Relief and the Election

I

PUBLIC assistance for the needy is today the most extensive and costly function of government in the United States.

Considering local, state, and federal budgets as a national unit, appropriations for all forms of direct relief during the calendar year 1938 (exclusive of farm benefit payments) total roundly $2.9 billions, or 17 per cent of all anticipated governmental expenditures.¹ No other item — neither public education, national defense, nor postal operations — will reach this figure. Public expenditures for education — elementary, secondary, normal schools and state universities — will aggregate roundly $2 billions; national defense $1.2 billions, and postal operations $750 millions. To put it another way, public relief expenditures this year would operate the entire system of public education (including capital additions to plant and equipment), plus operation of the entire postal service, and leave a balance of $150 millions. Public relief expenditures, local, state, and federal, for the five years March 1933—1938, were $16.2 billions, or enough to reproduce three and one-quarter times the entire existing telephone plant and system of the continental United States.²

As of July I this year the United States Civil Service Commission reported 25,815 full-time employees in the administrative service of the Works Progress Administration, which is about equal to the total number of employees in the Departments of State, Justice, Labor, and the Government Printing Office, combined.³ In addition, the states and cities maintain a combined administrative personnel in public assistance numbering 9600 full-time salaried employees.

In the period March 1933-1938, public assistance supported by federal participation averaged roundly $200 millions per month. Since July I this year the figure has run approximately $250 millions per month. In his testimony before the House Appropriations Committee on April 20, 1938, WPA Director Harry Hopkins submitted a table⁴ showing a monthly average of 19,600,000 persons receiving public assistance in the period March 1933—1938. The peak was recorded at 27,606,000 persons in February 1934.⁵ As of September 3, 1938, Mr. Hopkins announced a new high in WPA employment alone of 3,167,558 against a previous high of 3,036,000 in February 1936.⁶ In August of this year the total relief load was 21,192,000 persons.

II

At the top of this gigantic administrative pyramid stands Mr. Hopkins, recognized by all reputable observers as the new chief political mentor of the President. It was Mr. Hopkins, for example, who, contrary to the strong admonitions of Vice President Garner, Postmaster General Farley, and other elder statesmen of the Democratic Party, prevailed upon the President to launch his ‘purge’ campaign against Senator Walter F. George, of Georgia. Reporting the President’s address at Barnesville, Georgia, on August 11, 1938, Felix Belair, a correspondent of the New York Times, wrote: —

Throughout the President’s address Senator George sat silently between his junior Senatorial colleague, Richard B. Russell, and Harry L. Hopkins, Works Progress Administrator, who had been advising with Mr. Roosevelt almost constantly on the political complexion of Georgia since they came ashore together [August 9] at Pensacola.⁷

Citizens everywhere know that the problem of how to disperse relief funds without political discrimination is now under examination by a special committee of Congress, whose chairman is Morris Sheppard of Texas, fourth ranking member of the Senate in point of continuous service. At its first meeting on June 17, the committee adopted a resolution proclaiming its intention to inquire fully into the ‘use or alleged use of any federal funds to influence votes.’

The objective is simple and clear — the maintenance of the integrity of the elective processes, the preservation of democracy at its most vital point, the ballot box; the free exercise of the voting franchise, and to that end the prevention of any improper use of money and of any coercion or intimidation by any person, group, or agency outside or inside the government.

By September 1 the committee had sent its investigators into seven states. Petitions for a hearing on specific charges of political manipulation or partisan administration of public assistance funds had been received from sixteen states. Neglecting for the present the urgent economic problems bearing upon federal finances, as well as the far-reaching constitutional issues presented in federal-state relations in relief administration, the committee focused its investigation principally on the broad question of partisan encroachments, taking the ground that the relief system is a matter of public policy and that its administrative procedure should be honest, clean, and efficient — not corroded by political spoils or corrupted by a narrow, plundering partisanship.

III

That the relief machinery was in danger of being disorganized by political influence was clear two years ago. I recall the letter written by a WPA state administrative assistant in West Virginia to one of the county administrators, in March 1936. The text runs: —

I hand you herewith a list of doctors in Ohio County. Kindly separate the Democrats from the Republicans and list them in order of priority so that we may notify our safety foremen and compensation men as to who is eligible to participate in case of injury.⁸

After the lists had been compiled by the county administrator they were distributed to the safety foremen with the notation: —

Democratic doctors listed on the left-hand side and Republicans on the right.

Within a month of this naïve classification of medical proficiency in West Virginia, a young man who had applied for assignment as physical education instructor at a New Jersey CCC camp received the following letter from the regional officer in charge: —

In reply to your letter of April 22: as stated in my letter of April 8, this office is unable, under binding federal instructions, to consider any nontechnical man for appointment to the supervisory work in the CCC camps unless his name is certified to us on the so-called advisors’ list from Washington.

This is the list of names submitted by Senator-and Democratic representatives in Congress from New Jersey to the federal administration for employment in this CCC activity. The only way in which you can put yourself in a position to secure employment, therefore, is by making arrangements to have Senator-or one of the Democratic Congressmen request that your name be put on this advisors’ list.⁹

Through state legislative inquiries, through criminal proceedings in the state and federal courts, and in Congressional debates on five major relief bills since 1933, specific charges of political manipulation in relief have been aired in the public records from no less than 24 states. Much of this evidence has been reviewed during the last four months by the Sheppard Committee.

But long before the committee began its work public opinion had expressed a firm conviction on the broad charge of spoils and partisanship in relief. In April 1936, the American Institute of Public Opinion put the question in a sampling poll: ‘In your opinion, does politics play a part in the handling of relief in your locality?’ For the nation at large the answer was 65 per cent in the affirmative. The nays were 18 per cent, and those who held no opinion on the question 17 per cent. In Arkansas the yeas were 83 per cent; New Jersey, 78 per cent; West Virginia, 77 per cent; Louisiana, 76 per cent. The tabulation ran throughout the country, with 40 of the 48 states showing an affirmative answer of 60 per cent or more.¹⁰

Seeking confirmation of this conclusion, the Capitol Daily polled some 500 newspaper editors, in June 1938, on the question, ‘Do you believe WPA relief funds are dispensed fairly, without political consideration, in your community?’ The returns gave 74 per cent ‘no,’ 15 per cent ‘yes,’ and 11 per cent undetermined.

A September poll this year, limited to women, asked, ’Do you think politics has influenced the giving of relief in this community?’ The answer was 67 per cent in the affirmative. Among women themselves on relief the answer was 54 per cent in the affirmative.¹¹

Frank, to say the least, is a letter written by Mr. Harry W. Fee, Chairman of the Indiana County Democratic Committee, Indiana, Pennsylvania, during the 1936 primary campaign, to a woman employed on a local sewing project. This letter is fairly representative of the partisanship which dominates WPA administration in several notorious states.

Dear Madam:
I am very much surprised that you have not responded to our previous letter requesting your contribution in the amount of $28.08, to Indiana County Democratic campaign committee, as I was sure that you appreciated your position to such an extent that you would make this contribution willingly and promptly. I must, however, now advise you that unless your contribution in the above amount is received promptly, it will be necessary to place your name on the list of those who will not be given consideration for any other appointment after the termination of the emergency relief work, which, as you know, will terminate in the near future.
Please make your check payable to A. Lucile Baun, treasurer, and mail the same to her at 402 Indiana Theater Building, Indiana, Pa.¹²

This and similar cases cited in that day’s House debate on the 1937 relief appropriations bill moved Representative Ralph E. Church, of Illinois, to the conclusion which he stated on the floor: —

Politics play a part in the distribution of funds to the states. Politics play a part in the selection of projects. Politics play a part in the selection of administrative personnel, and there are innumerable instances during this Administration where political capital has been made of human misery and suffering.¹³

In an interim report, August 3, 1938, the Sheppard Committee published its conclusions that the political mobilization of relief beneficiaries through coercive methods in the Tennessee and Kentucky primary campaigns did, in fact, ‘imperil the right of the people to a free and unpolluted ballot.’

Commenting upon the committee’s declaration, Senator David I. Walsh, of Massachusetts, a majority member, added as his personal observation, ‘If conditions reported to the committee were disclosed, the American people would be shocked.’

IV

The relief rolls expand sharply during election campaigns, and decline almost uniformly during the corresponding months of non-election years. The New York Sun once described this phenomenon as ‘the political rhythm in relief.’ In 1934, during the national Congressional and Senatorial campaign, the relief rolls expanded from 20,475,000 persons in June to 22,758,000 in November, an increase of 2,283,000 during the decisive campaign months. Owing in part to this forced-draft relief operation, total federal expenditures increased from $466,274,000 for July to $758,453,000 for October, the last full calendar month before the general elections on November 6.¹⁴

Moreover, this sharp increase in relief coincident with the national political campaign developed in the face of a relatively stable, and then improving, business situation. The Federal Reserve’s seasonally adjusted index of industrial production stood at 76 for July, 75 for November, and 86 for December. The Department of Labor reported an increase of 3.3 per cent in private employment and 5.2 per cent in industrial payrolls for October over September.¹⁵ Yet Mr. Hopkins’s official figures show an increase of 139,000 persons on the October relief rolls as compared with the previous month. This pattern of increasing relief coincident with improving employment conditions is difficult to explain. Observing this phenomenon in its first manifestation in the 1934 campaign, Mr. Alfred E. Smith, in September, wisely forecast the November result in the crisp apothegm, ‘You can’t shoot Santa Claus.’

When the votes were counted in November the Administration had gained 14 seats in the House, 10 in the Senate, and 12 new governors. In Pennsylvania, where the distribution of federal benefactions had been lavish, the Administration party elected a governor for the first time in 47 years.

But the next year, 1935, there were no general elections. Then the relief rolls declined from 21,042,000 in July to 18,604,000 in November, a decrease of 2,438,000, or more than 10 per cent. In this non-election year, total federal expenditures declined from $727,535,000 for July to $533,520,000 for November. Here, for the only time in the five years for which complete official statistics are available, the declining relief curve coincided with a sharply improving business situation, the Federal Reserve production index having advanced from 86 in July to 96 in November.

The next summer brought the presidential campaign of 1936 and the full flower of political relief. Here, in the face of a strong upward movement of all the basic economic indices, the relief rolls expanded from 17,900,000 in July to 19,113,000 in November, an increase of 1,213,000 during the four campaign months. Total federal expenditures increased from $417,109,000 in July to $684,785,000 for October. Observe that this strong flushing of public assistance funds through the emergency agencies came at a time when business was booming. The Federal Reserve production index advanced from 104 per cent of normal in June (1923-1925 = 100) to 114 per cent of normal for November and 121 per cent for December. Confirming this vigorous recovery trend during the summer, the American Federation of Labor reported 3,910,000 fewer unemployed in December than in March. Yet, despite this roaring Bonus Boom, the relief rolls increased by more than 1,200,000 persons during the four campaign months.

The boom reached its peak at 121 on the Federal Reserve adjusted index in November and December, with several important industries reporting employment at 1929 levels, or better — yet the relief rolls carried an average of 19,000,000 persons, exactly the number reported in June 1933 and September 1935, when, on each occasion, the Federal Reserve index stood at 91! Stated another way, the relief load at the top of the 1936 boom was exactly the same as in June 1933, three months after the national banking holiday. The only essential difference in the two relief pictures was that 1936 was a presidential election year and 1933 was not. What is to be said of a public assistance policy under which a 33 per cent improvement in industrial production (to a point 21 per cent above normal) does not diminish, during a presidential campaign, the number of persons on relief?

That election, of course, was the historic Roosevelt Mandate. Proportionately, it reduced the opposition party in Congress to the lowest point in American history.

Moving to the next year, when there were no general elections, we find that in July 1937 the Federal Reserve production index still was at 114, the level of November 1936, but now Mr. Hopkins’s official report showed only 15,266,000 persons on the relief rolls — a decrease of 3,847,000 from the electionmonth total.

To summarize Mr. Hopkins’s figures, we find that the relief load for the three non-election years, 1933, 1935, and 1937, shows an average decline of 2,116,000 persons between July and November, when seasonal employment in industry and agriculture combined are at a peak; but in the two election years, 1934 and 1936, these same months show an average increase of 1,748,000 persons on relief. And in each election year this increase in relief developed contemporaneously with a stable or upward-moving business index. In two of the three nonelection years, however, 1933 and 1937, we find a decreasing relief load in the summer coincident with a sharply declining business curve. This is the established non-election year pattern — less employment, less relief. But in the election years the normal pattern is more employment, more relief. The tabulated figures tell the story: —

Again in 1938 we have experienced an increasing summer relief load coincident with an upward-moving business index. Mr. Hopkins’s published statistics always are about three months behind the fact, but a few sample figures will illustrate the 1938 trend: in September 1935, the AFL reported 11,789,000 unemployed, and at that time the public assistance rolls carried 18,998,000 persons. In March 1938, the AFL reported 11,226,000 unemployed; but, as we come to the threshold of the purge primaries and the general Congressional elections, the public assistance load rises to 20,112,000 persons. In other words, with 563,000 fewer unemployed in March this year than in September 1935 (a non-election year), we yet have 1,114,000 more people on the relief rolls.

Similarly, we find an increase of 12,893 persons on the Pennsylvania relief rolls during the first week of May this year. This increase was reported by the Department of Public Assistance at Harrisburg on May 16, the day before the pivotal Pennsylvania primary elections, in which a CIO candidate publicly endorsed by the Postmaster General pressed that party’s first bid for an important governorship.

Reflecting the same skillful coördination of relief and the necessities of the political campaign, the official figures of the Ohio Division of Public Assistance showed an increase of 25,379 persons on WPA work in that state between April 15 and June 15 this year — an increase of more than 11 per cent in two months. The Ohio primary was held on August 9.

These samples are not conclusive, but they do appear to warrant the tentative judgment that wherever figures are available they point a rising relief curve during the campaign months of 1938, even though they are coincident once more with a steadily improving business situation. Between April 1 and September 15 the public assistance load increased by roundly 1,000,000 persons, and Roger Babson’s weighted index of general business conditions advanced by 11 per cent between the June low and mid-September.¹⁶

There is no concealment in the Capital’s informal political discussions concerning the political manipulation of relief. Everybody accepts it as a matter of fact. Have the nation’s normal sensibilities to corruption, waste, and political spoilsmanship been dulled and blunted during the last five years? Occasionally the relief manipulation is a matter for humorous bantering, as was illustrated by an incident in one of Postmaster General Farley’s press conferences soon after the 1936 election. When the Postmaster General had completed his formal statement and submitted himself to questions, the first pleasantry from the circle of newspaper men was ‘General, whatever became of the relief administrators in Maine and Vermont?’

A few days earlier Relief Administrator Hopkins had been asked in a press conference for an expression on the election results. He answered, ‘That was no election: that was a census!’

Again, we find Mr. Jay Franklin, sometime assistant to Dr. Rexford Guy Tugwell in the late Resettlement Administration, writing in the Washington Evening Star for May 27, 1937; —

Indeed, much of the political success of the New Deal is due ... to a shrewd use of relief funds and federal projects to keep the faithful in line.

Pointing this immeasurable power of patronage directly at the heads of those Senators who were at the moment fighting desperately to defeat the President’s proposal to pack the Supreme Court of the United States, Mr. Franklin continued: —

For now the fight is in the open on the Senate floor . . . where the quiet lure of patronage and pork can woo the Western wobblers from their uncomfortable position of permanent political pole-sitting.

V

Where noble humanitarian policies are involved, money is no consideration. Mr. Thomas G. Corcoran, a trusted White House advisor and now chief in the ‘Georgetown Cabinet,’ epitomized the spending ideal in a conversation with Mr. Amos Pinchot, early in 1934. A vacancy having occurred in the directorate of the RFC, Mr. Corcoran had traveled to New York to sound Mr. Pinchot on his availability for the post. In a letter addressed to President Roosevelt under date of May 17, 1938, Mr. Pinchot recalled his conversation with Mr. Corcoran, as follows: —

Business conditions were almost as bad then as they are now, and I told Mr. Corcoran it would be difficult, if not impossible, for me to leave New York. Also, I pointed out that it did not seem to me that I was fitted for such a responsibility, either by training or experience. The conversation which ensued is one which I shall not soon forget.

Mr. Corcoran replied that, so far as training and experience were concerned, I need not worry. All that was required was an obstinate man who would stand up in the meetings of the Reconstruction Finance Board and oppose the policies of the chairman, Mr. Jesse Jones, who, he explained, was disposing of Government funds in a stingy fashion. And, in particular, he was refusing to part with public money unless he believed there was a fair chance of getting it back.

Such a policy, Mr. Corcoran maintained, dictated as it was by business considerations, was precisely what the situation did not demand. He said that the right way to restore buying power and bring recovery was to pour money into circulation in the greatest possible quantities and at the highest possible speed. And to illustrate his point, he remarked that the ideal thing would be for fleets of airplanes to fly over the country discharging money as they went so that anyone needing cash could pick it up from the ground.¹⁷

Where such an attitude toward wealth and money prevails in the highest councils of government, it is not surprising to discover in the principal spending agency a loosely jointed and undisciplined administrative arrangement. It is at this point that WPA breaks down. The political corruption which thrives in relief to-day increases principally because the administrative machinery in Washington is not designed or geared to stop it. Spending for spending’s sake, when adopted as a national policy, at once breaks down every natural impulse toward local administrative efficiency. It was this fundamental flaw in the national relief policy which, in the first instance, invited the political spoilsmen to take possession of the administrative machinery in the states and cities. Only a few scattered exhibits are needed to illustrate this breakdown in WPA to-day.

During the 1938 Democratic primary campaign in Kentucky, in which Governor A. B. Chandler sought unsuccessfully to unseat Alben W. Barkley, the majority leader in the United States Senate, charges of coercion against and campaign fund solicitation among WPA workers emerged as a pivotal issue of the contest. In a letter to President Roosevelt, under date of May 23, 1938, Brady M. Stewart, Governor Chandler’s campaign manager, charged: —

Employees of the Works Progress Administration have been approached for campaign donations for Senator Barkley, and they have been sharply informed that if they did not give the amounts demanded, they would be discharged immediately from their jobs. Very competent men and women have been released from the Works Progress Administration because they would not consent to use their positions and influence to force people to vote for Senator Barkley.... A system of espionage has been established which constantly checks up on the political loyalty of federal employees in the Works Progress Administration. WPA trucks are being used openly to haul relief workers to the County Court Clerk’s office to register.

After sending its own investigators into the state, the Sheppard Committee, in a special report issued August 3, said in part: —

It is certain that organized efforts have been made and are being made to control the vote of those on relief work, and that contributions have been sought and obtained from federal employees in behalf of one of the Senatorial candidates.

It is equally certain that state officials, charged in part with the distribution of federal funds for old-age assistance and unemployment compensation, have been required to contribute from their salaries and of their services in the interest of another candidate for the United States Senate.

A week after the primary election on August 6, Senator Carter Glass’s Lynchburg News commented editorially: ‘The Kentucky primary, like that in Tennessee, is a stench in the nostrils of the country.’

A few days earlier the Richmond Times Dispatch had remarked: ‘Representative democracy cannot survive unless the sort of thing which has been going on in Kentucky and Tennessee is brought to an end.’

Addressing the Senate on May 26, 1938, Senator Holt of West Virginia said of the 1936 campaign: ‘Five weeks before the primary election in my state there were 56,403 employees on the WPA rolls. Five weeks after the primary election there were only 43,457 persons on the WPA rolls, a decline of 13,000.’¹⁸

VI

In the spring of 1936 Mrs. Eugene Meyer, wife of the publisher of the Washington Post, devoted some three months to an exhaustive inquiry into WPA operations in her home county of Westchester, New York. She brought to the task an experience of thirteen years as Chairman of the Westchester County Recreation Commission. In the town of Mamaroneck she listed 26 WPA project foremen, identifying 8 as district leaders in the local Democratic organization and 13 more as certified Democratic workers in the wards. Of the 5 remaining foremen, 3 were identified as former district leaders. Project MA79 carried 20 workers, supervised by 4 foremen. Project MA71 carried 23 men and 5 foremen. In the town of White Plains, Mrs. Meyer itemized $400,000 worth of projects. When 61 per cent of the federal allotment had been expended, the work was approximately 25 per cent completed. In New Rochelle she reported an excavation project managed by WPA at a cost of $4.85 per cubic yard, which local contractors offered to take at $1.63 per cubic yard. At Mount Pleasant, a rockblasting project handled by WPA at $18.32 per cubic yard was estimated by local contractors at $3.08 per cubic yard.

In her 30,000-word report, as published in the Washington Post in May 1936, Mrs. Meyer concluded on the note: —

I accuse WPA of using large sums of public money intended for the alleviation of unemployment to build a Democratic political machine, I accuse WPA of discriminating between American citizens in a most despotic way for political purposes. I accuse WPA of petty extortion from defenseless relief cases to finance local political organization. I accuse WPA of waste, extravagance, and rank incompetence.

On October 26, 1936, a week before the presidential election, Dick Donahue, Democratic Chairman for Minnehaha County, S. D., wrote to John Biehn, WPA director for District #3: ‘Please place this man on WPA, on the special setup you have that can take care of rush men, as Welfare will not certify. Have looked into affair — has nine votes in family.’ A photostatic copy of this communication is in the hands of the Sheppard Committee.

Another photostat, dated March 31, 1936, on the letterhead of the United States Senate, is addressed to Eugene A. Russell, of Boone, N. C., an applicant for a WPA job. ‘In reply,’ the Senator wrote, ‘I beg to state that if you will furnish this office with a letter of recommendation from the Democratic chairman of your county, or Reynolds manager, I will be more than glad to take up your case with the Works Progress Administration in Watauga County and do everything I can in an effort to help you. This procedure is followed in all instances.’

A third photostat is an ‘Application for Endorsement by the Kalamazoo County Democratic Committee,’ of Michigan. All applicants for jobs are required first to petition the county organization for endorsement. On this form one group of questions runs: ‘Have you contributed to any Democratic organization in Kalamazoo County? — How much since August 1, 1932?’

In the House and Senate debates on the five major relief bills since 1933, and in the records of the Sheppard Committee, are similar exhibits from Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey, Washington, Maryland, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, Wyoming, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia. The only reason, apparently, that all these local exhibits have not merged into a national scandal is that most citizens are unwilling to believe the manipulation they see at home is part of a general national pattern. In each instance the citizen seems instinctively to regard local abuses as peculiar to his own community.

In Mr. Hopkins’s handling of these recurrent abuses two policies emerge; first, investigations shall be made only by members of the WPA staff; second, every power of patronage and persuasion shall be brought to bear in Congress to prevent the return of relief administration to the states, supported by direct federal grants. In no case to date have charges against WPA been reported upon affirmatively by Mr. Hopkins before the next ensuing primary election in that state. In the House or Senate, during the last four years, no less than eight specific proposals to return administrative responsibility to the states have been rejected, always with the leadership under the White House lash to maintain direct federal control. In at least two cases of record, special assistant attorneys general were sent from Washington to resist court proceedings which would have made public the state-wide WPA payrolls. Several attempts in the Senate to force publication of all relief rolls, as a matter of running public record, were defeated by the Administration. Every attempt in Congress to place WPA under Civil Service rules and regulations has been resisted vigorously by Mr. Hopkins’s spokesmen on the floor.

It was this repeated official resistance to impartial public investigation which moved the Senate last June to authorize the Sheppard Inquiry, an enterprise which, in the larger aspects of policy, must command the cordial support of the President. In a national broadcast from the White House on April 28, 1935, Mr. Roosevelt solicited good citizens everywhere to help keep WPA honest and efficient. ‘ I therefore hope you will watch the work in every corner of this nation. Feel free to criticize. Tell me of instances where work can be done better, or where improper practices prevail. . . . Neither you nor I want criticism conceived in a purely fault-finding or partisan spirit, but I am jealous of the right of every citizen to call to the attention of his Government examples of how the public money can be more effectively spent for the benefit of the American people.’