Evening star., 1937-04-05
Mass Meeting Told Help
Now Will Save Greater
Expense Later.
100000 FUND URGED
AS HUMANITARIAN NEED
Coleman Jennings to Lead Appeal
to Congress and Attempt
Jobless Solution.

paSSe barring 10000 impoverished
men, women and children from any
form of relief in the Nations Capital
will get under way today with the
determined support of an aroused
District citizenry.
The 10000 persons involved include
5000 jobless "employab bles," for whom
the District has no relief funds, and
their families.
At a mass meeting yesterday in the
First Congregational Church, $500
citizens approved, without a dissent
| ing voice, a six-point program which
will be carried to the President, Con-
gress, the District Commissioners and
the Bureau of the Budget in an ef-
fort to meet the present relief crisis.
Stirred by stories of the misery and
hardships inflicted upon fellow hu-
mans by the current policy of deny
ing both direct relief and work relief
to families of wage earners who can
not find jobs, citizens expressed unan-
imous support of a moderate in
crease in local taxation, if this is nee
essary to care for the city's health
and relief needs.
| Coleman Jennings Chairman.
Coleman Jennings, prominent lay
social worker, who presided at the
mass meeting, was designated chair
man of a special citizens committee
to direct the fight for adequate relief
funds.
| The mass meeting contended that
deficiency appropriation providing
100000 a month until the end of
the current fiscal year and an addi-
| tional appropriation of al least 81 OO0, =
900 for the next fiscal year are neces-
sary to meet the city's relief needs.
The Federal Works Progress Ad-
ministration was called upon by the
mass meeting to provide additional
projects in Washington to create Jobs
for employables and the Board of Pub
lie Welfare was urged to base its re-
lief grants upon verified need, rather
than employability.
The special committee created at
the mass meeting was instructed not
TO confine its work to the present
emergency. but to develop a plan for
solving the city's unemployment prob
lens in the future.
Problem Seen as Menace.
DR.. William Mcclellan, president of
the Potomac Electric Power Co., and
principal speaker at the mass meet
ing termed the present relief program
a serious menace to our present and
future community life"
DR.. Mcclellan said that if the citv
does not carry its full relief burden
now, the burden will grow in weight
and expense.
If you don't pay the bill now" he
said, you'll pay it later and it will
be bigger. The people needing relief
are human beings and not worms, but
even a worm will turn"
DR.. Arson Phelps Stokes, Canon
of Washington Cathedral, said the
present relief situation is "intolera bic
for sufferers today and will be equally
lntolerable for the taxpayers of COM
ing decades" They will have to sup
port at great expense" he said, public
institutions and permanent relief for
the cases Of demoralized and sick men.
women and children who could be
saved from suffering and in MANY
cases made self-supporting by little
more help now.
Tumulty Makes Appeal.
In moving appeal on behalf of the
unemployed "employables" and their
suffering families, Joseph P. Tumulty.
formerly secretary to the late Presi-
dent Wilson, said:
| There are those who say that this
additional burden to take care of the
human needs Of the District would
make inevitable an increase in our tax
rates and that, therefore, this move
ment should not be encouraged. That
is the argument of a miserable Scrooge
and not a blessed Samaritan. 1 be-
lieve that I but express your own
| opinion when I say that if, through
additional tax burdens, we can rescue
these precious lives, We will feel that
the burden upon US is sweet indeed ="
Joseph D. Kaufman, vice chairman
OF the Community Chest, told the mass
| meeting that "the time has come
when the citizenry of Washington
must get up on their physical, spiritual
and moral hind legs and do battle"
Edward Keating, editor of Labor,
declared that last November the people
delivered mandate clearly approving
the proposition that every American
able and willing to work should be
given an opportunity to work.
Advises Insistent Plea.
1T is difficult to believe" he con-
tinued, that either the President or
the Congress will deliberately flout this
mandate
THE people of Washington should
thunder at the doors of Congress,
pleading that adequate appropriations
be made and indicating that the people
OF Washington are willing and anxious
to pay their proper share of the bill"
Miss Mamie H. Burroughs, presi-
dent OF the National Training School
for Girls and Women, declared the
Federal Government should assume
more responsibility for relief in WASH
ington. She urged all st the mass
meeting to form themselves into city.
wide job-flnding committee to find
work for the employables in need Of
help.
Maj. Campbell c. johnson, executive
secretary Of the Twelfth Street Branch
OF the Y. M. c. A.; Laurence j. Shehan,
assistant director of the Catholic
Charities, and William H. Savin, di-
rector of the Family Service Associa-
ton, related tragic case histories taken
from their files showing the suffering
undergone by families denied relief
because the wage Garner Is unable to
find Job.