Evening star., 1936-05-17
Recovery Unit to Go Ahead
of

and 1884 grants-P w. A. gave to the
States, counties. municipalities and
other subdivisions of political America
outright. 80 per cent of the total labor
and material cost Of any project that
was approved. Thus, If town in
Indiana, or Missouri, wished to put
in waterworks system, build hos
pital or school. or make some other
civic improvement, p. w. A., after
going over the ground and approving
of the project as feasible and desirable,
made an outright grant of 80 per cent
of the labor and material cost of the
project. Then. if the city or NUM-
cipality or other subdivision could
not put up the remaining 10 per cent
P. w. A. assumed the role of banker
and lent the money. But no altrulstic
banker! Not on your life. The little
village or city or district had to pay
on the counter. Not only did they
have to put up gilt-edged security, but
revenue security at that. No watery
bonds of certificates in P. w. AS
portfolio. But paper" that sells for
a premium.
All in all, P. w. A. has purchased
bonds of municipalities and other sub
divisions to the extent of $524, l96, 900.
And of this amount it has sold to the
investing public, through r. F. c.,
$500 0,276,059 worth. And at a profit
of s7,148,677. In addition, p w. A.
has collected to date on bonds and
other paper" held s13,5s5.517 in in
terest.
Out of its earnings" P. w. A. has
created revolving fund which makes
possible the loaning of more money
to build houses, hospitals, schools,
auditoriums and so forth.
Under E. r. A. the 80 per cent grant
of cost of material and labor was in
creased to IS per cent. So that it
is now possible on approved projects
or was-for a municipality to get
grant of almost so per cent of any
project approved. The remaining 55
per cent could be borrowed.
Graft Foisted Upon Cities.
So far the mechanics of P. w. A.,
the set-up, the method of operation,
the physical relation of it to COM
munal America. But there Is another
side to 1t not in evidence from the
reading of these figures or the perus-
ing of this data. 1t is the side of its
influence throughout the country with
respect to honesty and integrity In the
matter of public contracts.
When P. w. A. was set up the de-
preston had already swept the ranks
of the engineering and legal profess
sions. P. w. A., therefore, when it
swung into action and sent out a
call for lawyers and ergineers-one
to pass on the legality of projects and
paper" the other on construction
had no trouble in picking from the
cream of the country. Lawyers came
to P. w. A. at salaries they would
have smiled at in the old days and
engineers went out on jobs at pay
scarcely above that received by them
after Just graduating from college.
As a consequence, therefore, P. w. A.
in the past two years has revealed
many things to the American public.
And one Of these, it is sad to state,
the amount of graft that has been
foisted upon city after city, munich
pality after municipality, concurred
in and not concurred in by civic OFF,
cials. ,.-
One Of the classic stories told around
P. w. A. quarters Is that relative to
the building of sewer in a certain
Midwest sanitary district. Seventeen
days, every morning in the day, the
contractor who had the concrete job
was told that his work would not be
accepted. For II days he laughed at
the p. w. A. inspector, and then
one day 1t suddenly dawned on him
that the inspector meant what he
said. Then came the pay" The
contractor had to tear out all Of the
"honeycomb" cement and had. to
refine the sewer. In addition to the
extra cost, he was compelled to put
up $4,000 to cover the extra cost Of
pumping incident to the smaller sewer
| line.
-Wcrkmen engaged In tearing down