Show the P paradox arador of the W I 1 P a A depression born it repairs the ravages of prosperity nobody except american people profit have you a friend who says why dont the unemployed do something useful if he wont shut up show him some of the allowing f lloil g figures and then tell him look around in his own com A tu anity mr brimhall an official in the employment division of the points out that the popular kopul aboor cor caption of the as an agency devoted to correcting the ravages of the depies depression sion is inaccurate on the contrary the unemployed are now actually making up for the ravages of prosperity 1 the united states is a better place to look at since the federal works program started to clean it up it is not only better looking than it was in 1932 it is better looking than it was in 1929 it just the depression that left the country looking like a dump heap it was the old system of not doing anything no matter how much it needed to be done until some private individual could make money out of it and thata system dates a long way back into prosperity days it is customary f for or us to think of the new deals recovery program as an attempt whether successful or unsuccessful according to the point of view to repair the ravages of the depression this is only partly true A large part of the recovery program consists in an attempt to stop the slide into chaos that was blithely going on in the crazy days of so called prosperity the looks 7 of america its visible apparatus of community welfare its roads parks schools and so on are only part of the whole process of civilization and I 1 wish to indicate briefly that the neglect and consequent disintegration of the whole process of civilization in america did not date sy 1 om 1929 but began far earlier 1 ald was going from bad to worse under cover of our so called prosperity before the new deal dealt in 1935 we had about one sixth of the population of the country on relief how many of them got there because of the depression we have now set up a social security program which provides so far inadequately for people whose economic helplessness would not be cured by the return of the prosperity of 1928 these include first of all the needy blind the needy crippled the ithe needy aged and the needy mothers with dependent children requiring their opre at home the depression jal not ot first create helpless and indigent old age prosperity saw that tragic group growing into its vast proportions and looked away muttering its business incantations and did hohing no hing there was na no profit for anybody in providing for old age so it done so that large group can be chalked up to the debit side of prosperity our present work mens compensation pensa tion legislation dates roughly from world war days many of our large numbers of blind an i crippled men were bl and crippled back in their youthful prime when private industry was still unhampered by any responsibility lity for its frightful accident rate they are the relies relics of those glad mad prosperity days when we just bother about such things all over the country there are stranded towns and regions in industrially dead because their in industries dus tries have moved moed away leaving there a population with no work too poor even to move now they are on relief but when were these towns deserted by business and left to die in lingering misery back in the rip roar ing days of prosperity in some recent years a large proportion of our farm fa families miles more than a million of them were on relief the great middle western drought came during the depression but it was not caused by the depression D e it was caused by prosperity carelessness prosperity greed prosperity neglect zt of our natural resources altogether about half of the people taken care of by relief today are ables how did they get to be unemployable chronic malnutrition and the diseases of p poverty 0 v e r t y account for a vast amount of and these scourges urges were not first un loosed by the depression they were already rampant in prosperity days it paid us to put our in money one y into wall street but it ft have paid us to protect the nations health so we let things slide the W P A s record to date that is the background coming into the foreground let us ask a question about certain jobs of improvement and repair on public buildings the W P A has done such work on over buildings in the last two years besides constructing over new public buildings the question is does this work make up merely for depression neglect eci or for prosperity neglect too there are no general figures to quote but anybody who has read the descriptions of work relief continued on page four the paradox of the W P A shown continued from first page projects will recall phrases like these A rural school built in 1882 has been entirely rebuilt inside and out from basement to flagstaff and is entirely modern an abandoned school building ha has s been steel reinforced and thoroughly ho roughly reconditioned feruse fo for ruse use A two story brick high school was built replacing one condemned as unfit by the board of education the old municipal hospital L was a potential deathtrap death trap due to fire hazards the library was a revolute Revo revolutionary luti on landmark and had fallen into disrepair the bats bals said a circuit judge have taken this courthouse and the court will not sit here until something is done about it it has now been thoroughly repaired and the J judge can preside in dignity and comfort long hoped for this is is a familiar phrase in the description of road A smelly garbage dump the resort of the cites flies rats and buzzards bu z has been replaced by a handsome tile roofed it will no longer be necessary to dump sewage into open creeks from which cattle drink five acres of swamp land were turned into a playground these examples they are all actual work relief projects not imaginary ones could be multiplied indefinitely and these disreputable conditions of neglect date from prosperity days private initiative and the contractors I 1 private anit active which to ats that it is the source f from rom which all our ouk blessings flow seems to have overlooked a lot of opportunities tuni ties to increase in crease the public welfare back in prosperity days our contractors who are now so indignantly complaining a about b 0 u t competition where were they then they had no to take the bread and jam out of their mouths then and why did not all that new construction and improve improvement me nt get done don e by th them em why did it have to wait for the C WA and the ERA and the the magic of private initiative seems not to have worked in a lot of cases all over oer the country the profit incentive did not get done a vast amount of public work that desperately needed doing one moment more for the contractors they are not being neglected by uncle sam and our states counties and localities though you would think so to hear their cries of anguish take a look at the figures the volume of contract public works construction all public works federal state and local exclusive of work approximately maintained ithe he pre depres sion level during the he two years 1936 and 1937 when was in full operation the average for the two years is about as compared with the pre depression annual average of the volume of contract public work this year is running about the same as in 1936 and 1937 on the other hand private construction st work during 1936 and 1937 was running at the rate of only three eighths of the pre de level of in brief the contractors get practically as much public work to do now as they did in prosperity days it uncle sam nor our states or towns that are letting them down if they are getting no ice cream on their pie it is for the lack of private building jobs we need millions of howes houses and private initiative is fighting desperately to keep the federal government from building those houses even on a contract basis it wants to build those houses itself and why it go ahead and build them because bebau se the houses most needed are for the low income population who cant pay enough rent to make such housing a profitable venture for private initiative private initiative cant build the millions of houses we need and so far it has prevented ente d the federal government from building many of them and that is why the poor contractor sits weeping into his ginger ale it is his own buddies who have let him down the private vate initiators who innate and wont let the federal government initiate housing for the masses it was a tunny funny sort of prosperity we had back in those pre de days it mean much to the three million unemployed in february 1929 when prosperity was at its height it mean much to the stranded communities left to perish while business went happily off to some place where wages were lower it mean much to a lot of towns that raise or borrow money to put up new school buildings or lay a new sewer but what privas initiative was powerless to do in the heyday of 01 prosperity the federal work program began to do in the depth of the che depression that work began under the continued under the state ERA s and is going on full tilt under the roads parks schools clothes in just the last two years under the the unemployed have built miles of new farm to market roads repaired miles more statistics such as these dont tell much what one needs Js is the imaginative power to conjure up the innumerable farming arming f communizes to which a ten or fifteen mile stretch of mud holes has been the only way to get to town and multiply that all over 48 states every road in the country has been in need of new nev bridges and cu lverts for safety the W P A has built bridges and cul cu lverts verta and repaired more than you could shake astick at new roads look like a raw gash in the landscape the has landscaped beautified fixed up call it whatever you like nearly miles of roadside so that now it is a pleasure to ride along it prosperity left us with a lot of old streetcar and railroad tracks scarring our streets the ahe has torn up over miles of them and smoothed the places place sout out in addition along our waterfront the has built 81 new docks wharves and piers and improved others how many new school buildings have been constructed by the nearly 1600 how many old school buildings repaired over new hospital buildings constructed 99 reconditioned conditioned re over new courthouses town halls and other administrative buildings over old ones fixed up over 2000 count in the firehouses municipal garages warehouses gymnasiums armories and other city county and state buildings and the grand national total comes to over imar improved ved repaired or constructed and over 0 dangerous and unsightly old structures haie hase been torn down often to make room for playgrounds or new municipal housing add in also over a thousand new playgrounds hundreds Hundt eds of new swimming pools 1500 new wading pools for small children new public tennis coults new public golf courses nearly new parks with an acreage of acres old parks everywhere made more fit for public use by toilet facilities di drinking inking fountains roads parking space picnic fireplaces drai crai age and sp these are some of the things that can be seen with thep the naked eye underground there are nearly miles of new water mains and over miles of new storm and sanitary sewers never mind the figures they are impressive enough on landing fields runways runway st res reservoirs and storage tanks municipal utilities of all kinds small dams levees drainage and rip rap work 0 on n streams and rivers it has all been waiting for a longtime long time to be h done it took the unemployed eF r to do it conserving the land and people in pr prosperity asperity rity days there never aas was enough time or private pr profit D fi incentive to get around to con conger work now we are begin begni ning to get around to it millions of new trees have been planted plante ct on thousands of acres by the over 1000 miles of firebreaks have been cut in our public lic forests millions of acres of land have been cleared of noxious plants insect pests have been eradicated from millions of acres more over bird and game sanctuaries have been esta established blisheL people too poor to buy clothes clot hesi for themselves and then their childrens child chil drent reni are aund lound nowadays to a great extent decently drei dressed sed in gar ear ments made by sewing rooms the articles of clothing for men and women boys and girls and babies made ins in the last two years have gone to people on relief people in public hospitals orphanages and other institutions and to refugees fromi from our great annual floods to them too have gone the pounds of food canned and preserved on projects also there are projects for teaching housewives how to can and preserve for themselves food also goes to school lunches education does not educate hungry children the in addition to establishing 2000 branch and traveling libraries has been feeding hungry children in in thousands of schools over nourishing hot lunches have been served to school children in the last two years art art drama music lectures recreation in the late lamented prosperity era there was a contemptuous phrase for most of the united states the hinterland a polite way of saying the backwoods the hinterland was supposed to be ignorant unkempt uncivilized the hinterland had no music art or drama but who cared it was only the hinterland it turns out however that the hinterland enjoys music now that it has been given a chance to have some to enjoy over people a month attend the concerts and other performances of orchestras and other musical units over a million people a month attend federal theatre productions and some of these are out in the hinterland the hinterland even en enjoys art the new civic art centers in many any QI of continued on page 13 THE PARADOX OF THE W P A SHOWN continued from page four them far out in the hinterland have an aggregate monthly attendance of over people music and art classes many of them scattered all over the e hinterland have a monthly attendance of nearly yo people desperately poor but ut eager for beauty the hinterland wants more education than it has been getting grownup grown up people flock to the adult education classes young people want vocational training mothers want to learn more about homemaking illiterates want to learn how to read and write workers want to learn how to conduct meetings elti citizens zens want to learn about public affairs youths at work want to take correspondence courses well over a million people young and old were enrolled in all branches of the education program last fall one branch of this program am provides demonstration n nursery u r s e r y schools in towns that are waking up to modern educational methods there are over 1400 nursery schools some day all our children will go to nursery schools this is just the beginning our communities are beginning to realize that public recreation centers need leaders and instructors the operates over public recreational centers and assists in over other centers last summer in a sample week over hours were spent by young people in recreational activities led by recreation workers our towns and counties are beginning to take these recreation projects and workers over |