Evening star., 1934-09-06
The Model for E. P. I. C.

One OF the most interesting revela-
tions concerning Upton Sinclairs
Z. p. I. c. plan for California is that
1t is modelled on, or does not greatly
differ from. the system Of relief in
the District of Columbia. A few days
ago Elwood Street, director of public
welfare, gave an interview to the
Associated Press ip which he declined,
with becoming modesty, to admit that
all the kind things Mr.. Sinclair had
said about the model" system in the
District we're the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth. But
Mr.. Sinclair either failed to see the
interview or was not impressed. For
on Tuesday he told the correspondents
at Hyde Park that his plan was not
unlike the Districts plan, where,
according to the correspondents,
"80, 1000 unemployed persons are being
assigned to subsistence tasks, either
raising food or working in idle fac
tories. manufacturing goods for their
own use, and that a system of barter
and exchange has been set up
whereby the output of their collective
labor is distributed among them"
1t is, of course, an unpleasant task
to correct Mr.. Sinclair; to dispel the
illusion of smoke rising again from
washington's idle factories" as thou
sands Of unemployed manufacture the
goods which they exchange for the
produce and live stock, product of
Washington's broad acres of rich
agricultural land. 1t is sincerely to be
hoped that the actual progress made on
washington's own E. P. A. U. I. D. o. c.
end Poverty and Unemployment in
the District of Columbial will not be-
come known in California, thus dis
appointing the natives there who
swear by the e. P. I. c. For the progress
made on z. p. A. U. I. D. O. c. is not
impressive.
More than month ago the District
Rehabilitation Corporation was incor-
porated under the laws of Delaware,
its board of directors composed of
various District and Federal officials.
1t is empowered to do almost any
thing. from changing the name of
Arkansas to painting the Washington
Monument red. 1t held its first formal
meeting yesterday and is understood
to have occupied itself with plans for
housing and subsistence farm projects,
which will be undertaken if the Federal
Emergency Relief Administration ap-
proves, and if the F. E. r. A. furnishes
the cash. So far the corporation has
planned to make plans ranging from
poultry raising to building low-rent
housing, and nothing specific has been
stated in relation to any of them. 1t
has also received applications for aid
and assistance from:
The Capitol New Deal Cooperative,
which would like $500 for equip
ment, transportation, provisions, etc.,
for caring for and slaughtering live
stock; the Georgetown Colored
Mothers Cooperative Society and the
Colonial Self Help Cooperative Group,
representing together eighty mothers
and 800 children, who wish sewing
and other equipment enabling them
to launch cooperative sewing en-
terprise; the Marshall Heights Group,
Of f1fty-f1ve colored families, who
wish aid in developing, through their
own labor and with material from
condemned buildings, community at
Fiftieth and Boundary streets north
east; the Deanwood Group, which
wishes to develop cooperative work
IN barbering, shoe repairing, mattress
making, sewing and other projects.
And about half dozen other or
ganizations of the same sort. Mr..
Street has said that if the District
Rehabilitation Corporation could take
as many as thousand persons off
the relief rolls it would have made
an excellent start. At present there
are some 10000 relief cases on the
rolls. possibly as many as 10000
persons. The start in taking any of
them OF the relief rolls is yet to be
made.
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