Experiment & Error

On Sept. 29, 1933 the U. S. Government bought for $46,000 a 1,100-acre farm just outside scraggly little Reedsville in the gentle hills of northwest West Virginia. Thus was launched a prime New Deal scheme, sprung largely from the mind and heart of long-legged, dynamic Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt, to give homes and garden-factory livelihoods to stranded U. S. families. Since that time the Government has made a start on 61 other Subsistence Homestead projects, but the one at Reedsville remains the most significant.

On Nov. 7, 1933 the first 25 jobless miners' families moved to Reedsville from their hovels in nearby mining settlements. To provide quick shelter, quick work for unskilled hands, Washington authorities ordered 50 ready-cut, four-room houses at a reported price of $48,000. The first families were to move in by Thanksgiving. Meantime they were lodged around the neighborhood.

On Dec. 6 materials for the first six houses arrived. Few weeks later some of them had been set up. The reason for what happened next has never been satisfactorily explained. An official version is that the managers, who had counted at first on average-size families, suddenly decided to give preference to oversize ones. Another story is that Mrs. Roosevelt, who has made frequent visits to Reedsville, took a look at the little square cabins and decided they were not good enough for her pet project. A more reasonable explanation is that the houses, of the summer camp variety with only $15 wood-burning stoves for heat, were obviously unsuited to the region's sub-zero winters. Whatever the reason, ten architects and draftsmen were brought from New York and under their direction workmen began to rip up the completed houses, dig cellars, add new wings, sunrooms, dining alcoves, fireplaces, porches. Thereafter two sectors of men labored in Reedsville. Sector I set up the ready-cut houses as they arrived, according to original specifications. Sector II tore apart the houses erected by Sector I, rebuilt them according to new plans.

In mid-June 1934, 50 houses were almost or entirely finished. One was occupied. Out of its $25,000,000 Subsistence Homestead fund the Interior Department had spent on the project $437,645--not including about $140,000 worth of work by CWA, CCC and FERA employes. Secretary Ickes announced the average cost of each house to be $4,880. Neighborhood observers, telling of useless wells dug and houses badly grouped for the laying of sewers, water mains and electric conduits, suggested that double or triple that figure would be nearer the truth.

Last fortnight the Interior Department added $900,000 to the $600,000 already spent at Reedsville. Fifty houses are occupied and ten of a projected 140 more are being built. Though Congress ungraciously squelched Mrs. Roosevelt's plan for a postoffice-equipment factory there (TIME, March 12), a government-built vacuum cleaner assembly plant, which will be leased to a private firm, is within three months of completion.

Last week in Washington an Associated Pressman had a talk about Reedsville with Charles E. Pynchon, the big, genial, earnest onetime Chicago steelman who took over the general managership of Subsistence Homesteads when its original director, Milburn Lincoln Wilson, moved to the Department of Agriculture. Afterward the APer filed a dispatch quoting Manager Pynchon to the effect that the Government stood to lose $500,000 on the Reedsville project, with blame laid partly on "experimentation," partly on "errors in judgment." He also revealed that the President's No. 1 Secretary, Louis McHenry Howe, purchaser of the famed CCC toilet kits (TIME, June 12, 1933), was originator of the scheme to supply Reedsville with ready-cut houses.

Few days later Manager Pynchon flatly denied having said anything about "experimentation," "errors in judgment," or a $500,000 loss. But already Mrs. Roosevelt and Col. Howe had stepped forward not to deny but to excuse the loss at Reedsville.

Snapped dyspeptic Secretary Howe: "Of course I ordered the houses. ... As for their being responsible for any part of the $500,000 loss, that's silly. . . . The houses were entirely satisfactory in every respect."

Comparing Reedsville with a new industry, Mrs. Roosevelt declared the experimental losses justified in view of their value to succeeding projects. However, concluded the First Lady, financial matters were really no concern of hers.

It was not, therefore, a case of conscience which led Mrs. Roosevelt to agree to begin on Feb. 15 a ten-week series of broadcasts for the Selby Shoe Co. (Styl-Eez, Tru-Poise and Arch-Preserver shoes), her earnings to go to Reedsville.

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