Evening star., 1935-06-14
Vight Final Edition
All Other States and Canada.
Work Relief Policy.

The $4.ss0, ,oOO, 900 work-relief bill
was signed more than two months
ago after having been under con-
sideration in and out of Congress for
many months previous. One might
have been safe in the assumption that
during that long period plans for
the spending of the money and the
policies to be emphasized in its ex-
penditure would have been pretty
thoroughly threshed out and that
when the money became available it
would Immediately begin to flow.
Since the President signed the bill,
in the early part of April, he has
established his administrative ma
chinery and expenditures of about
Sl,750, 100000 have been tentatively
earmarked or allocated But it comes
as something in the nature of distinct
surprise to find that the policy in
spending the balance is still matter
of conjecture, that two of the PreSl-
dents chief advisers, Secretary Ickes
and Mr.. Hopkins, are apparently at
odds over the wisdom of one policy
as against the other, that the pump
printing" method, involving the ex-
penditure of funds for materials for
large undertakings, is for the time
being in disfavor, while the old theory
of the c. w. A., or spending money
directly in wages to those on the
relief rolls, is coming to the fore
again.
While the objective of the work.
relief bill is still to take employables
of the relief rolls, the method of
reaching that objective still witnesses
the revival of old debate over policies
within the Presidents circle of close
advisers. But the Presidents decision
that low percentage of work prof.
ect funds is to be available for mate
rials has made the debate for the time
being one-sided. Mr.. Hopkins, rather
than Secretary Ickes, now holds the
whip hand. Under the plan receiving
greatest emphasis, Mr.. Hopkins will
be responsible for the expenditure OF
the larger part of the work-relief
money still available, and his works
progress division, functioning largely
through the Federal agents appointed
for the States, will doubtless bear the
brunt of the business.
There has been a singular lack of
explicit information so far available
on the nature of Mr. Hopkins plans.
In his press conference yesterday he
was firm in his statement that there
would be no revival of the C. w. A.
principle, once cynically described as
paying men to rake leaves from one
side of the sidewalk to the other and
sweeping them back again. But in
the same breath Mr.. Hopkins prom
ises that a substantial number of the
3,500,000 people now on relief rolls
will be at work next month. How such
a program, useful in furnishing en-
ployment as well as useful to the tax
payers, can be put under way within
thirty days is something of mystery.
More light will be thrown on Mr..
Hopkins plans next week, when he
meets in conference the State Works
Progress administrators. whom he has
summoned to Washington. Mr.. Hop
kins plans to tell them how much
money will be available for each
State; the nature of the projects on
which such funds may be spent. This
procedure bears a discomfiting like
ness to the processes by which Mr.
Hopkins started his c. w. A., when
each community was given a quota
of men to be employed and told to
create work for them within a Ger
tain time limit. But perhaps there
is a difference, soon to be revealed
There have always been bootleg