The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-09-16
Luck Rather
Than Brains
Means Jobs
Unemployed Women Are
Intelligent as Those
Working.
BY DOROTHY d. BROMLEY
Times Special Writer

Times Special Writer
IF everyone in the country had
Il to take an intelligence test
1obholders and unemployed. rich
and poor alike-the ratings would
be headline copy Just because a
person is lucky enough to have a
Job or to have inherited an ample
meal ticket is no reason he or she
should feel superior to relief work
ers who haven't had the breaks or
any strings to pull
Why jobless women office workers
should not get an inferiority COM
pick is brought out in a bulletin re-
Gently issued by the Womens Bur-
eau. They licked of the qualjfca-
tons Of 5000 employed women Office
workers and of 5000 who have been
filling out application blanks during
the depression. And they found that
the jobless ones we're average and
representative workers, differing
very little from the employed group
as to age, education and experience.
There's such a thing as getting
caught in the cogs Of an economic
machine that has backed up on
itself, and this is just what has
happened to thousands upon thou
sands Of White-cOllar workers.
1 don't say there are no loafers
and incompetents among them. But
I've talked with enough officials in
charge Of relief work and with
enough workers themselves to be
convinced that the White-collar
army Of unemployed can rank with
the rest Of US when it comes to edu-
cation and mental capacity
Sensitivity Gets in Way
The persons who haven't played
IN luck are likely to be sensitive and
highly organized. with too little of
the gO-getter in them to elbow their
way through the depression They
may not have the markings Of a
Wallingford or a Hetty Green, but
the ability to accumulate money. as
Prof Einstein has said. is no earnest
Of a persons culture or intellectual
profundity.
I don't say that we should en-
courage the relief workers to go
around feeling sorry for themselves.
But I do say that they should be
allowed to keep their self-respect
and not be booted about as if these
were the brutal days of the first
English Poor Law.
Take this matter Of vacations for
the New York adult education
teachers. After much petitioning
they've been granted a rest period"
from Aug. Is to Sept. 4. But they
won't glimpse a green pasture. be
cause they are ordered Ito report
daily to their district office"
You would think the teachers
were prisoners on parole. Such dis
cipline seems about as supereroga-
tory to me as an order that came
through when I was one of a group
OF Signal Corps F'rench-Speaking
telephone operators, awaiting de-
mobilization in New York after the
Armistice. The Army, being all
wound up in its red tape. couldn't
muster us out before Christmas. So
we reported every morning to an
armory in Brooklyn, where we did
squads right and squads left. I
learned to drill a company, but
never knew why, for the world had
already been saved for democracy
or so we thought.
Slow to Face Reality
The country didn't face reality in
those days, and it's slow to face it
now. although it's written large in
the newspapers daily. Word now
comes from Washington that thou
sands of SO-called relief workers are
to be given Jobs in orcheStras and
theatrical companies that will open
new horizons to the towns in the
sticks.
Other workers are to make a
study of taxation and educational
needs. hospital service and mental
hygiene. Still others are to prepare
a monumental guide book to the
United States - something we've
done without these many years,
while Americans have combed
Europe. Baedeker in hand.
No one who has any interest in
This cOuntry's cultural development
and the welfare of its people will
call such projects boondoggling.
And no one with sense will claim
they can be carried out by nit-witS
So I move that We give the relief
workers a new deal. Let's be fair
and call them pro tenn civil servants.