Mayors, Misery & Money

Local Government, represented by the Mayors of 26 important U. S. cities, met in Detroit last week to beg the Federal Government for a helping hand to carry the burden of urban unemployment and public distress. The meeting was called by aggressive, hard-bitten Mayor Frank Murphy of Detroit, which has spent itself almost to the brink of bankruptcy supporting its needy.* On hand among the 20 Democrats, four Republicans, one Socialist and one Farmer-Laborite, were New York's Walker, Boston's Curley, Richmond's Bright, Syracuse's Marvin, New Orleans' Walmsley, Miami's Gautier, Milwaukee's Hoan, Cleveland's Miller, Denver's Begole, Minneapolis' Anderson, Akron's Sparks and Toledo's Thatcher.

Most of the speakers described scenes of misery and destitution in their cities. Mayor Walker told of "hospitals, lodging houses and municipal institutions packed to the doors." Mayor Curley warned of a "collapse of government" unless some-thing was quickly done. Mayor Miller declared one-third of his people were out of work, with Cleveland caring for 20,500 families. Mayor Hoan addressed the gathering as "fellow sufferers."

Upshot of the meeting was the adoption of a set of resolutions calling upon the Federal Government to: 1) amend the Reconstruction Finance Corp. act so as to allow indigent municipalities to borrow from that agency; 2) authorize a five-billion-dollar bond issue for public works (William Randolph Hearst's "Prosperity Loan"). For two years the Washington Government has insisted that local governments carry their own distress problems. Last week's meeting was local government's first organized appeal from this policy.

After the meeting many a Mayor crossed the Detroit River to Wet Windsor to forget official troubles.

Ford Philosophy. A quiet participant in last week's conference was Mayor Clyde Ford of Dearborn. If he had nothing important to say on the economic situation, his uncle, the first citizen of Dearborn, had. Henry Ford did not take his ideas to any smoky hotel ballroom but presented them directly to the public by a series of three newspaper advertisements throughout the land. His company paid for them as "a contribution to public welfare." They summarized the fundamental economic philosophy of the man whose factories supply more industrial employment than those of any other individual. They sounded as though Henry Ford, who last spring had a sharp taste of unemployed rioting (TIME, March 14) was looking ahead to next winter with an anxious eye.*

Gist of the Ford philosophy: A man has no divine right to a job but must work to find work; charity undermines character; self-help is the only road to economic salvation. Excerpts from his "contributions":

"I have always had to work. . . . For the first 40 years of my life I was an employe. When not employed by others, I employed myself. I found very early that being out of hire was not necessarily being out of work. . . . The word 'unemployment' has become one of the most dreadful words in the language. . . . I do not believe in routine charity. I think it a shameful thing that any man should have to stoop to take it or give it. ... It is neither helpful nor human. The charity of our cities is the most barbarous thing in our system. . . . True charity is a much more costly effort than money giving.

"Our own theory of helping people has been in operation for some years. . . . One of our responsibilities was the case of a village [Inkster, Mich.] of several hundred families whose condition was pretty low. . . . We set the people at work cleaning up their homes and backyards and then cleaning up the roads and plowing up 500 acres of vacant land. We abolished everything that savored of 'handout' charity, opening instead a modern commissary where personal I. O. U.'s were accepted. . . . Many families are now out of debt for the first time in years. None of these things could have been accomplished by paying out welfare funds after the orthodox manner. . . .

"Independence means self-dependence. . . . Great numbers of people have made the stimulating discovery that they can work for themselves. . . . The land! That is where our roots are. . . . No unemployment insurance can be compared to an alliance between a man and a plot of land. With one foot in industry and another foot in the land, human society is firmly balanced against most economic uncertainties. . . . Groups of employed men could rent farms for small sums and operate them on the cooperative plan [or] with several unemployed families. . . . The machine [and] the land . . . belong together; they cannot live apart; they must be reunited. ... As for overproduction, we have never yet had a sufficient production of all the things which the family needs. . . . But we cannot eat or wear machines. We [must] go to the fields. . . . Industry and agriculture are natural partners. The link between is Chemistry. . . . I foresee the time when industry shall draw its raw material largely from the annual produce of the fields. The farmer will not lack a market and the worker will not lack a job. Our foundations will be once more securely laid in the land."

"Hint of Ham" While cities were begging for Federal aid and Henry Ford was preaching back-to-the-soil, Congress was grappling doggedly with the question of relief legislation. Before the House Ways & Means Committee lay Speaker Garner's three-pronged proposal to pitchfork the country up to better times: 1) a billion dollars for the R. F. C. to loan to all-comers; 2) a hundred million of what he called "mercy money" for the President to give away; 3) about a billion and a quarter's worth of public works. Speaker Garner appeared before the committee to declare there was no "hint of ham" in his proposition. The A. F. of L. backed him up. Secretary Mills followed to denounce the measure as "pork barrelism" from start to finish. He asked to be taken off the R. F. C.'s board if that agency was going to "make $50 loans to John Doe of Spokane on a second-hand automobile." Secretary Hurley flayed "mercy money" as a "dole," estimated the public works proposed for the Army to execute would put only 34,178 men to work.

Ignoring Administration criticism, the Ways & Means Committee favorably reported the Garner measure by a strict party vote. All Democrats found themselves bound to support the bill after a stormy party caucus had ratified it (123-to-18). Mayor Murphy sped to Washington with the resolutions adopted at the Detroit conference as the final impetus to put through the House this first piece of wholesale Federal relief.

*Last week funds for Detroit's municipal "dole" were practically exhausted. Its poor and jobless were advised "to go East and get a job." The city would pay their way.

*At the Mack Avenue plant of Detroit's Briggs Manufacturing Co., last week, 50 police dispersed an angry crowd of 3,000 jobless Communist-led demonstrators. Casualties: four policemen, three rioters buffeted.

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