Evening star., 1936-01-12
Continued From First Page.)


six years older then when the depres-
sion first hit them and so to that ex-
tent, less employable. Many are per-
sons whose savings were lost in the
closing of banks or in the stock market
crash or in the failure Of little busi-
nesses which they had conducted in
better days on a shoc-string basis.
Many had been partially dependent on
friends or relatives or neighbors who
were also pretty well cleaned out and
have not yet fully got back on their
feet.
We must remember also the effect Of
chronological unemployment. Presi-
dent Roosevelt said recently that we
could with present machinery reach
the production of 1929 with 80 per
cent of the number of people employed
then. No matter what the reason,
however, there can be no question but
that these unemployables do not have
any large quantity of resources,
whether human or financial or within
themselves, upon which they rely or
which can be evoked by the best of
case work procedure. They are here
and they are here to stay.
If we are to have this continual
burden of the unemployables, some
what leSsened but not wiped out, and
If we are agreed that private phil
anthropy cannot handle the major
part Of this problem, it is quite clear
that public agencies and public funds
must handle most of it. The question
then naturally arises as to whether
+ Federal aid will be necessary. This is
q matter of local conditions, getting
back to the Indebtedness Of the local
government, the proportion of de-
pendency in relation to the self
suficiency of the community, the tax
able wealth and income, the demands
of other civic expenditures. There will
probably be communities in which local
funds and local resources will not be
sufficient to meet the needs of the un-
employable. After all, the depression
was not local matter, but national
matter.
am inclined to think there is a
Federal responsibility for assistance
in the care of the unemployables in
certain communities. This RESPONSE
bility must be worked out on the
grounds that we are all citizens of the
United States, that we have mutual
duty of assistance in proportion to
needs and that we have mutual right
to look for aid to the Nation as a whole
, FOR difficulties which are caused by
Nation wide conditions.
Relief Is Inadequate.
The care Of the lnemployables is
the area in which Federal work pro-
jects will be least effective and in
which there Is least likely to be any
considerable amount of Federal relief.
The employables, however, are right
in the thick of the mutual relation
ship Of these agencies.
The Works Progress Administration
and the Public Works Administration
are planned on the general idea Of
providing through the security wage
. approximately twice the average of re-
lief which has been provided by the
Federal relief program. This is an
admirable idea in respect both to in
creasing relief and to putting every
possible person to work. The chief
trouble with the idea is that this plan
of putting people to work according
to their types and abilities (that is to
say, skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled)
leaves no room for the exceptional
cases. In Washington, for example,
the unskilled laborer who has only his
wife or himself or one child to depend
upon can get along on the unskilled
laborer's wage of s45 month. On
the other hand, difficulties are ahead
for the families of unskilled workers