Evening star., 1934-07-24
ALLENLIVES In BREADLINE
TO STUDY UNEMPLOYMENT
Finds 'Snootiest People
Run Federal Job
Agencies.
FAILS TO GET WORK
Spends Vacation Trying
to Solve Problem of
Poor Relief.

Commissioner George E. Allen re-
turned TO his desk today at the Dis
trict Building after a weeks vacation
spent in and near the country's
breadlines.
He let his beard grow, missed a few
baths and neatly pressed suits, even
tried TO get a job as a hotel bellhop
In Chicago and came back convinced
that 9s per cent of the applicants for
relief want only job and that "the
snootiest people on earth are running
the Federal employment agencies.
Il have been a hotel executive most
Of my life," said Allen. "going around
with the big shots, meeting we'll
dressed people, ordering bellhops
around and having good time. Many
of my friends have been telling me
this relief business is all wrong, and
that handing out money only makes
people into buns. I hoped they were
wrong. Now I know they are.
Just Want Jobs, He Says.
IT found beyond question that, as to
90 per cent of the people you find
around relief stations and employment
agencies, all they want is a job. And
furthermore, all Of them hope they are
going to get one. Tomorrow, perhaps
or the next day. How long this hope
will hold out don't know. But It's
there now.
Furthermore, found out our en-
ployment system is wrong from begin
ming to end. Around the employment
agencies run by the Federal Govern
ment you will find the snootiest people
on Gods green earth. You ask them
for a Job and they feel they are doing
you a favor when they take your ap-
plication. Most of the Offices close at
noon. Why don't they keep open all
day, anxious for business, and why
don't they at least assume the attitude
they are fighting for you, trying their
damndest to get you Job?
IT went from here by train to NIL
waukee and Travelled by bus to Cleve'
land. Toledo and Chicago and De-
troit. I don't want to identify my
experiences in each city too closely
but I had plenty in each. In one o1
them / tried to get job as bell hoF
In a hotel ! tell you, when you arr
used to ordering things around in q
hotel 1t gives you pretty much OF
sinking feeling to be in there looking
for a Job. / almost landed that one
The bell captain asked me where
had worked. I said at the Stevens
In Chicago.
His Bluff Called.
"Do you know Bill Terry there?
he asked.
sure said, I knew him well.
used to work the same watch with
him.
YOU'RE a damned liar he said
there isn't any such person working
there
so I didn't get that job.
an all / tried to get job at about
IS different places, and failed every
where. But I learned lot. Even
when went into a pawnshop to
pawn my watch, learned it wasn't
worth near as much as had thought
Even the Communists taught me
something. I learned the power that
the Communists have is gained prin-
cipally because they will listen to
people who are down and out and
will work for them and fight fol
them. That is exactly the attitude
the relief people should take, but the
relief people won't even listen to you
most of the time.
It found out the recent riots In
Cleveland at the relief station were
directly traceable to that sort OF
thing. There was a woman on the
relief rolls whose daughter was about
to be married to truck driver. She
asked the relief people for a stove
on which to bake her daughter a
cake. That doesn't seem much tc
ask for, and the woman should have
had it. But all she got was run
around, and as the day drew nearer
when the wedding was to take place
some Communists offered to go with
her and demand the stove. When
this crowd got to the relief Office
somebody lost his head and snatchec
a gun from a policeman and started
firing. The whole thing could have
been avoided by smart work on the
part OF the relief people.
Says Crowds Are Curious.
THE crowds that gather around th'
Communist orators are made VI
largely of people who are curious
and who have nothing better to do
They stand around listening to {
speech about overthrowing the gov
ernment, and yet if somebody start!
a whisper in the crowd that there arr
Jobs to be had somewhere the GROVE
will melt away and leave the orator
talking to himself"
Allen said he had come back con
vinced the key to the unemployment
problem is the division of the unem-
ployed into two major groups, the
employable and the unemployable
For the former. he said, the solution
was to set dynamite under the cast
workers and social workers to make
them use their brains and imagination
in finding work for them. or making
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