The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-05-20

way - the sew ing projects, the art projects, the music projects, the recreation, lib- rary, museum, writing, and histor- ical records works-in fact, all the white collar projects taken of the books.
 Some of the more extreme econ- omists would 90 so far as to wipe out the whole WPA in the belief that even all the useful things which WPA is doing could be done better and done cheaper by private industry.
 All those are admittedly serious charges. WPA has a case to present in justification of Its program. The question, therefore, is whether Con- gress will cut the head off WPA's appropriation, whether 1t will just remove few of the viscera, or whe- ther old WPA Appropriation Bill will lift its head off the block and walk away with even more money in It's pocket than 1t has today.
 For the current fiscal year, ending June 30, WPA got total of $l,35o,- 650, 900, sufficient to provide an av- craze of about 100000 jobs @ month. Right now the WPA rolls are running about 1,520,000 of which 460,000 are on defense projects like airportS, roads to camps, sewers, waterworks, or other utilities for camps and new defense industry towns. That leaves 100000 WPA workers employed on non-defense projects.
 BIG CUT
 THIS YEAR .....
 For the next fiscal year begin- ming July 1, a preliminary Budget Bureau figure of $975,000,0o0 has been suggested Tn terms of jobs, Howard o. Hunter, acting WPA commissioner, has estimated that this appropriation would mean an average of 100000 employees a month, or 30 per cent cut from this years average. As the peak ern- ployment last February was 1,892,- 606, if the cut is made to 100000 by July, 1t will mean that WPA will have topped off nearly 100000 jobs in less than five months, which is pretty healthy cutting. All these cuts that have been made SO far have been in the areas which have defense contracts. WPAs own economists claiming that 60 per cent of defense con- tracts have been let in areas repre- senting only 20 per cent of the country, 1t is easy to understand why nearly 750,000 workers now on WPA rolls for non-defense projects are in areas which have few defense contracts. These are, roughly, the Rocky Mountain area, the plains and the south.
 Tn Ravenna, O., which has big powder mill, WPA has been cut 75 per cent. At Radford, Va, WPA rolls have been cut GA per cent. Those are, or rather were, small communi- ties, but in larger towns and cities where there Is big defense activity, WPA cuts have also been sizeable: Fl Paso 42 per cent, Seattle 40 per cent, Akron 52 per cent, Cleveland 5i per cent and Detroit 36 per cent. What this means is simply that unemployment has been spotty. The coal areas of southeastern Ohio, western Indiana, southern Illinois are still In the dumps. Areas where copper cannot be mined profitably at the present government fixed price of il cents e pound have re- lief problems. Rural areas have not picked up, particularly in sub-fnar- ginal farm areas.
 When moves are made to cut re- lief In these areas, a yell usually goes up that is heard by congress- men Communities which don't have defense activities feel that since they're not getting any of that gravy they certainly should be en- titled to WPA relief gravy to which taste they have become accustom- ed.
 Local communities start yelling, too, when their WPA nurseries or school lunches or art projects are hit. The free WPA opera and sym- phony concerts having built up @ public following, there are cries in the night when anyone starts strow- ing axes at the bull tlddles.
 LIKE THEIR
 JOBS
 The charge that WPA is compet- ing with private industry for labor is e tough one to substantiate. WPA labor gets paid from $60 to 800 a month. Why anyone should prefer that type of employment when there are better jobs going begging is hard to figure. Also, workers on WPA must take jobs when they're offered in private industry.
 What 1t all boils down to is the belief that unemployment hasn't yet smoothed out. There Is discrim- ination against the employment of unskilled WPAers, particularly the old ones.
 Will Congress cut in the face of that? Not much, If any.