The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-12-13
Harris Makes Plea To Save Them From
 Being Put On Dole
Every EmpIOye to Be Asked to Write to Washington at Once Desire No One to Stay on WPA When Inc
 eligible for Relief From Public Welfare Dept

In an effort to save approx1maCe- ly 800 employees of the Mutlal aid !. being placed on the dole in spite of the fact that work relief jobs are available, William M. Harris, ex- ecutive secretary of the organiza- ton today appealed directly to both Connecticut senators. Letters sent by MT. Harris to Senators Lonergan and Maloney urge them to "use your influence with Mir. Hopkins and the administration of the WPA in Washington to end that:
 "All employable men and women registered with the department of public welfare be eligible for WPA regardless of the date of application for relief; and that no person be allowed to continue work on the WPA after he ceases to be eligible for relief from the department of public welfare"
 In addition to his personal ap- peal, MT. Harris will urge every enl- ploye of the mutual aid, both past and present, who is affected by the situation, to write to Washington at once.
 Mutual Aid Nears End
 The mutual aid after five years of yeomai1 service in the administration of relief to the public of Waterbury, will pass out of existence January l and the department of public well fare will automatically assume the care of ethan 270 cases now re- maining on the M. A. rolls. During the past few months, MT. Harris estimates, approximately 200 cases have been transferrel to the DPW as the only possible recourse. Of the total of close to 500, virtually all are "employable," that is, capable of manual labor, he said.
 UuparalIed Situation
 Due to the technicality under which the WPA refuses to accept mutual aid workers, however, none of them has been able to obtain em- ployinent on the new government program. The situation here is prob- ably unparalled anywhere else in the country. Inasmuch as the federal government did not recognize the mutual aid as a public relief agen- cy its employees were not considered eligible for employment on the WPA, and former EZRA workers and charges of the department of public welfare have been the only ones accepted here to date.
 MT. Harris points out that many of the most deserving relief cases are those on the mutual aid list and that 1t is obvoiusly unfair to discriminate against city where working people have made such personal sacrifices for the benefit of their fellow workers.
 He said no one in Waterbury could be blamed for this situation, that officials of the state employ ment office had cooperated in every possible way in the transfer of eli- gible workers and that in the last analysis the matter could only be straightened out by Washington authorities. His appeal to Senators Lonergan and Maloney follows:
 Organized In 1890
 Tn November of 1880, a little over five years ago, the people of Waterbury organized what is known as the Mutual Aid Unemployment Fund of Waterbury, Inc., 8 plan whereby all the working people in the city agreed to contribute cer- tain percentage of their pay, rang ing from one to three per cent, for the benefit of those who were out of employment. Many of the large corporations also agreed to meet their employees dollar for dollar as their share in the fund. In no other city in the United States have the