Montana labor news., 1934-10-25
The Relief Business
Is Booming

do or try to do is violently denounced
by the vested interests Of private bus
iness, -vhich see these government agen-
cies moving steady, and in response to
overwhelming pressures, toward the
taking over of whole sectors of the
process of production and distribution
which have hitherto been the province
of profit-motivated business-as-usual
The encroachment has thus far, Of
course, been f%ragmentary and relatively
insignificant. But it has been suffi-
cient to expose again and again the
breakdown of the capitalist economy
in this period of potential abundance.
Take the matter of the drought cat
tie. Without government intervention
hundreds of thousands Of cattle would
have died and rotted in the stricken
pastures of the drought belt. The
packers, it is true, would have bought
some OF them for a song and the price
of meat would have dropped, but not
enough to permit $l2-a-month relief
families to eat much meat. And the
ruin OF the farmers would have been
complete. Up to July 80 the AAA and
the FERA through the FSRC had
purchased from 10000 farmers a total
of l,S72,OO0 cattle. On these farms
there was a total of 6,208,000 cattle; the
government has bought about 10 out
of each o. head, the poorest of the o..
About 100000 head have been condemn
ed and slaughtered on the farms. The
remainder have been turned over to
the FSRC for ultimate processing into
meat products for relief distribution.
Several hundred thousand head OF cat
tie will be held on pasturage in the
Southeastern States until slaughtering
and processing facilities are available.
The government prices for drought
cattle, averaging 500 pounds on the
hoof Ca good beef steer weights about
1,500 pounds range from 81 to $l4.
this of course means a loss to the far
mer, but the farmers get relief; by
and large the government takes the
loss. lit is now generally conceded
that before the purchase program
comes to an end some time next year,
the government will have purchased
between 100000 and 100000 head
of cattle.
So much for cattle. But what about
sheep and goats? There IS little de-
mand for sheep meat and goat meat.
Some foreigners eat sheep meat and
Indians eat goats. It has been pro-
posed to kill these suffering, unwanted
animals, dig big pits with steam shovels
and bury them. But the current re-
vulsion against waste will work against
this. Maybe the Indians will eat some
of this meat. By the time the Act Of
God has accomplished the ultimate OF
its dubious beneficence, the unemploy-
ed are going to get a lot of meat. They
will be conditioned to intoxicating.
They will not willingly go back to beans
and flour.
The d~islocation of prices and mark
cts consequent upon this Strengthening
program has already made itself felt.
In many Of the government contracts
the slaughterer gets the hides, bones,
and offal, and some of the edible por-
tions. The result has been that the
bottom has dropped out Of the hide
market; there is also the threat Of
a glut in the liver and kidney market.
One more contradiction government
has had to go into the meat-canning
business in competition with the pack
ers. In July the tempo Of cattle pro-
cessing had reached 100000 cattle a
week. Commercial packers processed
10000 of these; the remaining 10000
were processed by relief labor in rent
ed or built plants established by State
Emergency Relief administrations in
thirty States. The relative costs of
government versus commercial process
ing are indicated by the experience last
winter in Texas, where in one month
9,439 persons were employed in pro-
cessing surplus cattle. 1t cost the
FERA 1887 cents a pound to process
cattle, not counting the relief labor.
The packers, who charged II cents a
pound, did have to count their labor
costs, but on the other hand they paid
the farmers about half as much for the
cattle as did the FERA. In extending
its program of establishing relief-labor
processing plants, the FERA points not
only to lower costs but to the improved
morale of workers who are employed
not in "raking leaves around the stump"
but in producing the food they will
later eat.
1t is the habit OF meat-eating animals
and the unemployed seem fated to
enter that category temporarily to
gorge themselves and then to sleep.
Where? On what? Relief agencies
testify that mex to food the families
on relief ask for mattresses. At pre-
sent, especially in the South and South
west, they sleep on old quilts, on boards
on the floor. So, with the commercial
%naivete which characterizes these in
nocent bureaucrats, the FERA has
taken over $4,000 bales Of surplus cot
ton and gone into mattress making.
Workers on relief are now engaged in
making these mattresses in $50 work
rooms set up in 40 States. When they
are made, relief families will sleep on
them they will be distributed as sup
Elementary relief along with the sur
plus meat.
AS might be expected, the CONNER
cial mattress makers are up in arms.
So, in general, are all the commercial
interests affected by the various pro
duction projects which State Emerg-
ency Relief administrations have I'M
dertaken under the stimulus of the
FERA. These include the canning of
surplus garden products, the manufac-