Work in the Woods

When the American Legion lobby tried to block President Roosevelt's economy bill last fortnight, it was given the soundest drubbing in its history by a Congress obedient only to the White House. Last week the American Federation of Labor lobby laid itself open to the same kind of public punishment by its opposition to the President's first big relief measure.

President Roosevelt had outlined the measure to Congress as follows: "I propose to create a civilian conservation corps to be used in simple work, confining itself to forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control and similar projects. . . . This type of work is of definite, practical value as a means of creating future national wealth. . . . I estimate that 250,000 men can be given temporary employment by early summer if you give me authority to proceed within the next two weeks. . . . This enterprise will pay dividends to the present and future generations. . . . More important will be the moral and spiritual value of such work. The overwhelming majority of unemployed Americans who are walking the streets and receiving private or public relief would infinitely prefer to work. We can take a vast army of these unemployed out into healthful surroundings.

Under the Roosevelt plan the Department of Labor would recruit city jobless from municipal lodging houses, breadlines and relief agencies, enlisting them in a Civilian Conservation Corps for one year. The War Department would concentrate recruits at Army camps, weed out the physically unfit, equip the rest with rough civilian clothes and give them several weeks' disciplinary training before turning them over in organized units to the Department of Agriculture for transportation to the national forests. For work in the woods members of the C. C. C. would be paid not more than $1 per day, plus food, shelter, clothing and medical attention. Those with dependents would have a part of their pay deducted and sent home. With working hours to be fixed by the President, the C. C. C. would clear brush, plant saplings, develop fire controls, fix roads, mend washouts, cook their own food and pick their own subordinate leaders under supervision of Army officers. "Uncivilized" workers would be dropped for infractions of law & order. A worker would be free to seek his discharge from C. C. C. whenever he had another job awaiting him. Approximate cost of the corps for a year: $250,000,000 most of which would come out of appropriations already made for public works which have been temporarily postponed.

Within five hours after the President's plan had gone to Congress, William Green, the A. F. of L.'s mild-mannered president, was on the legislative firing line popping away at it as a "regimentation"' of free labor under military domination. Bull's-eye of his attack was the $1-per-day pay scale, which he feared would lower the wages of unskilled labor in private industry. Said he: "We cannot believe that the time has come when the United States should supply relief through the creation of a form of compulsory military service."

By rights the Administration's C. C. C. bill should have been introduced and sponsored by Massachusetts' null Patrick Connery Jr., chairman of the House Labor Committee, a onetime actor from the industrial Lynn-Lawrence district. Mr. Connery refused to touch the measure unless the pay scale was raised to $50 per month for single men, $80 for married, and a six-hour day, five-day week provided. Said he defiantly: "For ten years I've been 100% for legislation favored by the Federation of Labor. I can't go along on this. . . ."

President Roosevelt summoned House and Senate Labor Committee members to the White House. He explained his plan in more detail, told them the objections of the A. F. of L. were "utter nonsense." To a joint hearing by the two committees he dispatched his new Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, who helped originate the C. C. C. idea.

In her debut before Congress, "Madam Secretary" Perkins (as she has asked to be called), dressed in black and standing in the glare of Kleig lights at the end of a long table, made such a favorable im- pression that many a hostile vote was won over to the White House plan. Said she:

"This is not to be regarded as an attempt to start a sweatshop labor program nor can it be used to depress wages. We have an accumulation of people in large cities who have been living by their wits. This plan will put them to work on projects that otherwise would not be undertaken for ten years. . . . These are not jobs and wages in the ordinary sense but rather work relief whereby a man gets a chance to keep himself healthfully occupied. There is no competition with private employment."

"Won't every private industry establish the $1-per-day wage level for unskilled labor?" broke in Chairman Connery.

"No," snapped Secretary Perkins. "That doesn't make sense. If all common labor were reduced to $1 a day we'd have a complete national collapse. Industrialists realize that."

"Do you think it's proper," asked California's Welch in whose State much C. C. C. reforestation will occur, "to force a man to leave his family for a year to get $1 a day?"

"Let's be realistic," retorted Miss Perkins. "We're not going to force any man to join this corps. But. if I may speak lightly, too, it might be the best thing that could happen in some cases to separate a man from his family for a year."

On the same witness stand A. F. of L.'s Green pounded away politely against her proposition, said it "smacked of Fascism, Hitlerism and Sovietism." He argued that workers would be conscripted into the C. C. C. and thus into involuntary servitude. He objected to the provision for a physical examination on the ground that it would make a public record of a worker's infirmities which might later bar him from other employment. He feared that the purposes of C. C. C. might be enlarged to bring it into direct competition with other forms of public construction now providing A. F. of L. members with jobs. Said he:

"Public psychology is interesting. It will result, as sure as you live, in this Congress' going down in history as the one which established the dollar-a-day standard rate for common labor. I warn you that you can never get away from that public concept."

To mollify the A. F. of L. the Senate committee redrafted the measure, knocking out specific mention of the $1-per-day scale and C. C. C. recruiting but leaving the President with such broad powers that he could carry out his original scheme unaltered.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.