The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-04-05


 hapS the most astounding c
 So far it has been kept under cover. But it will break into the open shortly, when President Roosevelt sends his relief esti- mates for the new fiscal year to Capitol Hill. In 8 nutshell the story is this:
 Secretary Harold Ickes and Works Progress Administrator Harry Hopkins have completely exchanged positions, and now are taking sides exactly the opposite of those they once held.
 Feud LOng-Standing
 Their feud over relief policy is of several years standing. The best of personal friends and both ardent advocates of generous re- lief grants, they have differed sharply on how the money should be spent.
 Ickes favored great nation wide program of permanent public works such as schools, power plants, stadia, housing and slum clearance. He argued that such projects would reduce unemployment by stimulating heavy industry. Hopkins dis agreed. He cOntended that the way to create jobs was for the government to do so directly through quick made works" projects cleaning up parks, building swimming pools, laying sewers, etc.
 Ickes' project, Hopkins held, would largely require skilled labor, of which there was relatively lit- tie on relief rolls. WPA projects, he pointed out, needed little skilled labor, would provide imme- diate work for the great majority on relief rolls.
 After months of secret discus sion and deliberation, Roosevelt sided with Hopkins. Ickes' public works administration was not put out of business entirely, but its wings were drastically clipped. WPA became teachers pet. LOOp-the-LOOp
 But no sooner was 1t in the saddle than the WPA began slowly but steadily to abandon its own sphere and move into the territory of its rival PWA.
 Instead of confining it's Oper- ations to made work" projects and concentrating on relief labor, the WPA branchcd out into the heavy type of cOnstruc- tion, requiring non-relicf skilled labor. More and more, as 1t muScIed into the PWA field, { WPA freed itself of the rcstric- ton that a prcponderant per- centage of the labor employed on its projects must be relief labor.
 More and more of late, it has granted complete exemptions from this rule. Privately, some of Hop kins' lieutenants- are even talking of abolishing the rule entirely. Thus, the WPA would become works progress plus public works administration.
 Tail to the Kite
 While this transformation has been developing in the WPA, Ickes has been rigidly held to the narrow confines laid out for him. With the WPA depicting the supply of skilled labor not en- ployed in private industry, he found 1t becoming virtually im- possible to undertake PWA pro- jects because of the lack of the necessary craftsmen.
 The result has been to compel Ickes to gear his works program to the type of labor that is avail able - semi-skilled and unskilled relief workers.
 Thus. he, the vigorous foe of the WPA, has been forced by it into the position of a tail to its kite. The WPA strides on to more and greater PWA type of projects, while Ickes is more and more pushed into undertaking the kind of works originally clamored for by Hopkins.
 Go tO-Mainc
 Senator Carter Glass impas- stoned radio fusillade against the presidents court bill brought the aged Virginian a flood of letters and telegrams. Most of them eff fusively congratulated him. but some did not. One of these, signed
 "A Virginian" read:
 "Aw, hell, why don't you move to Maine?"
 Money Rush
 The last three days of March brought to the SEC the largest registration business that agency has ever had. Registration division officials went home at night feel- ing like store clerks during the Christmas rush.
 Reason for the flood of new is- sues is tWofold:
 l. The financial statement &C., companying registration of a
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