Montana labor news., 1935-10-03
A Reply to the Montana
Standard on The Fort
Peck Conditions

Spotless Town OF the Fort Peck keser-
walton, but New Deal, Square Deal,
Wheeler, Midway, Park Grove (there
isn't any park, Lakeside (there isn't
any lake)--a sprawling, %malodorous
slum-in-the-deser which you have
never seen in the rotogravure sections
and the like OF which has probably
never been seen in America before.
The army is loath to acknowledge re-
sponsibility for these mushroom towns,
which it regards as unwanted nuisances.
So early last year the army ruled that
so per cent OF the 5000 men then m
|ployed on the project must live IN
|Spotless Town. Immediately the work.
ers protested. Live in Spotless Town?
At what pricef A common laborer
works forty hours a week on the dam
at 50 cents an hour. But he doesn't
work every day, SO that when he is
obliged to pay a minimum OF So.4O a
week for board and lodging in the bar
racks, about half OF his earnings are
spent for his personal subsistence.
What happens TO his wife and chill
dren? They go on relief and the
worker goes to the honky-tonk, as l
was assured by the social workers in
the cities l later visited.
The workers protest was the more
bitter because they were already es-
tablished in their pitiful towns before
the army's barracks we're completed
and the army's dictatorial decree nov
ing them to Spotless Town was issued.
The protest, made through mass-meet-
ings and in petitions to Senator
Wheeler, finally brought action, and
Secretary Dern Withdrew the barracks
order.
The mushroom towns around Fort
Peck are unsanitary, dangerously To-
Gated, many OF them, on the flats OF the
Missouri River, and the insistence Of
the army that they be vacated would
be entirely proper if adequate substi-
tute accommodations for families were
offered on the reservation at a reason
able price. Spotless Town, on the
plateau above the river, has excellent
water and sewage and plenty OF room
for expansion, and there has been time,
since the pioneer period, for the build
ling Of adequate family quarters. When
| asked why that had not been done, l
was told that the army did not wish to
encourage permanent residence on the
dam site, since the permanent staff re-
quired to maintain the dam when COM
pleted will be small, and since there is
no other ource of employment in the
region.
Over three-quarters of the workers
on the project are married men with
dependents. They have to be in order
to get jobs-the Montana law estab-
fishes this preference in order to ac-
complish a maximum reduction OF the
relief load. But the housing built by
the army provides accommodations for
$3.50 single men in bunk houses, and
temporary and permanent residences
for only 800 families. So that there
Just isn't any place in Spotless Town
for a workman with a family to live.
Even the married civil-service employ
ees can scarcely afford to live there. !
talked to one OF them who paid SIS a
month for a five-room bungalow
fixed charges for water, gas, electricity
garbage removal, and garage brought
this UP to nearly $50 a month.
The army, Of course, has its officia.
explanation of these contradictions
Traditionally,a construction job in the
wilderness is a job for single men anC
men who are prepared to abandon theii
families during the period of employ
ment. Didn't the army post warnings
in railroad stations and post office!
that there were no accommodations fol
families on the reservation? It did
and the families came anyway. The re-
employment service, in obeying thu
law, was giving preference to family
men. But the army, obeying either it,
tradition or its instructions, set up bar
racks for single men on the army mode
In the army, privates and corporal
don't rate wives. At Fort Peck, no
even a construction foreman rates
wife; Spotless Town offers him only
room and board at $40 a month.
There is another explanation of tn,
charges. The cost of housing in Spot
less Town has to be amortized over
period OF four years when the dam will
be completed. By whom? By tn,
workers who are forced to use and pay
for that housing. Why in four year
and why by the workers? Ask til,
army, or better still, ask Secretarl
Ickes. Personally l doubt that the arm,
is particularly to blame-it is merely
executing orders. The same thing goe.
on at Grand Coulee, where the Recla
nation Bureau is in charge.
But it is a rather CHASTITY joke jus
the same and it didn't get any bette
when | came to investigate the mush
room towns which the workers built II
escape the chaste and too expensive
beauties of Spotless Town. There ar
about a dozen of these towns, ranging
in population from a hundred to lively
hundred, with a population in the For
Peck area of perhaps ten thousand.
About half the homes are one-roon
shacks built of celotex and barn sid
, ing; some Of them are automobil
: t%railers and tents; others are half-tim
I bered holes dug in the hillside as it rise
from the flats of the Missouri River
There is no sewer system; every nov
and then the county health officer, re
inforced by a sanitarian paid by FER
money, comes around and condemn
! some Of the outhouses, also some O
: the shallow wells, which are the sol
1 source of water.
4 The county was without funds, bu