1933: August-December

The Great Depression as seen through the pages of the Daily Record (Morristown, NJ) 

August-December 1933

 

“What to do with hundreds of thousands of workers permanently displaced in industry has been one of the most baffling problems of the economic and social reorganization now being attempted….Direct relief and even “made work,” are makeshifts, and do not permanently fit the beneficiaries to support themselves.  Difficulties in carrying out the back-to-the-land movement are at once apparent.  Urban dwellers lack the experience necessary to make…successful farmers.  Moreover, the government is engaged in a gigantic effort to reduce agricultural output, and any increase in productivity would defeat this effort….”  (editorial, Aug. 1, 1933, p.4)

“Mayor Clyde Potts has consented to serve as chairman of the President’s emergency Employment Committee of Morristown.    Former Judge Edward K. Mills, who has been named as local General, will supervise the appointment of a complete committee….”  (Aug. 2, 1933, p.1)

“Butler—The American Hard Rubber Company has announced an increase in pay amounting to almost 40 per cent in some cases….The majority of the workers will be on the eight hour day plan….Joseph C. McLean, President of the Pequanoc Rubber Company, said that his mill is one hundred per cent in accord with the NIRA program….During recent months there has been a gradual pickup of operation at the Pequannock Company plant and the payroll has increased from $8,000 to $30,000 a month.  There are about 150 person employed compared with ninety during March and April.”  (Aug. 2, 1933, p.1)

The newspaper on August 2, 1933, p.1 published the NRA Roll of Honor.  “The second day of official enrollment of local employers in NRA finds a total of one hundred and sixteen names now on the list.  Forty-six signed today and seventy yesterday.”  The new listings include Gurevitz Men’s Shop, Sears-Roebuck & Co., M. & N. Hardware, Capitol Men’s Shop, Washington News Depot, American Trust Co., Grand Rapids Furniture…

And on page 3, August 2, 1993 appears a large boxed ad from M.P.Greenberger Co. with the NRA eagle at the top, reading “A Message to Our Friends Starting today, we begin to make good our promise to President Roosevelt to help make the National Recovery Act a success.  Yesterday we pledged ourselves to this agreement.  And today it goes into 100% effect….       We do our part, Mr. President.”

“The Blue Eagle, hatched only a short time ago, was hailed today by National Recovery administration chiefs as a full fledged bird of happy omen for America….As the campaign got up steam, emphasis was laid on suasion rather than coercion but in three Michigan communities there were threats of violence against stores failing to close at 5:30 as decided upon by most retailers there.  Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., was listed at Washington as the first town to go 100 per cent NRA….”  (Aug. 4, 1933, p.1)

“NRA MARSHALLS WAR-TIME SPIRIT FOR RECOVERY DRIVE

Washington—Dust off your old wartime spirit!  The NRA is going over the top to chase the Huns of depression….The other effort was a mere war.  This one is the most ambitious economic experiment in history short of Russia’s revolution….Broadcasting stations, beginning with the president’s address to the country will plug the theme song continuously….Among ambitious plans under consideration is one through which the 17,000 automobile dealers would try to canvas more than 20,000,000 automobile owners in an attempt to get NRA stickers on every motor car.  Organizers of the great drive insist that they will avoid “ballyhoo” and spectacular stunts….” (August 4, 1933)

“Washington—Cupid has been hit by the depression, but his bitterest enemy, divorce, has suffered even more.  The bureau of the census has disclosed that the third year of the depression, 1932, saw a sharp decrease both in marriages and divorces….officials expressed their belief that unemployment, reduced earning power, and lack of confidence in the immediate future were responsible.  Marriages in 1932 totaled 981,759… compared with 1,060,791 in 1931, a decrease of 7.5 per cent.  The decline began in 1930 with a drop of 5.9 per cent.  Divorces were 160,329 in 1932, compared with 183,664 in the previous year; the decrease was 12.7 per cent, while the 1930-31 decline was 4.1 per cent.  There were in 1932…7.9 marriages for every 1,000 persons in the country’s total population of 124,822,000, as compared with 8.5 in 1931 when the population was 124,070,000.  At the same time, there were 1.28 divorces for every 1,000 of population in 1932, as against 1.45 in 1931.”  (Aug. 4, 1933, p.8)

“An extensive network of names of persons who are to work on the President’s Re-Employment Committee of Morristown was outlined and announced last night at a meeting of the principal officials of the Committee …new names released…were…Mrs. Thomas Wiss as Lieutenant General, Clayton Toye as Colonel of the Volunteer National Recovery Sales Army of Morristown, Dr. H.T. Maxwell as Colonel of the Publicity Committee, and Dr. T.L. Northrup as Colonel of the Education Committee….the Chamber of Commerce Office, 210 Park Square building, is to be the center of NRA activity and its headquarters…”  (Aug. 5, 1933, p.1)

“Assignment of allotment of public works funds for road work in Pennsylvania and New Jersey were announced today by the Public Works administration.  New Jersey’s allotment of $6,346,039 provides for assignment of 37.4 per cent to work on the federal aid highway system, 65 per cent on extension into and through municipalities and 9.7 per cent on secondary or feeder roads….projects will be undertaken in 14 of the 21 counties….”  (Aug. 7, 1933, p.1)

“The tax burden has attained such proportions that it constitutes a genuine barrier to recovery ….Figures tell the story of how the tax collectors during recent years have been taking a bigger and bigger share of income.  The national income of the United States in 1929 was estimated at around $85,000,000,000.  The total tax bill for that year was about $10,000,000,000, or roughly 12 per cent of the national income.  Last year it was estimated that the national income had shrunk to about $40,000,000,000.  The tax bill, however, decreased by only about 10 per cent, or to $9,000,000,000.  The consequence was that taxes took about 20 per cent of the national income ….There are more than 300 instances of overlapping state and federal taxes.  The states have invaded income and death tax fields…and the federal government has imposed taxes in fields heretofore reserved for the state, such as the gasoline levy….”  (editorial, Aug.7, 1933, p.4)

“Butler—The sale of scrip, inaugurated here several weeks ago, has been moving slowly, according to James White, president of the Chamber of Commerce.  He believed the circulation would gradually increase as the number of scrip stamps increased on each folder.  There has been $40 worth of stamps sold during the past five weeks.  The Chamber issued $250 in scrip to the unemployed on relief lists five weeks ago and if the same ratio in circulation is maintained the entire issue will be redeemed by December.  Almost all of the independent merchants in Butler and Bloomingdale are accepting the scrip in exchange for merchandise.”  (Aug. 8, 1933, p.1)

“A peculiar development of the relief situation in New York City, and presumably elsewhere, is that while the number of homeless men is decreasing as business picks up, the number of homeless women is increasing….they are not the type regarded as “derelicts,” but are former white collar workers, unskilled for the most part, but heretofore self-supporting.  It has been estimated that the number of homeless women adrift in the United States has reached a total of 250,000 ....(editorial, Aug. 8, 1933, p.4)

“Consumers who have been…disturbed by the rapid rise in the prices of food and other necessities will welcome publication by the government of a weekly “fair-price” list for their protection.  The list will show what farmers get for raw commodities, what labor gets in increased wages under the industrial program, and what farmers must pay for the things they buy….”  (editorial, Aug. 8, 1933, p.4)

“Freeholders Will Rebuild Florham To Hanover Road / This Project Together With Other

Contemplated Jobs In Morris Under Federal And State Aid Will Call For Over $1,250,000 Expenditures And Provide Work For Hundreds….On all sides, the road construction and maintenance programs had been cut to the bone so that the municipalities are doing little and the county had scheduled considerably less than usual….$890,000 has been set aside for building two sections of Route 10 between Morris Plains and Ledgewood.  The second big federal grant is $200,000 for work on roads in the Morristown National Historical Park…”  (Aug. 9, 1933, p.1)

“Dover--…Announcement was made yesterday that some of the 600 furloughed at Picatinny Arsenal have been recalled.  The Gotham Hosiery Company…taken on forty girls in one department.  The Richardson & Boynton Stove Works have also hired a few men…”  (Aug. 9, 1933, p.2)

“One of the most favorable developments in President Roosevelt’s recovery program is the increase in the value of farm products, which adds many hundreds of millions of dollars to the country’s purchasing….The average of farm prices on July 15 was 76 per cent of the average between 1909 and 1914, compared with 57 per cent a year ago.  A bushel of wheat is now worth twice what it was a year ago, even after the recent market collapse, and cotton has doubled in value.  Ten bushels of corn now sell for as much as 17 did last year….”  (editorial, Aug. 9, 1933, p.4)

The following editorial from the Paterson Call also appeared on August 9, 1933, p.4:  “Efforts are being made to have the federal public works administration consider a flood control project for the Passaic river valley as a part of the program of public work on which federal funds are to be expended in the effort to relieve unemployment, but as such a project would require the state co-operating in the work with the government by providing a considerable part of the funds it is not believed that this effort will be successful.  In view of the financial condition of the state it is not believed likely that the people, at a state referendum, would sanction a further increase in the indebtedness of the state by a bond issue for this purpose.  The project is estimated to cost $12,000,000….The plan contemplates the drainage of about 30,000 acres of marsh land for the relief of approximately half that acreage….As a means for relieving unemployment it is declared that the project would, directly and indirectly, provide about 28,000,000 man hours of labor…”

“Much astonishment has developed around NRA headquarters at revelations of the extremely low wages on which hundreds of thousands of Americans exist….For instance, those people in that Pennsylvania shirt factory who were found by the Department of Labor to be earning $2 a week….President William Green of the A.F.of L. pointed out…that sawmills in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and the Carolinas were paying 1932 wages of 9 to 12 cents an hour….He also has figures showing Alabama cotton mill hands paid $1.44 a day, Georgia road workers 10 to 30 cents an hour and Chicago packing house workers as low as $3 a week….School teachers, seeking a code, say their average annual wage dropped from $1420 in 1930 to $650.”  (from Daily Washington Letter by Rodney Dutcher, Aug. 9, 1933, p.4)

“It is almost a miracle that more children are not below par since undernourishment and malnutrition are quite common among children even in prosperous times and much more than a fifth of the juvenile population has been affected by the general unemployment.  The depression is not responsible for the entire 20 per cent.  This condition has not been followed by an increase in the death rate or in a spread of disease, so it would appear that the children below par are not far below normal….Last year the general death rate was the lowest in history and this year it is only 3.3 per cent higher than that record low….For four years the country has lived in dread of the mark the depression with its scarcity of food, fuel and clothing and lack of medical attention would leave on the youth of today. Thanks to the generosity of the more fortunate and to the providence of the government that mark will be almost imperceptible.”  (editorial, Aug. 10, 1933, p.4)

“A meeting of the Master Painters was called at the shop of Donaldson and Wilkie, 23 Atno avenue last evening to consider the NRA code….The code of the International Masters Painters Society under the NRA was unanimously endorsed and all members present agreed to comply with the maximum hour of labor and minimum rates of pay…”(Aug. 11, 1933, p.1)

In a box on p.1, August 11, 1933: “Local Blue Eagle Flashes”

“Chamber of Commerce receives definite complaint to the effect that proprietor of a beauty shop in Morristown fired an employee the day before he signed NRA. . . This considered a definite violation of spirit of code, and it is reported that it will be investigated….Almost 75 per cent of Morristown now under Blue Eagle…..Complaints are being phoned into Chamber of Commerce office without caller divulging name . . . No anonymous calls can be handled . . . They must be written and signed . . . Name will not be divulged…”

“Labor’s first tangible gain under the National Recovery Act was adoption of the code amendment establishing machinery for settling labor disputes in the cotton textile industry.  Shop committees representing the employes and the management of mills are to sit on any controversy arising as to working conditions.  Appeals may be taken to a State Cotton Textile Administration Board and then, if necessary, to a Cotton Textile National Relations Board in Washington.  Similar set-ups are expected in other industries.”  (Daily Washington Letter, by Rodney Dutcher, Aug. 11, 1933, p.4)

“Jersey Municipal Governments “Gravely Sick” Joint Legislative Committee On Taxation Finds”  “the committee…listed the following as conditions facing the state…3—Total taxes delinquent nearly equal total tax levy for an entire year.  4—State’s gross municipal debt is more than $1,200,000,000 and municipalities have spent $72,000,000 a year more than received; if no more debt were contracted it would require two generations to pay off this “tremendous debt burden”…6—Tax levies on real property are confiscatory, and “confiscation is continuing in increasing volume”….  (Aug. 14, 1933, p.1)

“Efforts to put unemployed men back to work on public work projects under the NRA and national public work programs were outlined by Harry Hunter Tukey of Madison, New Jersey director…Mr. Tukey, who has been besieged with requests for jobs since his appointment was announced from Washington a month ago, made it clear that he did not have the jobs to give.  It will be no use to apply to him, he stated, asserting that his efforts will be directed largely to secure co-operation from contractors, state and municipal agencies to put as many as possible to work….The re-employment service which he directs is the bridge over which unemployed men will be led to jobs, he stated….Unemployed men not on relief lists as well as those listed with relief agencies will be recipients of the jobs in equal proportion as near as possible....Contractors, seeking work under the two programs, must bid with the intention of using local labor….”   (Aug. 18, 1933, p.1)

“The Morris County Shoe Rebuilding Association met Thursday night at the Sons of Italy Hall on Vail place with representatives present from Summit, Bernardsville, Morris Plains, Dover, Morristown and other towns.  Inspiring talks regarding the NRA were given by L. Tartaglia and Michael Rubino.  After the speeches all present were asked to sign the code of the NRA and 100 per cent cooperation was given….”  (Aug. 18, 1933, p.1)

“Boonton—As the result of a large contribution from an unrevealed donor the Community Relief Bureau has been enabled to give part time work to six men, according to an announcement made by Rev. L. Harold Hinrichs, chairman of the clearing house records committee.  If funds can be obtained there is no dearth of work to be distributed, according to Rev. Hinrichs.”  (Aug. 18, 1933, p.5)

“The Master Barbers Association of Morristown, Morris Plains and Morris Township is just within a single step of being one hundred percent organized for complete participation in the NRA.  Every master barber shop in the three communities with one exception have been signed up.   This is of a barber who has a small shop in his home and who has refused to join in the great national movement, declaring according to officials of the association, that he didn’t care about Uncle Sam, President Roosevelt or anyone else.  While his name has not been made public, the members of the Master Barbers Association—indignant over his refusal to cooperate and make the move one hundred percent—will tell any inquirer the name and address…”  (Aug. 18, 1933, p.6)

August 19, 1933 photograph on page 1, captioned:  “NRA fervor flared to violence when Max Komen, owner of a small restaurant at St. Louis, Mo., was severely beaten and forced to press his lips against the NRA blue eagle emblem, as pictured here.  Komen denied he had cursed the NRA and said he was preparing to sign.  His assailant was arrested.”

“Washington (AP)—…On President Roosevelt’s desk needing only his formal approval was a dramatically-obtained wage and hour-fixing code for Giant steel….At midnight last night…his spokesmen concluded six hours of plain talk with steel’s representatives.…Mr. Roosevelt approved the compromise ….Hours—Average forty-hour week over three months period, with maximum per employee of forty-eight hours and six days per week.  On or after November 1, 1933, as soon as production reaches 60 per cent capacity, the eight-hour day for all employees, except supervisory, technical and emergency employees.  Wages--…Minimum wages fixed in code are estimated by steel companies to exceed an average of 40 cents per hour….Code to be effective for 90 days as a trial period…Provision for three representatives of NRA to receive full information, with access to necessary records, to meet with board of directors of Iron and Steel Institute upon administration of code and advise the President so as to provide assurance that the code operation is in full compliance with the law…”  (Aug. 19, 1933, p.1)

“Dover—General Max Heller, director of the NRA drive, announced yesterday that the drive is in full swing and that 260 local employers of labor have signed the voluntary pledges up to Thursday night.  Mr. Heller…stated that this total far exceeds the original quota set for this district….Mr. Heller also announced that a house-to-house and block-to-block canvas is to be made by the committee in order to enlist everyone in what he calls “the most stirring and spectacular event since the wartime days of 1917”. “  (Aug. 19, 1933, p.3)

“A man who is looking for straws to show which way the wind is blowing could do a lot worse than to study those stories about the thousands of letters President Roosevelt is receiving commending him for the NRA campaign….These letters…show how deeply responsive the American people are to this stupendous, complex and puzzling campaign against the depression…. They are coming from ordinary people…who do not usually dream of sending letters to the White House….”  (editorial, Aug. 19, 1933, p.4) 

“Washington (AP)—The retail trade’s code of fair practice, affecting more employers, workers and communities than any compact yet taken up by the NRA, entered today the stage of public hearings while officials sought to complete a new agreement to cover the entire bituminous coal industry ….Once coal was out of the way it was Johnson’s intention to go after a solution of issues surrounding the pay and hour-fixing code of the automobile industry….In today’s retail code a forty-hour work week, except for 48 hours in rush periods three weeks each six months, is called in all communities over 2,500 population, with store operation hours maintained at 52 or the existing schedule.  Minimum wage scale from $14 in cities over 500,000, to $13 between 9,500 and 100,000 population, with a $1 a week reduction in the South…and all states east of the Mississippi and south of Kentucky…”  (Aug. 22, 1933, p.1)

“Trenton (AP)—New taxes and governmental retrenchment are proposed by the State Legislative Committee on Taxation to cure financial ills of New Jersey’s municipalities…. Senator A. Crozer Reeves, of Mercer, set forth a plan today to lift $100,000,000 of taxes from the real estate and assess $65,000,000 of it elsewhere.  A four-fold tax plan, devised by the committee… con-templates assessments against incomes, retail sales, business franchises and intangible property ….The committee has proposed assumption by the state of the support of various services including the courts, prosecutors and schools….”The committee is not proposing new taxes for additional spending,” Senator Reeves said.  “It is proposing a shifting of the taxes from a limited part of the state’s taxable wealth to all of the wealth that is properly taxable.”…the committee asserted other revenue sources could be discovered.  Tolls on the Newark-Jersey City viaduct and other charges for services provided at extraordinary cost should be considered as possible sources…”  (Aug. 22, 1933, p.1)

“The bitter argument now going on in the coal industry over the terms of the proposed blue eagle agreement provides about as good a test case for the whole recovery program as could possibly be arranged….It brings into the spotlight a sector of the industrial front which needs government regulation, probably, more than any other….The country has more coal miners than it needs and more coal miners than it can ordinarily employ….But the first response of the industry has not been encouraging.  It has split into factions—no fewer than 27 codes have been submitted by different groups of bituminous operators.  Certain groups have apparently been ready to forego the benefits of co-operation rather than relax their archaic anti-union traditions.  Others have insisted that they will submit to no government supervision under any circumstances.  It will be a national calamity if some sort of order cannot be brought into this chaotic field.”  (editorial, Aug. 22, 1933, p.4)

“Those who have pondered for a moment on the magnitude of the NRA program must have asked themselves how mortal man can long stand up under the traffic strain the job is imposing on President Roosevelt, General Johnson and their aides.  The president wisely took a brief vacation after congress adjourned and has crowded a little recreation into each busy week.  General Johnson, less wisely, has kept going day and night at a killing pace. …Badly as the NRA administrator’s services are needed 24 hours of the day. …The job is too big and too important to be trusted to a drowsy and tired man.  (editorial, Aug. 24, 1933, p.4)

“Denville—Unemployed men meeting under the auspices of the woman’s Club here last night were addressed by J.P. Nesbitt of Mendham, county relief supervisor.  Nesbitt outlined a program under which the men will be employed and receive 35 cents an hour, payable in food orders, and 5 cents an hour in cash….A Selden Walker, township water supervisor, said men could be used on repairing a road from Palmer crossroad to the new pump house at Union and at No. 2 pump.  The men were told by Nesbitt that they must remain on the jobs until completion, and that able-bodied men must work or be taken off the relief list….Nesbitt said that in the fall the men would be able to cut firewood for themselves from lots in this vicinity.”  (Aud. 25, 1933, p.3)

“COMPETITION IS NO EXCUSE FOR STARVATION WAGES  “A court of equity will not lend its aid to protect a business which can survive only by oppressing its workers.”  These words, part of a decision by Judge Harry Fisher of Chicago in a case arising from a dispute between a garment factory and its workers, sum up one of the most important phases of the recovery campaign about as well as any one sentence could….The pressure of competition is the most frequently used of all excuses for unsatisfactory working conditions….it has been cited over and over again when workers have protested intolerable conditions.  Sometimes it has been just an alibi and sometimes it has been justified by facts.  Now, at last, it gets judicially knocked on the head.  Unless you can pay your workers a decent wage and make it possible for them to live like human beings you’ve got no right to be in business at all….And that is why these various codes are so important.  They not only seek to improve the worker’s lot; they aim to curb reckless competition so that it will no longer be necessary for an employer to pay starvation wages and impose sweatshop hours.  They offer protection to the employer who wants to do the right thing.  To the other kind they offer a one-way exit.”  (editorial, Aug. 25, 1933, p.4)

From the column The Woman Citizen, by Mrs. Channing W. Gilson, August 25, 1933, p.8:  “A professor in Harvard University says that though the depression has shown us that American cities are run on a higher ethical plane and have more community service than private business, it has also shown the need for efficient and businesslike government to avoid heavy tax rates.  No wonder private business has gone on the rocks if it is worse ethically than municipal business ….The Harvard professor…says that one method of securing integrity in local government is by having independent auditors….Massachusetts provides a State Audit.  It is compulsory on cities every two years…Payments may be questioned but not disallowed by the auditor…Auditors …suggest improvements in bookkeeping, and help stop unwise practices like viewing a credit balance in surplus as available for spending.  They regularly advise turning all cash receipts into the treasury, collection of long overdue taxes or bills, and other sensible ideas….”  (Aug. 25, 1933, p.8)

“Speaking generally, it is the little fellow who has shown the greater readiness to sign up under the blue eagle….The little business man has come forward with a gratifying promptness—and, for the most part, he has been scrupulous in living up to the terms of his agreement.  Unfortunately, not quite as much can be said for the big fellow.  This is not said to take anything away from those giant concerns which have already got into line with NRA policies.  Many have done so, and their action has been in the highest degree praiseworthy.  But many of them, unfortunately, have not: and the headaches suffered by NRA officials at Washington have arisen chiefly because some of the biggest industries in the land have shown themselves surprisingly stiff-necked about it….the little fellow…hasn’t talked indignantly about constitutional limitations, or his time-honored open shop policies, or his duty to his stockholders….If largescale industry wants to justify its dominant position in America, it must demonstrate that it possesses social conscience in the same measures as the little fellow possesses it.”   (editorial, Aug. 26, 1933, p.4)

“Boonton—A drive for 100% NRA membership among employers and consumers will begin this week as a result of organization plans completed last night at the meeting of the local committee in the Three Links Hall on Cornelia street….The local group will institute a campaign on three fronts, one to obtain 100% support from the business men, second to familiarize the public with the meaning of the administration program and to enlist the complete support of consumer ….Downs prefaced his talk with a brief summary of the causes of the depression and pointed out the unequal distribution of wealth as the major cause.  On following this, he described the downward spiral of economics caused by falling wages and the subsequent decrease in purchasing power which inevitably led to further decline in wages.”  (Aug. 30, 1933, p.1)

“The old-fashioned die-hard conservative is not happy these days, and the extreme radical never has been happy; but it is doubtful if either of these groups is getting half the misery that is falling in the lap of a certain kind of doctrinaire liberal.  The conservative can at least reflect that he controlled the government for upwards of a decade.  The radical can always cock his ear for the rumble of tumbrils down the streets of the distant future….But our liberal got left at the post.  Change caught him napping.  Fate dealt him a hand from the bottom of the deck.”  “To be sure, the actions that this liberal has always demanded of his government are being taken.  The program that he has clamored for for years—or something strikingly like it—is being put into effect….But the tragedy, to the doctrinaire liberal, is that all of this is being done in the wrong way by the wrong people.  The change came before he could pronounce his blessing upon it.  He had just got thru proving that nothing of consequence could be expected from the present administration, when it proceeded to take the wind out of his sails by adopting his whole program….our liberal….has called for a “planned economy”.  He has wanted federal laws to protect union labor in the leading industries.  He has wanted the New York financial powers drastically curbed.  He has wanted the government to crack down on the power trust.  He has wanted vast sums spent by Uncle Sam on public works.  He has wanted a systematized federal employment service….He has wanted an administration that would place human rights above property rights.  Every one of these goals has been reached.”   (editorial, Sept. 1, 1933, p.4)

“A Message of Vital Public Interest” is the headline of a large ad by A&P, The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., Eastern Division, on Sept. 1, 1933, p.5.  A&P states, “A&P was the first retail grocer to accept the President’s re-employment agreement to increase employment, raise wages, and reduce the hours of labor of employees.  In addition, A&P employees are covered by the company with free insurance, they receive a yearly vacation with pay, and a sick benefit during periods of illness….By complying 100% with the N.R.A. agreement, A&P has given employment to more than 10,000 additional men and has increased its payroll by more than $10,000,000 annually….”

From The Woman Citizen, by Mrs. Channing W. Gilson, Sept. 1, 1933, p.6:  “We have got to do something in this Commonwealth to adjust taxes so that the whole burden does not fall on real estate.  The Legislature, however, is afraid to do it.  They appointed a Joint Tax Committee last spring, and the committee took itself seriously enough to make a real report….But nothing will be done about it.  It’s too near election.  One of the proposals was a sales tax.  Another was an income tax.  The only man at the hearing who was reported as favoring both of these taxes was the Mayor of Belleville, who is secretary of the League of Municipalities.  Harold S. Buttenheim, of Madison, editor of The American City, is opposed to sales taxes, favors income taxes.  Dr. Eugene Greider, Professor of Economics at Rutgers… offered a tax relief plan which did not include sales taxes nor income taxes.  Every body thought it was great except a few people from Missouri….Prof. Greider…would have the state come to the rescue of those towns which keep their budgets down to the tax expectations, by lending them the credit of the state, with the unpaid taxes as security.  But where is the state to get this money if it does not find new sources of revenue?”

“A Triumph for the “New Deal” headlines a photograph of President Roosevelt in his car patting the nose  of a horse.  “ “New Deal,”, the bay gelding recently presented to President Roosevelt by friends in Missouri, made its eastern debut by capturing first honors in the saddle class at the Dutchess county fair at Rhinebeck, N.Y.  Here the President, who watched the show from his automobile, pats his horse and congratulates son John, who rode the steed to victory.”  (Sept. 1, 1933, p.8)

“A growth in life insurance that will break all past records will be experienced when business returns to normal, in the opinion of William a. Law, president of the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company….”During the depression, the life insurance companies…withstood the storm and are today in a position to meet several times over any legitimate demand that might be made upon them….Those of us who have learned our lesson, as I am sure millions have, will save and invest far more carefully and intelligently than we have in the past.  We shall seek safety of principal rather than big profits and we shall plan for security in old age.  Too many of us have seen men and women lose their life savings to trust our future welfare to speculation ….Life insurance will be purchased more and more as a form of investment as distinguished from the conception of it as solely a protection of one’s family in case of death….”  “   (Sept. 1, 1933, p.11)

“….on this Labor Day, so significant with its promise of a new deal for the man who works for wages, it might be an extremely good thing if the men who own and direct the physical properties of the United States would sit down for a moment and meditate on the debt that they owe to labor.  Labor has played ball during the trying years of the depression.  It has paid for those years in acute hardship—in  hunger, in want, in loss of hope, in disappointment, in unwanted idleness ….It has seen the promises of former Labor Days turned into mockeries by the economic collapse.  But it has kept the faith.  It has not turned radical, it has not opened its brawny hands to destroy the system which let it down.  It has simply tightened its belt and waited for a break in the luck.  Now the break has come.  Labor can celebrate this holiday as never before.  Its rights are written into federal law—its rights to a job, its rights to a living wage and decently short working day, its rights to organize in its own way to protect its status….With all of this, of course goes a new responsibility.  Labor has been given a new charter of rights; it is up to labor, now, to demonstrate that the charter will not be abused…”  (editorial, Sept. 2, 1933, p.4)

“Working out a national philosophy to go with the vast experiment now being conducted at Washington is apt to be one of the most perplexing jobs the nation has ever undertaken…..for the present edifice of NRA, agricultural readjustment, bank control, currency experimentation and all the rest has arisen like a house without a foundation….Fundamentally, of course, what  we want is fairly simple.  The whole country…is united on one thing; there must not be a repetition of the collapse of the past three years.  A land which is incomparably rich must not again let itself be racked by dire poverty….No one seems to know whether we are drifting toward fascism, socialism—or neither.  No one has yet advanced a coherent theory of economics, politics or social organization to account for what we are doing….”  (editorial, Sept. 5, 1933, p.4)

“Back of all the concrete developments of the new program at Washington there exists a profound change in the outlook of the American people….Briefly, this change can be described by saying that we have at last got entirely away from the psychology and the odd kind of idealism that characterized us during nearly all of the ‘20s.  We have outgrown, that is to say, a stage in our history during which we were perhaps the most purely materialistic people on earth.  In that stage we worshipped material success in a way that was almost devout.  With a very few exceptions, our heroes were the men who knew how to make money fast—and we weren’t very particular about how they made it…..The machine age was beginning to dump its greatest problems in our laps, and we blithely ignored them because the machine age was making some people very rich…..in giving up our slavish admiration of money and the money-makers, we have made possible a return to the traditional American idealism.  We have stopped defining progress as a steady increase in the number of millionaires, and…have opened the way for progress of the only kind that is worth making—the progress that represents a fuller and wider life for the ordinary man.”  (editorial, Sept. 6, 1933, p.4)

“Lawrence Chammings, chairman of the strike committee of the Boonton Molding Company strikers renewed accusations that the company has been in some instances paying wages below the code minimum….Chammings charged that reductions were made in piece work rates the day before the strike was called….He attacked George Scribner, high official of the plant, on a statement made Tuesday to the press.  Scribner said, “We have no objection to our men joining a union but we want it thoroughly understood that the present rates of pay stand and that the union will say nothing about hiring and firing.”  To this Chammings’ retort was “In other words he does not object to a useless union but does object to collective bargaining”. ”  (Sept. 8, 1933, p.,1)

“The Boonton Board of Education may run into a financial snag within the near future…. Insufficient money was on hand to pay current expenses.  Further attempts to collect tuition money from sending districts in arrears were made.  A delegation from the Montville Township Board of Education carried back with them a resolution by the local board providing a reduction from $130 to $125 per pupil, if tuition money is paid within 30 days.  August B. Moller, president of the Board, discussing the situation with the Montville men, said, “We’ve got to collect money due from outside districts.  It’s a question of raising money to run our own school….Unless the money is paid….It might result in eliminating Montville children from our school”.  All sending districts except Mountain Lakes are in arrears….”  (Sept. 8, 1933, p.1)

“Those who have been looking sidewise at the principal acts of the administration’s recovery program, fearful lest they find a revolutionary hue in them, ought to sit down and read the text of the decision by which Supreme Court Justice Daniel O’Donoghue…upheld the constitutionality of the agricultural adjustment act……read the following quotation from Justice O’Donoghue’s decision:…”The day has passed when absolute vested rights in contract or property are to be regarded as sacrosanct or above the law.  Neither the necessities of life nor commodities affected with a public interest can any longer be left to ruthless competition for selfish greed for their production or distribution.”  That decision, as a matter of fact, may become a great milestone in the never-ending conflict between human rights and property rights.  Let it finally be upheld by the nation’s highest tribunal and we shall have an entire new philosophy embedded in our legal structure.”…  (editorial, Sept. 8, 1933, p.4)

“The NRA program is admittedly an emergency measure….it has to meet the problems of the immediate present and let certain long-range objectives wait….it does leave untouched the fundamental issue of the modern world—the queer, illogical way in which the tremendous increase in mankind’s productive capacity has been accompanied by rising unemployment and poverty.  For the present we are trying to meet that problem by imposing sharp checks on production….Sooner or later, however, we must find a better way of meeting the problem.  It is physically possible now for the world to produce at such a rate that every mortal can have all that he needs of everything.  Somehow, once a fair measure of prosperity has been restored, we must find out how to do that….”  (editorial, Sept. 9, 1933, p.4)

“Denville—The Women’s Club…voted to take over the work of canvassing the township to secure signatures of consumers to the NRA pledge cards…. They will work under Mrs. A. Selden Walker, president of the club, who was named colonel of the consumers division by the

Chamber of Commerce, which was entrusted with the work of organizing the township….”  (Sept. 9, 1933, p.9)

“Will the psychological excitement created by the NRA “drive,” together with credit expansion facilities, tide the industrialist over the critical period while slow-moving economic forces adjust themselves to and establish a balanced economy at a new level of prices?  Will employers take future profits on trust, or will the increase of costs be such as to give a dangerous jerk to the economic machine?  In short, can central dictatorship for a short period and in exceptional circumstances override, or perhaps we should say accelerate, economic laws?....”  (editorial, Sept. 11, 1933, p.4)

“There came to this desk the other day a copy of a Slovak newspaper, printed in McKeesport, Pa, for circulation among Slovaks in American industrial cities.  To the eyes of a native American it had a strange, foreign appearance.  It bore the name of “Samostatnost,”, it was printed in an incomprehensible tongue, and it seemed to be just the sort of publication that sometimes makes a 100-per center wonder if the national melting pot is ever going to Americanize our foreign-born citizens.  But the editorial page proudly bore a large NRA eagle; and under it, in English, there was a double-column editorial which summed up the aims and policies of the NRA program as well as the most devout patriot could wish….’ (editorial, Sept. 12, 1933, p.4)

Highlighted by an NRA blue eagle on each side at the top and one at the bottom, “Following local merchants and many others not listed below have signed NRA and are making every effort to co-operate with the President’s Industrial Recovery Program” (Sept. 12, 1933, p.6)  This particular list contains 74 company names in Morristown, including Thode’s ice cream—candies at 21 Park Place, Harry Buechler shoes at 28 Speedwell Ave., Mack’s Cut Rate Shop at 23 Park Place, and American Feed & Coal Co. at Lackawanna Place and 1 ½ Maple Avenue.

“New York (AP)—The Blue Eagle marshaled one of the world’s greatest peace-time parades today.  It summoned 250,000 people in industry to march up Fifth avenue in the “President’s NRA Day” demonstration ….Capital and labor took place side by side…at starting points in seventy-one massed divisions.  Throngs, granted a half-holiday by most of the city’s business houses, flocked to the scene to watch it.  Some advanced estimates said the spectators would number 3,000,000….one group of headgear workers elected to march in shining toppers.”   (Sept. 13, 1933, p.1)  A photograph on p.3, Sept. 15, 1933, depicts “a portion of the parade… through Madison Square”, and gives the number of spectators as more than 1 million.

“Denville—After a…number of adjournments, the Taxpayers’ Association finally met last evening at Ford’s Hall with Harry Hussa presiding.  Considerable discussion was held on the plan of reducing the number of Township Committee from five to three.  This plan will be voted upon at the regular election in November…The main arguments against the five man committee are first, it costs more…thirdly, it would get rid of two-fifths of the patronage….The motion was finally passed stating that the Taxpayers’ Association should endorse and push the referendum asking for a three man board…”  (Sept. 14, 1933, p.1)

“The Emergency Relief Administration Inspector of grocery stores made a check of seven stores in Morris County in an effort to determine if the stores which have been approved by the Administration to redeem Relief Food Orders were abiding by the rules and regulations….One of the most important rules is that a merchant will not give a relief client any article other than those listed on the weekly price list.  The weekly price list is made up of various staple foods which dietitians name as necessary to a well balanced diet.  So called luxuries or delicacies are not on this list and consequently are prohibited….In one municipality the method of check used was for the inspector to examine the client’s parcel when he left the grocery store.  In another municipality the inspector obtained a relief order and made the purchase himself.  It was found that where a prohibited item was given, the merchant would substitute an allowable item when writing up the food order of merchandise given…”  (Sept. 15, 1933, p.1)

“The strike of employees of the Boonton Molding Company continued today when the workers, at a secret ballot last night turned down the basis of agreement for the settlement of the difficulties which had been reached at a meeting of the NRA Board of Complaints of Morristown with the heads of the company and a committee of employees yesterday….According to E. J. MacEwan, secretary of the local committee, the men had made a grave mistake in walking out without attempting to bring up or settle their differences with their employers…The strike started September 1 when it is claimed some of the men complained to the foreman about the new piece work rates put into effect two days previously.  Twenty minutes later the men walked out, without making any demands or giving any reason for quitting….Mr. Scribner testified the average for employees was better than 50 cents an hour in pay although the code called only for 40 cent with 35 cents an hour the lowest compared with the minimum of 32 cents allowed under the code.  It was further admitted in the hearing by Mr.Cook that the Hosiery workers who charged 45 violations of the NRA code based the bulk of these violations on a lack of under-standing of the Code…Mr. Cook stated at the end of the hearing that he would wire Washington immediately and withdraw all complaints of code violations.  It had been admitted previously in the hearing that the supposedly 45 violation of the Code were in part at least responsible for the strike. …Mr. Scribner emphatically stated he had no objection to the men organizing and would recognize the union.  He said he would take all men back without any discrimination.” (Sept. 15, 1933, p.1)

“The NRA means school days again for approximately 6,000 children in New Jersey, who hold “working papers”.  President Roosevelt’s “blanket” code practically terminates the system in this state of permitting children between the ages of 14 and 16 to obtain written permission from their school principals to work during school hours and reduce their educational training to six hours a week.  Exemptions from the code are granted to those employed in agriculture or as domestics and certain NRA trade agreements of specific industries permit employment of children…”  (Sept. 15, 1933, p.7)

“George K. Scribner, president of the Boonton Molding Company, issued a statement today to the effect that he would have nothing more to do with the strikers from his plant.  Arbitration appeared hopeless as a result of the statement….”  (Sept. 16, 1933, p.1)

“Without advance warning to its employees the Morey La Rue Laundry plant on Speedwell avenue was closed down last night, laundry machinery was removed to Elizabeth, while this morning employees were paid off…. According to the interpretation of the NRA provisions by the discharged workers the move is in direct violation of Paragraph 8 of the blanket code which states that no concern shall “use any subterfuge to frustrate the intent or purpose of this act”….

this complaint will be investigated by the local NRA committee…”  (Sept. 16, 1933, p.1)

“AN ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE Fischer Baking Co.

“We have signed the President’s NRA code, and accordingly have added—28 employes— decreased working hours without reduction of wages, and in some instances increased wages.  With the addition of the Processing Tax on flour, the increased cost of flour and every ingredient needed in the baking of our products, it will be necessary to raise the price of all our breads only 1 cent.  This small amount will approximately cover the enormous increases which we willingly pay….EFFECTIVE MONDAY September 18th.  (Sept. 16, 1933, p.3)

“Employment figures for Picatinny Arsenal have shown a considerable gain in the past month….

Suffering two heavy cuts in personnel at the post on July 1 and August 1, employment figures for Picatinny according to the last report received here showed there were 1,225 men on the job there at the present time, approaching more closely the figure of 1,555 which prevailed on June 30, just before the first budget slash fell on the station…” (Sept. 18, 1933, p.1)

“The strike at the Boonton Moulding Company appeared to be unsolved at this writing when a late morning meeting between George K. Scribner, president, and a strikers’ committee eventuated in a disagreement when the workers demanded a committeeman on every factory shift….” (Sept. 18, 1933, p.1)

The Morris County Building and Loan Association placed a big ad on September 20, 1933, p.2 headed “Between LENDERS and BORROWERS: A Useful Yardstick for Measuring A  

B.& L. Assoc.”  “mere size of resources, or even rapid growth of assets or deposits, may be less important as yard stick of vitality than PRUDENCE, CONSERVATISM AND COURAGE in handling loans and investments.  Throughout the days of panic and depression, with the credit situation disorganized and property values depreciated, imagine your plight if the indispensible protection of the MORRIS COUNTY BUUILDING & LOAN ASSOCIATION was unavailable to the owners of homes and its stock holders who required financial assistance for an emergency or a business opportunity.  And even now,…the MORRIS COUNTY BUILDING & LOAN ASSOCIATION  announces the maturity of shares to its stockholders in the third series October 23rd.  This is the third maturity in ten months making a total payment of $360,000.00 within that time to its stock holders, the depression notwithstanding.”

“A Communist writer in a radical magazine remarked the other day that laissez faire capitalism—the rugged individualism of sainted memory—is dead as a door nail.  As a result, he asserted, America could do one of just two things; it could turn to Fascism, or it could go Communist.  These, he said, are the only alternatives.  The writer found Fascism far more likely…. Isn’t it more likely that the new spirit in this land is too big and too strong to be contained by the old formulas—that our great contribution to modern life may well be to find a solution for industrialism’s problems without despotism, without oppression and without a revolution?”  (editorial, Sept. 20, 1933, p.4)

“Continued improvement in the condition of the nation’s banks remains one of the encouraging features of the general business situation….the Reconstruction Finance Corporation …report covering June shows a decline of nearly 50 per cent in loans made financial institutions compared with the figures for May.  The total of loans in June made to banks and trust companies was $38,841,466, of which $21,474 was for the reorganization or liquidation of closed institutions….A large number of banks remained closed, but these are being reopened or liquidated as rapidly as conditions will permit….”  (editorial, Sept. 20, 1933, p.4)

“According to a report issued today by the State Department of Labor, employment in the Dover industrial area, inclusive of the greater part of Morris County, has increased 12.2 per cent since March, a larger gain than any of the eighteen other industrial areas with the exception of one.  In the same period of elapsed time, payrolls jumped 11.1 per cent, but whereas in March the average weekly pay envelope was $21.48, it has now dropped fractionally to $21.26.  This drop is accounted for by the greater number of present workers, among whom the returns of industry must be distributed.  Throughout the state as a whole industrial employment has increased 23.3 per cent since March.  Payrolls are now 31.3 per cent greater and average weekly earnings 6.4 per cent higher.  The average factory worker’s pay envelope has been enhanced $1.61.”  (Sept. 21, 1933, p.1)

“Although the federal government has broken all precedent in the extent of its campaign to relieve unemployment, it is still true that privately charity occupies the front trenches in the war on hunger and privation….The federal government can help provide unemployed people with shelter and with food.  But that, after all, is only part of the fight….His children have got to have normal educational and recreational facilities.  The health of his entire family must not be allowed to suffer.  The deadly empty hours which come to a man who has no job have got to be filled somehow, and if the community doesn’t provide some way in which they can be filled advantageously the man is very likely to go to pieces.  These are fields which the federal government can hardly touch.  They are up to local agencies; and since most city and county treasuries are pretty empty, the burden has got to be carried very largely by private charity….we have got to dig down in our pockets again this fall and winter, and we have got to dig down pretty deeply…”  (editorial, Sept. 21, 1933, p.4)

Page 5 on September 21, 1933 features a photograph and caption across three columns showing a mass of men snaking around the corner of a large building.  “Hundreds Apply for Jobs as Ford Hires Veterans”  “Here are some of the hundreds of veterans who appeared at American Legion headquarters in Detroit after Henry Ford had authorized the legion to employ 5000 men with good service records to work in his automobile factory.”

“Whippany will be soon in such a position in a few weeks that it may forget  that there ever was a depression, when the Desiderio Paper Mill opens up next week…With the opening it is expected that  approximately 200 men will be put to work right away, solving to a great extent Whippany’s, if not Hanover Township’s unemployment problem.  It is also rumored that the Malapardis Mill, one of the two owned by McEwan Brothers of this place, will also reopen its doors in a short time.  The other mill owned by McEwan Brothers, known as the “Diamond” or “Eden” mill, has been working, with only a few short shut-downs, in three shifts of eight hours each….The water used by the mill is not emptied into the Whippany river as claimed, but is used over and over again.  When the water has been used it is run through various purifiers.  First the water is filtered, all the pulp being taken out.  Then it goes through a method of purification, finally running back to the beaters where more waste paper is made in pulp by being soaked in the water and beaten into a fine substance.”  (Sept. 22, 1933, p.1)

“Uncle Sam’s effort to help the farmer by plowing under cotton, limiting wheat acreage and killing several million hogs is economically unsound and morally wrong.  That, at any rate, is the verdict reached in a resolution adopted by the Ohio Methodists’ recent state conference.  It is a verdict that a whole lot of people will accept.  No part of the recovery program seems more contradictory than this destruction of the raw materials for food and clothing at a time when millions of people have neither enough to eat nor enough to wear.  Yet it is a contradiction that is not peculiar to the farm program.  It lies at the very heart of the capitalist system, and it involves the fundamental conflict between production for use and production for profit….The farmer is as much a capitalist as the factory owner.  If the factory owner cannot be expected to produce more than people will buy at a price which yields a profit neither can the farmer….if the farmer ought to keep on raising wheat and cotton and corn and pork even though he cannot do it profitably, so long as there are people who need these things, then by the same token the industrialist ought to keep his factory wheels humming so long as there are people who need the things he makes, whether they can pay his price for them or not.    And about the time you begin admitting that, you find yourself wading in very deep waters…”  (editorial, Sept. 25, 1933, p.4)

“….the sudden epidemic of strikes….prove that industry is no longer stagnant.  They didn’t put in an appearance during those dull months when we were at the bottom of the depression….Men don’t strike when the plant is closed down for lack of orders….The present outbreak of strikes could, if unchecked, lead to a catastrophic situation.  It can, if the leaders of the contending forces meet the test with intelligence and patriotism, be the forerunner of a new era in American industrial history…”  (editorial, Sept. 26, 1933, p.4)

“It has been apparent since the crash of 1929 that this country was headed for economic trouble in the midst of its greatest prosperity.  For years it skated on thin ice.  Prosperity built alone upon inflated market values and an expanding foreign trade bought with our own dollars can not long endure, and when it goes it takes everything with it.  That expanding export trade of which much was made by those who claimed credit for it was a smoky dream.  We got it by lending busted foreign customers lavish billions to buy our goods, when we were already on notice that they could not, or would not, pay even a portion of other lavish billions they already owed us.  We were giving away both our goods and the money to buy them as fast as ships could carry them across the ocean, and then building here a bonfire of hope under our speculative markets from the warmth of the I O U’s….”  (editorial, Sept. 27, 1933, p.4)

“Less than a year ago finance was still the sacred mystery of the old days, a realm which ordinary mortals might not criticize and into which a mere public servant might not venture without first removing his hat.  Today we find responsible government officials declaring that it may soon be necessary for Uncle Sam to assume virtual control of the whole banking industry …. Now it is easy to find good reasons for opposing this proposed step.  The principal reason that will occur to most people, probably, is that we have no guarantee whatever that the scheme would work out well.  No one, that is, knows whether Uncle Sam is qualified to run the banking business.  He might make a fine hash of things.  But any question of this kind has got to be considered against its proper background; and the proper background for this one is the simple fact that the existing system has been working very badly indeed for quite a long time.  Bank depositors and stockholders have lost a great deal of money, and trade has not had the credit facilities it should have had…”  (editorial, Sept. 27, 1933, p.4)

Large ad on October 2, 1933 with a drawing of a marching band and cheering spectators under bunting:

FORWARD!  MORRISTOWN NRA SALE DAYS

FRIDAY October 6     SATURDAY October 7

Enlist for Recovery In This Great Parade Of Values

SEE the Monster NRA Parade Thursday

Afternoon, Oct. 5.  Thousands In Line

STORES CLOSED

SHOP THE WINDOWS OF ALL MORRISTOWN STORES

BUY AND SAVE UNDER THE BLUE EAGLE

“OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM FACES COLLAPSE”

“The next session of Congress will probably be asked to vote something like $60,000,000 for the relief of the nation’s public schools: and when the question comes up for debate we are likely to get a look at one of the most critical phases of the entire depression….Superintendent Charles A. Lee of Missouri, head of a committee of education officials appointed to present the schools’ case to Congress, lists a few of the ways in which the depression has crippled the schools.  This year will see 80,000 fewer teachers on the job in America than were employed last year— although the NRA has released at least 100,000 boys and girls of school age for further study.  Teachers’ pay has been reduced, on the average, by 20 per cent.  In some regions the cuts are as high as 60 per cent.  Half of all the teachers will get less than $400 for their year’s work.  Some are actually getting less than $35 a month—the daily labor wage of NRA codes.  In many localities schools will be in session for only three or four months.  Many high schools have had to go on a tuition basis, which means that thousands of youngsters won’t get the education they are entitled to.  On the other hand, there is not a city nor a county in America that is not pressed for money.  Tax revenues have fallen off, both because of the depression and because of antiquated tax systems.  Furthermore, we are beginning to hear a wave of propaganda in favor of still further economy in the schools—propaganda backed, for the most part, by wealthy individuals who have far less reason for complaining about school expenditures than the ordinary middleclass citizen who pays his taxes without a whimper.  It is a critical situation….”  (editorial, Oct. 2, 1933, p.4)

“Fifty additional men were put to work yesterday when the Hanover Mill, owned by Desiderio  & Sons, opened for the first time in three years.  100 men applied for jobs, and the number employed yesterday brought the total force to 125 men.  The company reported it has had 600 applications since the announcement was made two weeks ago the plant would reopen.  Prospective employers came from a radius of 25 miles.  A line of cars a quarter of a mile long was parked on the road leading to the employment office yesterday….”  (Oct. 3, 1933, p.2)

“In the greatest concerted movement in the history of retail activity in Morristown nearly 200 stores have banded together to give the consumer public a real reason to buy “Under the Blue Eagle” on Friday and Saturday of this week.  These days have been designated as Morristown NRA Sale Days and the thousands of items of quality merchandise at reasonable prices which are to be offered represent the merchants’ contribution to the nation-wide “Now Is the Time to Buy” campaign.  Places of business throughout the city have been gaily decorated with the national colors.  Many windows, entered in the display contest, are attracting attention with their colorful exhibits depicting graphically the importance of wholehearted cooperation under the NRA and the significance of the slogan:  “Enlist Now for Recovery,” which has been adopted for this great community effort.  The participating stores are displaying specially designed streamers and pennants, and shoppers are urged, particularly, to do their buying in these stores.  Judging of the windows will take place tonight and the winners will be announced tomorrow….”  (Oct. 4, 1933, p.1)

“A tremendous three-day NRA celebration, marked by an extensive parade tomorrow, and by two Morristown NRA Sales Days Friday and Saturday, swings into action tomorrow at 1:00 P.M. when the bands begin to play and practically the entire city falls into line.  The 16th Infantry Band, one of the most famous and popular of all regular army units, is to be a feature of tomorrow’s parade….Col. Franklin D’Olier, first national commander of the American Legion, is to act as Honorary Marshall of the affair.  Representatives of every business and industry in Morristown, Morris Township, Morris Plains and other nearby communities will participate.  Those in charge estimate that there will be 5,000 marchers in line and this will hardly be any exaggeration as all of the public and parochial school children will take part and more than 3,000 of these alone will parade.  As all women have been asked to take part as part of the consumers branch of the NRA and every sort of business will be represented, the number actually marching will exceed by far the totals in any previous demonstration in Morristown.  While hundreds of visitors are expected from all parts of the country, it appears as if there will be as many marching as actually looking on.  In observance of the gala event, stores and business houses thru-out the city will be closed at noon.  By law, the banks and county offices will be open during their regular afternoon hours, although representatives from each institution and office will be present in the line of march…”  (Oct. 4, 1933, p.1)

“With virtually every business house in the town displaying the national colors and the Blue Eagle, Morristown today begins its great NRA Days observance with the biggest and most spectacular parade in its history.  Last night a committee of judges composed of Kenneth MacKenzie, Walter M. Hoffman and Frank E. VanAuken viewed dozens of store windows which were entered in the window display contest….First prized in the amateur class was awarded to the Farino Fruit Market at 161 South street….Using fruits and vegetables for his materials, Mr. Farino has captured the true spirit of the NRA in a magnificent design which must be seen to be adequately appreciated.  The M. P. Greenberger display, designed and executed by J. B. Dyche and depicting the whole-hearted co-operation of industry, agriculture and all other activity in the fight against depression, won first prize in the professional class.  Honorable mention was awarded to the Park Drug Store….Morristown shoppers…are earnestly requested to begin their shopping tours as early as possible tomorrow and Saturday in order that the thousands from out of town who must necessarily arrive later will not be seriously inconvenienced because of the crowds….”  (Oct. 5, 1933, p.1)

“Uncle Sam’s wide open gate, through which used to flow freely all the despondent populations of Europe!  How proud we used to be of that wide open door….But when jobs became scarce in our land…the propriety of thus admitting the poor and oppressed of all nations was questioned.  It was still more questioned when we learned that our beloved country was being looked at as a paradise for criminals.  We had plenty enough graduates from our own prison cells, without taking in thousands more.  So we have had immigration restriction until at last it is almost down to zero….The door is narrow and quite well guarded, as compared with that enormous gate through which nearly 7,000,000 entered during six of the years from 1905 to 1915.  But there are all the illegal entries, how many, no one knows.  A steady procession of stealthy sneaks worming their way in through our ports or over the borders, dropped by airplanes, smuggled in ships…law breakers from the first day.  That problem remains unsolved….the place for these poor folks is at home, where they can speak the language of the land, and will not be forever baffled by strange customs and slick sharpers.”  (editorial, Oct. 5, 1933, p.4)

The Thursday, October 5, 1933 newspaper is filled with ads from seemingly every merchant in Morristown, all promoting their NRA sales days bargains.  Ajemian Camera Shop:  Six

Photoflash Bulbs and Reflector all for $1.29.  Gurevitz:  Nunn Bush shoes, $6.50 - $8.50.  Jersey Central Power & Light Co.:  washing machine for $69.50.  Martynec’s Shoppe: baby blankets for 98¢, baby bunting for $1.25 up; J.J. Hockenjos Co., The House of Good Paint:  “You will serve not only your patriotic duty—but you will conserve the life of your property…”

“The Morristown NRA parade, largest event of its kind in the history of this city, and an affair indicating practically undivided support of President Roosevelt’s National Recovery Act, swept through the streets of Morristown 5,000 strong yesterday.  In spite of hours of rain and threatening weather, the line of march was estimated to have been 6 miles long and to have taken well over an hour to pass any one point….The entire town bordered the streets and avenues to witness the line of march…..”(Oct. 6, 1933, p.1)

“Those who expected to see the heavens open and to hear a chorus of trumpets announcing the millennium as soon as the last blue eagle emblem was floated over an American factory are going about these days acting as if they had been deceived cruelly.  Codes beyond number have been signed, and you couldn’t throw a stone without breaking a blue-eagle window: but still the depression continues….It is easy to point out that we expected too much of the NRA.  Reducing working hours, setting minimum pay scales, and grouping whole industries under fair competition agreements could not possibly restore prosperity unaided.  All these things simply provide the channel through which the recovery current is to flow….Through one device or another, we eventually shall set all the wheels spinning again; and when that time comes, then the value of the blue eagle agreements will be fully apparent.  We shall find, then, that we have leaped ahead to universal acceptance of the theory that the nation cannot prosper unless its lowliest wage-earner is also prospering; that we have given the common man a new independence, a fairer share of industry’s earnings, a more certain protection in his job; that we have given ourselves the reins by which we seriously can attempt to control the mysterious economic processes that govern our national life.  In fact, we shall find that we have put through something very like a revolution—a peaceful, classless revolution that gives our traditional democracy a splendid new significance.”  (editorial, Oct. 7, 1933. p.4)

“The administration’s recovery program so far is in keeping with the Christian teaching implying “the practicability of a more co-operative economic order, socially controlled for the common good.”  So says a pronouncement from the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America ….This notion that the economic order can be controlled…is new….If it can be controlled, by whom and for whom is the control to be exercised?  By and for the proletariat, to the exclusion of all other classes, as in Russia?  By and for the capitalist class, with all other folk reduced to the position of mere cogs in the machine?  Or, as these churchmen suggest, is it to be controlled “for the common good”?  A nation with democratic traditions such as America possesses hardly can hesitate in its choice….It becomes clear, for instance, that industry does not exist solely to produce dividends, but also to provide goods for people who need them; that agriculture’s reason for being is that it furnishes food for the hungry, and not just profits for the farmer; that, in short, every man who makes a living from society must render a suitable return for it, and that the return he renders, rather than the living he makes, is the real reason for his importance.  We come, in other words, to the necessity for a complete democratization of our society—social control for the common good….”  (editorial, Oct. 11, 1933, p.4)

“ “Toys and games are childhood necessities as vital to normal development as bread.”  This is the slogan for a national drive to organize free lending libraries in every community, “to end play hunger by Christmas.”  “Toys for home use, every day in the year, are the best insurance against delinquency,” said Dr. H. Harold Axworthy, director of the New York University Bureau of Community Service which organized the first “Toyery” units this summer.  This new social service to give poor children educational opportunity, just as public libraries provide books,  was originated by Mrs. Ida Cash, a probation officer, distressed by the large number of children arrested for stealing toys.”  (Oct. 11, 1933, p.11)

“Dover—More than 4,000 local citizens were in the NRA demonstration here yesterday afternoon and the parade took just one hour and a half to pass the corner of Blackwell and Sussex streets.  The parade was headed by Chief Chas. U. Counterman and police escort with Mayor John Roach Jr., Board of Aldermen and other town officials bringing up the next line, all marching.  It is said to be the largest parade ever held here….”  (Oct. 13, 1933, p.1)

“…The pressure for inflation that has been put on the White House in the last month or so is only the first breath of a gale that will break loose when Congress convenes….to read some of the indignant outcries being raised these days is to get the impression that demanding inflation is a crime against nature.  We are reminded over and over again of the doleful things that happened to Russia and Germany…The important thing is to realize that the clamor for inflation does not arise from sheer human perversity and wrongheadedness, but that it proceeds from the contemplation of wrongs which a great many people have decided they are not going to endure any longer.  If you borrow a dollar which is worth one bushel of wheat and find, when you come to pay it back, that it is worth three bushels, you have been gypped….It is precisely that which has happened to millions of Americans in the last few years.  Debt has turned into a selfincreasing snowball, and it has become a load which is just about too heavy to be carried any farther.  Paying for a dead horse is never much fun; when the corpse goes on rising in value before you can get all your payments in, you hardly can be blamed if you decide that the rules of the game ought to be changed a little.  Inflation may be the height of folly.  But an even loftier peak would be to fight against inflation without offering any remedy for the wrongs which have made inflation look desirable….”  (editorial, Oct. 17, 1933, p.4)

“What C.C.C. Corps Do…State Forester Charles P. Wilber reported today that in three months ending September 30, actual forestry work in eight New Jersey camps included:  

Improving 1,022 acres by cuttings and thinnings.  

Surveying more than 144 miles of boundary lines.  

Constructing 42 miles of fire lines.  

Building 31 miles of new roads.  

Cleaning 100 acres of public camp sites.  

Constructing one mile of new hiking trails and some bridle paths.  

Digging a ditch for 1,830 feet of sewer line.  

Surveying 60 acres for a topographic map for park development.  

Devoting 496 man days to nursery work.  

Scouting 2,102 miles of road for investigation of the Dutch Elm disease and removing 117 infected trees.  

Spending 121 man days fighting forest fires.”  (Oct. 19, 1933, p.1)

“A smart New York department store the other day presented one of the best object lessons yet devised to show just how the fruits of a rising price level are to be reaped.  In a full-page newspaper advertisement, it printed two pictures of men’s shirts.  The shirts were identical in appearance, in material, in cut, and in workmanship.  One of them sold for 89 cents; the other for $1.25.  The 89-cent one was the shirt this store had on its counters at the start of the summer.  The other was one that is on sale now.  The man who grew the cotton for the 89-cent shirt, the advertisement pointed out, lost money on it.  His cotton pickers got canned goods and groceries in place of cash wages.  The workers in the textile mills that changed the raw cotton into fabric got starvation wages—around $5 a week.  The girls who turned the cloth into a finished shirt got a little bit less than that.  The men who employed the workers in these establishments were not making money.  And the store which sold the shirt was losing on the deal. But, of course, for the purchaser, it was a bargain—of a sort.

Now for the $1.25 shirt.  The man who raised the cotton for it got a decent profit on his crop.  He paid his pickers in cash, not in groceries.  The textile workers who turned the cotton into fabric got at least $13 a week.  The girls who made the shirt got enough money so they could eat decently, live decently, and put off the burden of fear.  Their respective employers were able to make a profit.  The store itself was able to make money on the deal.  So this shirt, for all that it cost considerably more than the first one, also was a bargain.  It had no starvation wages, no child labor, no rising scale of losses woven into its fabric.  It represented a fair break for everyone concerned in its production.  

The first bargain was a bargain built on human misery; the second, a bargain that promotes the welfare of the whole country.    You could apply much the same sort of reasoning to almost every commodity you buy.  Whatever else it may do, a rising price level at least saves us from the ruinous “bargains” we have been getting in the last couple of years.”  (editorial, Oct. 19, 1933, p.4)

“If there is truth in the report that the federal government is preparing to crack down hard on strikers whose cause is labeled “unjustified” by federal investigators, the administration would seem to have bitten off a mouthful which will take a great deal of very energetic chewing.  In any other country on earth, such a step would be taken as prima facie evidence of a swing to the extreme right—toward Fascism, to be blunt.  The one thing that would prevent Americans from looking at it in that light would be the reputation for fairness and liberalism which the Roosevelt administration has built up thus far…..If the government can tell labor when not to strike, it logically follows that it is up to the government to see that labor gets the squarest kind of deal in its negotiations with industrial management….” (editorial, Oct. 23, 1933. p.4)

“…The government is building roads, army barracks, warships and post-offices; these activities aren’t enough, and slum rehabilitation is the logical next step….Most large cities in America have tended to become hollow shells in the last few decades.  New homes go up in the suburbs; the old residential districts close to the downtown section, are allowed to deteriorate.  This hollowing-out process has in many places reached a dangerous pitch.  If a counter trend is not started, the cities face ultimate disaster.  So…we find Uncle Sam going into the real estate business….”  (editorial, Oct. 23, 1933, p.4)

“Bernardsville—Under the direct supervision of the local police department, hundreds of “Knights of the Road”, have been lodged and fed in the Bernardsville Jail during the past year, an undertaking which the department feels assured would materially lessen crime and aid in straightening out living condition if more towns and large cities would do the same.  The plan, started by Chief of Police Clarence E. Pope last February, has succeeded to the greatest extent and the number of men taken care of amounts to nearly a thousand.  The place is in charge of a former so-called “tramp”, William Douglas, who used to cook at railroad camps and has been throughout the forty-eight states  He…now has settled down in this little town and has become one of its respectable citizens….Each man coming into the town is treated in a courteous manner by the police.  They are taken to the jail, but not forcefully, and made to wash-up, clean their clothes and if necessary are given additional clothes.  They are then given a night’s lodging and breakfast and other meals if they wish to stay longer.   Mr. Douglas…said that he has taken care of a number of lawyers, a college professor, a doctor and many other once prosperous men besides the ordinary type of “Knights.” “  (Oct. 24, 1933, p.1)

“Forty-nine boys from many Morris municipalities left from in front of the local postoffice this morning to become a part of President Roosevelt’s second great Civilian Conservation Corps…. the potential campers who were sent to Newark today for a physical examination were largely unspirited.  Last spring there was a scene of typical hilarity, but this morning the boys were comparatively glum….Only a half-hearted game of craps enlivened the group of shivering lads…”  (Oct. 25, 1933, p.1)

“The Salvation Army is opening a salvage department and store at 35 Water street on Wednesday, November 1, 1933.  Part of the Salvation Army program is to collect waste material which is turned into cash in helping to maintain its work.  In connection with the plan, a Salvation Army Social Service Store will be operated in which people who are able to pay a small sum for garments, furniture, etc., can purchase same and maintain their independence.  People who come to The Salvation Army who are unable to pay, even the small sum that is requested of them, will receive what they need—free….the money that is received goes to help defray expenses and if any money is left, after expenses are paid, same will be applied to the relief fund….”  (Oct. 28, 1933, p.1)

“Foreclosure was resorted to by mortgage holders on 26 homes and farms in Morris County during September, it was reported today by the Home Owners Loan Corporation.  This brought the total of foreclosures in Morris County so far this year to 246, the corporation reported.  Foreclosures in Morris County for September of this year were much more numerous than for the same month last year, when nine foreclosures were reported, to bring the total for the first nine months of 1932 up to 144, according to the report ….In the State of New Jersey, 15 communities, representing 87.7 per cent of the total population, reported a total of 1,063 foreclosures for September of this year, bringing the nine-month total up to 10,552.  For the corresponding period in 1932, the total was 8,812, while in September of that year there were 1,010 foreclosures.  Back in 1926, “the good old days,” the same communities had only 1,146 foreclosures for the first nine months of the year….”  (Oct. 28, 1933, p.1)

“The most important single element back of all the experiments of the New Deal is the general public’s state of mind.  And an excellent way to get a size-up on this mental attitude is to review the case of Mr. Albert H. Wiggin, former head of the Chase National Bank in New York.  Mr. Wiggin retired some little time ago on a pension of $100,000 a year.  But it is the disclosures about the salary he received before his retirement which give you the interesting slant on the public’s outlook.  Mr. Wiggin drew down $218,000 in 1930, and in 1931 his pay was boosted to $250,000.  And less than a fortnight after he had received this pleasant little increase, he issued a public statement, recommending that the wages of industrial labor be reduced.  High wages, he explained, do not make prosperity.  He suggested that “many industries can ask their labor to accept moderate reductions of wages to decrease costs and improve the buying power of labor.”  And he himself just had been lifted to a quarter million a year!   There is abroad in the land today a pretty widespread conviction that we need a much fairer distribution of our national income.  In the face of a disclosure like this about Mr. Wiggin, can you wonder at it?....For what we get out of this disclosure is a peek at a thoroughly Bourbonized ruling class.  The financial and industrial oligarchy represented by Wall Street could see nothing wrong with recommending general wage reductions at a time when the compensation of its own inner clique was going up beyond all reason….”  (editorial, Oct. 28, 1933, p.4)

“Fine results from the community gardens, promoted by the town and the Kiwanis Club during the past summer, were reported to Nelson Butera, Deputy Relief Director, to the Board of Aldermen last night.  There were 73 plots operated in the gardens on James street and 42 planted plots on their own land.  The total produce raised was 47,720 pounds, including cabbage, corn, tomatoes, and a wide variety of other vegetables.  There were even forty pounds of peanuts raised.  Mrs. Robert D. Foote donated the land for the use of the gardens and also gave $10 in prizes for the best gardens.  The first, $5, was won by H. Jones, the second of $3 by W. Sweeney, and the third of $2 by Tony Spargo.  The property is now planted in rye….Mr. Butera reported there were 885 people on the relief list in August, at a cost of $5,843.71 and 954 persons, at a cost of $5,351.53 in September.  The town contributes $500 a month and the state the rest.”  (Nov. 4, 1933, p.1)

“The greatest task ever undertaken by a relief agency in the history of private charity is drawing to a close with the final distribution of cotton clothing to more than five million families by the American Red Cross.  At the direction of the Congress, beginning eighteen months ago, the Red Cross undertook to convert the wheat and cotton surpluses of the Farm Board into food and clothing for the unemployed and needy.  In the consequent operation, this relief agency entered upon a commercial enterprise greater than any single commercial firm has ever undertaken in the same period of time.  In the ensuing months the Red Cross converted 85,000,000 bushels of wheat into flour and bread and gave it to 5,803,000 families.  The distribution was through 3,700 Red Cross chapters and hundreds of other charitable agencies.  During the severe northwestern drought of 1931 the Red Cross also gave wheat in the form of food for livestock to 184,188 families.  The clothing—dresses, underwear, overalls, jumpers, sweaters and stockings for men, women and children, and even blankets and comforters--was distributed to 5,465,410 families.  More than 54,000,000 ready-made garments and 92,000,000 yards of cotton cloth were given to the needy.  This clothing came from 844,000 bales of cotton.  The wheat distribution was concluded in June, 1933, and final distribution of cotton clothing is occurring in the fall months….”  (Nov. 4, 1933, p.2)

“…In the past, depressions ended when the chance to make money began to reappear in commerce and industry.  We are trying to end this one in the reverse order—by putting reemployment and increased wages first and trusting that profit will follow in the natural sequence.  Owners of capital are not yet persuaded fully that the profit actually will appear on schedule.  Furthermore, witnessing the vast sums that are being spent, and considering the heavy taxes that will have to be levied ultimately to meet these expenses, they are afraid of what may happen to their profit when it does appear.  Consequently, capital in the main is hesitant, and the recovery program does not make the speed we should like.  Yet all this fear of capital, and the efforts of government to provide reassurance, add up to just one thing.  The fact that the new deal is, at bottom, conservative and not revolutionary.  Notice this, for example:  The entire recovery program still depends on the profit motive—the distinctive feature of the capitalistic system as we have known it.  There is no hint that the profit motive is to be shelved….”  (editorial, Nov. 4, 1933, p.4)

“The field of private enterprise rewards its leaders very well.  The country is still a bit groggy from gaping at the discoveries the Senate committee has made about bankers’ incomes.  Enormous salaries, fat bonuses, retaining fees from this and that outside corporation, changes to get a little rake-off on the side by playing the market—all of these things go to swell the income of the financial and industrial titan….The theory, of course, is that you have got to hand up huge rewards of that kind if you are to get large-caliber men to do the big jobs….Well, the president of the United States has a fairly responsible job, and he gets along on $75,000 a year.  That’s a good deal of money, but it is small compared to what such men as Wiggin, Mitchell, Hill, Grace and their confreres get.  Gen. Hugh S. Johnson, who has the colossal job of overseeing all American industry, does it for $6000 a year.  Donald Richberg, NRA’s general counsel, works for $12,000 a year.  Maj. Gen. Edward Markham, who, as chief of the army’s engineers, will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the next four years, works for $600 a month.  One of the biggest engineering jobs ever undertaken—the Mississippi flood control work—was put through by his predecessor, Maj. Gen. Lytle Brown, on the same salary.  And the enormous Muscle Shoals project is directed by three men who draw $10,000 a year apiece….”  (editorial, Nov. 8, 1933, p.4)

“Overdue doctors’ bills, old accounts at feed mills, general country store debts and even arrears in taxes are beginning slowly to be whittled down by New Jersey dairy farmers since the Milk Control Board stabilized the milk price situation in May.  These improved conditions are being reported from the dairy areas as a result of the increased returns to New Jersey producers. …The tangible results reported by the country merchants make it possible for them to place orders for the products of industry.  In this way the wheels of recovery appear to be gradually gaining motion….By restoring prices to a more equitable basis the Milk Control Board enabled the dairy farmer to meet all of the sanitary requirements demanded of him by health officials….” (Nov. 8, 1933, p.14)

“There never was a honeymoon that lasted more than a few months; and if Mr. Roosevelt’s excursion with the American people is beginning to produce a crop of disagreements and hard words, nobody need be especially surprised….Balance the benefits against the shortcomings and you get a net gain which is very much worth having….A depression as wide and deep as the one we have been in is not ended in a day or in a month or two.  It still is a little early for us to form final judgment on the merits of the recovery program….” (editorial, Nov. 9, 1933, p.4)

“Director John Colt of the State Emergency Relief Administration has notified all county directors that the administration’s work-relief system may be utilized in aid of public libraries facing curtailment of service due to lack of adequate personnel.  A study just made by Mrs. Marjorie G. Woodlock, the administration’s State supervisor of leisure-time activities, indicates the situation is so serious that in some places closure of libraries is threatened.  Restriction of service becomes the more detrimental because readers in libraries have doubled as compared with a couple of years ago and because the circulation of books has expanded by an average of more than 60 per cent.  The conditions therefore are that while the need for service has increased, the facilities to give it have been decreased.  Mr. Colt makes it plain that aid from the administration will not be given except to “supplement” the staff of a library and that “in no instance should a library be allowed to reduce its personnel because of the State aid”. “ (Nov. 11, 1933, p.1)

“…Suppose the NRA should prove a flop.  Suppose the farm program fails; suppose the currency stabilization scheme won’t work, or the public works scheme, or the other experiments now being made.  What of it?  We have the determination to succeed.  We have shown that our vast and heterogeneous people can achieve unity in a time of crisis. We have shown that our democratic system can provide swift and forceful action when it is needed.  We have shown that we have the stomach to make drastic experiments.  Why must we assume that our salvation stands or falls on the success (or on the abandonment) of one particular plan?  We have reaffirmed our common purpose, our strength, and our loyalty.  If the old spirit lives, we can be confident of ultimate victory—if not on one road, then on another.”  (editorial, Nov. 11, 1933, p.4)

“Hanover Township faces one of its worst crises in its history, according to …William T. Leighton, district school clerk, at the meeting of the township committee last night.  Mr. Leighton, in appealing for funds to meet current expenses such as teachers, salaries, bills and tuition, stated, “there is not enough money left in the school accounts to meet the next teachers payroll, which will fall due on the twenty-fourth of this month”.  This followed a request received from the township board of education asking for $18,000 for the purpose of running the three schools of the township system…until January 1st….Chairman Aaron B. Losey…reported that there was still approximately $100,000 in unpaid taxes in the township at the present time.  The committee authorized Township Collector Frederick  P. Griffith, to hold a tax sale on delinquent properties but to also issue a special request that the people pay their taxes immediately in order to keep the schools from being closed.  Last year the township borrowed $20,000 in anticipation of taxes, but is still paying interest on the loan due to the inability to collect the taxes…” (Nov. 14, 1933, p.1)

“Trenton (AP)—Several thousand jobless men in New Jersey will go to work Monday—the first of the 90,000 the federal civil works administration expects to employ in this state by Dec. 15.  Half of the state’s quota will be taken from relief rolls and the other fifty per cent will be hired at federal-state employment offices.  The men will work at a minimum wage of fifty cents an hour for unskilled labor and $1.20 for skilled labor.  They will work thirty hours a week and the government will pay them each weekly from its $400,000,000 fund….those on relief lists will be chosen from each county according to the case load.  Unemployed not receiving relief should apply at the federal-state employment office….On Oct.15, there were approximately 350,000 persons on relief, representing about 84,485 families,,,,The number of cases on relief September 30 in each county and the ratio they represent tot the total includes Morris 4,691 or 1.3 per cent, Somerset 3,717 of 1.04 per cent, Sussex County 431 or 1.2 per cent and Warren 2,262 or .63 per cent.”  (Nov. 14, 1933, p.1)

“Boonton—A drop in the amount of contributions being received for relief work was reported by the Community Relief bureau….Only ten men are being given part time work as a result of this drop in contributions.  The bureau could give work to thirty men if it had sufficient funds.  Thirty-three men have put in 189 1/8 days’ work for the bureau and ten others have obtained work through the efforts of the bureau.  A woodcutting project has been initiated and twentythree truckloads of wood have been cut and delivered some of this to unemployed men who worked two days without pay to earn a half of a truckload….Town trucks are used for this purpose.  Part of the wood is sold and the money turned back to the bureau….”  (Nov. 14, 1933, p.2)

“…being a prophet is a pretty thankless sort of job.  It was several years ago that Mr. Swope first suggested to American business men that they would eventually have to devise some means by which the national economy could be run according to a plan.  At that time Mr. Swope outlined a tentative framework for attaining that end.  The leaders of industry read it, remarked that it was very pretty but rather impractical, and went back to their knitting.  And when Mr. Swope remarked that if business men didn’t cook up some such plan themselves the government would sooner or later cook up one for them, they looked the other way and began talking about their golf scores, or something….some sort of wide-spread co-operative control has got to be instituted over the nation’s business and industrial life….Our present regime vests such control primarily in the federal government; Mr. Swope’s plan would vest it primarily in a council of the business men themselves.  To be very blunt about it, your choice between the two schemes will depend largely on whether you think the business community can be trusted….”  (editorial, Nov. 14, 1933, p.4)

“The business man or manufacturer whose hope for the future is wrapped up in an expected return to pre-war normalcy is out on a limb.  For pre-war normalcy never will return.  That’s history….Since 1921 American business has left as monuments of its progress a long succession of junk-heaps of discarded processes, antiquated ideas and obsolete policies.  There have been tragedies of those who clung too long to reverted and once profitable practices.  The new business man must be eager to take advantage of slightest changes in trend….”  (editorial, Nov. 14, 1933, p.4)

“Boonton—Judge J. D. Zurcher, who was attorney of the Department of Justice in Oregon, addressed the program session at the November meeting of the Morris County League of Women Voters held yesterday at the home of Miss Mary DeCamp.  The subject was NRA and Living Costs.  He spoke enthusiastically of the NRA.  The present economic condition of the country is similar to war conditions in that every person should cooperate with the government and do his part.  Those who criticize and fail to assist in the plans for reconstruction are, Judge Zurcher said, as bad as traitors during war times.  It is the consumers place to buy, and to buy from the right individuals, those who have adhered to the NRA, he said.  It is not fair to the ones who have formed a code to purchase goods which are sold by people and concerns who have not done their part.  It is also up to the consumer to report any cases where those who have joined the NRA are not abiding by the code…”  (Nov. 14, 1933, p.5)

“The Morris County Board of Freeholders may take over between 10 and 15 miles of township roads at one of its December meetings, it was indicated by Director Stephen C. Griffith….funds available to the counties from the state had been increased with the idea in mind that the counties would help relieve the various townships.  Under this plan, Morris County will get about $100,000 more in 1934 than it is now receiving for road work.  With this extra money available, the county will be prepared to take over some additional roads now owned by townships or boroughs and it will be able to go ahead and do quite a bit of work on these during the coming year.  The roads to be taken will be based primarily on their importance in hooking up with state and county highways, and will be added to the important connecting links already controlled by the county….Owing to existing financial conditions the Freeholders had not taken over any roads in the past few years.  (Nov. 15, 1933, p.1)

“The federal and state governments will spend about $30,000 in Morris County on road work during the coming winter and at least 65 percent of that amount will go for wages.  Men on the various relief lists will be given first opportunity….The Federal government is appropriating $30,000 a county for about 3,000 counties in the country and is working in cooperation with the State Highway Department…The matter was suddenly brought to the attention of the Board of

Freeholders at its conference yesterday afternoon….although taken unawares by the move, the Board hastily conferred…and submitted a list of about a dozen different roads, from which half a dozen will be picked for the relief jobs…” (Nov. 15, 1933, p.1)

“The management of the Market Street Mission issued a statement today in order to acquaint the people of Morristown and vicinity, with the policy of the Mission, in the matter of caring for the unemployed and needy, who apply to them for help….”no hungry person is ever refused food at the Market Street Mission, and every worthy case is given lodging, food, and clothing, and other assistance, when needed.”…during this period the Market Street Mission has been called upon to furnish help for more people, exceeding all previous records…than any similar period of the Mission’s history.  “During the past three years, the Mission has furnished 38,275 lodgings, 72,280 meals, 1,639 pieces of clothing, while 47,933 have attended the Gospel meetings held in the Mission.  1,106 men have found employment, both permanent and temporary.  In addition to this, furniture and clothing and other help have been given to deserving and needy families.  The Industrial Department, which was opened on Spring street in February of last year, and which has been maintained by the paper, magazines, furniture and other discards from the homes of Morristown and other vicinities, has made possible the employment of hundreds of men each month….This Department has been self-sustaining, and has not, in any sense, been a burden on the financial resources of the Mission…”  (Nov. 15, 1933, p.4)

“When Leonor F. Loree jumped up in meeting, waved a $20 bill and declared that the ending of gold standard was a heinous violation of trust, he started a lot of people thinking along lines he hadn’t intended….the spectacle of this Wall street man beating his breast is nothing less than grotesque when you put it up against its proper background….In the farm belt there are a lot of farmers jumping up in meeting and waving bits of paper—mortgages, which were contracted when it took one bushel of wheat to buy a dollar and which must be paid when it takes two bushels to buy a dollar….the betrayal that came to them came while the dollar was firmly anchored to gold.  They were undone by “sound money”—money which for all its soundness, was worth one thing when they borrowed it and another when they had to pay it back.  Their demands for relief are just as valid as Mr. Loree’s—more, so, perhaps, for our departure from gold has not brought the well-fed Mr. Loree into danger of hunger and the loss of everything he owns….This is hardly the psychological moment for a Wall street man to get up on his hind legs and talk about “a violation of trust.”  There are a good many Americans today who possess beautiful pieces of paper, for which they paid Wall street good money.  Wall street pledged its faith that these bits of paper could be redeemed at the price that was paid for them, and that they would bear interest steadily until the moment of redemption came.  But today you can buy lots of those pieces of paper for a nickel on the dollar…If we are going to wave pieces of paper and yell about betrayals, let’s start with farm mortgages and Wall street bonds.  After all, Mr. Loree’s $20 bill will still buy quite a few groceries.”  (editorial, Nov. 15, 1933, p.6)

“…If we have a dictatorship today, it only can be said that it is by all odds one of the queerest and most unrecognizable of dictatorships ever erected anywhere.  Every single thing that is being done today is being done as a result of the vote of the people of America, either directly or through their representatives….A new Congress takes office in January.  It can, if it chooses, repeal every paragraph of this legislation.  If it disapproves of what the executive has been doing, it can render him impotent.  It has the power to throw him out of office if he steps over the boundary of the executive’s proper sphere….success of the “new deal” depends first, last, and all the time on popular support.  The minute the public at large disapproves of it, the cards go back into the deck….we are beginning to hear this talk of a “dictatorship” more and more frequently of late; and…most of it is a cloak of selfish opposition, which prefers not to appear in its proper guise.  This is not to say that no man can oppose the recovery program.  It simply means that any such opposition must rest on the right foundation…”  (editorial, Nov. 17, 1933, p.4)

“Sixty Morristown and ten Morris Township men went to work this morning on placing a rock bottom in Burnham Park swimming pool.  This was one of two federal-aid projects approved for immediate start here in order to give unemployed work….Forty of the men are at Brookside Reservoir racking up the rock with which the bottom of the pool will be rip-rapped and 30 at Burnham Pool preparing it for the fill.  It was at first hoped to be able to construct a concrete bottom but as this would involve too much material and not enough labor, the rock bottom plan was decided on….”  (Nov. 20, 1933, p.1)

“MUNICIPAL RELIEF HEAD ISSUES REGULATIONS ON METHOD RELIEF WORK  TO THE CITIZENS OF MORRISTOWN:  

With the formation of the Civil Works Administration, designed primarily to give jobs at living wages to the unemployed, 70 men went to work this morning.  Most of them to earn their first week’s wages in many months….We have not lost sight of the untold suffering which has been borne by those who have not applied for relief.  During the years that relief has been administered, pages could be written on the sufferings which this class has endured….We know that they are anxious and they will use every means available to be one of the first employed….You can co-operate in making the program progress rapidly first, if you are not on the Relief rolls, by registering at the New Jersey State Reemployment Service Office….You can help, secondly, by not criticizing those who are attempting to put this program into effect, as we have the welfare of  every unemployed at heart and nothing would please us more than to be able to greet them with the good news that they have a “job” and will be paid wages….Remember that we who have the job of administering Relief were born and brought up in Morristown and are well acquainted with the serious conditions which exist, and our primary objective is the welfare of our citizens ….  NELSON S. BUTERA, Deputy Municipal Director” (Nov. 20, 1933, p.1)

“…the voters still are on the warpath.  They still are in the mood that possessed them a year ago—which is to say that they are anxious to vote “against” that they are exceedingly critical of the “ins” everywhere….The profound dissatisfaction which blew the lid off a year ago has not died down.  People are tired of empty promises and mediocre performances.  They are serving notice anew that no officeholder who fails to take the demand for a new day into account can hope to survive….the national administration…has promised much and it has started much.  These promises and these actions must run the gantlet of a nation that is tired of fooling….The promises must be sincere and the actions must be effective….the municipal elections simply reaffirm a temper that was made evident a year ago.  There is a grim earnestness to this temper that no one can fail to notice.”  (editorial, Nov. 20, 1933, p.4

“Anyone who has studied the public reaction to the recovery program cannot have failed to notice that we recently have passed from the first phase of this experiment into the second.  The first phase was the era of unanimous public approval….we could see that some definite action was being taken, and we liked the idea….Now things are different.  Criticism has begun….It would be a mistake to assume that this criticism proceeds solely from those who have private axes to grind….We couldn’t go on cheering forever over the fact that the national government had recovered from an attack of paralysis.  It got to be high time for us to bring our critical faculties to life….No government can give its best if there is a complete and continued absence of criticism….Perhaps the best thing that could have happened to the recovery program as a whole is the fact that people now are ready to speak up…the moment they see a flaw in it.  We are, after all, still a democracy and not a dictatorship.  We want to stay that way.  By subjecting the recovery program to critical analysis, we simply are proving that our democracy is continuing to function in the proper manner.”  (editorial, Nov. 21, 1933, p.4)

“…The NRA framework…is not so much a measure to restore prosperity as a conduit through which returning prosperity can flow more smoothly and rapidly.  It is just as well that we keep that fact in mind.  Otherwise we are apt to gaze about us, see that the depression is lingering, and conclude that the NRA is worthless and should be junked. .Restoration of good business … depends on the interlocking of a number of factors.  The NRA is one of them, the Agricultural Adjustment Act is another, the public works program is another, the present manipulation of the currency seems to be still another….”  (editorial, Nov. 22, 1933, p.4)

“The road work for Morris County is completed for this year and laborers are to be laid off tomorrow night, due to the lack of any further funds, Chairman William C. Spargo announced at the meeting of the Board of Freeholders yesterday afternoon….If possible, it is planned to give these men some work just before Christmas, he said.  Several questions came up about relief programs and it was stated that the county would have nothing to do with these.  All men needing work should register with the state headquarters at 45 Speedwell avenue….” (Nov. 23, 1933, p.1)

“Unemployment will be practically wiped out in Morristown, according to Mayor Clyde Potts, when one hundred local men, by means of the newly created Civil Works Administration, will be put to work on improvement of the Morristown National Historical Park.  The work will begin immediately and it will add $6,500 to the monthly payrolls of this vicinity.  Application for employment in connection with the CWA project should be made at 45 Speedwell avenue at once….At the present, the Civil Works Administration expects the work program to last only until February 14 of next year, but it is thought that the date may be extended until the first of April.  In addition to the monthly sum of $6,500 which is to be received by the laborers, there will be a supervisory monthly payroll of $750, and materials purchased in the course of the work will necessitate the expenditure of $805 per month, all of which latter sum will be spent locally.  Skilled laborers are to receive $1.00 per hour, unskilled workers will get 50 cents per hour, and the workweek will be limited to 30 hours.  For the most part, residents of this city and of Morris Township are to be taken on under the new CWA work plan….”  (Nov. 24, 1933, p.1)

“It is reported in Washington that the huge federal public works program is going to get another shot in the arm.  All the $3,300,000,000 fund originally voted for this program will be allotted by Jan. 1.  It is doing the recovery effort a great deal of good, but it begins to look as if there is not quite enough of it.  So now it is expected that the administration will boost it to a total of $5,000,000,000.  This being so, the next question to decide is, for what shall the money be used? ....There are in American cities today some 9,000,000 homes that belong in or close to the slum classification….Now, spending money on housing is one of the most direct of all ways to promote a business revival.  It puts a great many men to work, it restores realty values, it stimulates trade in many basic raw materials and semi-finished industries.  If we want to get back to prosperity, the more money we pour into slum clearance plans, the better….Even in prosperous times, money put into slum clearance would be money well spent.  It is hard to build a healthy society when a large part of the society is housed unhealthfully.  Slums breed crime, disease, vice, and poor citizenship generally.  They cost us infinitely more than the cost of replacing them.  They are perhaps the greatest single drag on democracy’s feet.  (editorial, Nov. 24, 1933, p.4)

“…it is important that we do not make the mistake of judging all American business men by the spectacle which a very few have made of themselves… It is perfectly true that our pre-NRA system let greed go unchecked, and that the unrestrained working of that greed was in no small measure responsible for the depression….For example, such men as Wiggin and Mitchell admit to a Senate committee that their prime interest all along was to feather their own nests at no matter what cost to others….The average business man is as good an American citizen as anyone else….He wants…what all really, public-spirited men want—to be a part of a healthy, cooperative community in which it is possible for men to render a genuine service in return for the money they get.  And let it be said to the honor of American business men that the overwhelming majority have kept this desire in mind through the hard years of the depression.  The Senate disclosures about blind greed in high places in the business world have been extremely ugly, indubitably…. But the man who…says that the business class as a whole stands condemned because of the faults of a few—that man simply does not know what he is talking about.”   (editorial, Nov. 25, 1933, p.4)

“Dover—Commander Samuel Chiles, director of unemployment relief, announces that the thirty-three men placed at work last week will receive thirty-three more to assist them next week.  As in the first crew put to work, men with the largest families will receive priority.  They will work thirty hours at a forty-cent per hour rate….it is expected that an important announcement will be made shortly regarding the placing of many to work at a plant here.  The unemployment relief office here which has also been acting as an employment bureau, has placed considerable female help and have also aided men in securing positions here and in neighboring towns.”  (Nov. 25, 1933, p.5)

“LET US NOT OVERLOOK THESE HUGE PROFITS

When Senate investigators uncovered the facts about the fat salaries which such men as Wiggin and Mitchell enjoyed in recent years, the man in the street was not slow in expressing complete disapproval.  Incomes that are figured in quarter-million lots don’t look so good against a background of 12,000,000 men out of work.  The uproar that greeted the news was quite justified.  Less fuss is being made about some of the later revelations of “easy money” in Wall Street.  Yet these revelations are in fact more important than those which had to do with the swollen salaries of the big shot money changers….Consider the little matter of the stock transactions about which Arthur W. Cutten told the senators the other day.  Back in 1929, a group of men headed by Cutten, Harry F. Sinclair and Wiggin organized a get-rich-quick oil stock syndicate.  This syndicate promptly bought some 1,130,000 shares of Sinclair oil stock.  Before they paid for it, however, they sold it—at a very neat little profit of $12,000,000.  The participants in this gay little party used none of their own money.  They didn’t have to.  When you can sell, at a profit, an article which you have not yet paid for, you don’t really need much of a bank-roll to finance your deal….It was this sort of thing, and not the prevalence of unjustifiably high salaries, that constituted the real weakness of the boom era.” (editorial, Nov. 27, 1933, p.4)

“Sixty more men were taken off the relief lists of the town yesterday and put to work in grading and draining at Lidgerwood Field.  This makes 130 men of Morristown and Morris Township given jobs within the past two weeks and contemplated projects will give many others work during the winter months….With this group started, there are only thirty left on the town’s relief list and it is hoped that these will be given jobs in a very short time.  After that the additional work started will find men being drawn from the unemployed list of the state employment bureau on Speedwell avenue ….Several other projects are being worked out, the biggest of which is the development of Speedwell Park and the restoring of the old lake there.  A sewer and water project on Hamilton road is also being planned.  All of these come under the Civic Works Program and the funds are being furnished by the government, which has as its only proviso that at least 65 percent of the money must go for labor….”  (Nov. 29, 1933, p.1)

“Statements and arguments about the government’s monetary policy are arising to heaven these days like a drifting fog about a mountain peak; and the peak which they veil…is that enormous mass of debts which ran up back in the boom days….Back in the boom times, when something that looked very much like money grew on every bush, we went deeply into debt.  Farmers went into debt, business houses went into debt, industrial concerns went into debt….Meanwhile money became scarcer…But the mountain of debt remained unchanged….What is being attempted at Washington today may look altogether too much like an effort to move mountains by faith alone to suit practical men.  But the job has to be done, and if we disapprove of the way that is being tried, it is up to us to suggest another way….”  (editorial, Dec. 2, 1933, p.4)

“New Jersey teachers are alarmed over their pension fund, and have the right to be.  Its present depleted condition is not due to any act of the teachers themselves, nor to its construction, because it is one of the few actuarily sound pension systems.  It is due to the fact that the Legislature, pressed for funds, borrowed from the fund what now amounts to $8,500,000 by not paying its share during the past two years.  It solemnly promised to repay it with interest, and that promise must be kept.  The fund now is actuarily sound but unless the State pays its obligation, no pensions can be paid the teachers after January 2 next, according to Frank G. Pickell, president of the New Jersey State Teachers’ Association; they will receive only their annuities which their own contributions to the fund have provided.  A move is under way in legislative halls to have the Delaware river bridge bonds turned over to the fund, and this probably will be done.  It had been intended to sell the bonds, which are in possession of the State and which amount to about $12,000,000 and use the money for that purpose, but difficultties were experienced in the bond market.  There also is a disposition to have some of the funds realized from the bonds go to un-paid teachers.  It would appear to be the first duty of the State to meet its obligation to the pension fund.”  (New Brunswick Home News editorial appearing in the Daily Record, Dec. 4, 1933, p.4)

“Boonton—Local relief agencies are evincing considerable dissatisfaction with the municipal relief department’s attitude toward the relief [of] local unemployed.  All this is done behind the lines because the local administration is supposed to be backed by the more wealthy and influential section of the town’s citizens.  This is, however, somewhat ameliorated by the existence of the Boonton Taxpayers’ Association which insists on budget decreases.  This factor has probably deterred the town considerably in its attempt to obtain adequate relief facilities.  Local relief agencies believe that slightly over one dollar a week per family of four is not sufficient in spite of the auxiliary relief provided by other interested parties which depend almost entirely upon the kindliness of the various organizations doing this kind of work.  At one time almost a year ago $1.29 was quoted as the figure for each family of four on the relief lists.  During Thanksgiving families were well provided for as a result of increased activities among the local clubs and organizations but this work frequently slows up during the interim between holidays.”  (Dec. 5, 1933, p.1)

“Washington—More than 3,500 men enrolled in the Civilian Conservation corps are being assigned to effect vast improvement in major historical landmarks in New Jersey, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and Mississippi, it was announced here at the office of director of Emergency Conservation Work.  A complete restoration of the historic shrines included in the project is not contemplated, but the government proposes to restore them to such a condition that the average visitor will come away with a clear understanding of their relation to the growth of the nation, the announcement said.   Among the sites included…are…two…at Morristown, N.J., an area used by the American armies every winter during the crucial years between 1775 and 1781 ….”  (Dec. 8, 1933, p. 22)

“There is misery aplenty in this country, and those of us who are more fortunate than the rest should keep this in mind.  At the same time, however, we never should relinquish that sense of humor which distinguishes us from the other nations.  It is our saving grace.  It prevents revolution and turmoil.  It gives us a point of view apart from our very condition and permits us to judge ourselves from a cool and sane attitude.  It is such that, if we had a Hitler instead of a Roosevelt to lead us, we long ago would have laughed him down.”   (editorial, Dec. 9, 1933, p.4)

“2,146 residents of Morris County will have been put back to work by this Friday, December 15, by virtue of the operation of the Civil  Works Administration….On a basis of $15 per week per individual, it is estimated the $32,190 will have been added to the purchasing power of the county.  1,844 persons had been re-employed this morning, and the remaining two or three hundred will be back to work by Friday….On a basis of about 10,000 unemployed in Morris in the worst period of the depression, the Civil Works Administration will have absorbed roughly one-fifth of persons out of work.…The principal county projects under CWA are road improvements, work on sewage disposal plants, and such municipal works as cementing the bottom of the Burnham Park swimming pool in this city.  The jobs demand, by and large, manual workers, although there are several foremen.  Approximately $2,250 worth of shovels, brush axes, picks, axes, boots and other equipment was rounded up between midnight Saturday and noon Sunday at the stores of about eighteen county hardware dealers….there was hardly a shovel left in stock….”  (Dec. 11, 1933, p.1)

“One of the unpleasant jobs Uncle Sam will have to take on in the near future is the task of finding new ways to get money.  Nobody likes the idea of higher taxes.  Nobody denies that a mounting tax rate is bad for business.  Nobody, rich or poor, gets any particular kick out of paying his taxes.  But nobody, on the other hand, can look at the vast sums that are being spent these days, without realizing that some new sources of revenue will be necessary in the           not-distant future.  Never before, save in war time, has the government spent at its present rate.  This money can’t be plucked out of thin air.  All of which brings us up to the latest declaration of Senator George W. Norris of  Nebraska, who urges a heavy stiffening of the inheritance tax by the next Congress.  Here is an idea which cuts two ways.  Not only would it provide the government with badly needed money; it could be made into a weapon to promote that more equitable distribution of wealth which seems to be one of the goals of the era now beginning…. ”Such law,” remarks Senator Norris, “should allow a liberal exemption—an exemption even large enough so that the beneficiary might live the remainder of his life in luxury—and then it should be increased by progressive steps so that the residue of the fortune would be passed back to the people through this method of taxation, and thus be returned to the government.”  Every man who manages to lay aside a little surplus has the right to seek to provide for his children.  That should be possible, under even the stiffest sort of inheritance tax law.  But the idea of preserving a vast fortune intact through generation after generation, and preserving with it the great power that goes with extreme wealth, handing wealth and power down to those who have done nothing to earn them—that is something else again, and we properly can keep it in mind in framing our law….Uncle Sam needs every dime he can get; the country as a whole needs to do something about the congealing of great wealth in the hands of a fortunately born few.  Both goals can be reached through sane revision of the inheritance tax.”  (editorial, Dec. 9, 1933, p.4)

“An additional 75 men will be put to work in Morristown tomorrow, making about 375 who have been given employment under the CWA and other relief projects, it was announced this morning by Town Clerk Nelson S. Butera, Deputy Director of Relief.  The men will be put to work at Cauldwell Memorial Playground, fixing up tennis courts, wading pool and handball court, and at Normandie Water Works where a runway for an airport will laid out.  This latter job is a temporary one until other projects are given approval and the proposed airport may become a separate unit job under general plans for developing airfields and emergency landing places throughout the country….Between now and the end of the week between 100 and 150 more men will be added to the payrolls as other projects are given approval….”  (Dec. 12, 1933, p.1)

“Dover—Commander Samuel Chiles, director of Unemployment Relief and in charge of the Civil Works Administration here, announced today that forty-eight men had been placed at work on Monday, half of them in the town of Dover and the other half in various towns in the Lake Land district.  He also announced that today ninety-five would be put on the payroll in a program being outlined by the town….Eight projects have been outlined by Town Engineer Raymond Sharp and the men placed at work today will work on these jobs.  Four foremen and another timekeeper will also be placed on the jobs.  One of the new projects will be a dam for Hurd Park, work on Jordan Terrace, repairs to Park Heights avenue, and several streets, all of which are of a permanent nature to comply with the Civil Works program.  Yesterday the town of Dover had 120 men working under the program laid down and the ninety-five placed at work this morning gives the town 215 men now working.  Last week the men on the payroll received $1,044.50 in wages and the amount during the next two weeks will about double this amount….”  (Dec. 12, 1933, p.11)

“Boonton—To date, 129 Boonton men have been employed under the CWA program.  These men are employed at various places, not necessarily in Boonton, but for the most part in the vicinity here.  Sixty Boontonites are employed in improving Fanny road…This consists of grading and general repairs.  Forty are building a retaining wall at the foot of Morris avenue here near the Rockaway River.  The plot will be filled with refuse and dirt after the wall is built.  Eventually it will become a park.  Nine have employment in Mt. Lakes and fifteen men are working in Denville on road projects.  The remaining four are engaged in reclamation work in Lincoln Park for the Morris County Mosquito Commission.”  (Dec. 13, 1933, p.10)

“An additional $200,000 for work at Picatinny Arsenal has just been set aside, according to announcement sent this morning by Congressman Charles A. Eaton to The Record….The kind of work covered under this Civil Works program will be grading grounds, repair of railroad tracks and other jobs….Mr. Eaton, in his letter, said: “Because of distressing conditions throughout my district, due to unemployment conditions, I have been working here to secure every relief possible through the recently organized Civil Works Administration….”  (Dec. 14, 1933, p.1)

“2,826 Morris County residents are on the job under the Civil Works Administration’s reemployment program, said Mrs. Lillian S. Ogden, deputy county emergency relief administrator….The county’s original quota of 2,146 workers on municipal and county projects was filled this morning, said Mrs. Ogden, and in addition there are 680 persons working on federal CWA projects.  The weekly payroll under CWA has been stepped up about $40,000 within the last month, and it now stands at about $45,000.  There are sixty-four projects now under way, and new projects to be initiated within a week include work at Lake Denmark, Picatinny Arsenal, Jockey Hollow National Park, Greystone Park and experimentation with the Dutch elm blight.  Up until this morning, the state’s quota of 90,000 jobs under the Civil Works Administration was not quite filled, and there were only 80,517 re-employed back at work.  In most cases the present jobs last at least until February 15 under CWA, at which time PWA, the Public works Administration, may be operative to continue socialized employment….”  (Dec. 15, 1933, p.1)

The Woman’s Club of Morristown placed a large display ad in The Morristown Record, the space donated by the newspaper, which appeared on December 16, 1933, p.3.  It features the NRA blue eagle surrounded by a Christmas wreath.  Over the wreath are the words “Our First

Blue Eagle Christmas – 1933”, and across the bottom of the wreath the highlighted phrase is “This Year – Try Morristown First”.  Beneath runs the text of the ad:  “With the approach of the first Blue Eagle Christmas comes a renewal of the faith, hope and courage which brightened the outlook of the world 2,000 years ago.  Christmas 1933 ushers in a new era of vastly improved social and economic conditions in which confidence in country, government and mankind is the dominant note.  The NRA has proved the most successful experiment in mass co-operation in all history.  Virtually every employer is now conducting his business according to rules deemed best for the majority:  shorter hours, more employment and bulkier pay envelopes.  And, perhaps, greatest of all the new order’s accomplishments is the abolition of child labor.  Morristown merchants have done their part in making possible this first Blue Eagle Christmas.  They have sacrificed their own interests to the common good; shown the true Christmas spirit, and discounted the cry of Scrooge that “Christmas is all humbug”.  It would seem sporting then, if we are appreciative of the good accomplished in our community, that we do our part as consumers and THIS CHRISTMAS TRY MORRISTOWN FIRST.”

“…A nation which was truly determined to control its prosperity for the common good would not have room for a number of the things that this nation has had room for in the last decade.  It scarcely would have room for an Insull, for example.  Insull profited mightily, built up a great financial empire, tied holding companies together intricately, won fame and power and riches— and left the rest of the country holding the bag.  It would hardly have room for a Wiggin, who contrived to put his own interests ahead of the interests of his stockholders; or for a Mitchell, who introduced high-pressure salesmanship to the world of banking; or for any one of half a dozen other financiers, who easily might be named, who collected enormous sums by peddling worthless bonds to their countrymen.  It certainly would have very little room for a system which placed the farmer at the mercy of the money lender, and kept depressing his income at the same time that it boosted the price of his necessities.  It might not have much room for an industrial leadership which was responsible for some of the coal-and-iron towns of the eastern mountains; it is very hard to see how it would tolerate some of the deeds of the coal-and-iron police.  Nor, by the same token, would it be able to use a labor leader who had been graduated to his job from the ranks of the racketeers….”  (editorial, Dec. 16, 1933, p.4)

“In Florham Park, on a strictly local CWA job where only unskilled labor is required, ten men are being used and but one of these come from Florham.  Other Florham men, working under CWA, are transported to other parts of the county and men from other sections are sent to Florham….This involves extra hours for the men and also increases costs in transportation and it would seem as if it would be possible to make transfers so that men could work nearest their homes.”  (Dec. 18, 1933, p.1)

“Work was started on the Morristown Municipal Airport this morning by an engineering party ….It is expected that about 100 men will be put to work tomorrow and Wednesday will see the balance of the men at work….The money that is being allocated to Morristown is an outright grant from the Federal government through the Department of Commerce and has no conditions accompanying it except that at least eighty percent of it be spent for labor….this money…had been designated for airport development and can only be used for such work.  Morristown is especially fortunate in securing this grant, which is the first approved airport construction in the United States under the Department of Commerce and CWA and was able to do so only because of the foresight of its mayor in having airport plans prepared in advance and having a site available….”  (Dec. 18, 1933, p.1)

“Trenton, Dec. 16 (AP) - …Although an original proposal of federal authorities to assign $10,000,000 to airport development throughout the country was abandoned, such projects have been approved for inclusion in Civil Works programs….New Jersey has proceeded promptly to provide for airport projects at a dozen municipalities under the state CWA program….Among the municipalities at which projects are contemplated are Morristown, Ocean City, Vineland, Hammonton, Bayonne, Wanaque, Princeton, Tuckerton, Phillipsburg, Newton, Dover and Lindewald….”  (Dec. 18, 1933, p.1)

“…it is pretty clear that we are going to need some far-reaching program to take care of unemployment even after prosperity returns.  We either can give the jobless work to do, set up a regular unemployment insurance system—a dole, in plain English—or go back to the old, unsatisfactory method of letting private charity take care of them. One of these three is going to be with us more or less permanently.  Doesn’t the civil works scheme look very much like the best of the three alternatives?” (editorial, Dec. 18, 1933, p.4)

“Dover’s unemployment situation has been greatly reduced during the past two weeks under the

CWA program which is being directed here by Commander Samuel Chiles, director of the Emergency Relief Committee.  At the present time nearly 225 men are on the town payroll under the CWA program and many new streets are being laid out and graded and other permanent improvements have been started and will be completed before summer….Last week nearly one hundred men were placed at work at Picatinny Arsenal and this morning twenty-three more were sent for….Lake Denmark Naval Ammunition Depot added fourteen to its payroll last week and…it is said more will be hired….But forty-eight remain on the local relief list, the most of these women and children.” (Dec. 18, 1933, p.5)

“Most of our energies today are devoted to the immediate problem of recovery….Until it is accomplished, no one has time to think of much else.  But it is worth remembering that back of it there lies still another problem…. It is simply the fact that this efficient and mechanized age continually is finding ways of using fewer men to make and do more things.  “Technological unemployment” is the lengthy name that has been given this development.  Ten men can do a job today that would have taken 30 men a decade ago.  Tomorrow the job probably will be done by five men.  That’s all there is to it….Every modern business operates under the necessity of being as efficient as possible.  It has to do what it does in the quickest possible manner at the least possible expense.  If it can find a machine to do the work that formerly was done by a dozen men, it has to install it.  If it can arrange its operations so that one man can do what two used to do, it must do so.  Temporarily, as a means of reducing unemployment, we have made certain arbitrary moves to halt this process.  The federal railway co-ordinator, for instance, has refrained from instituting various consolidations in our railway set-up, because to do so would throw men out of work….But this simply is dodging the problem….On the one hand, we aim to make it possible for every man who wants a job to find one.  On the other, the very nature of our productive machinery tends to whittle down the total number of jobs.  The biggest single puzzle of the modern age is apt to be the task of harmonizing those opposing trends…” (editorial, Dec. 19, 1933, p.4)

This large advertisement appeared on December 20, 1933, p.13:

“Official Schedule of Minimum Retail Prices effective from Friday, Dec. 22, 1933, by order of the State Code Authority for the Laundry Industry”, prices set by state law for different levels of services ranging from “wet wash” or “damp wash” to items listed individually such as union suits (from 15 to 20¢ depending on fabric and length) to corset covers (10¢) to double woolen blankets (75¢).  This “minimum retail prices” code was “Approved December 7th, 1933. By Colonel J. Lester Eisner. State Administrator, New Jersey Industrial Recovery Act.”

“$731,155 has already been spent on CWA projects in Morris County, it is reported by Mrs. Lillian Ogden, deputy county director of emergency Relief….The re-employment drive in Morris had eventuated late yesterday in the employment of 3,220 men and in an estimated addition to county payrolls of about $50,000 per week.  The 86 projects listed to date are principally concerned with the improvement of roads.  Other interesting projects are the elimination of the Dutch Elm disease, the improvement of municipal water and sewage plants, the formulation of a county roadside tree program along 250 miles of roads, and the improvement of playgrounds and recreational facilities.  373 men are employed on the largest project, the improvement of roads, farm buildings, sewage and water works at Greystone Park. 

Construction and addition to the Lake Denmark Naval Depot demand the daily labor of 250 men, while the Morristown National Historical Park roads are undergoing a process of rejuvenation with 41 men engaged….”   The lengthy list of projects, with their locations, description of work, and number of men employed, appears next to the article.  (Dec. 22, 1933, p.1)

“Dover – The CWA has solved a problem that has been worrying the town fathers for nearly a year.  The Board of Aldermen have been under a heavy load to sustain the number of families they did up until they were able to take hold of the CWA money.  Commander Chiles announced yesterday that just nineteen families remain on the relief list.  Most of these are women who are unable to secure positions, although the local relief committee has tried hard to place them….. The Temple Company, of New York, which has secured the contract to build the Marine barracks at Lake Denmark at a cost of $124,000 will no doubt give employment to a number of men in the Lake Land district.  Just when this job will be started has not been made known.”  (Dec. 22, 1933, p.3)

“Lincoln Park – the Borough Council meeting was marked by the attendance of a large delegation of unemployed men who protested that unmarried men were being employed among the 32 engaged in CWA programs in the borough.  They insisted that married men with children should have the preference.  The counsel stated that men from the local emergency list had received first preference for local work and veterans were second.  All of the work had called for unskilled labor….Cecil Rouault, local director, said five of the 32 were unmarried but that the local auth-orities were unable to do anything.  He said he himself had told them at Morristown that no judgment was being used in putting men to work.  The men listed their names with Mr. Rouault and said that they had all registered at Morristown, most of them under skilled labor classification.”  (Dec. 22, 1933, p.8)

“It may seem a long distance from the disappearance of the last of the free land in the west to the complexities of the alphabetical groups by which the present administration is trying to promote recovery and reconstruction.  The connection, however, is very direct and strong.  What is happening is simply that we now are tackling the problems from which we ran away when they first were taking shape.  We ran because we had a western frontier to go to; lacking it now, we have to pitch in and try to solve the difficulties.  These problems are many and varied, but most of them stem from the fact that it is hard to make a political democracy work smoothly in a land where economic power continually is concentrating itself in the hands of a few.  That development—the tendency of wealth to coalesce---is not a new thing.  In its modern form it began to appear directly after the Civil War; and the maladjustments which it brought to American society at that time were profound and disturbing.  But the country at large did little or nothing to remedy matters.  The west was open, and any man who felt that the cards were stacked against him could move to the frontier and start over again.  The open west was a safety valve which kept the national pressure down….Theodore Roosevelt’s fight against the trusts, the rise of the LaFollette group in the Senate, Woodrow Wilson’s battle for “the new freedom”— these things all testify to the nation’s effort to grapple with the issues it too long had ignored….The war took our minds off these issues for nearly a decade….the skyrocket growth of mass production industry, symbolized by development of the auto industry, to provide a temporary new safety valve.  These out-lets, too, are gone now.  And in the enormous complexities of the New Deal we simply are witnessing our final head-on collision with the problems that should have been attacked two generations ago…”  (editorial, Dec. 23, 1933, p.4) “Future generations may decide that one of the most important acts performed by the American government in 1933 was its decision to put unemployed artists to work decorating public buildings….Jo Davidson, famous sculptor…calls the move “the most wonderful thing that ever happened to the American artist,” since it will “take the artist off his pedestal as an eccentric character and make him a part of the living organism of society.”….His work will…appear in the lobbies of courthouses and postoffices and railway stations and office buildings and restaurants and factories.  We will see it constantly in the daily round of business…” (editorial, Dec. 27, 1933, p.4)

“Thermometer Six Degrees Below Zero In New Jersey ...

Washington, (AP)--The fury of winter’s onslaught has subsided considerably today over much of the United States but the intense cold still prevails in many sections.  More than 100 persons have died according to unofficial estimates as a result of blizzards, ice, snow and cold.  In New York City…Homeless men and women straggled over ice-coated sidewalks to the municipal lodging houses for food and shelter last night….”  (Dec. 28, 1933, p.1)

“When the administration turned its attention recently to the nation’s communications systems— its telephones, wireless, telegraph and radio networks—Washington dispatches pointed out that three courses were open to it.  It could leave everything just as it is.  It could set up an inclusive monopoly under fairly strict government supervision.  It could take the whole business over under a straight-out government ownership and operation scheme.…it was reported that the preponderating sentiment in the administration leaned toward the second of these three courses ….The choice will depend less on the ideas of the officials at Washington than on the sentiment of the country as a whole….the question now is, What do the American people want?  There are grounds for suspecting that the ordinary citizen has his doubts about the wisdom of going ahead with the old system of every man for himself.  On the other hand, there is very little reason to believe that there is any widespread demand for government ownership.  But the remaining choice—monopoly under government control—is something so new, and contains so many chances to make mistakes, that plenty of people have their doubts about it, also.”  (editorial, Dec. 28, 1933, p.4)

“Trenton, (AP)—Employment for 7,000 “white collar” workers is being provided by the State C.W.A. with an additional assignment of $2,000,000 federal funds.  The fund which was assigned to New Jersey by Harry L. Hopkins federal relief and C.W.A. director at the instigation of John Colt, state director, will provide incomes for the “white collar” group until March 1 when public works projects or activities resulting from federal administrative or congressional action are expected to be underway.  The “White Collar” workers in the state are being assigned to “non constructive” projects, 4,283 already being employed.  Among their activities, Colt said yesterday, were social service projects, dental service in schools, public health service and nursing, clerical and maintainence [sic] work in public buildings and institutions, sewing room work and canning and cooking projects.  The State Department of Health has engaged 175 workers in a survey of immunization from smallpox and diphtheria among pre-school children.”  (Dec. 29, 1933, p.1)

“Representatives of the Morris County Building Trade Council, seeking to gain admittance to the Naval Depot at Lake Denmark to ascertain if the PWA rules were being enforced and local men employed, were refused admission recently….Not only once but several times were the men prevented from gaining an entrance and they were greeted with fixed bayonets and drawn revolvers as they sought to legally enter the place.  Complaints have been sent to United States Senator Warren W. Barbour relative to the situation and a dispatch from Washington today quoted an army ordinance corps officer branding the complaint as “ridiculous.”  Representatives of the Building Trade Council said that refusal was not made at Picatinny….They sought to find out conditions existing in the work under progress as to the wages paid, if the PWA was being lived up to and to see if local union men were employed….It had been reported that some of the men working on the jobs were brought in from Philadelphia and other places whereas the code provides that local men should be given the preference….”  (Dec. 29, 1933, p.1)

“Morristown’s history for 1933 is closely linked up with that of the country and the programs of President Roosevelt for recovery, NRA, CWA, CCC, PWA, and all the other initialed projects inaugurated in an effort to bring the country out of the widespread depression that had existed since 1929 were closely allied with the town’s record….This town became a little closer allied than many for several reasons.  There was the new national historical park here, which brought groups of Civilian Conservation Corps worker, for one reason.  A big federal project in developing an airport gave more work than any one single project through this section.  Then, being the county seat, it was the location of county headquarters for re-employment projects.  It was chosen for the location of a junior college which takes in five counties and is part of a federal plan.  The first of the many activities of the new administration came on the day when President Roosevelt took office and all the banks were closed for a period of several weeks.  This radical move was received with general good nature, lots of joking over the situation and little complaining about the hardships it had wrought on many business people.  To be without any available money was something to laugh about and the spirit of the people was quite a surprise to most who feared trouble of some nature…”  (Dec. 30, 1933, p.1)