The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1935-11-15
Wings
OVER
Washingtn

L
20 the gaiety of Washington poli
i 1lcs II only from a distance. IT,
lots OF fun, while the general IS
expressing his opinion of variou.
caOlnet officers, to find out what
Cney think of him. And while the
sIapstick is going on so many mis-.
t erIes can be conveniently forgot
johnson has inferred that al
harold Ickes has under his hat Is
ms honesty. So the reporters, in
ene dlgnlfied calm of the interior
9ecretary's paneled office, ask
4cKes what he has to say about
Johnson. Not altogether taken
unawares, the Secretary has a
neat comeback. Referring to his
critic as a "blunt-spoken cavalry
man." ne declares: "The trough
with the general is that since he
was bucked out of the saddle AT
MA ne is suffering from mental
saddle Sores"
That's quite enough for their
papers, the reporters know off
the winged words fly over the wiz
es. And off the newsmen go, to
ma out what Harry Hopkins, ON
the other side of the street, has to
say about johnson. The WPA head
llves up to his reputation for Ger
gag1ng franlmess." He declares
mat the generals remarks about
Che works program are a dot of
g-o.nonsense." The gid had to be
varied to meet varying degrees of
editorial squeamishness. But the
paper.
The same cannot be said, how
ever, Tor some of the other ode
talls" brought out at the same
press conference. Aged, crippled
and other unemployable workers
are, being left to starve in GEORGIA
and other states. When federal re-
ilef is cut off, no further provision
IS made for them, unless the stat
es accept the responsibility. Geor-
g1a, Ohio and some other states
make no provision for these miser-
able victims of federal-state mol
itlcs, Hopkins admits under cues
tioning. ~
This has been going on for mon
tbs. To the governments certain
knowledge, unemployables in Geor-
g1a have been reduced to two and
meal a day, to diet that amounts
to starvation; they have been
brought to beggary and driven in
sane. If animals were thus cast
out, the humane societies would
raise a fuss. But no one seems to
care about these human outcasts.
The federal government suppress
sed the facts about them, and so
did the state.
Sometime before the Johnson
lckes-Hopkins slapstick, the Geor-
g1a facts leaked out. They were
hrst reported by Federated Press
and a middlewestern paper. But
Tor the daily press in general thew
mad no such news value as Gen.
Johnson's mental saddle sores for
instance. If they now receive anv
attention, it will probably be At
the tail of stories about Ickes' wit
and Hopkins frankness, and he
cause the latter took advantage of
the occasion to assail Gov. Tai
nadge of Georgia and Gov. Ian
don of Kansas, both foes of the adj
ninistration.
Charity begins at home, MIRA
employees think. Just at the mo-
ment when their union was meet
ing to protest against wage cuts
for lOwer-paid employees, accom-
panying wholesale layOffs, it
received a letter from Geo. L.
Berry, NRA big-shOt and COOr-
dInatOr for Industrial COOpera-
ton. The communication han
'ened to be one of some 10000
form letters sent to local un-
Ions, asking wage cuts and other
WOrsened conditions since NRA
protection has been withdrawn.
This information, the letter said.
"can best be furnished by en-
plOyes who are the unwilling vic
tins of those changes"
Pointing to the wage cuts de-
creed for guards, messengers,
mail clerks and stenOgraphers,
the NRA employees union charg-
es that the NRA has placed the
burden of the economy drive ON
workers already earning very
low salaries" with only a few
cuts in the higher brackets. It
answered Berry's letter by say
ing that NRA itself was return
ing to pre-cOde wage-levels.
Comparisons are odious to- lot
f people in Washington. Whom
he Labor Dept. was giving out |
heerful figures about increased |
money wages, Miss Perkins never
Ised to care much for the re-
uests for comparison with living
osts. 1t took a long time to dope
ut comparative figures that would
eep up good spirits. And now-a-
ONE odium is that between private
avs, the comparison that is in
Employment and the increased mum
er on WPA projects.
When the government first an
ounced that it could put 8 liz mil
on unemployed On work projects
nth four billion dollars, people
'anted to know what was going
} happen to the other eight or
N million jobless. So it seemed
Ike a good idea to say that for
very unemployed worker put on
government project, another one
ou!d find work, as an indirect
suit in private employment.
Now reporters keep asking Pres.
oosevelt, Hopkins and others
How does the increase in private
nployment compare with the nun
7srs placed on WPA projects ?"
ne question is not a popular one
18th those of whom it is asked
ne best answer that has been
lought up so far is that "there
20 No 1.olsoI1- 1900