Montana labor news., 1932-04-28
THE WASHINGTON SCENE
(By LAURENCE D

wAsHINGToN-(FP)-H much the American unemployed and their
dependents will stand, in the coming months, without riodng and worse, is
the problem foremost in the minds of the Hoover administration and Con-
gress, as the struggle between tax-conscious politicians and hungerdriven
constituents grows sharper with the advance of spring.
Better an unbalanced budget than revolution" Rep Sweeney of Ohio,
told the House Ways and Means Committee during discussion of the
soldier bonus demand, April 10 Sweeney is a corporation Democrat but
he is getting frightened. He listened while W. D. Jackson, for the Brother
hood of Railroad Trainmen testified that immediate payment of the bonus
would only square up the account opened when Congress recently arranged
for. big credits to the railroads and banks.
ut makes a man feel pretty blue" Jackson said, when he is cold and
his family is hungry and he reads of the large sums voted for the big inter-
ests and voted to relieve foreign debtors"
Whispers went around the capitol, that bankers and brokers in New York
were quietly buying guns and ammunition, to protect themselves from hun
ger rioters later in the season.. Cardinal oConnelrs rebuke to Father
COughln for flaming the fires of unrest in his radio talks on the suf-
ferngs of the unemployed, wa quoted in the Senate restaurant as evidence
that "te man who killed the Child Labor Amendment had undertaken to
curb any voice of discomfort with starvation from among Catholic workers.
Inquiry at the office of Chairman Connery of the House Labor Com
mttee brought word that the Boston nal has done nothing in the past
two weeks to carry out ais threat to circulate a petition to take his hunger
relief bill from cold storage in the House Rules Committee. Sen Wagner
Of New York whose two months of delay in reviving the fight for hunger
relief legislation in the Senate has aroused much criticism, again promised,
April 49, to demand action in the Senate within two weeks"
Meanwhile the unemployed in the national capital-those whom Gen.
GlassfOrd, superintendent of police, has been unable to drive out of town
than they have thus far known. Refusal of the House bipartisan machine
to permit appropriation of 100000 urgently needed IS a municipal fund
utterly without subsistence IN May Is at the latest. Heads of the local
organized charities protested, April 49, against this barbanty o. the part
ing the secretaryshp of the Committee OF Unemployment (Rehef) for the
District of Columbia, has made a final report declaring that failure of
Congress to provide this 100000 means that all income for families in
volving many thousands of adults and children will be stopped. He points
out that Washington is the only large city in the country in which private
charity is expected to care for the unemployed. Seventy per cent of all
tobess relief in the United States, last year, came from public funds.
Senator LaFolette and Senator Coshgan are going to furnish most of
the fighting force when the Wagner hunger relief bill comes up again
Possibly they will have to bring it up, since Wagner talks of the need for
assurance of support from a Democratic conference in the Senate before
he says anything o. the floor. While they wait nobody is publicly agitat-
ing any jobless relief except the indirect and expensive scheme involved in
the soldier bonus.
Instead If giving aid to the unemployed, the President and a bipartisan
committee of the House are completing a scheme for adding thousands nor
to the unemployed by reducing the number of federal employees. Their
scheme involves sharp reductions IN annual pay through forced furoughs.
This is in addition to cuts in bureau budgets which, in the instance of the
Vocational Education Board item, for instance, mean abolition of hundreds
of salaried posts and paralysis of important work.