The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-08-26
] . BEHIND THE SCENESl WASHINGTON IY RODNEY pUTcHER-l ]
 Democrat Washington
 COrrespOndentl
Unemployment Census Creates More Jobs For
 "New Dealers

Washington, Aug. 26 - Job-hogs ruled congress to the last, even in such a vital national problem as that of unemployment relief.
 As 8 result, taxpayers will con- tribute some $5,OOO,0OO for an un- employment census which appears to be little more than 8 device for seeing to 1t that democratic cOn- gressmen will have few tempo rary jobs to hand out around primary time next year.
 Congressman Maury Maverick of Texas had a bill, which was sup- ported by Harry Hopkins and by both conservative and liberals. It carried precious little patronage and was planned to cost only $75.000. It called for creation of a high grade unemployment commission which would have studied unem- ployment and relief problems and recommended a long range program to congress. Maverick proposed that the question be answered: How are we all going to make living?" The president himself thought 1t was a good idea-at least for @ while. Sugar Coated
 Vice President Jack Garner
 and Senator Pat Harrison
 were having conversation in
 the democratic cloakroom.
 AS senator's secretary
 passed he overheard them
 talking about the last baseball.
 But as soon as they supposed he had passed earshot, the
 conversation changed. T think the president would
 be a fool to veto this sugar bill," said Pat.
 You bet!" exclaimed the
 vice president.
 >But the word got around that the proposal for a $5,000,000 cen- sus would mean about 20 jobs for every congressman. The president for some unknown reason decided he would like a voluntary cen- sus." So the house leaders, when Maverick wasn't looking, quietly slipped through a senate bill pro- viding for a census to be taken on or before April l. It was small, but welcome, last-day gravy boat. The S5,0O0,000 will come from WPA funds.
 Provision for such a census al- ready is in the law covering the U. S. Employment Service. No one appears to be on record for "vol- untary" census except Roosevelt, since there are numerous reasons why such a count can be depended upon to be far from accurate. A genuine census of the unemployed, 1t is conceded, would cost about $65, 100000.
 The census as authorized is so silly as to warrant 8 wager that the act providing 1t will be repealed or altered before the date on which 1t is scheduled to go into effect. Wage-Hour Backfire
 Henry Cabot Lodge, the 35-year- old senator from Massachusetts, was the only republican member to vote consistently for the wage-hour bill. Senator Jim Davis of Pennsylvania voted for passage, but marred his record from organized labor's stand point by voting to recomnit the bill at a time when recommittal would have meant the measures death for the session.
 Well, of course, said most &C., counts of this unusual incident, that meant that Massachusetts mill owners and other manufacturers wanted higher wages paid in the south so they could compete easier and Henry Cabot was only following the dictates of industrialists in his home state.
 The fact is that hardly any New England manufacturers were in favor of the wage-hour bill (al- though the administration had pected nearly all of them to ap- plaud) and that Lodge has been receiving a pile of letters from Massachusetts industrialists who call him everything from Q soft head to a "bolshevik."
 Thered be little cause for con- cern for Lodge in this If 1t weren't that voters in Massachusetts re- publican primaries are nearly all conservatives, whereas the labor vote is mostly in the democratic primary. Lodge has shown courage before, however, AS chairman of the house labor committee in the state legislature he was one of five house members who voted for rati- fication of the child labor amend ment in the face of heavy opposi- ton from Cardinal O'Connell and President Emeritus A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard.
 (Copyripht, 1897. NEA Service, Incl