The Daily Alaska empire., 1936-01-15
HOOVER AND RELIEF

In his speech at St. Louis-third of the epochal Hoover zealousy supported all Of the indictments of the Roosevelt Administration hand ed down to date by the National Association of Manu lecturers the American Liberty League and other Old Guard adjuncts In did he inject much of his newly developed personality in his attempt at excoriaton what he termed local relief shifted to Federal bureaucracy through the exercise of dictation from Washington"
 Mir Hoover should know, and if so he should not disregard the fact that the EZRA central zed relief bureaucracy; its only function to dis tribute to the States monthly Federal contribution to- ward the of relief Of course this was many months after had been clearly established that the States and local subdivisions of government no longer able to carry the entire load and only the Fed era government in position to utilize the enor- credit necessary Under the terms of the EZRA, State and local administrators had complete autonomy in spending the money, with few mutually agreed upon Federaly prescribed safeguards to make the standards of honesty and efficiency main- tained. In only six States Administrator Hopkins obliged to exercise the authority provided in the Relief of 1883 Federal appointees, for reasons well remembered by the public
 The Federal Government supplied the essential remainder after States cities and counties had ributed toward relief the of their ability Thus the States, cities and counties obtained from the Roosevelt Administration what they had peti- toned MT Hoover for in vain. And now as the re- spective of the States cities and counties picking up again, mothers with dependent chill dren the blind the aged and the crippled that com prise the unemployables that grate the nerves of the Liberty League the other G aid societies and MT. Hoover being returned to the of the States and localities, in normal, non Hoover times
 MT. Hoover remains and unquestionably will to he he what he characterized relief under his administration his astonishing unfamiliarty with this topic which has engrossed the attention of Amer jeans for several years displayed in his assertion that under the Hoover administration we provided Federal Government funds to be distributed to the State governments and by them distributed to the local governments"
 The only relief statute enacted prior to the Roose- welt Administration that of 1892 which allocated the ptifuly inadequate sum of $300000000 and for loans not grants at high interest rates It called the Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1882 and the implies for both relief and public works This appropriation. which MT. Hoover at the time solemnly said too far" proved be about thirtieth of the for relief of which the Ma ton in dire need Thus under MT Hoovers relief system many cities then anxious to borrow for their relief needs forced to float bond issues at the highest known rates of interest and hand their se- surites to the REC which under MT Hoover operated exclusively for large corporations, before they could obtain penny And the situation so acute that many already heavily bonded cities and counties and States could not even take advantage of Federal under those burdensome conditions
 Again switching momentarily from his bitter crit icism of Relief under the Roosevelt Administration to added encomums of his own personal relief leadership MT Hoover uttered this amazing statement at St. Louis: There no important failure to provide for those in real need" Human memory indeed short but the sickenng enacted all America be- fore the Federal Government established relief admin
 stration have not been entirely forgotten So it de- bends upon whether MT Hoover would call complete failure important" failure and how he would cas- sify real need applied to human being instead of a railroad or holding company.