UNEMPLOYED IN U.S.A.

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 August 1932, Page 12

UNEMPLOYED IN U.S.A.

CHARITY FUNDS EXHAUSTED

CLEVELAND, June 2S

The United States, which for long has believed that prosperity was endless, is now facing with increasing alarm the fact that it has no means ~f feeding the millions of unemployed whose private resources have long since been used up. Lacking a dole or anything similar to it, the United States thus far has depended upon private charities to feed, clothe and shelter the needy. Up to now these charities have managed to carry on by making strenuous campaigns for donations and by obtaining some help from city and State Governments. Now in almost eveiy city in the country the charities’ funds are exhausted and they do not know where to turn to replenish them. The Federal Government, which thus far has insisted that the State Governments could easily carry the burden of relief work, now is waking to the realisation that this is not true. There is no longer any doubt that the Federal Government must provide relief for the unemployed. The only iiuestion is the form that the relief will assume. There is in the United States a tremendous aversion to anything carrying the name “dole,” so it is a foregone conclusion that the relief provided by. the Federal Government will carefully avoid that name, although it unquestionably will be a dole in fact, according to any unbiased definition.

One proposal placed before Congress would have the Government build new and costly post office buildings in almost every town and city in the nation. Thus the proponents of the measure argue, work would be furnished for a large number of persons. Almost none of the buildings proposed are needed, and opponents of the plan declare it to be the most expensiveform of unemployment relief and say it will help but comparatively few thousands of persons out of the millions unemployed. Dozens of other proposals for relief are stranger still, find just what form Congress will hit upon is open to the widest conjecture. The principal reason for the Government’s delay in undertaking to provide relief for the unemployed lies in the fact that administration officials refused to believe there was serious unemployment in the nation. Their personal observations were limited to the capital. Washington, and in Washington there is practically no unemployment, for the chief industr’" is government, and the Government has laid off none of its clerks or other workers. Estimates of the number of unemployed in the United States range from 8,000,000 to 15,000,000. Probably a fair figure would be 11,000,000. In New York and Chicago, America’s two biggest cities, nearly one and one-half million persons are dependent upon charity.

“BACK TO THE SOIL” MOVEMENT

# " There probably are few deaths from starvation, although that is something difficult to determine. Evidences of widespread under-nourishment among children of |he poorer classes is reported by public school teachers, and mal.nourishment is common in charity patients in hospitals. The New Republic, a Radical weekly journal, reports that in Detroit, a city hard hit by the decline in the automobile industry, an average of one person starves to death every seven ajid one-half hours. The basis for this estimate is obscure and it probably is an exaggeration.

When the industrial boom was going strong in the United States thousands of farm workers, farm owners and their children were attracted to cities by the high wages paid factory workers. In many cases farms were abandoned. The depression, has reversed this trend. Many unemployed men now have bought or have rented small farms, which provide them and their families with an abundance of food, if nothing else. The “back to the soil” movement promises to make the abandoned farm a thing, of the past. In the big cities even vacant lots are being cultivated as gardens by and for the needy.

With but very few exceptions, Americans fortunate enough to retain employment have suffered wage or salary reductions. During the last two years, according to a survey made by the National Industrial Conference Board, wage rates have been cut 13.9 per cent., executives’ salaries 20.3 per cent., and other salaries 15.9 per cent. These figures do not consider the decline in actual payments brought ’about by reduction in time worked extra holidays without pay or other methods of reducing the actual amount of money received by the wage and salary earner. These wage reductions have worked little hardship, for the l cost of living in the United States has dropped appreciably, especially the price of foodstuffs. Some faint signs of improved business conditions are noticeable in the United States. One of them is a considerable demand for low-priced sec-ond-hand automobiles. The workmen who sold their motor-cars when first pinched by the depression apparently are buying them back again.