The Washington times., 1933-01-07
$500 FAMILIES
|ND.C.FAC|NG
STARVATION
Relief Fund at Vanishing Point,
With Flour and Turnips
Only Food Available

In the old John Marshall Place
Memorial Church, its chimes
silenced, the poor and the desti.
tute gathered today to read the
handwriting on the wall, a large
sign that said:
NO MORE WORK CARDS
UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
' here President Mckinley once
aVorshipped, where alongside the
deserted pulpit the Lords Prayer
is painted in gold Gothic letters
"Give Us This Day Our Daily
Bread"-the Unemployment Re
lief Fund is dwindling out, drag
ging bottom, running away-and
$500 families in the Nations Capt.
tai face starvation.
One More Pay Day
One more payroll will be paid
next Saturday-and that is the
end, unless Congress acts imme.
diately.
Leroy A. Halbert, director of
unemployment relief for the
Board of Public Welfare, is
frankly worried. Today he is
getting i'd of $18,500. Next
Saturday the last $1,000 remain.
ing for the payroll will be dis
bursed. Tonight auditors will go
over the books to determine the
exact amount of money remain
ing for emergency relief. 1t is
somewhere between $500 and
$500. That is fo- the poor and
the de titute only.
Because of a shrinking budget,
families of four persons are now
forced to live on $500 week, the
lowest sum ever handed out by the
emergency relief. There are ap-
proximately 10000 people de-
pendent upon this fund. They get
no rent, no fuel-only food and
whatever clothing may come in
from the Red Cross.
Flour Needs Baking
Fortunately, the Farm Board
went on spree and traded lot
of wheat for flour. There is
good supply of flour, and it is
being passed out sack at time
to families, some of whom have no
fires in their homes for baking
bread. So the welfare workers
now want some good baker to step
up and volunteer a little baking.
Also, there are turnips, raised
on the prison farm at Occoquan.
A thousand bushels have been
given away. There is another
thousand bushels remaining. There
is also some wood down on the
municipal wood pile, but there is
no coal.
Worst of all, there is no money
to pay for work, work at the rate
of $3.50 a days cents an hour.
Such work is appOrtioned so that
the average man might get in two
or three days at best, and some
of them have four or five children
to support.
Pleas 100 a Day
Up in the choir loft of the
church where Mckinley wor'
shipped, the organ covered with
dust, the clerical force of the
Emergency Relief is working away
to the tune of clicking type
writer's, keeping track of the
funs, registering pleas for rellef
coming in at the rate of 100 a
day.
This morning 100 new faces an
peared in the line that forms to
the right on c Street, just OIL
John Marshall Place, where the
carriages Of the rich once swung
into the driveway of John Mar
shall Place Memorial Church on
Sunday mornings as the church
bells chimed-chimeS, inciden-
tally, that called a President to
prayer.
The poor, gathered to get their
flour and turnips, come face to
face with that big sign on black
board:
NO MORE WORK CARDS
UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
Fund Almost Gone
A relief fund of $450,000, aug
mented by 100000 from the Red
Cross, has become almost eX-
hausted. There is a bill pending
in the Senate that calls for $685.
900, already adopted by the House.
If it passes Congress, it must get
the Presidents signature. If it
gets the Presidents okay, the
money will be disbursed at the old
John Marshall Place Memorial
Church, at the corner of Four
and-a-half and C Streets North
west, the saddened shrine about
to be demolished to make way for
the Community Center.
Unless Congress acts, and acts
promptly, the community may
have to take up a collection for
it's poor and needy.