 81
day. Who inspires these advertise
ments?"
The speaker then scored Secretary
Felix j. Zeehandelaar of the Mer.
chants and Manufacturers association
roundly.
1--WE have had the nauseating spec
tacle of a man declaring that the fact
should not be spread broadcast that
no more mechanics were wanted here
because 1t might hurt the city," said
he. "They prefer to send the men to
the soup kitchens on $3.50 a day"
He then compared such methods OF
inducing men to come here to the
highwaymen's methods in forcing peo-
pie to stand up and deliver.
President Pease called Mr.. Wheeler
to order here, telling him to omit per-
sonalities.