Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1934-01-25

lie Works Administration, Fred
Schilplin, of St. Cloud, has writ
ten an article on public relief
and offers good suggestions on
cooperation between the state
and federal governments on this
most important matter. He looks
forward into the future for long
time solution of the problem.
Mr.. Schilplin who is publisher OF
the St. Cloud Times and Journal
Press, has done splendid work
through the columns of his news
paper in this respect and in prac-
teal ways has given work to
people of his community.
His article follows:
BY FRED SCHILPLIN,
Vice Chairman Minnesota Advisory
Board, PWA.
Hundreds of millions of dollars
could have been saved in caring for
the destitute and unemployed during
this depression and for that matter
in normal times, if there had been a
more practical and sensible system
for handling the entire relief problem.
This has been so forcibly impressed,
during the present crisis, upon the
State Board of Control, Minnesota Ad-
visory board PWA and the other re-
lief agencies that have been set up
by the state and federal government
that plans have been studied for sew
eral months to try and work out in
some way an entirely different system
through the cooperation OF the state
and federal government.
The Minnesota Advisory board PWA
in conferences with members of the
State Board of Control and through
correspondence with Washington has
recently suggested that in order to
effect permanent solution OF the
unemployment situation and the cloth
ing, housing and feeding of all who
are now cared for by city, county,
state and federal government there
should be a division into three
classes. Constituting these classes
there would be first the old and those
who because of their infirmities are
unable to care for themselves. In
of those who are able and willing to
work and who through no fault of
their own are unable to find employ
ment In the third class would be
placed the vagrant, tramp and the
roamer who refuse to work. We now
have the spectacle of the vagrant and
tramp applying for handouts at the
unemployment bureaus and refusing
to register for work. Thousands of
these, crowding the relief lines in the
big cities, are being fed, clothed and
housed at public expense. No one
city or community can deal with this
problem.
Work for Driiters.
The thought of the Minnesota
Advisory board is that there should
be built an institution such as
was proposed a few years ago at
Sandstone which was to be known as
the Federal Detention Home to which
all of those who refuse to work when
work is offered them, should be COM
mitted and there put to work, to raise
foodstuffs in the summer time and
possibly make clothing in the win
ter time for those who are being
cared for in the institutions for the
aged and infirm. With federal PWA
funds this disciplinarian institution
could be built Immediately. The gov
eminent already owns the land and
plans and specifications for the build
ing are ready for the letting of a
ic a N
Minnesota an appropriation of $780,
600 for building an addition to the
state prison at Saltwater. If the fed
eral government would build the pro-
posed reformatory at Sandstone and
the Legislature change the 100000
building appropriation for the state
prison at Saltwater to a maintenance
fund for the Sandstone institution.
facilities would be available i'm a
short time to carry out this plan.
This would be a wise thing to do
in the opinion of the State Board of
Control who are convinced that what
Minnesota needs is real refOrma-
tory. The reformatOry at st. Cloud,
in the opinion of prison authorities,
has ceased to be reformatory and
is really a second state prison. Such
handling of the situation would
obviate the necessity of building an
addition to the state prison at Still
water, which in normal times is as
large as it need be.
Subsistence Homestead.
AS regards the great number of
those in the second class who are
able and willing to work and who
have not the opportunity, the Mime
sofa Advisory board believes that the
most practical solution lies in the
direction of the subsistence home
stead. 1t believes that in the long
run it would be more economical to
establish within committing distance
of the larger cities of the state,
small modern homes, financed in
part at least by the government, on
two and three acre tracts of land,
to be sold on the installment plan.
The subsistence homestead would be
restricted in size so as not to COM
pete with the farmers in agricul-
tural products. Care must be taken
to place on these homesteads those
who originally came from the farm
or those who are farmer minded. In