The Daily Alaska empire., 1934-11-10
Why Relief Rolls Grow.
CNew York 17erald Tribune0


 The country at large has .ct to awake to the real
 implications of relief. It is a common observation that improvements in employment have been para doxcaly accompanied by an increase in unempioy- mept relief The usual explanation is that great numbers of unemployed who managed to stretch their savings thus far through the depression are only now coming to the end and so applying for relief But those familiar with relief administration know that this is only part of the reason. To accept relief was once humiliation or disgrace. It is ceasing to be The numbers now dependent upon public bounty too great. Too many among them moreover, must take relief or starve and through fault of their own. Under such condi- tions relief unavoidably becomes respectable.
 For this the Administration is not responsible though it has promoted the change through the many declarations that mo shall starve,' and through the C. w. A. experiment., which spread the idea that every was entitled to good job The natural corolary was that anybody without such job entitled to public support Just as the Prohibition laws became something which it was clever and creditabe to evade, it is becoming out of as much relief money possible Unques- tionably there are many on relief today under false pretenses. How many it is impossible to say, and probably the number is relatively not large. Unfor tunately however that is only the beginning of the matter Restitution" is not an exact or exactly determinable condition. What about those who though destitute, would formerly have got along by living on relatives, borrowing picking up odd job now and then but who now feel it only just that they should take relief?
 There deeper difficulties Many legitimately on relief will not accept jobs paying little if any more than the relief dole, some because they do not care to work but others for the quite valid reason that f having surrendered their relief status they should then lose the job they might have long and painful time recovering their place upon the rolls In the end any public relief effort must face the unfortunate fact that in the ordinary course of things great many honest and industrious people are unable to make more than a bare sub sstence anyway, Relief cannot well provide less than enough to keep the recipients alive; but that means that it cannot help coming into competition with the lowest levels of the labor market offered by private employment under system.
 These are some of the reasons why the relief rolls are growing Each may suggest point at which more severe and elaborate administration might cut costs; unfortunately, each springs directly from the basic fact that large have ito be publicly supported to prevent them from starving and as long as that hard root of the matter remains cannot be very confident about mere pruning operations on the foliage. What have got here is not just little governmental tid ing over of our old private charity system; it is something new, developing in accordance with it's own laws, demanding solutions which few least of all the Administration, have begun to think about