The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-12-07
In New York
By GEORGE ROSS

4NSW AOA 4CNs 4AAC 0A4ob- tached and Transient Division of the federal relief program is operat- ing with great success in New York city. This is the bureau which re- ceiveS, clothes, feeds and hunts jobs for destitute men who have drifted into town without promise of in- come or employment. A fair per- centage of this derelict humanity drifts in for chance on various amateur hours, in quest of fame and fortune.
 1 Here = and I quote from a let ter addressed to Major Bowes by an investigator of the Division is a typical case of an ambitious amateur on the rocks:
 T am hoping that you will find MT. - a spot on your pro- gram. MT. = has left his home, child and wife in -, Oklahoma, for the sole purpose of coming to New York and appearing on your amateur hour. I am anxious that he obtain his chance if it were pos sible, so that he may return to his home city in the event his talent does not come up to his own ex- pectations."
 As it turned out, MT. -'s tal- ents didn't, and he was shipped back to his family, some 1900 miles away, at the expense of the Transient Division.
 Confidence? You Bet!
 A motley parade of derelict hu- manity drifts into the divisions headquarters every day of the week. After the unfortunate men are reg istered, they are provided with shell ter in Bowery lodging houses and with three square meals each day. But the governments good samar- itans in the division have their headaches with this.
 cone of the worst phases of the lodging houses" confides an in vestigator, "is the petty larceny tactics of some of the inmates-or clients-as they are nicknamed down at headquarters. A man put ting his brand new store teeth on a ledge in the washroom will open his eyes after abusing his face with water and find the molars gone. Spectacles disappear mys- teriously from the tip of clients nose while he is snoozing in the sitting room. A transient with a lumber jacket is eyed enviously by his neighbors. Because gov- ernment lumber jacket is worth a dollar to the secondhand clothes man on Bayard street."
 But what has nettled some in- vestigators at New York's Tran sient Division is the fact that they themselves have often become easy prey for the schemes of 8 world wise client" My source reports that one drifter from out of town sold his benefactor down at the bureau an interest in "his fath- CTS one-half million dollar estate for 5000 and another disposed of his mythical job as Q script writer at the MGM studios for $6. One investigator, college-bred and usually alert, bought the rights to an invention from a derelict tram sient for $84. It was a good buy except that the invention had al- ready been patented by somebody else five years before.
 ., c
 Jobs Prove Mirage
 The majority of men who apply to the Transient Division for assist ance are desperately poor devils who converge upon the metropolis in the belief that New York city is over- abundant with jobs. They are quickly disillusioned of that.
 But the division keeps a keen eye out for all kinds of work that may be done by the men on its dolls and many an employer thoughtful of these poor vaga- bonds, applies to the division for help. Most of Broadway's sand wich sign men are transients.
 There is also, then, as you can see, the drab side to New York.