bark upon public works, and set about raising funds. Almost in the fashion of a charity drive, members of the FERA went about the country soliciting municipal appropriations for construction work. While the earlier production-for- consumption projects have not been entirely given up, since last fall most of the FERA work projects have been concerned with building townhalls, courthouses, jails, firehouses, municipal garages and storehouses, athletic fields and grandstands, swimming pools, bathhouses, piers and many other types of bargaincounter public works. Last December, when the $4,880 million program was being whipped into shape, Hopkins was employing 2,400,000. Essentially the new program is a means to enable Hopkins to continue his FERA work projects.

There is a radical difference, it should be noted, between Hopkins' part of the program and the part devoted to rural resettlement, rural electrification, soil erosion and flood control. These are genuine public works. A third part of the program comprises a large amount of the usual Government construction, such as harbor and river improvements and construction at naval bases and Army posts, which have been removed from the "normal" Federal budget in order to create a false appearance of economy. Expenditures of possibly $500 million, which belong in the regular budget, are being concealed in the new program. However, these also represent genuine public works, undertaken for their intrinsic value. In Hopkins' part of the program, the value of the work is incidental. Fundamentally, his part of the program is the dole, with humane trimmings. His work projects are akin to the classes in rugweaving and basketmaking of socialsettlement houses. Very often useful attractive objects are produced, but that is sheer luck.

The relief character of the projects under Hopkins furnishes the explanation of the wage rates established for the new program. "Wage" is a euphemism. The new program's "wage" is the old FERA work-relief payment, slightly increased. According to estimates, the increase will range from $5 to $10 a month. It will still be shockingly inadequate for the support of an American family. This is the kernel of the administration's surrender to business. Where real public works, paying union wages, would compete with private employers, the new program has been framed deliberately not to restrict, even potentially, the supply of cheap labor available to industry.

An example will show the extent of the administration's surrender. Under the new program, payments for unskilled labor for region I, comprising the industrial Northeast, will vary from $55 monthly for counties of more than 100,000 people to $40 for counties of less than 5,000. Under the defunct NRA codes, the minimum wage for the northern half of the country in the mass industries was fixed at $14 a week, the equivalent of $60.75 a month. Any hope that the new program will hold firm the existing wage structure is therefore futile. The total number of heads of families and unattached persons on relief in May was about 4,250,000. Of these, the permanently disabled, the aged and orphaned, will be turned back to the local authorities. The remainder, the employables, numbering about 3,500,000, will come under the new program. About $800 million of the original $4,880 million appropriation will be spent by the FERA

The second difficulty lay in the fact that the public works program was, in some degree, inimical to business as a whole. This was because deflation, by the summer of 1933, was approaching its end. To win the gratitude of business, a public works program ought to be put into effect at the very beginning of a depression. As the capital-goods industries falter, the public works program should be waiting to absorb without delay the workers who are discharged, in order to minimize the consequent upset in the consumers' goods market. In the present depression, the public works program should have been ready in 1930. By 1933, a wholly new situation had arisen. Theoretically, business was looking forward to a period of expansion. In its public works program the administration put itself in the position of competing with it for construction workers and investment funds. Opposition to the public works program from business took the form of protests against Government spending, which necessarily included public works expenditures. Representing this business point of view in the Cabinet has been Secretary Morgenthau, one of the President's closest advisers. Mr. Morgenthau's official duty is to see that the Government's need for money never deranges the New York capital market, and does not discourage private borrowing. The less the Government requires, the easier Mogenthau's task. Ickes' real rival has not been Hopkins, but Morgenthau. His success in Government financing has been directly based on the failure of Icke's public works. These factors in the collapse of the old public works program have governed the formulation of the new $4,880 million program. Nothing is to be done to offend special business groups, particularly the real estate interests, which the Federal Housing Administration has been tenderly, but vainly, seeking to revive. Business in general must not be discouraged. The program must be conducted as cheaply as possible, so that Morgenthau can_regularly announce that the deficit is running below expectations. It must not make unavailable workers whom business might want. In a speech a few days ago to the State works progress administrators, Mr. Roosevelt said: "We should not hesitate for one single minute to stop a certain number of projects if people can be taken back into private industry." The objective of the new program is principally to give regular exercise and training to the workers, so that they will be in good condition when business needs them. It represents the New Deal's hope that business will be emboldened to risk expansion in time to reelect Mr. Roosevelt.

In abandoning public works, however, the administration has not swung back to the dole. The reason is chiefly the great enterprise of Mr. Hopkins. As is generally known, Hopkins coveted the public works program, and thought he could have succeeded where Ickes failed. After the CWA, Hopkins wanted to keep the unemployed at work. He had no money with which to undertake public works, but he did have funds with which to buy the raw supplies of relief. Accordingly, he instituted a program of having the unemployed manufacture a large part of their own food, clothing, and household furnishings. This both cut relief costs and gave the unemployed a less abysmal standard of living. However, it smacked of Upton Sinclair's epic program, and business became afraid of it. Pressure was brought on Mr. Roosevelt to have it abandoned. Anyone but Hopkins would have thought himself trapped. But Hopkins coolly decided to em

bark upon public works, and set about raising funds. Almost in the fashion of a charity drive, members of the FERA went about the country soliciting municipal appropriations for construction work. While the earlier production-for- consumption projects have not been entirely given up, since last fall most of the FERA work projects have been concerned with building townhalls, courthouses, jails, firehouses, municipal garages and storehouses, athletic fields and grandstands, swimming pools, bathhouses, piers and many other types of bargaincounter public works. Last December, when the $4,880 million program was being whipped into shape, Hopkins was employing 2,400,000. Essentially the new program is a means to enable Hopkins to continue his FERA work projects.

There is a radical difference, it should be noted, between Hopkins' part of the program and the part devoted to rural resettlement, rural electrification, soil erosion and flood control. These are genuine public works. A third part of the program comprises a large amount of the usual Government construction, such as harbor and river improvements and construction at naval bases and Army posts, which have been removed from the "normal" Federal budget in order to create a false appearance of economy. Expenditures of possibly $500 million, which belong in the regular budget, are being concealed in the new program. However, these also represent genuine public works, undertaken for their intrinsic value. In Hopkins' part of the program, the value of the work is incidental. Fundamentally, his part of the program is the dole, with humane trimmings. His work projects are akin to the classes in rugweaving and basketmaking of socialsettlement houses. Very often useful attractive objects are produced, but that is sheer luck.

The relief character of the projects under Hopkins furnishes the explanation of the wage rates established for the new program. "Wage" is a euphemism. The new program's "wage" is the old FERA work-relief payment, slightly increased. According to estimates, the increase will range from $5 to $10 a month. It will still be shockingly inadequate for the support of an American family. This is the kernel of the administration's surrender to business. Where real public works, paying union wages, would compete with private employers, the new program has been framed deliberately not to restrict, even potentially, the supply of cheap labor available to industry.

An example will show the extent of the administration's surrender. Under the new program, payments for unskilled labor for region I, comprising the industrial Northeast, will vary from $55 monthly for counties of more than 100,000 people to $40 for counties of less than 5,000. Under the defunct NRA codes, the minimum wage for the northern half of the country in the mass industries was fixed at $14 a week, the equivalent of $60.75 a month. Any hope that the new program will hold firm the existing wage structure is therefore futile. The total number of heads of families and unattached persons on relief in May was about 4,250,000. Of these, the permanently disabled, the aged and orphaned, will be turned back to the local authorities. The remainder, the employables, numbering about 3,500,000, will come under the new program. About $800 million of the original $4,880 million appropriation will be spent by the FERA

for general relief purposes. Another $1,250 million, approximately, has been either allotted by Mr. Roosevelt, or definitely earmarked. This latter sum will provide employment for an estimated 500,000. In this group are the workers to be employed by the Rural Resettlement Administration, by the soil erosion and flood agencies, on Federal highway construction and on projects under the War, Navy, and Treasury Departments, together with the men enrolled in the CCC. Certain of these agencies may receive additional funds, and provide further employment later on. PWA projects already approved will be completed, among them about $100 million in low-cost housing.

The best estimate of the maximum number of unemployed that Hopkins will have to care for is 3 million. For this, his Works Progress Division will be able to command some $2,500 million. If these figures are correct, it will be technically possible for Mr. Roosevelt to make good his pledge of last fall to give a job to every able-bodied worker. But most of these will not be real jobs at real wages. They will be a special form of the dole. It is no secret, however, that the administration hopes it will not have to redeem this pledge in full. Since the start of the depression, the relief rolls have fallen drastically each summer. For the present, the old FERA program, slightly enlarged, will probably suffice. By next fall, the administration hopes fervently, although without visible reason, that business expansion will have begun.

Only two things seem certain about the projects under Hopkins. There will be enough white-collar jobs. The white collar "employables" number about 300,000, and, besides the white collar projects in existence, there are a large number of statistical projects already formulated by various Government departments. The rudimentary start toward national planning during the last 2 years has revealed the need for more information about almost all phases of our economy, and some extremely interesting projects await approval. The second thing that seems certain is that the projects, in general, will be much like those under the FERA. To a large extent, their character will continue to depend upon whether local authorities are prepared to furnish tools and materials for projects of special community value. Recently, when the State works progress administrators gathered at the White House, it was announced that a "substantial number" of projects, many of them of a relatively elaborate nature, had already been discovered. Comprehensive schedules of projects were submitted some time ago by Governor La Follette of Wisconsin and Mayor La Guardia of New York. When Washington must finance a project alone, Hopkins will not undertake expensive construction. The new program is certain to exhibit the extraordinary resourcefulness of Hopkins' organization, but the standbys are likely to be the simplified kinds of construction work: remodeling existing building, resurfacing streets, repairing secondary roads, and digging sewers.

The National Youth Administration, under Aubrey W. Williams and Miss Josephine Roche, deserves particular mention. No other part of the new program shows more intelligence and imagination. It is an attempt to accomplish the general purposes of the CCC camps without remaining boys and young men from their normal environment. It offers perhaps the best solution possible for the most serious depression problem.

It is difficult to generalize on the payments, under the Works Progress Division, that the average worker will receive. About 64 percent of all unemployed are in region I, which, as we have seen, comprises the northeast, and will have the highest monthly rates, from $94 to $40. About 12 percent are in region II, comprising the Middle West and Northwest, and there the range will be from $79 to $32. About 14 percent are in region III, the Southwest, where the range will be from $75 to $21. Ten percent are in region IV, the Deep South, with a range from $75 to the shocking figure of $19. In each region the range is determined by two factors, the skill of the worker and the size of the community. The great majority of the "employables" are in the cities, and will receive the higher rates; the most definite statement, however, that can be made on this point is that almost precisely one-half of the unemployed live in the 143 largest cities. As to skill, about 10 percent are white-collar workers, 20 percent skilled manual workers, 30 percent semiskilled, 15 percent unskilled, 10 percent domestic servants, and 5 percent without previous work experience. Exact figures exist only for selected cities. In New York, for example, 22 percent are white-collar workers, and will receive $94 (since New York is in the highest population category); 19 percent are skilled, and will receive $85; 27 percent are semiskilled, and will receive $65. The rest will all receive $55, and are divided into 12 percent unskilled, 10 percent domestic servants, and 8 percent without experience. The equivalent figures for San Francisco are white-collar workers, 24 percent; skilled workers, 21 percent; semiskilled, 24 percent; unskilled, 12 percent; domestic servants, 11 percent; without experience, 5 percent. The payment rates are the same as in New York. Both cities have an untypically high number of white-collar workers.

Under the new program, the white-collar worker and his family over the country will, with careful management, be able to maintain a minimum standard of life. At the other end of the scale, the unskilled worker and domestic servant would have more to eat and be more comfortably housed if they were in prison, atrocious as most jails are. The $4,880 million program has an impressive sound, but its payment rates are not pleasant figures to contemplate, not so pleasant, for instance, as recent corporation dividend announcements, or the rising prices on the New York Stock Exchange.