The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1941-07-16
Bv JOHN STAHLBERG


It would take something as awe
inspiring as the mind of Joe Parker
to solve the problem Of apportlonlng
a 32-percent cut in WPA employment
nv letting the ak fall full weight on
the necks of the people OF ~ arpl-
trarily selected counties, while keep
ing useless and undeserving employees
on the payroll in some OF the remain
ing 26 counties. A man possessing a
well-deyeloped sense of justice might
find it difficult to sleep soundly AFTER
discharging five or six men with nun
grv families in order to have funds
with which to retain what is fanci-
f,lly known as the Service" of one
bootlicking creep whose only respon-
sibilities are Studebaker car and a
coddled but unresponsive mustache
But nothing so trivial as justice Is
permitted to disturb the dreams of
Lingerie Joe; man of his stature
and social tonnage has to be above
such things. AS long as Joe, by the
grace of God and a dumb public, can
continue drawing his own thousand
smackers every sixty days, he should
worry if a few thousand small-town
kids out there on the plains have to
get along without milk!
No honest observer will deny that
there is a greater need for federal aid
in some counties than in others. At
the same time, no one can deny that
the WPA has thrown away and Is
still, despite cuts, throwing away
large sums of money to no purpose,
not only in outrageous individual gifts
such as Parker's $4,000 yearly salary,
but also in allotments for activities
which are nothing but object lessons
in witless futility. If the funds thus
wasted were put to use intelligently
great many families would be better
fed and the state and nation would
be richer by, for example, some miles
of highway, an improvement of which
we shall never have too much.
What is particularly to the point just
now, some of this money could be
spent in Localities which are now left
out entirely.
.
salary were cut in half which would
still leave him far more than he earns,
the difference each month would sup
port half a dozen families at regular
WPA wages. Popular demand could
force such revision, and anyone who
let's an illiterate Legislative white
wash persuade him otherwise is a
DOPE
Project allotments account for some
of the really large sums wasted-and
when I say wasted l mean wasted,
utterly thrown away, gone with the
wind. Much of the money thus spent
has served no useful end whatever;
it has not even fed the needy, which
ought certainly to be the minimum
requirement in relief expenditures; it
has gone solely to keep some of Lin
gerie Joe's lickspittles in nice fat jobs. |
Along with the waste there has been
doing out of just enough jobs to
actual workers to give the whole fraud
a superficial appearance of respecta-
bility. And of the federal biscuits
that Joe has piously cast upon the
waters, some have miraculously re-
turned to him. There has indeed |
never been any pressure from the |
state administrator (see the report of |
the legislative Investigating commit
tee); far from it. Such things are |
handed more subtly A spontaneous
understanding originating nowhere in
particular has simply found it's way |
into the various hooks of the old |
Silver Bow Club: Employees who do |
so and so will be taken care of. And |
lol Joe has looked upon the record |
of Studebaker sales and has seen that |
it was good.