The Daily Alaska empire., 1937-01-02
UNEMPLOYMENT AND RELIEF

Next Tuesday the new Congress will convene a lgan its sappears that of its most difficult prt ems will be unemployment and relief. Curtailmt If WPA has brought criticism and praise on lead of Administrator Harry L. Hopkins and wi he future holds solution will be largely up Congress. An interesting view of the picture is gv n the following report to the New York Times frc he national capital:
 MT Hopkins believes that there was unnec- essary suffering among the needy unemployed between 1929 and 1883 He expresses confi- dence that the Roosevelt administration will not allow this episode to be repeated and that no future national administration will dare to dsavow Federal responsibility for aid to the unemployed.
 If the slack of unemployment is to be taken up he believes, working hours must be made even shorter than they now are It might even be advisable to return to the home women workers who not entirely dependent or who not supporting dependents Child labor should be abolished.
 In the final solution, as MT Hopkins sees the situation, business and government must work together for a common end. Govern ment has the responsibility of seeing to it that citizens do not suffer privation and busi- ness has an interest in the dollars which wage earners spend consumers but which they cannot spend when they idle
 Tt is perfectly plain from remarks that can be heard on every hand" MT Hopkins de- clares, that very few people have even good working knowledge of the employment situation in which this country finds itself today. And why should they have? We have had unemployment in serious quantities for forty years but all ever did about it off cially until less than four years ago was to ignore it.
 These are the generalizations by which Ad- inic tor far oc U1lde his policies At the same time the realities of government finance demand curtailman and plans for this going steadily forward.
 On December } the WPA had a payroll Of 2,384 POP, a decrease of 198350 since Novem- ber T. The decline was more apparent than real, since most of those eliminated from WPA were persons on drought relief, who w.re transferred to te F-set,lement kiIn n!1- tration.
 The remaining cuts it can te sfa'ed vii come from three sources; About 5000 from administrative staffs; probably 2o000 from non-reef employees, including supervisors, straw bosses and others hired on the basis of ability rather than need and l53.0o0, more or less from among those who found to have other resources" or whose outside income is equal to that which they would be paid by the WPA None of those be classified as sin need of relief"
 With these cuts the monthly expenditure of WPA can probably be brought down during December from around Sl68,000000 to about $150000,000 At that rate the money still left in the WPA allocation will not last beyond the end of January. Consequently Congress will be asked within fortnight after convening for emergency appropriation, probably of $5O0000,000 to carry on WPA until the end of June The fund for the following fiscal year, to the end of June, 1888 will be requested in separate appropriation measure.
 It is safe to say that the WPA expects to have its load down to s1000O0000 month by the end of January, and that unless the busi- ness situation takes bad turn it will not ask for more than s1 2000 GOO 900 to carry it through the next fiscal year The may be less if business improves, but as long as Mr Hopkins