Imperial Valley press., 1941-05-20

WASHINGTON, May 20 - WPA
will lay its head on the block OF
the House Appropriations sub-com-
mittee within the next few days
when hearings begin to see how
much this controversial federal
agency gets for the fircal year of
1942.
Proponents of economy say that
WPA's appropriations are too big
and must be hacked. They point to
the fact that employmet is going
I'D and the demand for relief
should be going down. They charge
that too much WPA spending is
for non-defense activities that could
be done away with. They would
like to get the boondoggling and
baloney out of the way-the sew
ing projects, the art projects, the
music projects, the recreation, Ii
brary. museum. writing, and his
tcrical records work-in fact, all
the whitecollar projects-taken off
the books.
Some of the more extreme ccc-
nomistS would go 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
nf M
The question, therefore. is whether
Congress will cut the head off
WPA's appropriation, whether it
will Just remove a few Of the
viscera, Or whether old WPA Ap-
preparation Bill will lift its head off
the block and walk away with even
more money in its pocket than it
has today
For the current fiscal year, end
ing June 30, WPA got a total of
81, $50 650,000 sufficient to provide
an average of about 100000 jobs
month. Right now, the WPA rolls
are running about 100000 of
which 100000 are on defense prof.
ects like airports, roads to camps,
sewers. waterworks or other utili-
ties for camps and new defense
industry towns. That leaves 1,060,-
900 WPA workers employed on non-
defense projects.
PLAN BIG CUT THIS YEAR
For the next fiscal year begin
ming July l, preliminary Budget
Bureau figure of s975,0O0,OOO has
been suggested. In terms of jobs,
Howard O. Hunter, acting WPA
commissioner, has estimated that
this appropriation would mean an
average of 100000 employees
month. or a 30 per cent cut from
this years average. AS the peak
employment last February was l.
1872 sos, if the cut is made to 1,2O0,-
900 by July, it 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 contract
WPAs own economists claiming
that 60 per cent of defense con-
tracts have been let in areas rep
resenting olny 20 per cent of the
country, it is easy to understand
why nearly 100000 workers now on
WPA rolls for non defense projects
are in areas which have few de-
fense contracts. These are. rough
ly, the Rocky Mountain area. the
plains and the south.
In Ravenna, o., which has a big
powder mill, WPA has been cut
rs per cent. AT Radford, Va, WPA
rolls have been cut Ga per cent
Those are, or rather were, small
communities, but in larger towns
and cities where there is big de-
fense activity, WPA cuts have also
been sizeable: Ell Paso AZ per cent,
Seattle 40 per cent, Akron So per
cent, Cleveland 81 per cent and
Detroit SO per cent
What this means is simply that
re-employment has been spotty.
The coal areas of southeastern
Ohio, western Indiana, southern
Illinois are still in the dumps.
Areas where copper cannot be min
ed profitably at the present gov
eminent fixed pTce Of II cents a
pound have relief problems. Rural
areas have not picked up, parti-
cularly in sub-marginal farm ears.