The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1934-12-14
Rural Rehabilitation - &Bge F ERA
Version Of Subsistence Homesteads

both in Washington and in local
communities. In reading this pub
LEGATION with a critical eye, it is !
easy to see the weakness and hy- !
pOcrisy of the whole movement. :
The press release which accom-
panied the first issue states: /
''Ihe first issue of Rural Re-
Mobilization published by the di-
vision of rural rehabilitation and (
stranded populations OF the FERA
contains a Photographic story of /
construction at Red House, w. Va,
one of the first rural-industrial /
communities.
ut also reports late develop
ments in rural work centers, sum /
marises drought relief and rural
rehabilitation from national
point of view and states the gen
eral policy of Harry L. Hopkins,
federal emergency relief admins
traitor, with regard to this
work. ;"
The bulletin gives tha Roosevelt
administration program for 1educ-
ing its relief expenditures by ev-
acuating farm and industrial fami-
lies, stranded BY the collapse of
capitalism, and colonizing them in
to subsistence concentration camps.
There they must contract to re-
main, attempting to scratch a liv-
ing from an unfamiliar soil and to
pay their landlord-Uncle Sam in
this case-payments and interest
after their first year of grace. In
addition, they constitute a reser-
voir of cheap labor for industry,
which fits into the administration
decentralization program very
neatly.
Limit 10 Acres
AS usual the publicity idealizes
the project, reports the breath
taking speed of construction, pic
lures its pastoral and majestic
setting along river bank; but
we wonder how many of these col
onies could stand the spotlight of
publicity, how many unemployed
miners, steel workers and needle
workers will make out with I'M
familiar seeds, soil and weather
codnitions. How will grain farm
ers remain within the narrow 10
acre limits of this "social secur-
ity?" But this bulletin waves
aside such details.
Harry L. Hopkins, in a letter
to Colonel Westbrooke, his assist
ant, says:
''It is becoming clearer all the
time that the rural rehabilitation
division is blazing a trail that
leads away from the blighting in
fluence of dependency out toward
a more hopeful goal of self reli-
ance and social security. I want
to see the weight of the nation
put back of these efforts.
"I want to see the hundreds of
thousands of farm families on ou1
relief rolls given aid which will
enable them to make their own
way, and which they will fully re.
pay. Our rural rehabilitation pro-
gram is not predicated on char
ity. :"
In other words, Mr.. Hopkins is
getting worried about the present
relief expenditures, and is throw.
ing his influence back of a pro-
gram which is primarily designed
from his point of view, in taking
hundreds of thousands off relief
rolls. What will become of these
people who are left stranded or
their plots of ground does not dis
turb him. Nor is he worried about
the prospect Of hopeless debt tt
the. government which confront:
them.
H. R. Tolley, director of pro
gram planning for the AAA, i!
more frank about the movement
however, when he states:
"Now a good many of you arr
probably wondering where oul
commercial agriculture fits h
with this picture, and whether
with people in these communitie;
growing part of their own sub
sistence, the commercial farmers
market is not going to be severed!
restricted. This fear parallels tina
, of some industrialists who oppos,
allowing the unemployed to MAKE
things for themselves. ]. do no
share this fear, either for com
mercial agriculture or for CONNER
cial industry. People whose pur
chasing power is limited to tn
meager relief doles handed out b.
the government or the meager cas-
income they can obtain from farm
7 ing unproductive land, are no
worth much as customers, eithe
from farms or factories. In tn
proposed rUral-industrial commun
! tiles, many people should be abl
3 To increase their own standard Q
! living without interfering in an
: great degree with the ordira ar
: flow of commercial transaction
: At the same time relief expendi
\ lures NAV be greatly reduced"
No Modern improvements
There is no indication from MI
Tolley or any other authority a
to how the improved standard Q
e living" is to be achieved, since tn
9 PROGRAM specifically states ths
q nnrin,,Ihr,,.nI croods raisad arc nr