Evening star., 1946-05-26
Copricious Decisions
Befoq Welfare Issue
About.Face by Commissioners
Emphasizes Need for Study

By John w. Thompson, Jr.
When they walked into the Office of
Representative Howard Smith, Demo-
crat of Virginia on the afternoon of
May IT, Commissioners John Russell
Young and Guy Mason were ardent
champions of their bill to transfer
responsibility for public welfare ad-
ministration from the Board of Public
Welfare to themselves.
They had been of this opinion since
a l94l row over appointment of q well
fare director and many things had
happened since then to increase that
earlier resentment. The time had come
for change. The present joint control
should be REDEEMED and centralized in
the city heads.
They sat down with Mr.. Smith, Rep
resentative j. M. Combs, Democrat, of
Texas; Chairman Edgar Morris of the
Welfare Board and Welfare Director Ray
Huf to discuss action on the bill and
two hours later went home committed
to the exact opposite proposition of an
autonomous Welfare Board except in the
matter of finance.
In such haste and secrecy was basic
city government policy decided. A four
year attitude arising out of pique and
resentment was reversed in two-hour
closed conclave.
Regardless of the merits of the earlier
bill or the Commissioners commitment,
the whole approach is wrong 1t is
wrong because it was inspired by and
supported on resentments at board ac-
tions rather than on careful, unemo-
tional study and recommendation. 1t
is wrong because in inception and devei-
opment no real attempt was made to
find out how the community felt on the
issue. 1t is high time that the city
ceased having to depend upon the &C
cident Of congressional interest or the
whims of key officials for its changes
and reorganizations.
Likewise, even the plan to separate
the prisons from welfare administration
into department of corrections under
the Commissioners might be subject to
were it dependent solely on the whirl-
wind investigation of the Jail last month
by House subcommittee after the Jail
escapes of last November and April.
Leading penal men, however, includ-
ing the former Penal Supt. Howard Gill,
have advocated such an arrangement
for many months with the idea that
prisons are not welfare institutions. but
corrective, and hence should be inte-
grated with other enforcement and re-
habilitative agencies.
In this case, too, there is the further
circumstance that the city, having COM
mitted itself to such a plan. is now in
process of setting it up with the bor-
rowed help of Federal prisons expert
without legal basis. Unless the correc-
tions department is established by law
before Congress adjourns, the prisons
will remain under welfare control after
j. Ellis Overlade completes his reor-
ganization.
1t Is not simply a case of Furnishing
the Welfare Board for the escapes by
taking the prisons away from it. Rather
1t is a matter of placing prisons in a
department with the same status as
other city departments competing for
city funds on its own rather than as
segment of the welfare department.
The increased confusion created by
the rapid turnabout of the Commits
sioners on the welfare administration
matter May II and the immediate
practical need for action on the prisons
suggests only one course of action:
Treat the corrections issue separately
from the welfare reorganization and
devote the time between this summer
and the next session of Congress to a
studied solution of the latter
To do this Congress needs only to act
on title one of the compound welfare re-
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. department bill
before Representative Smiths House
District Subcommittee, or to approve
the separate measure sponsored by Rep
resentative F. Edward Hebert, Demo-
crat, of Louisiana, amended to meet GER
tain objections of the Commissioners
The welfare administration study now
being completed by the Council of So
cial Agencies may well provide the OBJ
jective approach and solution necessary
to iron out the wrinkles in the present
arrangement, provided the recommends
tions are based on a practical apprecia-
tion Of what Congress can and will ap-
prove.
A comprehensive analysis must nee
essarily answer certain basic questions.
In other Jurisdictions is welfare a de-
partment of city government or is it
autonomously run? Can welfare be
compared with education and hence
justify autonomous treatment because
in this and some other jurisdictions
public schools are under independent
boards? Are there conditions peculiar
to Washingt' which justify one par
ticular solution? Does the budget con-
troll exercised by the Commissioners by
law over all city agencies carry with it
a responsibility for welfare that will
continue whether or not they or board
administer it? Does public welfare
merit special consideration above other
public services which a board could give
and the Commissioners might be too
overburdened to render?
X X X
The volume of existing statute under
which welfare operates is enormous and
should be carefully studied and codified,
wedding out the obsolete, amending
where possible and necessary, but above
all giving future welfare administrators