The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-02-07
At He National Capitol DAILY WASHINGTON LETTER Digest of Who's Who and What's What
 By
NEA Service Writer


 Woods, chairman of the emergency l committee for employment, says someone ought to write a story about what the city of Buffalo has done to meet it's unemployment emergency. Woods thinks that May or Charles E.. Roesch's employmen committee has done such "splen- did" job of planned community ac- l tion that he has sent lengthy re-
 port of it's activities to several
 thousand local emergency commit tees through the country.
 The mayor got himself commit
 tee of 55 members with an execu- tive committee of 15 to carry on daily work, along with a volunteer l staff. The committee functioned as a c fearing house and a planning board. It decided that 1t would com init itself to Q 100 per cent objective as regarded relief. letting no obsta- cle prevent meeting the needs of every case of dire suffering, but ad- mitted that it could only be partial ly successful in trying to get every one a job who didn't have one. Organized Charities
 Organized public and private would be able to handle all cases of real distress. The committee con
 cerned itself with seeing that such l agencies were kept adequately I financed and staffed. It also under took to coordinate their work and | to make the needy aware of the ex- | istence of agencies which would l help them.
 The committee helped put on a drive for private charity funds and | city and county, relief and lodging l facilities were expanded. The sub committee on relief figured out that
 an average of 5000 dependent fam l flies would need a relief fund of
 about $1.733.0 900 in the first six | months of this year, most of which I came from the city treasury. The committee found that the most elus. l i've part of the unemployment prob lem comprised cases of persons who because of pride or other reasons re- fused to apply for relief. So it had school teachers report all cases of undernourished children and got i churches. clubs and lodges to check
 up on needy adults.
 Provided Municipal Jobs l Nor does Buffalo appear 10 have overlooked many bets in the attempt to provide employment. Projects for 1 municipal work were studied and | SOIIcWDtIc uCaI 'lVVV IHCu 'HaNS been hired for three days n week at l $5 day for such jobs as grading
 and tree-pruning.
 The retail merchants advanced the Christmas buying season by about two weeks, ba1lyhooed q campaign for stimulation of buying
 and. according to the committee, both created an additional volume i of business and hired about 2.000 extra employees two or three weeks
 earlier than they normally would
 have been engaged. Hiring and aft l er-Christ mas dism ssals were made
 on the basis of trying to engage or
 retain employees with dependent About 25.00O employers of all types in the city were circularized
 and urged to pro-rate available jobs
 so that everyone might be assured of at least part-time work. give | preference to employees or applicants
 supporting families, eliminate over time by hiring extra help. do repair
 and maintenance work and new construction and develop and make
 new articles previously contemplat-
 cd. Additional suggestions were | CT twice week.
 Employers CO-Opcratcd | Various manufacturers and other
 employers, tho committee says, re-
 duced weekly schedules. shortened
 daily hours, rotated employees on work. looked up and assisted former
 employees. repaired and re placed
 machinery to the feasible limit. de-
 veloped new products and did other
 things that provided work for more
 people.
 A women's division put on n cam
 paign :or odd jobs. with about 30
 speakers running around the city
 and acting as a clearing house for Buffalo's five free employment agen-
 cies. The women sent out 55,000
 circulars with electric light bills,
 listing about 40 kinds of odd jobs around the house that 1t had men and women willing to do.
 The mayor organized a "man-a-
 block" plan. with committee dlvi-
 sion headed by former president
 of a motor company. The mayor had the election commissioners lay out the city in districts of from five to 10 blocks. The commissioners then
 nominated man in each district
 to be district major. The majors
 nominated "block captainS' in each