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Show Washington Comment At this writing, with the Great j Day (meaning the elections) just around the corner and the likelihood likeli-hood that before this reaches print, the issues will be definitely determined, and even forgotten, by a fickle country, it would be rash, if not futile, :o make any comments on Tuesday's cxj. sisal struggle and its attendant outcome. out-come. On the eve of battle both j Democrats and G. O. P. pretend great optimism, but two factors jare dimming their radiant insouci-iance; insouci-iance; on the Democratic side, I there is definite fear that even ! victory aft"r a fashion may demonstate the waning prestige of ; the New Deal and the waning I popularity of Mr. Roosevelt; from the Republican corner conies apprehensive ap-prehensive moans due to the cur- rent business recovery, or what is I passing for such. There is no gainsaying the fact that Mr. Roosevelt's popularity soared after his peace plea to Hitler last fall, tho the spectacular rise was shortlived short-lived when public reaction set in against the Munich settlement; the present poll of the Institute of Public Opinion shows his popularity popu-larity only a point or two above the not-so-good place after last, autumn's ill-fated "purge". As for the Republicans' fear that they won't get. those congressional seats and governorships on Tuesday, there is, or appears to be, a business busi-ness recovery which G. O, P. chieftains chief-tains might well wish had chosen a slightly later date to make its public bow. Yesterday, the federal fed-eral reserve board issued its monthly bulletin, showing that rapidly increasing industrial pro-( pro-( Continued on next, page) Washington Comment (Continued from first page) duction, expanding national income in-come from wages, corporate earnings earn-ings and farm revenue, and geater sales by department, variety and mail-order houses, brightened the nation's business picture no end in October. It finds national production produc-tion at 95 per cent of the 1923-25 level (the index was 76 in May). The bulletin estimates that 1,000,-000 1,000,-000 persons have been reemployed since ' spring. Construction contracts con-tracts were the highest since 1929. The commerce department adds its bit by claiming that everything is rosy in its precincts, too. From W P A, we hear that approximately ap-proximately 228,000 persons left WPA emDlovment in September, 75 'per cent of them voluntarily. Says Aubrey Williams, acting administrator: adminis-trator: "Reviving activity in industry in-dustry which has been in progress several months is now only beginning begin-ning to have its effect on the general problem of need and unemployment." un-employment." Not only does Mr. Williams believe this to be evidence evi-dence of more prosperous industrial indus-trial conditions in the country, he considers it further proof that the unemployed are eager for jobs and not content witih work relief. 80,221 of the 173,202 WPA workers work-ers who quit voluntarily gave private pri-vate employment as their 'reason, while 85,599 left without giving ' their reasons. However, there was a net g-ain of 43,401 persons on ' WPA pojects for the month. Maybe it's understandable why W P A relief workers find their jobs uninspiring at times: here in Washington, for instance, a lot of them are busy with pension rolls and bird stomachs actually! The bureau of biolog-ical survey has the poor "reliefer" correlating data on subjects ranging from a census of fur farms to the stomach I contents of our feathered friends, which scientists deem necessary to the feeding and requirements of wild life to be sustained in public game preserves. Others, in the national archives, are engaged in revitalizing j2,000,000 pension records, re-cords, some dating back to the Revolutionary war. This particu lar job requires the services of 290 men and women "reliefers" and will keep them too occupied U bite their fingernails for a whole year. The pension records were sent to the archives some time ago and the individual papers, some yellowed by tremendous age, were so badly creased and folded that something had to be done to save them from complete ruin Tha individual in-dividual cases, which number from 1 to 500 pages, according to the career of the veteran, are being vaporized in special vaults; afterward, after-ward, they are run through a bat tery of 50 ironers; then they are sorted, classified, and filed away for another hundred year or so. The investigation squad on bird's stomachs, and tfie nice juicy worms they prefer to eat, consists of 80 WPA workers, each and .. everyone, we are confident, absorbed ab-sorbed in their subject. |