Evening star., 1932-12-04
ACTION ON RELIEF
B|LLS|SDEMANDED
At SHORT SESSION
Committee on Unemployment
Refuses to Indorse Hunger
March, However.
LA Toilette SEES NEED
MORE CRITICAL NOW
Patience Of People Astonishes Nor
man Thomas, Recent Socialist
Presidential Candidate.

Although refusing to meet the request
of leaders of the hunger march for its
Endorsement the Joint Committee on
Unemployment last night concluded its
two-day conference here with demand
for action on emergency relief legisla-
ton at the Forthcoming short session of
Congress
The demand was backed up by Sen
ator La Toilette, Republican, Wisconsin,
and a group of leaders of national
religious and social welfare organiza-
tions. The committee is composed of
Representatives of II organizations in
terested in social service and similar
work. It opened its two-day conference
at the Ambassador Hotel Friday night.
"The situation regarding relief to
agriculture and industry and unemploy-
ment," asserted Senator La Toilette, is
more critical now than at the last ses-
sion of Congress and immediate action
should be taken
La Follette's remarks came after Nor
man Thomas, Socialist candidate for
President in the recent election, as
serted: 1--WE have got to substitute man.
agement for chaos"
Peoples Patience Noted.
1.-THE patience of the American peo-
pie" Thomas added, has passed all
understanding. There is absolutely no
evidence of an effective program in the
United States today. Our job is to put
power behind our demands"
Conference leaders at meeting in
Senate committee room during the
afternoon said they would propose a
five-pcint program to Congress, which
included Federal funds for the unem-
ployed, public construction, State and
Federal unemployment insurance, re-
duction of hours of labor with no cuts
in wages, and legislation to step the
employment of children under 16.
After indorsing the committees pro-
gram. Rev. DR.. r. A. MCGOWAN. assist
ant director of the National Catholic
Welfare Council, said he favored
an international economic conference
"drastically providing for reduction of
war debts and the tariffs and stimuli
tanecusly with 1t reduction Of arma-
ments."
Wants Joint Action.
He urged that an agreement be
reached by this country ito consult
with all other Nations when the Kellogg
pact Is threatened and to join an inter-
national economic boycott against a
Nation that wages war after refusal to
arbitrate or refusal to accept an arbi-
tration decision"
DR.. MCGOWAN blamed "a bad distri-
button CT income and wealth" as the
primary cause for the present economic
situation, together with productive
and distributive system operating under
mixture of competition and financial
dictatorship under the spur Of the
desire for maximum profits and power,
and the lack of social organization and
government working together to es-
tablish justice and sensible economic
system"
Earlier on yesterdays program. Dr.
John A. Ryan. director of the National
Catholic Welfare Council, estimated
that 25,000,000 persons would be de-
pendent upon charity this Winter and
urged that in order to put men to work
with sufficient rapidity to reduce con-
siderably the amount of unemployment
Federal fund of S6,000,009,000 is
necessary.
Churches Urged to Act.
Preceding DR.. McGowan'S plea came
an assertion from Prof. Jerome Davis of
Yale University, chairman of the Board
of Religion and Labor Foundation, that
the churches of America must take a
more fearless action in meeting the
unemployment crisis.
I'VE must recognize that unemploy-
ment is not simply matter of depres-
sion" he said IF we should produce as
much as we did in 1929 there would still
be 100000 unemployed because of the
progress our engineers have been max
ing in displacing men by machines. The
fact is we have come to the end of an
epoch"
Darwin j. Meserole, president of the
National Unemployment League, in dis
cussing the construction phase of the
committees program, assailed the
"share-the-work" movement which he
charged was being carried on by heads
Of leading corporations in this country.
He charged that the plan simply puts
upon the employed worker, toiling at
heavily cut wages, the burden of sup
porting the unemployed worker"
THE time has come he continued,
"to institute another kind of campaign
with a 'stagger- er-the-income' slogan. And
it is extremely doubtful whether the
dividend and interest receiving class
will volunarily inaugurate this move
ment, or be influenced by propaganda
in favor of it; the sharing will have to
be arranged through the method of
taxation in the higher income brackets,
or by capital tax levy, or both
Other speakers on yesterdays pro-
gram included Dr. Sidney E. GoldStein,
DR.. John Dewey, j. B. Mathews, Benja-
min C. Marsh, D. Abraham Epstein,
Karl Borders and DR.. I. M. Rubinow.