Evening star., 1938-06-12
By THOMAS r.. HENRY.
DOOR stands open to the street
these hot June days-a door
through which passes endlessly an

DOOR stands open to the street
~ these hot June days-a door
~ through which passes endlessly an
out-of-step and out-of-line parade.
Like bewildered survivors Of shattered
regiment after a lost battle they shuttle
and stumble over the threshold. 1t Is
the door to the District Office of the
Works Progress Administration. They
come singly and by twos and threes, each
carrying brown card which admits from
the dingy reception room into the major
general-like presence of interviewers in the
Offices beyond. There are white and COL
ored, undergraduate age and elderly, shah
by and neatly dressed, talkative and silent.
pushing and shrinking, shamefaced and
blatant.
But they come endlessly. They come
through that door to a desolate and arid
sort of security, jobs without futures wages
sufficient to keep body and soul together
with nothing left over Approximately
5000 of them have shuffled by in that
pathetic procession in the past year at
a cost to the Federal Government of about
100000. Where do they go from there?
Do they pass on to jobs which are pur-
poseless and hopeless? Is the work they
do well done? Is it worth doing? Is the
District and the rest of America getting
100000 worth Of permanent value out
of it.
Great Majority Unskilled.
The question is not easy to answer and
has been answered in various ways accord
ing to the superficial observations and
prejudices of the answerers. The bulk
Of the work available, of course calls
only for common labor The unskilled
constitute the great majority of the pa
rade. They saw wood, they pile bricks, they
swing picks and shovels. Their labor
is more desolate and hopeless than that
Of ordinary common labor because there
is only the faintest sort of hope of rising
above it. There is the inevitable criticism
that a good deal of it is woefully inefi-
ciept
Assuming this ineficiency-and if the
criticisms are not true. human nature
must be undergoing a perilous change
there are four or five good reasons for it.
Many classified as laborers and placed
on pick and shovel jobs are not laborers
at all Some. for example are out-of- work
BARRIERS. There are no w. P. A. under
takings which employ BARRIERS, as such
About all that can be done for such a
man is to give him pick or a bucksaw.
The same is likely to be true of jobless
grocery clerks, insurance statesmen, and
the like. All their lives they have had
physically easy jobs. Many of them have
passed the age when adjustment to new
job is easy. For another thing. about the
only incentive to hard work is the workers
own conscience. Regardless of what he
does there will be hardly any advance pos
sible in pay or position--something which
is held out. at least in theory, to even
the most lowly of laborers in American
industry.
Again, there is not even. generally speak
ing. the fear of discharge w. P. A.
worker has about as much chance of losing
his meager pittance for soldering on the
job as has soldier of being kicked out
OF the Army for the same reason.
Other Jobs With a Purpose.
But beyond those doors are other jobs
which are not purposeless, and strange
assortment out of the parade of the relief
seekers is chosen to fill them. They are
jobs which are supposed to return big
dividends, sooner or later, to the Govern
ment-jobs needing to be done, but too
big and too costly to be undertaken in
normal times They honeycomb the Fed
eral Offices through the District
These are jobs for "white-collar" folks
Throughout the District they constitute
sort of intellectual civilian conservation
corps. engaged in clearing away the dense
underbrush which has grown up in libra
ries, museums and record Offices through
the years. They are doing the jobs which
have been left undone for half century.
Others are doing the pick-and-shovel work
of cutting roads into the future through
dense tangles of misinformation and lack
Of information.
These, at least, might step adventurously
over the threshold at 420 C street
On most Of these W. P. A. white-collar
projects the majority of the workers falls
into four or five main categories:
~NA>J AAASAAs CoAAAO Va WAAOul have cdIucQ
good incomes but who now apparently
encounter the prejudice of industry and
business together against age
Widows left with children, whose educa-
tions have been mediocre and unspecial-
lied
Boys and girls coming out of high school
or forced to leave college without COM
pleting their courses.
Assortment Of Misfits.
The obvious nisfits of various sorts
men with weakness for liquor, those who
cannot get along with other people, those
with serious physical defects such as deaf
ness.
A auctuating number of thoroughly
competent, skilled individuals
1t will be seen from the above that a
good deal Of w. P. A. labor falls just out
side the vague category Of 'unemployables
Only in very flush" times would the men
and women be assured Of steady employ
neut.