Evening star., 1939-02-05
Leader of the Organized Unemployed
Findsth PathL Thorny He Climbs.

While the Senate debated the relief
bill, constant and eager gallery spec
tator was David LASER. Mr.. LASER
had a large stake in the proceedings.
He is president of the Workers Alli-
ance of America, an organization of
100000 jobless, relief-recipients and W.
P. A. workers. The size of the re-
lief bill was question of immediate
personal concern to Mr.. Lasser's fol-
lowers, who have raised their leader to
what apparently is a position of great
power in the United States of 1899.
Exactly how powerful he is may be
made more clear during the presidential
election year of 1910. On the other
hand, the same shifting currents which
have brought him prominence now, may
by then have taken him out of sight
Mr. LASER has been seen often in
the House and Senate galleries dur
ing recent years. At 36, he is quiet,
salloW and rheumatic, but he is deter
mined lobbyist for his followers. He
brings their cause often to the White
House, which he visited not long ago with
his two young children, and to the
johnson Building, where the w.
P. A. has its headquarters. He pressed
his case SO vigorously a few weeks ago
before the Senate Appropriations Com
mittee holding hearings on the relief
bill that the committee, in irritation,
decided on an extraordinary step and
cut the LASER testimony in toto from
the printed record of the hearings.
He Piqued the Senators.
Mr.. LASER piqued the Senate Ap-
preparations Committee by suggesting
that their confrere on the other side
OF the Capitol, Representative Wood
rum of Virginia, was playing unWittingy
into the hands of the United States
Chamber of Commerce in urging that
only s75o,o0Oooo be appropriated for re-
lief, instead of the S875 100000 sought
by the President. The Chamber of
Commerce, Mr.. LASER held sought un-
employment so that industry might
have large pool of cheap labor on
which to draw for its pay rolls. Mr..
Woodrum was member of the House
Appropriations Committee, guiding the
relief bill.
The Senate committee, according to
the report LASER now gives, accused
him OF impugning the motives of a
member of Congress. From where Mr..
LASER was standing, he thought he saw
Senator Adams of Colorado draw his
watch and eye it carefully after telling
NF f1,o
that he had four minutes in which to
complete his testimony When the
printed hearings appeared nowhere
was there an indication that Mr.. LASER
had said word to the committee.
BY now Mr.. LASER is impervious to
rebuffs. He has stormed, with varying
success, the Capitol Buildings of four
States. He is a figure of the times, an
engineer, an educated, urbanized Wat
Tyler, with overtones of the efficiency
expert.
The relief hearings are history. Mr..
LASER, as we'll as the President, lost his
fight for the larger appropriation There
are new problems for the leader of the
100000 to face. He looks at them daily
in little second-story Office in small
brick building at $50 M street NV.
There, the Workers Alliance headquar-
tiers, he arrives each morning at about
o'clock. His ideas for large spending
go far beyond the most extravagant
dreams of Mariner Eccles, Harry Hop
kins and the others who would finance
recovery from the Treasury.
Life Belongs to JobIess.
He travels $4,000 miles a year in or
ganizing his followers. He takes $50 a
week himself from the Workers Alliance.
On that he supports himself, his wife
sculptress-and a young son and
daughter. He lives in Georgetown
apartment, drives a cheap car and likes
to bicycle. Father, mother and children
like. when they can, to wheel en- famille
around Potomac Park. He is feet 85
inches TALL weighs $50. Mr.. LASER reads