1934 May—August
The Great Depression as seen through the pages of the Daily Record (Morristown, NJ)
May-August 1934
“ “The depression is definitely lifting,” said William Cope, President of Drake University in Newark, and Treasurer of Rotary in the 36th district, in an address before the Rotary Club yesterday….” “We have preached ethics,” said Dr. Cope. “Now let’s live up to them. Pious professing gets us nowhere. Community service should be put on a humanitarian basis. Let us practice the art of brotherly love,” he urged. “The Elks lodge in the state of New Jersey spent one million dollars in benevolences during the last six years,” he said. “The Shrine Lodge has cared for every crippled child whose need has been brought to their attention.” He urged that his listeners not complain too bitterly over their burden of taxation. “We are much better off in this respect than the British,” he said, “who have to pay 25% of their income in taxes. The tax on gasoline alone is 16c a gallon in England.” “Our educational system is in a precarious position,” he said, 2200 public schools were closed last year, and 500,000 children received no instruction at all, or received it only on a part time basis. He observed that it seems strange that Chicago could conduct such a successful world’s fair last year, and yet be incompetent to cope with the problem of keeping their public schools open….” (May 3, 1934, p.1)
“MADISON—Asserting in forceful language that the financial standing of county government depends upon the ability of municipalities to pay, Mayor Clyde Potts, senatorial candidate, addressed a group of taxpayers here last night. He pointed out that the debts which municipalities carried in banks is due entirely to the demands made upon them by the county in anticipation of tax collections. He also declared that the heavy burden is in a large measure the result of extravagance of the county in high salaried employees and unnecessary improvements. Speaking of the debt of some $600,000 which Morristown owes the banks, the Mayor said the town had been compelled to borrow this in anticipation of the collection of its back taxes so the county government could continue to function. He also told his audience that the public is often con-fused in municipal and county financial status. The county, he said, is the spending agency while the municipalities are the collecting agency. “If the municipalities are unable to collect taxes,” said the Mayor then they must go to the banks and borrow in anticipation of taxes to meet the demands of the county. And the more extravagant the county is the more money the municipalities must raise. “The present state law requires the municipalities to pay the counties, regardless of whether it is collected in advance or not and for that reason all the municipalities in Morris County have borrowed money at the banks which they in turn had to advance to the counties for operating expenses. “For example, the taxpayers have not been able to pay their taxes, so the Town of Morristown has been compelled to borrow from the banks approximately $600,000.00 in anticipation of the collection of its back taxes. Of this amount approximately one-third, or $200,000.00 has been turned over to the County Treasurer to finance County operations. “This law should be amended so that the municipalities would not have to under write the debts of the County administration and they should not be permitted to spend money in advance of its collection….”There are many laws on the statute books which are working great hardships to the municipalities of Morris County as well as the municipalities of other counties but it has never been possible to change these municipal laws because the bank electorate has always controlled the legislature. The same thing applied during the palmy days when it was impossible to secure any legislation aiding the municipalities in their financial matters that were inimical to the interests of the bankers’ group….He also called attention to the extravagant commissions maintained by the State Administration, the most outstanding of which was the Water Policy Commission. This Commission was spending more than $77,000.00 a year in salaries for employees who were carried on the payrolls without any adequate return to the State. This Commission was the one which threatened the Morris County Lake country with its Bunnvale project which ultimately would have drained Lake Hopatcong…” (May 4, 1934, p.1 & 3)
“DOVER—…forty-three families are receiving aid from the town and a number of these are women who have been unable to secure positions. This is quite a difference to a few months ago when the town was taking care of nearly two hundred families and transients….Director Chiles has now worked out a program for community gardens, one which will be located in the rear of the Dover General Hospital and the other next to the Dover High School Athletic Field on the State Highway. These two fields are to be plowed shortly and will be divided and numbered into spacious gardens for the unemployed…” (May 4, 1934, p. 3)
“DOVER—More than one hundred and fifty men are now in the employ of the Allan Wood Mining Company at the Mine Hill plant and the management expects to commence the actual mining of iron ore again within the next two weeks. The preliminary work of getting the plant into shape after the long layoff is about completed. Most of the men hired since the first of the year are former employees who have been out of work since the closing of the plant some time ago. The mines are the largest in this section of Morris County and it is expected that many more men will be hired once actual operating starts.” (May 5, 1934, p.11)
“Civilian Conservation Corps Company No. 1283, established here since October 29 of last year, is breaking camp and is leaving this city today. It will be re-established at a new center at Chittenango Falls, N.Y…. Temporary buildings built around the Liberty Street School, where the camp made its headquarters, are being demolished….Constructed were a large combination store-room, kitchen, and mess-hall seating 220 persons, two barrack buildings housing 40 men apiece, officers’ quarters and a headquarters room. Part of the lumber…will be shipped to Chittenango Falls, and part will be left at Camp No. 241 at the Speedwell Avenue School here, where it will be used in future construction. When all temporary structures have been demolished, the school and its surrounding property will be returned to the Town of Morristown…. Company 1283 assisted Company 241, the original group here, in general reforestation work at Jockey Hollow. Grading, road construction, bridge-building, tree-planting, and cutting out of unnecessary growths was effected….” (May 7, 1934, p.1)
“WASHINGTON—The number of residents of Morris County, N.J. who filed federal income tax returns in 1933, based on earnings for the preceding year, was greater by 1,337 than the number who filed in 1932 for the year 1931, according to figures released by the Treasury Department here today. The figure of 6,387 represented a jump of 26 per cent. Morristown… showed an increase of 22 per cent. There, 1,469 persons filed returns in 1932, but last year the total had increased to 1,792, a difference of 323. Every section of the county except Lake Hopatcong showed an increase, and there the number of filed returns stayed the same at 13. Dover registered the greatest jump among the larger communities when its figure increased from 652 to 847, or an increase of 29 per cent. An increase of 22 per cent, from 669 to 818, was indicated at Madison….” (May 7, 1934, p.1)
From the Daily Washington Letter by Rodney Dutcher, May 7, 1934, p.4: “…Strikes are still “troublesome” in Middle Atlantic states and discouragement over slowness in setting up code authorities is partly offset by promise of an accelerated compliance drive….The Wall Street lobby tore some holes in the stock market control bill, but the Pecora-Landis-Corcoran group which framed that measure is secretly pleased in the belief that it preserved the principles of strict control in both House and Senate bills despite terrific pressure. These “teeth” are imbedded in both bills: 1. Some control over credit for speculation—through margin provisions. 2. Forbidding of pool and other manipulations. 3. Requirement of fair, adequate, and frequent reports to stockholders. 4. Authority for the supervising commission to change the rules of stock markets when the markets won’t do so themselves. Wall Street, of course, is still foaming at the mouth and hoping to beat the bill. In urging an independent commission to administer the control act, it hoped to have appointed thereto both Assistant Secretary of Commerce John Dickinson, who framed a mild and ignored regulatory bill, and John Hancock, partner in Lehman Bros., New York bankers. But Roosevelt said any such commission must also administer the Securities Act. And it’s now certain that Federal Trade Commissioner James Landis, Wall Street’s worst foe, will be transferred to the new commission—if there is one. Also, Commissioner George C. Matthews, a LaFolletteite from Wisconsin, is a likely appointee.”
“It is to be hoped that Congress will act on President Roosevelt’s request for authority to launch a great federal housing program. The whole proposition looks like one of the administration’s very best ideas….It would be a direct spur to national recovery, helping to revive a great capital goods industry which needs revival very badly; and it would help to provide many Americans with improved living facilities which are greatly needed. Slum clearance, construction of new private homes, modernization of existing homes which are antiquated and poorly equipped— there is enough work here to keep the building industry busy for years, and it would be work with a direct cash return to the community….” (editorial, May 8, 1934, p.4)
“Indicating a rapid return on the part of the banks to a normal self-sustaining basis, 54 per cent of the loans which they made from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to tide them over the difficulties of the past two years have been repaid by them…the Corporation since it began operations in February, 1932, had made aggregate cash advances to railroads, agricultural and home loan agencies, insurance companies and various other institutions in the amount of $4,786,410,000. Of this sum banks and trust companies, to the number of 6,793, received actual cash advances of $1,520,540,000, but have already paid back $820,260,000, or 54 per cent…. None of the major non-governmental financial groups showed so high a ration of repayment as the banks and trust companies.” (May 8, 1934, p.5)
“Seeds of the twelve common garden vegetables arrived yesterday from the State Emergency Relief Administration….The seeds include string beans, lettuce, beets, sweet corn, kale, spinach, chard beets and carrots. A number of the gardeners unwilling to wait for the arrival of the free seeds have commenced planting operations with potatoes, peas and a few other things. The soil is in excellent condition this year….” (May 10, 1934, p.1)
“WHIPPANY – The two hundred men and women employees of the Agar Manufacturing Company who walked out on strike Tuesday morning returned to work this afternoon at 1 o’clock, after having been granted a 15% increase in pay….bringing the average working hour pay to approximately 46 cents for the men and 40 cents for the girls….The workers struck Tuesday due to the “starvation wages” which they were receiving for their work. It is said that the highest wages amounted to not more than $15 a week. At first the men demanded a minimum pay of 75 cents an hour. A ten per cent increase was offered the men but this was refused. But the 15 per cent raise with piece-work is expected to bring the average pay close to the figure that it would amount to if the first demands had been met….Throughout the strike employees maintained peace and order. No violence was enacted although trucks with finished stock loaded by the office force were not allowed to leave the grounds. A meeting was held last night at the First Citizen’s Club on Reynolds avenue by the strikers for the purpose of organizing. John Kasiski, president of the Citizens’ Club and an employee of the Agar firm, acted as temporary chairman. Officers as follows were elected: Williams Burns, president; John Japko, vice president, Mary Lanzo, secretary, and David Baird, treasurer. The question of joining the union…was discussed with the final decision being against it. Mr. Burns, speaking for the workers, said that they would fight their own troubles….” (May 10, 1934, p.1)
“DENVILLE – Listing the abolition of the county welfare board on his program for county economy, Mayor John Roach, Jr., of Dover, Republican Freeholder candidate last night told a capacity audience at a meeting of the Denville Taxpayer’s Association that the board has become “one of the greatest political organizations in the county.” He accused Mrs. Thomas W. Streeter and Frank Abell of using relief work records in campaigning for “regular Republican candidates.” Recommending the establishment of a civil service system to “take employment of officials and workers out of politics,” Mayor Roach declared that county employees are being carted around the county to provide audience for various candidates. He included in his economy program the establishment of a purchasing system such as is used in Dover to facilitate careful buying thru a central agency. He stressed the necessity of floating no further bond issues except for strictly permanent improvements and also pointed out that the county should take advantage of lower interest rates by refinancing of bonds. He asked that the engineering department and the supervision of bridges and roads be consolidated under one head and declared the heads of the departments to “be hiding from one another.” He would eliminate part time jobs, many of which, Roach stated, carry a full time salary….Roach declared that lower priced cars should be used for county use and that they should be kept off the roads on Saturdays and Sundays and evenings when they are not in official use. He asked an intelligible county budget with itemized reports showing where monies are to be spent….” (May 10, 1934, p.11)
“If we could only agree on our definitions, we ought to be able to go forward these days in great style. Henry I. Harriman, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, tells his fellow members in regard to the New Deal: “Frank, constructive, and helpful criticism is desirable from every standpoint; but rejecting and blocking desirable reforms will result either in national suicide or in complete revolution.” Here is a statement to which everybody can assent. The only trouble is that it is hard to get all hands to agree on the terms….To one man, the slightest criticism of, say, the action of the NRA leaders is something akin to treason; to another, the most blistering attack on everything the administration has done is nothing more than a helpful and constructive suggestion….One man will find a complete reversal of our traditional way of running business and industry a desirable reform; to another, nothing any stronger than a simple relaxation of the anti-trust laws will fall into that classification….The difficulty comes when we try to agree on the way in which the fixing is to be done….the fact remains that we are almost unanimously agreed on one thing; that some way be found to avoid a repetition of our recent troubles….” (editorial, May 10, 1934, p.14)
from the Daily Washington Letter, by Rodney Dutcher, May 11, 1934, p.4: “The big trick now, if the administration can put it over, is to reproduce conditions under which the country emerged from the depression of 1922. This depression is worse, but in the back of Roosevelt’s mind is the assurance of his economists that automobiles and building were biggest factors in that other recovery. Automobiles have been booming along and the National Emergency Council is supposed to add its big new construction program to the approaching PWA peak of activity to fill out the rest of the picture and take care of some of the 5,000,000 unemployed in the durable good industries….In seven of 10 cities investigators found more families doubled up than vacancies. How to get families undoubled isn’t so simple, of course….reliable leaks indicate a system of government-insured loans, first for home renovation, then home building, and finally demolition of obsolete industrial plants and erection of new ones. The first phase involves loans of from $200 to $2000 at 5 per cent. Insurance companies and banks will be tempted to finance new homes at a similar rate. The must cut carrying and service charges and extend amortization periods to perhaps 18 or 20 years….”
“Capital Invaded by New Bonus Army” heads a photograph of men in caps and jackets lined up outside a building. “Ready to tent again on an old camp ground, members of the first contingent of the new bonus army are shown as they arrived in Washington to press anew their demands for immediate cash payment of their compensation certificates. They were lining up to register in the shadow of the Capitol when this picture was taken.” (May 14, 1934, p.3)
“Whatever else the present administration may seek to do, and however widely its various policies may be criticized, there is one point on which all hands are agreed. People who can’t get work are not going to suffer from hunger, cold, and homelessness any longer. So far the federal administration has spent $1,500,000,000 on unemployment relief. Relief Administrator Hopkins was given $950,000,000 this spring to carry him through the summer; but it is going fast, and there is every indication that it is not going to be enough….Unemployment may be shrinking, and payrolls may be going up; but there are today some 4,700,000 people on federal relief rolls, as compared with 4,500,000 a year ago….Back of all our talk about codes, reform measures, monetary policies, and the like there is this large…body of people who will starve if the government doesn’t provide them with food and shelter….No estimate of the New Deal’s accomplishments and no forecast of its future course will be worth much if the presence of these 4,700,000 on the relief rolls is overlooked.” (editorial, May 16, 1934, p.4)
“Laurence R. Hamilton, E.R.A. Service Projects Manager for Morris County, has announced that a definite summer program for employment of women workers and “white collar” men workers is being formulated. Employment will be on a purely selective basis, the need of the individual being considered first. To establish this need the budget of the individual or family is made up. If there is a sufficient deficit between the income and expense, this deficit may be converted into definite hours of work on a money paid basis….a number of state-wide projects have been approved….newer State Projects make provision for employment of women on Library, Nursing and Sewing Room activities. Leisure Time and Music Projects provide work for both men and women. It is planned that this summer program be comprehensive enough to give needed opportunity for employment to both men and women whose occupational experience disqualify them for manual labor.” (May 16, 1934, p.10)
“BOONTON—Work of the Central Relief Committee of the Community Relief Bureau from June, 1933, to April 30, 1934, was outlined yesterday in a report by Rev. L. Harold Hinrichs, chairman. $5,000 was announced as the quota objective for the coming year….The committee …was able to give 250 days’ work to men without counting work obtained for the needy outside the relief body. Work included 116 days on town streets; 83 ½ in snow removal; 46 ½ at Grace Lord Park, and 4 days in Washington Park. Unemployed persons cut and hauled 103 loads of wood at three cords a load. One third of this was given to men in exchange for labor, one third to widows, the sick and needy and another third sold for $6 a load to persons who were poor but able to pay. The total amount collected on the sale of wood was $178. In all 150 persons were given work for periods ranging from one to forty days, according to circumstances. Over 100 days’ work was obtained from outside sources through the efforts of the committee making a total of 843 days’ work given….” (May 17, 1934, p.10)
“DOVER—An offer on the part of William F. Birch, proprietor of the Dover Boiler works, to the effect that he would guarantee to striking workers an eight-hour day and time-and-a-half for overtime, was turned down by the strikers yesterday….He asked the strikers to return to work for sixty days, saying the matter of a wage increase, another of the demands of the workers, would be settled at that time….Mr. Birch declared it would be impossible to grant a wage increase under existing market conditions. He said the plant has been operating at a loss for some months and that no immediate improvement could be expected. The strikers presented a demand Monday to Birch in which they requested a wage increase of 50 per cent and a reduction of working hours from ten to eight a day….The committee claims that the Blue Eagle is displayed in the New York offices, while in Dover the company pays less than 50 per cent of the code scale of wages, which is 40 cents an hour for unskilled labor. They say there is no unskilled labor employed at the boiler works, every man is expected to be ready to go out on a job when ordered to do so.” (May 19, 1934, p.1)
“One of the big projects accomplished during the CWA program in Morris County and now nearly completed is the creation of a storage reservoir on top of Green Pond Mountain and within the Picatinny arsenal limits. This will cut out considerable pumping costs and prove a real economy in the future. Atop of Green Pond Mountain…lies a swamp….This natural basin of several acres in extent collects many thousand gallons of water from the nearby slopes….The basin is surrounded by many drainage slopes leading thereto which act as natural feeders to it. Consideration has frequently been given to a contemplated dam construction…With the availability of Civil Works Administration funds this admirable project became a reality… thousands of man hours of labor were provided and filled by persons from the emergency relief lists at Dover, Morristown and other nearby centers….construction work being accomplished by skilled, semiskilled and unskilled labor…1071 days of man labor, 53 truck days, 20 portable shovel days, etc.” [The article also details the design, dimensions, and materials of the dam.] (May 21, 1934, p.1)
“WHIPPANY—The Hanover Township Board of Education passed a resolution last night… suspending the salaries of the teachers and all other employees of the three schools of the township system, beginning with this Friday’s payroll, which will amount to approximately $2,000 pending the receipt of $15,000 due the board from the township committee. This is the first time since the formation of the new township in 1928 that such a resolution has been adopted. The salaries of the teachers and other employees have been met up to now throughout the depression. It is possible that the township committee may advance enough money to meet Friday’s payroll, if the loan which is pending becomes a reality. William A. Polhemus, township clerk, stated this morning that the committee had done all it could do and no special meeting will be held by the township committee to act upon it this week…” (May 22, 1931, p.1)
“If we ever do have a revolution, it won’t come from the phenagling of eager intellectuals in Washington. Instead, it will be the result of a lot of ordinary folk getting mad and starting to throw things. Recent news contain several items that come pretty close to landing in that category. In Chicago, 10,000 holders of defaulted real estate and municipal bonds parade down Michigan boulevard, shouting, “We have been robbed” at the top of their lungs. In Oklahoma City, governor Murray orders national guardsmen on duty in 11 counties to prevent sale of property for delinquent taxes, as advertised by county authorities. The soldiers are ordered to arrest “as a military prisoner” any county treasurer or other officer who tries to conduct such sale. In Nebraska, farm leaders plan for a demonstration of 25,000 farmers to protest against New Deal agricultural policies and to demand the release of two men arrested for preventing farm mortgage foreclosure sales. And in North Dakota, farmers threaten “actual battle” to save their land from foreclosure, and beg the governor to declare martial law to save the situation….” (editorial, May 23, 1934, p.4)
“ “The core of the American tradition,” says Dr. Rexford G. Tugwell, “is to be found in a kind of defiance to fate.” He was trying to make clear that the administration welcomes criticism, and that any attempt at regimentation of American life in defiance of the will of the masses would be foredoomed to failure….It reminds one somehow of that old story of the Fourth of July celebration in a small Midwestern town half a century ago. The governor, a senator, and a couple of representatives were to address the citizens in a public park. Pretty soon they started making their way through the crowd to the speakers’ stand, and some flunkey or other who was trying to clear a path for them called out, “Make way for the representatives of the people.” Instantly someone in the crowd called back: “Make way yourself. We ARE the people!” And that’s what it all comes down to. The people’s representatives, down at Washington, may advance any kind of theory or nostrum they choose; eventually, if their fellow citizens don’t like the looks of it, they will hear that old cry—“Make way yourselves. We are the people.” (editorial, May 23, 1934, p.4)
“The belief of County Superintendent of Schools Walter B. Davis that all schools of the county would have school nurses next year came much nearer realization with receipt of word today that the school nursing project would likely be revived on June 1 as a CWA plan. Nurses engaged under this plan worked several months in the county schools during the past few months, making a general survey, which showed that the districts with nurses had far better records of health than those without. The new project…would be for the engaging of nurses for a ten months period .…” (May 25, 1934, p.1)
“WHIPPANY—The Hanover Township Board of Education weekly payroll amounting to $2,000 was met yesterday morning and the twenty-five Board of Education employees received their salaries as usual. The school board had passed a resolution Monday night at the regular monthly meeting suspending the payment of salaries pending the payment of money due the board from the township committee. Yesterday morning $5,000 was deposited to the account of the Board of Education. William T. Leighton, district clerk, of Mt. Tabor, stated yesterday that the board in Hanover Township had never failed to meet its payroll during the thirty years that he has been clerk. The financial distress of the township at present is said to be due to failure on the part of citizens to pay their tax bills. The township committee authorized the advertising of tax delinquents on June 1….At present there are 365 bills that have not been paid and which will be advertised for taxes due principally in 1931 and 1932.” (May 26, 1934, p.1)
“DOVER—Industrial workers here received the third highest average weekly pay in state manufacturing areas during April, it was reported by Labor Commissioner John J. Toohey this morning. Moreover there was an increase of 5.9 per cent in employment, and a raise of approximately 17.5 per cent in the payrolls. The increased payroll was larger per employee than in any other industrial town in New Jersey.” (May 29, 1934, p.1)
From the Daily Washington Letter, by Rodney Dutcher, May 29, 1934, p.4: “If any congressional campaigners this year get away with the story that the existing order is menaced by a radical “Brain Trust,” they’ll be establishing one more tribute to voter gullibility. The record shows that nearly all really radical proposals for legislation come out of Congress itself. The administration and its brain trusters find suppression of them one of its toughest tasks. Examples: The 30-hour week bill is the child of Representative William P. Connery of Massachusetts, ex-actor, ex-soldier. Connery pushed the bill via the petition route when the administration turned thumbs down. The compulsory cotton control act was produced and promoted by the Bankhead brothers, senator and representative from Alabama. This most radical phase of AAA’s program, was “abhorrent” to Secretary of Agriculture Wallace and Assistant Secretary Tugwell, but demanded by cotton growers. The bonus measure was purely congressional. So are the unemployment insurance and old age pension bills, on which Roosevelt holds back. Proposals for a ten-billion-dollar public works program come from Senator La Follette of Wisconsin….”
“When a strike boils over into pitched warfare of the kind seen recently in Minneapolis and Toledo, it ceases to be an industrial dispute and comes perilously close to being class war…. Fighting as bad as that which has been seen in these two cities has a deeper reason than any mere disagreement about hours and wages….It is probable that basically the trouble comes from a deep discontent with the way the recovery program is working out….All of us have suffered during the depression, but hardly any of us had quite such a thin time of it as the wage-earner. It has left him with what you might call a psychic scar that will be a long time healing. Now, bearing that scar, the worker makes ready for the new deal and finds that in many cases it is being played with the same old cards, in the same old way. Fine words about human rights have been said at Washington, but they haven’t been put into effect. There are still employers who look back to Homestead for lessons in the way to handle labor troubles. And Washington still postpones the job of formulating a definite and clear-cut labor policy...” (editorial, May 31, 1934, p. 14)
From the Daily Washington Letter, by Rodney Dutcher, June 1, 1934, p.4: “Gen. Hugh S. Johnson and Don Richberg are almost as confused about the future of NRA as are all the rest of us…. The cotton textile industry, for instance, must cut production to avoid a glut. Labor demands that hours in the industry be shortened—with no decrease in weekly wage. Increased wages would mean increased prices—on goods the prices of which already cause complaint—in face of a declining market….Johnson and Richberg would like to weed out code provisions allowing price fixing and monopolistic practices, getting as near as possible to provisions which merely prevent below-cost selling and other practices which result in insolvency or the ruination of competitors. But the shrieks of industries when their special favors are threatened indicate plainly the job NRA faces—even if it can focus attention on that phase alone. Incidentally, that little tailor in New Jersey who became a national figure when he was convicted and nearly imprisoned for pressing pants at a nickel below the code price has telegraphed his protest against abandonment of the code. No one here knows who converted him, but his wire is something like this: I am the tailor who was prosecuted. It is not true that I am against the code. I think it is a very fine code.” “
“It is exceedingly interesting to notice that New York authorities have adopted a new definition of what it is to be indigent. According to Dr. S.S. Goldwater, hospital commissioner, who has just drawn up new rules limiting free hospital treatment to those who are unable to pay, a man and his wife who have to live on an income of less than $20 a week are officially indigent and need not pay for hospital services. If they have a child, the limit is $25 a week; if they have two children, it is $30 a week—and so on….To be sure, these rules are geared to New York’s metropolitan area, where living expenses are higher than in many other places. Nevertheless, considering the number of men who are employed—and glad to be employed—at $20 a week or less, it is evident that our boasted standard of living may not be quite as high as we have thought.” (editorial, June 2, 1934, p.4)
“Morris County will resume operations under Work-For-Relief today. In general the new plan is similar to the system in force before the inception of the Civil Works Administration program, with the following changes: The total relief credited during the month of May will be charged against each family. For each dollar’s worth of relief given, a client will be expected to perform two hours of labor on a socially desirable and needed piece of public work. This rate of 50c per hour will be credited against the client’s relief account and for each hour worked he will receive an additional 10c per hour in cash at the end of the work period. No client can be put to work until he has a debit of $20, and then this debit must be worked out the following week with at least a week’s vacation between each work period. The work week is 40 hours and commences Friday morning and ends Thursday night. The work day consists of eight hours and no work will be permitted on Saturdays, Sundays or legal holidays. No work may be started in the municipalities nor any relief client put to work except on authorized projects which have received the approval of the County Office and also the State Office. Any work started by a municipality without approval will be entirely at its own expense, as under the present setup the County Office will be unable to credit the client’s account or authorize the payment of the additional cash relief. All materials and supplies for use on work projects will be supplied by the municipality or other local governing body sponsoring the project.” (June 4, 1934, p.1)
“Those well-intentioned optimists who think they can force through the Legislature really effective municipal finance reform bills, which would inconvenience and distress the town politicians back home, are going to have another try at it when the Legislature reconvenes in June after its primary recess. The average citizen is beginning to believe that nothing short of revolution will accomplish very much in Trenton in the way of reform and economy and other essentials. But he will watch the new effort with interest, because it has a new twist. Instead of a dozen wrangling civic groups, each favoring some parts and opposing other parts of all other programs, but insisting upon the fundamental and indubitable wisdom of its own, the Legislature may be confronted by a single group, functioning as a determined unit and speaking with one voice for all organizations interested….The roots over which the reform ax swings are municipal debts, municipal operating costs and a large part of the mandatory expenditures now loaded on municipalities, which it is proposed to switch to the State. It will be a good trick if it works, and if the group hangs together….” (Newark Sunday Call editorial, appearing in the Daily Record June 4, 1934, p.4)
From the Daily Washington Letter, by Rodney Dutcher, June 6, 1934, p.4: “Mortgage interests, chiefly the building and loan boys, will scuttle the new housing program in Congress if they can. They have two reasons: 1. They don’t want new housing until they have unloaded the mortgages which piled up on them during the depression. 2. The government’s new plan for mortgage financing means competition from interest rates much lower than they’ve been charging. The same interests have licked every real housing effort here since 1930, so it may be a question of how badly Roosevelt wants this one to go through….Second mortgages, which used to cost 15 to 25 per cent by the time the home owner paid all the charges, would be eliminated, along with the old-fashioned gyppings. New mortgage money should sell for 5 per cent in the east and 6 per cent in sections where money is scarce and rates are high, the bill’s sponsors believe.”
“The importance to our national recovery of straightening out the tangle which still enmeshes a great many bank depositors is forcibly illustrated by a recent statement from J.F.T. O’Connor, comptroller of the currency, who reveals that nearly a billion dollars in deposits is still frozen in closed national banks. The money is tied up in 1529 banks; so far, less than a million of it has been released to depositors. A billion dollars could buy a lot of goods and hire a lot of men. If some equitable and not-too-expensive way could only be found to release it, the whole recovery program would get an immense stimulus.” (editorial, June 6, 1934, p.4)
“WASHINGTON, (AP)—NRA headquarters here had assurance from New Jersey that its state codes would be thoroughly revised to eliminate price-fixing and to comply with national requirements. National codes, meantime, were undergoing an overhauling. Price-fixing will be virtually abandoned and only recovery essentials adhered to….This basic code will be almost as simple as the President’s re-employment agreement with which the blue eagle started its flight a year ago….These are: Shortened hours to make more jobs; wages not below living levels; recognition of labor’s right to organize and bargain; prohibition of commercial dishonesty and the obvious forms of unfair trade practice….The forty-hour week will continue as the standard. Though NRA would like to bring the figure down, it has not succeeded in swinging the larger industries into line. Wages will be either at the $13 a week factory minimum of NRA’s first code, covering textiles, or close to it. The Southern $1 a week differential is expected to be continued.” (June 8, 1934, p.1)
“The commencement speaker is abroad in the land again these days….In the old days it was fairly simple. The speaker had only to get up and begin telling the youngsters about the innumerable opportunities that were ahead of them, and how hard work and honesty would bring their inevitable reward….But of late years it has been different. Opportunities for young graduates have been anything but innumerable during the last three or four years. There are plenty of young men in America today who got their diplomas four years ago who haven’t been able to get jobs since then—although many of them needed jobs very badly, since their fathers were out of work. Nor have hard work and honesty carried their usual premiums. It’s all very well to talk about them, but when a depression forces your employer out of business and your job dissolves beneath you, you’re left holding the sack just as if you had been a time-server and a conniver. Of course things are better now….But the commencement speaker is still on the spot. Perhaps his best course would simply be to go honest and say something like this:….”There isn’t really much excuse for us to have unemployment and poverty and want, except our own stupidity. “If you youngsters can figure out a way to get the wheels turning full speed, the country will be very grateful to you—if it doesn’t put you in jail. At any rate, I wish you lots of luck.” “ (editorial, June 8, 1934, p.4)
“A petition signed by over one hundred working on relief payrolls protesting the present system of relief administration in Morristown will be dispatched to Governor A. Harry Moore tonight. Asking the State’s chief executive to “use your good offices to help us maintain a reasonable sense of decency,” the petition further requests that the present system of aiding unemployed workers be revised and put on a cash basis similar to the regulations under which the CWA formerly operated. Mrs. Lillian Ogden, in charge of the present program of relief administration in the county, declared…”It is unfortunate that such a situation should arise…but I suppose that over a period of time things of that sort are bound to crop up. There is nothing we in Morristown can do…because we are merely the instruments of the state officials in charge of the administration of relief throughout the entire state. The state sets up certain regulations and provides the necessary funds and all we can do is carry out the state orders….”….All the signers have been unemployed from one to five years, the petition declared. Under the present system of giving aid to needy workers and their families a certain amount of food credit, allotted according to state provisions, must be worked off. A flat rate of ten cents an hour in cash is then paid to workers on relief projects, the stipulation being that no more than four dollars a week may be earned by any one worker. The petitioners objected that the present system does not allow them enough actual cash to purchase other needed commodities besides food. Light, gas, heat and clothing must all come out of the four dollars a week. According to the signers of the letter to the governor: “We will be in a position where we will not be able to cook the food products that are given us, nor will we be able to buy shoes for our children and other members of our family….” (June 9, 1934, p.1)
From the Daily Washington Letter, by Rodney Dutcher, June 9, 1934, p.4: “…Almost unnoticed, President Roosevelt tacked onto the canners’ code a provision demanding that the ten billion dollar canning industry appoint a committee to work with NRA and produce within 90 days recommendations for standards of quality and labeling requirements on canned foods….It’s likely that all cans will be labeled A, B, and C—superior, medium, and inferior—in accordance with promulgated Department of Agriculture standards already used in the trade and by American canners operating in Canada….The consumer groups organized a spectacular parade of standards advocates before the code hearings…. The canners successfully fought to keep standards out of the code…It was then that…Roosevelt did one of the most remarkable things yet heard of under NRA when he overruled the protests of a major part of a big industry. Canners are bitter against such “government interference in business.” Roosevelt recognized a strong popular demand, however. He may or may not have heard that when the National Association of Retail Grocers recently questionaired housewives as to whether they wanted govern-ment minimum standards stamped on can labels, 96.6 per cent said they did.”
“The food and cash plan which will become effective in New Jersey on June 4th…is a step towards “humanizing” relief administration. Under it, relief workers will be given a maximum of 40 hours a week employment. This work will be compensated on a basis of 50 cents an hour. If a worker should put in 40 full hours he will receive a $20 food order and $4 in cash. New Jersey does not see the desirability or the way to pay all compensation in cash which, probably, most of the relief workers want. The relief administration in New York City recently entered into a new arrangement…under which workers will receive cash instead of vouchers… Undoubtedly this method contributes to morale but it permits abuses. In some instances…the holders of money will spend it for liquor, for non-essentials, with resultant hardship upon families….the more human way of giving cash or, at least part cash payment as in New Jersey, is worth trying …” (editorial from the New Brunswick News, appearing in the Daily Record June 9, 1934, p.4)
“…The corn belt’s sufferings this spring remind one of those eerie predictions some geologists have made—that the greater part of the interior of America is destined, some day, to become semi-arid and barren, a nearly waterless region, where things will not grow and men will not be able to live except as scattered nomads. To be sure, not all geologists make this prediction…. Nevertheless, these stories of parching drouth and devastating heat make one think about it. And they lead one to wonder how long it will be before men get sense enough to settle their differences with one another and present a united front toward their real enemies—the implacable and unresting forces of nature. For these troubles of the present day—overproduction, marketing difficulties, tariff restrictions, falling prices, and the like—are, after all, secondary. Settle them all, and there still remains the task of forcing the earth to yield enough to feed her teeming millions. That is the oldest of all society’s problems, and it will probably be the last to be solved.” (editorial, June 11, 1934, p.4)
“The disposition in Trenton to restore to State employes their pay reductions of from one to ten per cent, which have been in effect for the past two years at an annual saving of $600,000, might have been expected. That disposition was ordained when Congress some months ago overrode the veto of the President and restored the salary cuts of Federal employes, in addition to giving increased pensions and compensation to disabled veterans of wars ….If the State goes through with its plan to restore the deductions or reductions in its employed staff, then will come a trend toward similar returns to municipal and county employes everywhere….The people still are paying more taxes than they comfortably can do and more than they should be required to pay; people still are losing their precious homes and the relief expenditures still are staggering, creating wonder as to how sufficient funds are to be procured for the purpose….Those in State service, most of them getting handsome remuneration with their deductions, ought to be thankful that they have any jobs or positions at all….What should be feared is the reaction of the public to pay cut restoration; not that of employes whose pay cuts would be continued….” (editorial from the New Brunswick News, appearing in The Daily Record June 12, 1934, p.4)
Sign of the times –-page 1, June 14, 1934: Hitler And Mussolini Meet For First Time; Leaders Shake Hands. The photograph depicts each giving the other the fascist salute.
“Morris County has many thousand applications for the Home Owners Loan Corporation and a great many of the applications have not been completed properly, with the result that there has been a tremendous amount of delay. In order to expedite the closing of a great many of these loans, the Home Owners Loan Corporation has sent two of its representatives to Morristown who will sit here all day today and tomorrow to assist those who have already presented applications and upon which applications there has already been delay. These representatives will sit in the offices of Herman M. Cone in the Babbitt Building and Henry F. Dempsey in the Morris County Savings Bank Building all day today and tomorrow….so that the applications may receive immediate attention and Morris County get its proportionate share of the new loans being offered to the public by the Home Owners Loan Corporation….” (June 14, 1934, p.1)
“The Board of Freeholders learned of a new initial group of the government yesterday when a communication was received relative to the F.E.R.A., a rural planning organization to which M. Messick, of Mt. Freedom, had been appointed to take charge of Morris and adjoining counties. The State Emergency Relief asked the county to furnish an office for the new initial organization and said the FERA would furnish supplies, clerical help. A verbal request for telephone facilities was received but the Board felt this came under stationery. Office space in the Farm Demonstration office is being already provided. Freeholder Howard F. Barrett commented that it would be nice to learn of something that had been finished without someone sharing the burden or finishing it for these various projects...” (June 14, 1934, p.1)
Another sign of the times:
“MADISON—That the nation is heading toward a revolution was the deliberate conclusion of
Colonel George Chase Lewis of the regular army, who is on duty with the R.O.T.C. at College
of the City of New York, speaking before the annual meeting of the Jockey Hollow Reserve Officers Association here last night. Colonel Lewis told of what he called a “definite move to organize disloyalty” in our colleges and schools throughout the nation. He declared the meetings are being held under the guise of “Pacifism” and scored the “sensation mongers” who attempt to turn their audiences against national defense measures by citing “ridiculous” statistics. …Colonel Lewis, who has had 34 years infantry experience, declared the nation to be in more danger of a war from within the country than from without, and told of several riots at C.C.N.Y. He declared the disarmed condition of the nation is dangerous in case of an internal outbreak….” (June 14, 1934, p.2)
The editorial cartoon on June 14, 1934, p.4 is titled “Hardy Perennial” and depicts a farmer with a sickle standing before a twisted tree beneath a blazing sun. The leaves on the tree are sheets of paper, each bearing the word “DEBTS”.
“…During the depression years it has been the practice of most municipalities in the state to use such monies as they collect in the form of taxes for purely local purposes, putting off the payment of county and state taxes, for the collection of which they are agents, until later. As the average amount of taxes collected has been little more than sixty per cent, it can readily be seen that little, if any, of the money collected by municipalities has been turned over to counties, either for their own use or for transmission to the state treasury, for which the county acts as the collecting agency…. This makes it impossible for the county authorities to either meet their own bills or to transmit to the state the taxes due the latter….” (editorial from The Paterson Call, appearing in The Daily Record June 14, 1934, p.4)
“The residents of Morristown will be subject to the heaviest flight of mosquitoes in years unless strong westerly winds change the path of the migration from the Black Meadows,” R.L. Vannote, Superintendent of the Morris County Mosquito Extermination Commission, said in a statement released today. The Commission has been financially unable during the past two years to maintain the drainage system on the Black Meadows, an area of approximately 1,500 acres. Old residents and persons familiar with this area state that the meadows are in the worst condition they have ever known….These mosquitoes, “Mansonia Perturbans”…have developed…between Normandy Park and Florham Park. The path of flight seems to extend over Normandy Park north of Columbia road to the Whippany River above Hanover avenue, then up the Whippany River Valley. The heaviest collections have been made to date at the Normandy Pumping Station, Normandy Parkway at the Whippany road, Ridgedale avenue at the Whippany river and above Pocahontas Lake. The mosquitoes…seem to have reached all parts of Morristown and Morris Plains.” (June 15, 1934, p.3)
“…A report of the American Public Health Association reveals some startling things about the Great American Home. Only one-sixth of rural homes have plumbing. Less than one-fourth of the nation’s homes have running water; less than half have electricity….many private single dwellings are fire-traps, and…the average American home is wasteful of heat because not properly insulated—and very uncomfortable in summer for the same reason….many small homes of the south lack the screens indoors and windows that alone will prevent malaria among the occupants….recent revelations in the New York City investigations of tenement condition have shown horrible conditions of housing that are duplicated to some degree in almost every American city. Thus the huge housing remodeling program of President Roosevelt gains considerable support….Perhaps, if the housing program is successfully carried through, a future generation of song writers will cease to chant of tumbled-down shacks and cabins in the cotton and write some tender lyrics to “That Fireproof, Insulated, Tile-bathroomed Old Electrical Home of Mine.”…” (editorial, June 15, 1934, p.4)
Herblock’s editorial cartoon in the June 16, 1934 Daily Record, p. 6, depicts FDR hoisting an enormous overfilled cask labeled CONGRESSIONAL PORK-BARREL over a trash can that is simply not big enough. The drawing is titled “IT’LL BE A TIGHT FIGHT”.
From an article by Rodney Dutcher, NEA Service Staff Correspondent, profiling General Hugh S. Johnson, head of the NRA, in the June 16, 1934 Daily Record, p.9: “Today, after the most spectacular and revolutionary year in American industrial history, the task of assaying Johnson and NRA is still confusing. Amid the bellowings of industry, the complaints from labor, the shrill shrieks of consumers and some small business men…it becomes rather difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff and the poison ivy….Under Johnson and Roosevelt…the country has jumped from cut-throat competition, sweatshops and starvation wages, child labor, laissez faire and relative chaos into—something else. No one can tell to what extent NRA aided business improvement in its first year. But nearly 3,000,000 persons were put to work again, total industrial payrolls have increased and latest charts indicate that increase in the average worker’s income is beginning to approach that in the cost of living….”
“Mrs. Lillian Ogden, Executive Director of the Morris County Division of the Emergency Relief Administration, has been replaced, it was learned today. Action was taken by a unanimous vote of the County Advisory Board meeting Monday night. Her official duties will be assumed by J.P. Nesbitt, former member of the local ERA staff under Mrs. Ogden….Mrs. Ogden has been transferred “to a responsible administrative position in the Newark office.”….Two weeks ago Mrs. Ogden was involved in a petition to Governor Moore protesting the present methods of allotting relief to county workers on the emergency payroll. Mrs. Ogden refused to comment on the petition at the time beyond saying that all administrative policies were worked out by state administrators and that the county officers were only instruments in carrying out those policies.” (June 20, 1934, p. 1)
Herblock’s editorial cartoon on June 20, 1934, p.4 is titled “A Security That Has Nothing To Do With Armament” and depicts an elderly couple making their way slowly towards a modest, comfortable-looking house. Above the couple float the words “OLD AGE INSURANCE PROGRAM”.
“As Congress adjourns…a little word of warning from William Allen White is worth a bit of thought….One danger, he said, is that in our anxiety to get the wheels moving we may deliver ourselves…into the hands of a great plutocracy anxious to run the country for its own purposes. The other is that we may hand a very delicate and complicated bit of social and economic machinery over to untrained politicians who are eager to get power, but who do not know how to use it intelligently. And in looking ahead, Mr. White added: “The most dangerous enemy to democracy today is a man with a rigid plan either for recovery or for reconstruction. He is likely to feel that adoption of his plan is more important than the retention of liberties which may endanger it.”…. (editorial, June 22, 1934, p.4)
“WHARTON—The Board of Education informed twenty-eight teachers in the local schools yesterday that no salaries would be paid due to lack of funds. The teachers were promised their wages as soon as back taxes are collected, which is expected to be not later than two weeks from today.” (June 23, 1934, p.1)
“…we used to have 30,800 banks, back in 1921. Now we have something more than 14,000, a decrease of around 16,000….About 4,000 banks have vanished since March, 1933. Several thousand banks owe the R.F.C. more than a half billion dollars on pledge of valuable parts of their assets. The R.F.C. has taken more than a billion dollars worth of stock in 6,400 banks by way of increasing capitalization, including many of the strongest banks in the country. Thus, it has an interest of 44 per cent of all banks today. A million people and institutions have borrowed from the 5800 loaning associations and corporations started by the government to extend various types of credit. The R.F.C. also has direct loans to various corporations totaling around $700,000,000. In the deposit field, the postal savings system has grown amazingly…. Private agencies have virtually abdicated from the credit field….Somebody had to do the financing. So the treasury did it. Add in the fact of federal deposit insurance, giving another government agency a direct interest in banking ….So when you hear a discussion of whether the government ought to go into banking, it’s well to realize right at the outset that the government is already in banking—right up to the hips.” (editorial, June 23, 1934, p.4)
“During the past winter a number of ERA musicians, both men and women, were removed from the CWA relief payroll and left practically stranded. But the tiny band did not give up. It gathered once in a while and ran through renditions of classical and semi-classical numbers in the vague hope that some day their artistry might be rewarded with sufficient concert billings to insure them a living….This Friday night the dream of the relief musicians will come true when they will be presented on the stage of the Palace Theatre in Netcong as the Morris County Symphony Orchestra, a neat, compact tonal unit of 25 artists….They will present a concert of light classical numbers, seven in all, which they have been practicing faithfully for the past week in a deserted loft over one of the local stores.” (June 27, 1934, p.1)
“Just how far the fall congressional elections will turn into a national referendum on Mr. Roosevelt’s new program for social security is a matter for the political wiseacres to forecast ….Security for the individual in America, as Mr. Roosevelt sees it, seems to call for three things: Productive employment, protection against misfortune, and proper housing….The most conservative of capitalists and the reddest of radicals could endorse these general aims in complete accord, but they’d be apt to have a fine row trying to settle on the best way of attaining them…. We have felt, for more than a century, that we were somehow building a society here in which the common man would get a better break than he ever got elsewhere. Seeking to protect the common man against unemployment, against accidents, and against the traditional penury of old age, and trying to guarantee that he shall have a decent home to live in—what is this but an effort to make the old American dream come true?...” (editorial, June 29, 1934, p.4)
Sign of the times:
“BERLIN—President Paul von Hindenburg today gave official sanction to the “Bloody Saturday” activities of his Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. In highly laudatory and congratulatory telegrams…the aging field marshal president bestowed his complete approval of the work of Hitler and his chief henchman, Hermann Goering…in suppressing the uprisings in the ranks of the famed Storm Troops….” (July 2, 1934, p.1)
Herblock’s editorial cartoon of July 2, 1934, p.4 is titled “A VERY STRANGE CASE; INDEED”, and depicts a businessman in a three-piece suit sweating and holding two placards, one labeled “HELP! WE NEED GOVERNMENT AID!” and the other, “HELP! THE GOVERNMENT IS STRANGLING PRIVATE INITIATIVE”. In the background are five sketchy people looking startled or bemused.
“DENVILLE—Declaring present government is not government of and by the people but government in spite of the people, Assemblyman Elmer S. King, Republican candidate for state senator, last night told members of the Denville Republican club of the lamentable situation in which many people refuse to take advantage of the right of franchise. “It practically takes a block and tackle and a parlor car to get some of the people out to vote and then they go back home and sit in an easy chair until the next election,” King asserted. “We are about to lose those rights guaranteed us by our forefathers and what are we going to do about it,” King declared. “We are all contented to sit back and ‘let George do it’. If we continue to have government by default as we do today with a bureaucracy telling us when and how we will be born, how we will be raised, when we will marry and what we will do all through life and then step in to tell us what to do with the estates we build for our children—then these rights which are guaranteed to us will become a thing of the past,” the speaker said. King declared that after voting the public doesn’t pay any attention to the representatives chose, except to throw a bit of criticism now and then. Those active and taking interest in what is being done are “a selfish minority” who are usually lobbying for a selfish interest, King continued. “The representative government of which our forefathers were so proud is being supplanted with bureaus which spring up like mushrooms, King declared….” (July 3, 1934, p.1)
Sign of the times: A page-wide display of eight photographs of Adolf Hitler, plus photos of Ernst Roehm and Goebbels, headed “WHAT NEXT FOR ADOLF HITLER?”
“FLORHAM PARK—The Borough Council last night authorized the Mayor and Clerk to sign any needed contracts between the borough and federal government in obtaining an allotment from the PWA for extension and improvement of the water system. Mayor Alan Mills told how he had succeeded in getting the application transferred from the deferred to the preferred docket and if the improvements go through it will result in abandonment of the greenhouse booster pump and save $2,000 annually because better pressure will be obtained at less pumping expense. In 1935 the borough should be out of the red and the yearly deficit of $7,000 eliminated. …” (July 3, 1934, p.1)
July 3, 1934’s editorial cartoon features Uncle Sam setting off a huge firecracker which releases the words “158 YEARS OF DEMOCRACY” while in the background is a small mob holding up three placards, labeled COMMUNISM, FASCISM, MONARCHY. The cartoon is titled “. . NOW HERE’S A REAL NOISE . .” (p.4)
“One of the strangest things about modern America is the fondness everybody seems to have developed for looking back at the past. You get samples of this everywhere. It ranges all the way from the collection of antiques to the desire to look at photographs of the pre-Spanish War era. In one city there was held recently a grand reunion of people who had been public schoolmates half a century ago….They seemed to be just about unanimous in the belief that “people had more fun” in the old days. They talked about sleigh rides in the winters, about oyster stew suppers at farm homes, about children who bummed free rides on horse cars, about spelling bees and Sunday School picnics and the other diversions of the youth of 50 years ago. They felt rather sorry for their children and grandchildren, who have to grow up in the modern world and miss all those little pleasures that used to be. Now this attitude is an extremely common one nowadays; and it testifies, not so much to an idyllic quality in American life in the past as to a deep and fundamental dissatisfaction with the American life of today. We wouldn’t keep look-ing back over our shoulders so much if we found the life about us all that it ought to be…. Somehow the present hasn’t lived up to our expectations; and this is not solely the fault of the depression, because we had very bad depressions in those good old days. To understand it, you have to look at the whole development of American life in this century; the nation’s emergence as a world power, the spectacular growth of great cities and great industries, the arrival of the automobile age, and the World War. All these things held out great promise; and in no case has the reality been quite as nice as what we had expected. Life has grown more eventful, perhaps, but hardly richer. Somehow we must readjust our society so that greater emphasis will be put on purely human values….” (editorial, July 5, 1934, p.14)
“Wall Street fought tooth and nail against federal regulation of the stock markets. The fight was a long one and a bitter one, but Wall Street finally lost it. The stock market bill was passed and the truth-in-securities bill remained essentially unweakened. So Wall Street tried a new tack. It would see that its “friends” were named to the commission which would enforce the new regulation. The teeth which Congress so laboriously put into the measure would be painlessly extracted. But once more Wall Street has taken a beating. With a strong, independent man running things, the country can rest assured that no teeth are going to be pulled.” (editorial, July 6, 1934, p.4)
“Little Man What Now?” questions the editorial cartoon on July 6, 1934, p.4. depicting Hitler standing in a void of earth and sky, the future yet to be written.
Advertisement on July 6, 1934, p.11
First National Bank
CHARTERED 1865
OF MORRISTOWN, N.J.
MEMBER FEDERAL
RESERVE SYSTEM
Checking Accounts
Savings Account, 3% Interest
On Balances $5.00 and Upward
{ The deposits in this bank are insured to the extent }
{Provided under the terms of the banking act of 1933}
Rodney Dutcher’s dander is up in the July 7, 1934 Daily Washington Letter on p.4. “Chances are, you don’t read the Congressional Record….You’d learn a lot you didn’t know before, but you’d waste a lot of time in which you might be out playing badminton or something. Anyway, you can depend on your congressman to send you anything in the Record he wants you to see. It probably will be a copy of some speech which he never made, but which did get into the Record, so he could mail it under government frank to convince you that he ought to be re-elected. Three bulky Records full of never-delivered speeches have just arrived. The 473 pages include 32 speeches bragging about the New Deal and recent performances—among them one in verse—13 Republican attacks on the New Deal, one Democratic attack on the New Deal by Senator Gore of Oklahoma, 28 memorial addresses and lots of outbursts about this and that….”
“WASHINGTON, D.C. – Work accomplished by the Civilian Conservation Corps camp in the Morristown National Historical Park during the fiscal year ended July 1 was made public today ….The park was given a general cleanup and laced with a system of horse and foot trails….In addition, enrollers of the corps cooperated with historians in assembling of data and opening up and marking of numerous points of interest in the park. Fire hazards in the park were reduced by the state park camps on 181 acres; 62 acres were cleared and improved; timber stands were increased on 43 acres; and 31 acres were landscaped. Poisonous and other undesirable plants were removed from 210 acres and 1,002 acres were survey with an eye for timber resources. Forest Service camps…built 54 miles of roads and trails, 19 bridges, three miles of telephone lines and a number of small trail shelters; removed fire hazards from 2,000 acres; and increased tree and plant stands on 5,494 acres.” (July 9, 1934, p.1)
…on the other hand…. “If you want to find that new Jockey Hollow log cabin donated to the Girl Scouts by the Morristown Rotary Club, be sure and take a map along with you—not to mention provisions for a couple of days. Because if the people living in the Hollow section don’t know where the rustic lodge is, the ordinary motorist is licked before he steps on the starter. Yesterday two local residents set out to find the cabin—and both returned without success. One actually inquired at the Tempe Wick house, only thirty yards or less from the lane that leads to the cabin but no one there knew of the cabin site. To add to the difficulty there was no one in the information lodge.” (July 9, 1934, p.1)
“A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reveals that prices of seats in the New York Stock Exchange are going up again. The last recorded sale was made on May 23, at a price of $96,000; since then, the Journal says, “asking prices are ‘way up in the air,”, and the range of seat prices this year has gone as high as $190,000. Now all this, to an outside observer, would seem to be a pretty good answer to Wall Street’s complaint that the new stock exchange legislation and the truth-in-securities bill are going to ruin everything. People don’t buy seats on the Stock Exchange unless they figure that they are going to get their money back through profits made in trading. If the new legislation were going to cripple the security markets half as much as some of Wall Street’s anguished cries would make one believe, these seats would be selling today at a dime a dozen.” (editorial, July 9, 1934, p.4)
“WASHINGTON, D.C. – The work of the Civilian Conservation Camp, in the Morristown
National Historical Park, is to be recorded by sketches and paintings, as is the beauty of the park, in which the camp is located….The artist assigned to the Morristown National Historical Park camp is Mortimer Borne, 132 W. 72nd street, New York City. Borne will not be employed at labor or fatigue, but will devote 40 hours a week to his art, it is said. He will furnish his own drawing and painting materials, and his work will become the property of the government. Some of the work of these artists will be used for governmental records, much in the manner that photographs are used, while other work will be distributed to federal, state and municipal buildings throughout the country….” (July 10, 1934, p.1)
“Senator Borah may be a very annoying man, especially to politicians, but now and then he is a very useful one….One of our biggest problems today is that while we are pretty well agreed on the goal we want to reach, we are not at all agreed on the route we want to use in getting there. Mr. Roosevelt has one route, or a blend of routes, all mapped out; Mr. Fletcher, announcing that this route leads only to destruction, is working on another. Mr. Borah’s function right now seems to be to remind us that neither route will prove satisfactory unless we make dead certain that the little man—the ordinary, undistinguished citizen who works when he can get work, pays his taxes and never gets into the headlines—gets protection from the danger of falling into the cogwheels. For Mr. Borah sees one fact very clearly. Our emergence from the depression will mean very little unless we find some way of checking the great trend toward monopoly which has been a prime development of the last generation….” (editorial, July 10, 1934, p.4)
Francis Marion Law, President of the American Bankers Association, authored a lengthy column on banking which the Daily Record published on July 11, 1934, p.2. “…The banks are largely financing the Federal Government in its Recovery Program, involving the greatest peace-time expenditures ever known….The banks, through their trust departments, are continuing the work which they have faithfully carried on throughout the depression and are protecting trust funds placed in their care against the worst shrinkage of values ever known….The banks, through the medium of their savings and thrift deposit departments, are furnishing safety for the accumulations of many millions of people and on this class of deposits reasonable interest is paid…. Banking is not a closed science….A good system would include rigid requirements as to management, intelligent and impartial supervision and, in due time, unification of supervision. Such a system, composed of banks adequately capitalized, capably managed and conscientiously supervised would eliminate any possibility of a recurrence of what has happened in the past four years. The temporary Federal deposit insurance plan under which deposits in banks up to $2,500 for each account are insured has been in effect for six months and has proven a potent factor in restoring confidence. Only two small banks out of over fourteen thousand holding membership in the fund have failed during this six months’ period. The temporary plan has been extended very wisely for a year, and the amount of the insured deposit has been increased to $5,000, thus insuring in full over 98% in number of the depositors in the banks. Hoarded money is returning to the banks and deposits are showing a vast increase. Banks everywhere are super-liquid, meaning that they have an unusually heavy proportion of their deposits in cash. There are two kinds of unemployment in this country—unemployment of men and unemployment of dollars ….Two things are necessary to increase bank credit: 1st. The banks must be liquid and confident in their own strength. 2nd. Business men must further lay their fears and regain confidence to the point where they will dare to think and plan ahead….In past depressions the real movement of the expansion in bank credit has always come after general business recovery got under way and not before….Banks are badly needing loans for revenue purposes, and now that confidence in banks has been largely restored they are naturally returning to a more normal lending policy. Before the bank holiday…uppermost in the minds of depositors was the safety of their funds. Withdrawals from banks became increasingly heavy…the banker, mindful of his primary responsibility to his depositors, was more concerned in the collection of loans than in the making of new loans. The result was a severe contraction of credit….It is to be earnestly hoped that no banker will yield under the pressure of his desire for earnings…and make loans of the wrong sort….It is clearly the duty of every banker in the country to perform certain services. The most important of these are:
- To afford perfect safety for deposits.
- To grant credit to those who deserve it. In the matter of credits the public must in fairness remember that commercial banks are not lending their own money, but the money of their depositors, represented very largely by the earnings and savings of the people. The people who own these deposits have accumulated them through years of labor and sacrifice, and in many cases the deposit represents their all. These depositors have the right to call for their money at any time, or at most on short notice. Deposits constitute a sacred trust….we are all earnestly looking forward to the time when private initiative and enterprise shall have recovered its vitality sufficiently to throw government crutches away. Numerous bank failures have created in the minds of many a greatly exaggerated idea as to the losses of depositors in closed banks. The record indicates that depositors in banks which closed in the past three years will realize on an average about 65c on the dollar. That would mean a loss of 35%. It has been estimated that during the depression the average value of investments in stocks lost about 90%; bonds similarly declined approximately 60% and commodities 65%. Deposits in sound banks continued to be worth 100% throughout the depression and 90% of the bank deposits of the country were not affected….”
“ONE YEAR OF THE PWA SHOWS MUCH DONE...A report on what has been accomplished has just been written by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, as public Works administrator. It is an admirable report in its candor….The whole $3,300,000,000 was allotted by Jan. 1, 1934. More than a billion dollars of the fund has actually been paid in cash. Some 16,000 construction projects have been provided for, most of them now under way. How many men have been given work?....Ickes makes his estimate on hours of work provided. There were “1,418,000,000 hours of honest work at honest wages on direct construction site employment only to men who otherwise would have passed those hours in the ranks of the idle.” That means 177,250,000 eight-hour days, or 29,541,666 weeks’ work. Or it means 20 weeks’ work for nearly a million and a half men….it is further estimated that two hours of indirect work is provided in producing the materials for these jobs for every hour actually put in them directly …..In the main, the huge fund seems to have been spent for projects of value to the public, and without administrative scandal….” (editorial, July 13, 1934, p.6)
“BOONTON—The Community Relief Bureau busied itself this week in preparation for an extensive district canvass for $5,000 to be spent among the needy during the coming year. The campaign will use as a slogan “Have a Heart for the Needy.”….All the money collected will be spent in Boonton. Workers are to report the attitude of contributors and non-contributors and the general difficulties encountered. The hope that people will not through false pride fail to make small contributions has been expressed….” (July 13, 1934, p.8)
“WASHINGTON, D.C.—With figures for the State of New Jersey showing improvement in wholesale trade employment during 1933, Morris County employes of wholesale establishments increased in number from 168 in January to 184 in December, according to a report made public today by the census bureau. The report is based on returns from the 1933 Census of American Business, taken as a CWA work project. Improvement of more than ten per cent in the State as a whole was shown, 20,645 full-time employes and 1,847 part-time employes being reported in January, while 22,706 full-time employes and 1,789 part-time employes were reported in December, indicating not only an increase in total employment in the wholesale trade, but absorption of a number of part-time workers to full-time employment....reports were received from 33 Morris County wholesale establishments with yearly net sales for 1933 of $5,488,000. For the year, the average number of full-time employes was 180, and the average number of parttime employes was 4. Wages paid to full-time employes during the year totaled $270,000, while wages to part-time employes totaled $3,000….The data for New Jersey reveals existence of 2,648 wholesale establishments in the State, with net sales, in 1933, of $491,049,000. These establishments gave full-time employment to over 644,000 men and women, and part time employment to 28,000. The total payroll distributed by the wholesale establishments of New Jersey for the year was $907,000, of which approximately $20,000 went to part-time employes. ”
(July 24, 1934, p.1)
“Manager Walter M. Hoffman of the Roth Theatres plans to show a three-reel field depicting CCC Camps and New Jersey parks, in one of the local theatres early in September. The state division of national park service has taken a number of movies of CCC workers in state parks, and is now offering them free to theatres of cities in states where those parks are located. According to Fanning Hearon, state park technician, the idea is to educate the public to the work being done in state parks and to the value of state parks as recreational territories. The film of New Jersey state parks, entitled “Outdoors In The Garden State”, is the best of the five movies taken so far, Mr. Hearon said….Although it is not definitely known, it is believed the Morristown National Historical Park at Jockey Hollow will be featured in this film. A day and a half was spent here taking pictures of the park and of CCC campers at work in this park.” (July 24, 1934, p.4)
“Reduction in the number of employees now or just recently engaged in work on the Picatinny Arsenal or the Naval Ammunition Depot at Lake Denmark was regarded as unavoidable by U.S.
Senator Hamilton F. Kean in a series of communications read yesterday at a meeting of the Board of Freeholders. Senator Kean explained that a certain amount of money had been allotted for specific improvement projects and in view of the fact that these projects were now nearing completion there was no further need for the oversized staff at the two service defense stations….” (July 26, 1934, p.1)
“SEA GIRT—Governor Moore will call the Legislature into a special session next month…to raise relief funds totaling $10,000,000….The Governor will call the session…and suggest it be limited to such legislation. He has no power to limit activities of the Legislature, however, and once in session the lawmakers can take any action they see fit.” (July 27, 1934, p.1)
“NEWARK—Decreases of New Jersey’s relief load in thirteen counties during June were modified by increases in eight others but…the figures announced at state headquarters of the ERA show for the month a drop of 12,694 persons and 3,242 families from May. The totals are 494,087 persons in 125,020 families in June, against 506,781 persons in 128,262 families in the preceding month. As compared with June, 1933, last month showed an increase of 45,047 persons and 17,687 families. The June 1933 lists carried 449,040 persons in 107,333 families. This year 434 municipalities received state aid. Last year the number was 409. The June figures for Morris show 5,437 as compared with 5,631 a year ago and 5,590 this May.” (July 28, 1934, p.1)
“Plans to aid unemployed engineers and surveyors were discussed at an open meeting of the Morris County Chapter of the State Association of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors held last night in the Park Square building. All types of engineers and surveyors may benefit by the F.E.R.S. and N.R.S. projects for white-collared workers but those interested in securing such employment must register through questionnaires sent out by the FERS and NRS….Six or eight possible projects were discussed at the meeting and will be submitted to the federal group. Among work suggested was the exterior survey and mounting of the Morris County border line, similar border lines for the townships and boroughs in the county and a stream line survey in connection with the State Water Conservation policy.” (July 28, 1934, p.1)
“NEWARK--…the Citizens’ State Committee on Education….committee resolution… reads as follows:”…It is… essential to the educational welfare of our state that support of education be equalized and made independent of the tax on real estate….” The committee directed its chairman, Dean Herbert C. Hunsaker of the Seth Boyden School of Business, Dana College, Newark, to present its request to the Governor. Endorsing the stand recently taken by Dean Hunsaker, the committee recommended…the State Department of Public Instruction be authorized to exercise more adequate supervision over local school budgets and expenditures, to recommend to school districts desirable budgeting and accounting procedures, and to advise and assist boards of education in the management of their finances….” (July 28, 1934, p.1)
“DOVER—What is believed to be the first case under the state recovery act was held here this morning with Alfonse Monaco, a barber of 91/2 Dickerson street, being held under a $500 bond for action of the Grand Jury.…Joseph Russak, chief investigator of the barber’s code from the Broad street Newark office made the complaint charging Monaco with cutting hair for 35 cents instead of 50 cents. He presented five pictures showing signs of hair cuts 35 cents, shaves 20 cents. Andrew Delsordo, state inspector, also testified stating that on July 20th he had had his hair cut by Monaco for 35 cents….” (August 1, 1934, p.1)
“As the congressional campaign begins to warm up, the need for some sort of realignment of parties becomes more and more evident. Consider, for instance, the recent statements of Senators Hastings of Delaware and Nye of North Dakota—both Republicans. Senator Hastings attacks the Roosevelt program as “revolutionary” and says that “it must be evident by this time that it is dangerous.” Senator Nye, simultaneously, assails President Roosevelt because he is “not liberal enough,” and denounces the NRA for fostering monopoly. The party, thus, contains two things—one ultra-conservative, the other ultra-liberal. The same thing, of course, is true of the Democrats, to just as great extent. What we need to make our politics realistic is a new alignment that will group liberals in one party and conservatives in the other.” (editorial, August 1, 1934, p.4)
“The Madison Consumers’ Cooperative Association is an organization of about 25 Madison families that has banded together to do collective purchasing and to “save” money by buying coal direct from mines, perhaps by going into the dairy business, by getting groceries wholesale, and in a number of other ways avoiding the necessity of paying the retail that a legitimate merchant must charge to stay in business….The Madison Cooperative Consumers forget that they themselves are also “producers” and that if they destroy legitimate business by large-scale buying they are in the long run going to destroy part of their own income. If the cooperative movement is carried to its logical conclusion in this country it will mean the unemployment of millions of people now engaged in the merchandizing of goods. If this were a collective society those millions might readily be absorbed into other channels, but the United States is not a collective society and its citizens do not wish it to become one. They wish to retain a capitalist system and capitalism and cooperative associations won’t mix….It is the belief of the members of the association that the coal yards of the local dealers have been made “obsolete” and unnecessary by the development of long distance trucking. Madisonians who were able to get coal when they wanted it during last winter’s sleet and snow did not think those bins were obsolete….And when the state and county tax bills start to mount because of the terrific toll taken of our highways by mammoth trucks, then long-distance trucking won’t seem so very economical either.” (editorial from the Madison Eagle, published in the Daily Record August 3, 1934, p.4)
“The unemployment index is probably as good a barometer of the state of the nation’s health as there is….Recent figures from the National Industrial Conference Board, for example, show that the total number of unemployed workers in June of this year was 7,934,00. This is a decline of 5,269,00, or just less than 40 per cent, from the peak of March, 1933—but it is also an increase of 89,000, or a little more than 1 per cent, from the figures for May, 1934….The figures contain both encouragement and discouragement.” (editorial, Aug. 4, 1934, p.4)
From Rodney Dutcher’s Daily Washington Letter, Aug. 4, 1934, p.4: “…If you haven’t grasped the significance of these federally aided self-help colonies—industrial and agricultural— which have sprung up over the country, it’s because Harry Hopkins and his Federal Emergency Relief Administration crowd are so awed by the implications that they’re reluctant to discuss them yet. Privately, many of the planners…admit that development of these colonies may lead to a new system of national economic life…They see…One great group of the population, the majority, operating in the same old competitive system with all its incentives of profit, advancement, and luxuries. A second group of millions, the unemployed, living and working outside the competitive system in a giant co-operative whose members would be guaranteed comfortable subsistence in exchange for their labors in production of goods for mutual exchange under federal or state supervision. Citizens in each group would have complete freedom to change their status. Those in the non-competitive system who might be able to get jobs in the competitive system could do so. And those who lost out in the competitive system could join the second group. Eventually, it is believed, the federal government would coordinate the innumerable self-help, non-profit farming and factory, and bartering projects which are to be found all over the country….”Reports to AAA indicate that many farmers are convinced that the drouth was a divine punishment visited upon them for slaughtering little pigs, plowing crops underground, and reducing acreage. Many farmers have been writing to Washington about it and so have some ministers. Other ministers have been spreading the doctrine among farmers that the soil should be tilled to the utmost and that if AAA doesn’t stop interfering still worse retaliation from Heaven is in prospect….”
Daily Washington Letter, by Rodney Dutcher, Aug. 7, 1934, p.4 “The five members of the Securities Exchange Commission are nobly trying to forget that Chairman Joseph P. Kennedy was formerly a big stock market operator who played in racketeering pools of the type exposed by Ferdinand Pecora and now forbidden by law. So far, they’re all doing a good job at forgetting. Kennedy is co-operating with the four “purists” on the SEC upon whom sponsors and friends of the stock market and securities act depend to regulate Wall Street and end its piratical practices. The outstanding fact about SEC is that it’s probably the ablest group of individuals ever gathered on a federal administrative board…. Ferdinand Pecora, who…gained international fame by exposing the financial racketeering practices of Morgan, Mitchell, Wiggin, and the other whales of Wall Street. James M. Landis…wrote a securities act that the smartest Wall Street lawyer couldn’t evade, then administered it, and with Tom Corcoran and Ben Cohen wrote the stock market act on which Wall Street sweated its heart’s blood in an effort to defeat. Judge Robert E. Healey…exposed machinations of the “power trust” and bared public utility propaganda methods which enraged the nation. George C. Mathews…who administered the securities act with Landis after eight years enforcing the blue sky law in Wisconsin. Kennedy…appointed as a friend of Roosevelt, a sop to Wall Street and a “reformed character.” The three big SEC mandates are: 1. To give investors full information as to securities. 2. To outlaw manipulative practices which make suckers of investors not on “the inside.” 3. To avert the sucking of credit to Wall Street speculation—which ruined countless banks and business firms in 1929.”
“Five or six years ago we became engulfed in a wave of prosperity that succeeded ultimately in stranding a good many of us on the rocks of foolish, idiotic spending. Living for the time in something closely resembling a Fool’s Paradise, we sported silk shirts and panama hats when we had no real license to wear anything but cottons and straws. If we had stopped for just a moment or so to allow our brains to function normally instead of under the artificial stimulus of a golden hypodermic we might have avoided a personal and national shipwreck….It is not surprising that towns and states and nations were drawn irresistibly into the maelstrom. Men and women could hardly have been expected to parade their dazzling finery on badly paved streets. Without thought of cost great systems of parks were created, and in an unprecedented burst of generosity and farsightedness (?) local and national governments were egged on by flush citizens to provide for generation after generation to come by building magnificent museums, schools, water systems and sewer systems which generation after generation, ad infinitum, is going to have to pay for unless we come down to earth and adopt earthly, instead of ethereal corrective methods. Can we deny that it is a serious situation? Right here in our own lovely little town of Morristown? ….We can adopt the City Manager Plan of government. We can elect a council of five citizens whose business integrity could not be questioned. The council, in turn, can choose a manager who is trained in the complicated task of administering the affairs of a municipality efficiently and economically….” (editorial, August 7, 1934, p.4)
“In its semi-annual report to the Board of Freeholders the Morris County Welfare Board points out that, “One half of the 1934 appropriations for the agencies operated by the Welfare Board totals $69,469.50, a decrease of $2,943.50 from the corresponding figure for 1933. Nevertheless, these agencies spent for the first six months only $66,753.74, or $2,715.76 below even their reduced appropriation.” “Old Age Relief” the report goes on shows an increase in the number of recipients from 390 on January 1st, 1934 to 437 on June 30th, and is running very close to the amount appropriated for this purpose….”The expenditures for relief under the State Board of Children’s Guardians are running considerably above the amount estimated, being $42,879.95 as against an appropriated amount of $37,500 or an excess of $5,379.45 for the first half year. In order to understand this situation fully, it should be pointed out that commitments to this agency are made by the Court and payment of relief then becomes mandatory on the county. The per capita cost of the relief furnished is not high—being an average of approximately $11.39 per child per month in the Home Life Department and $17.70 in the Dependant Children’s Department—but the total number of children under care has shown a marked increase while the total amount appropriated for their relief has remained the same for the last three years. On January 1st, 1932, there were 488 children to be cared for under an annual appropriation of $75,000. By June 30th, 1934, there were 599 children under care….” (Aug. 9, 1934, p.1 & 3)
“DOVER (AP)—The State Highway Department was called upon today to rescue North Jersey’s Iron Mining Industry from extinction by permitting the use of mine sand and crushed ore stone under the new highway specifications now being studied. The mine sand and stone have been barred by the department in the past in favor of trap rock, sand pit gravel and sand although local experts say that the highway department laboratories show that mine material makes a harder concrete than those used. A plea that the use of mine materials also would cut highway costs was contained in the resolution forwarded to the highway department by the Dover Chamber of Commerce, Mayor John Roach and the Wharton Borough Council. The action of the Dover Chamber of Commerce followed conferences with Robert J. Crockett, superintendent of the Allen-Wood Mining Co., which reopened the Scrub Oak Mine about three months ago and at the present time is employing about 365 men, mostly from the vicinity of Dover. Mr. Crockett pointed out the closing of mines, particularly those mining iron ore in this section was due largely to the cheapness of ore being shipped here from abroad, making it impossible to compete. The mining company, however, has improved its methods of production so that if it can dispose of its rock and gravel it can compete with foreign competition and continue operation. The company has had the matter before the Highway Commission and it is reported other interests are opposing the approval of mine rock for road building purposes….” (Aug. 10, 1934, p.1)
“Long after recovery from the depression has been completed, we shall probably be arguing earnestly about what caused the recovery. Was it due to this, that, or the other specific measure adopted at Washington? Or did it come of itself, in spite of what Washington did?...On one side you have the theory that our cyclical swing, from prosperity to depression and back again, has been steadily increasing in velocity for half a century, and that this last time it carried our economy down so far that our whole social organization would have collapsed if a remedy had not been applied. On the other, there is the belief that this depression differed little from its predecessors, and that recovery would have proceeded just as fast—if not, in fact, a little faster— if Washington had kept its hands off entirely….The chief trouble with this theory seems to be its belief that human affairs are carried on in a vacuum. When an economist talks of producers, consumers, investors, and so on, he is not speaking of units in an academic chess game; he is speaking of human beings who have a naïve way of getting angry when they lose their money and their jobs, and who will stand privation only about so long before they go out to bust something….Depending on time to effect a cure is like depending on time to relieve an attack of acute appendicitis; it may—and, on the other hand, the patient may die. In a highly organized country like our, which happens also to be a democracy, it is impossible to let nature take its course in an acute depression. The strain on the social fabric is too great.” (editorial, Aug. 10, 1934, p.4)
“Morris County farmers will have to turn cowboys in the near future and those who have gone modern and use only tractors may have to borrow or beg some equipes from neighbors, as about 1,000 head of steer from the drought areas will be placed in Morris County in the near future. The government plans to ship in about 10,000 steers and heifers to New Jersey, where there is plenty of spare pasture land, and fatten these up for slaughter in the fall. The cattle are being taken from the Midwest and southwest where there has been prolonged droughts and many animals have had to be killed….already the allotment of 1,000 has been fully subscribed….It is said that these steers do not mind a man on horseback at all, so local farmers need to turn cowboys and maybe steal their wives’ clothes lines to act as lassos….Perhaps even the newspapers will find stories to write about stampedes in the county when the steers run wild. Somerset farmers are also taking 1,000 cattle to care for…” (Aug. 11, 1934, p.1)
“Federal relief agencies seem to have made genuine progress in the direction of cleaning up one of the depressions’ worst legacies—the presence on the highways of hundreds of thousands of homeless young tramps. Last year, according to estimates, fully half a million youngsters were on the bum—discouraged and sullen boys and girls, always hungry and hopeless, a prolific breeding ground for vice, disease, and crime. Today there are 200 camps and 350 city shelters in operation to reclaim these young people. Fully $20,000,000 has been spent on this job. More than 200,000 roving transients are being cared for, given work, and helped back toward hope and self-respect….” (editorial, Aug. 10, 1934, p.4)
“Bulletin. WASHINGTON, (AP)—President Roosevelt in conferences on the drought today ordered federal purchase of any foodstuff which might otherwise go to waste and laid down an emphatic ultimatum against politics in the relief campaign.” (Aug. 13, 1934, p.1) “Plans whereby local home and store owners may secure loans from local banks, backed by Federal guarantees, for modernization and improvement of property were outlined today by Laird Barkalow, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, following receipt of detailed instructions from Washington. Funds for the improvements will be made available under the provisions of the National Housing Act, signed by President Roosevelt….Under the new arrangement home and store owners may apply for loans not in excess of a fifth of their yearly earnings to any local bank which has agreed to co-operate with the administration in extending credit to local residents. According to the bulletin issued from national headquarters, “the administration will insure loans by financial institutions against 100% losses and up to an aggregate loss of 20% on total loans.” Individual loans are not to exceed $2,000. While strictest credit regulations will be enforced it is planned to make allowances for “character collateral” following the checking of credit references by special agencies. Local banks received a request to cooperate with the federal government last Friday and it is known that at least one bank has wired its acceptance of the administration proposal at the present time….” (Aug. 13, 1934, p.1)
“Nearly one and a half million dollars is Morris County’s share of $55,217,896 allotted to New Jersey up to August 1 by the Public Work Administration….The following is a list as of August 1 of loans and grants allotted by the PWA to public bodies and private corporations in Morris County for employment creating construction work to be carried on by them: Chatham School (2)…$386,000, Chester Waterworks (2)..50,000, Greystone Hospital (1)..46,000, Greystone Hospital (2)..18,000, Mt. Lakes, High School (2) 254,000. The figure (1)…indicates the allotment is a grant only of 30 per cent of the cost of labor and materials to be used on a project for which the applicant is supplying the remainder of the money required. The figure (2) indicates that the allotment is both a loan and a grant. In addition…there are two federal allotments from which Morris County will benefit they being $421,350 for Morristown National Historical Park and $292,000 for Lake Denmark Naval Depot….” (August 13, 1934, p.1)
“That famous Senate banking committee….is reporting its findings these days….There are some things we ought not to let ourselves forget….The committee….recites the sorry tale of the “preferred lists,” by which the big boys let certain public servants in on various good things; and it adds drily that “the bankers deny, perhaps too vehemently, that they expect any direct considerations” from these beneficiaries of banking benevolence. It asserts that in floating bond issues the bankers used high pressure methods, pegged prices so that they could unload before the bottom fell out of things, and filled their prospectuses with “flagrant misrepresentations and concealments.” It tells how foreign bonds were issued helter-skelter…so that the American public was induced to shoulder “not only the huge indebtedness of foreign industry…but also the indebtedness of foreign governments.” And it adds…that many of the abuses in investment banking arose “from the incompetence, negligence, irresponsibility, or cupidity of individuals in the profession.” …” (editorial, August 13, 1934, p.4)
“Leonard Lathrop, indefatigable party worker for the Republican county organization, is doing a lot of important spade work in organizing young Republicans throughout…Morris this year…. The depression…has had at least one salutary effect on young people. It has turned many of them to thinking about the problems of economics and politics which inevitably confront everyone in times of stress….These Young Republicans are going to have a lot of ideas to contribute….To avoid the dangers of having the Young Republicans composed exclusively of one group, Mr. Lathrop in Morris County has arranged to have a nuclear organization for young people of Italian extraction and another for young colored people. Without such supplementary groups, there would be a real possibility that elements in the community that deserve to have a voice might not be heard. At the same time there is a danger in having too many organizations. Political workers have a way of expecting rewards…perhaps the leaders of the party will find themselves beset by even greater numbers of hungry office seekers than now exists, if that is possible.” (editorial from the Madison Eagle, published in the Daily Record Aug. 13, 1934, p.4)
“DOVER—A slight increase in relief cases for September is expected by Lieutenant Commander Samuel Chiles, local ERA director….175 cases, involving 579 persons will bring the cost of the list to $2,231.26 next month. Of this sum, Dover will pay $1,015.68 while the state share will be $1,215.58. Exclusive of salaries, expenditures last month were $1,875.03 while in June the total cost was $1,101.30….” (Aug. 14, 1934, p.2)
“If this summer hasn’t given you enough things to worry about, you can always work up a fever over the wholesale way in which Uncle Sam has been adding his nephews and nieces to the federal payroll lately. Some sort of all-time high was reached this month when it was disclosed that more than 7,000,000 adult Americans are getting federal checks regularly. This includes practically everybody—regular government employes, members of the army and navy, people getting pensions and veterans’ compensation funds, those hired for public works projects and recipients of direct relief….But the important thing in this situation is not the number of people who are on the government payroll so much as it is the question, What would happen to them if they were off of it? It isn’t pleasant to picture the plight of the 3,600,000 on direct relief, if all government funds should be cut off suddenly. The government is caring for them only because no other agency can do so. It may be a bad thing to have the government supporting that many people; it would be a good deal worse to have them all starving….It is, after all, pretty silly to complain about the way in which Uncle Sam is supporting his citizens, unless you can also show some other way in which those whom he is supporting could be cared for.” (editorial, Aug. 13, 1934, p.4)
“Four of Morristown’s banks were preparing today to make arrangements enabling them to handle applications for modernization loans by home and store owners as provided in the National Housing Act signed last June by President Roosevelt. Two banks, the First National and the Morristown Trust Company, have already forwarded to Washington notice of their willingness to co-operate with the administration in extending credit for loans intended to improve and modernize residential and commercial property….” (Aug. 15, 1934, p.1)
“DOVER, (AP) – Employment for civilian workers at the Picatinny Army Arsenal is slowing down…the mayors of 12 north Morris County towns.…formed a committee last night with Mayor John Roach, Jr., of Dover as chairman and voted to send a delegation to Washington to ask the Public Works Administration to appropriate new funds for the arsenal. Roach reported that war department engineers have drawn plans for new buildings to cost $1,000,000 or more. Col. A.J. Stewart, commanding officer at the armory has recommended this construction…to be listed as a PWA federal project. About 2,300 civilian workers are normally employed at the arsenal, Roach declared. More than 1,400 have been laid off in recent months….Mayor Roach charged that the Federal Government was not consistent in its plans of action. “They tell us to make employment for the unemployed and then begin laying off men who have been employed by the government, some of them 30 and 40 years,”.… ” (Aug. 15, 1934, p.1)
“NEWARK, (AP) – Favoring retention of the state recovery codes and denying they cause any injury to business in general, a report of the Joint Legislative Commission has been prepared after an exhaustive survey for the legislature. The commission found that the investigation disclosed no excessively high prices to the consumer, that code operation had not driven business from the state and that a charge that codes favored large industry was unfounded. However, as presently administered in New Jersey, the commission found “obvious evils and dangers.”… unnecessary conflicts in the operation and administration of codes as between the federal and state administration, and some duplication of effort and expense….The commission reported also that “there has been a lack of any real attempt at code enforcement and there has been apparently a reluctance to force a decision in the courts as to the constitutionality of the laws creating codes and the legality of their administration.”….” (Aug. 15, 1934, p.1)
“It is a queer quirk of fate that the worst drouth in modern times should hit us just as we are trying to drag ourselves out of our worst depression….we have begun to realize that we helped bring them on ourselves. We invited the depression by unwise speculation, by a poor distribution of the fruits of prosperity, by imperfect alignment of our economic machinery. We invited the drouth by destroying our timber, by exploiting soil too extensively, by permitting erosion and stream depletion to go on unchecked. And just as we helped cause these disasters, we now have the idea that we can help cure them. We are not sitting with folded hands waiting for things to get better; we are rolling up our sleeves and going out to make them better….” (editorial, Aug. 15, 1934, p.4)
“WASHINGTON, D.C.—Although employment in the retail trade in Morris County is on the increase, the average retail employee in the county gets far less per year now than he did before the depression, according to figures made public by the census bureau today. The census figures, based on the census of American business taken last spring as a CWA work project, show that for the year 1933, Morris county had 2,515 full time retail employees, who drew a total of $2,987,000 in salaries. This means an average yearly wage of $1187.67. For the state as a whole, the average yearly wage of retail employees in 1933 was $1,159, while back in 1929, the average was $1,483, according to the census bureau. Morris county, the census bureau shows, had 1,804 retail establishments, with annual net sales of $28,955,000 for 1933. In addition to the 2,515 full time employees, these establishments gave employment to 1,909 proprietors and coproprietors and to 647 part time workers. Wages to part time workers totaled $234,000….” (Aug. 15, 1934, p.12)
“Steps to enlist the wholehearted support of Labor in the drive to make use of the new credit extended through the agencies of the National Housing Act providing for modernization loans were taken last night at a meeting of the “Modernize Morristown” Committee in the Chamber of Commerce rooms. A committee composed of Morris Epstein, local merchant, chairman; Fred Barbanes, real estate agent and Kenneth Thompson, official of the First National Bank, will meet delegates of the various local unions connected with the building and construction trade early this week to discuss cooperative features of the modernization campaign. Following that meeting the committee will report back to the larger group and a definite publicity policy will be initiated with a view to enlisting the support of the greatest possible number of home and store owners whose property may be in need of repairs….None of the three representatives of the banking interests on the committee was present at the meeting but it was reported that the banks of Morristown would undoubtedly cooperate….It was roughly estimated that there was the possibility of spending at least half a million dollars on projects designed solely for improvement purposes in Morristown….It was the consensus of opinion that the tax board would not raise levies on property improved under the Act….” (Aug. 16, 1934, p.1)
“Plans to make it possible for service trade industries previously unaffected by the NRA to secure the Code Blue Eagle will begin during the next two weeks, Laird Barkalow, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, announced this morning….Under recent Executive and Administrative Orders, the fair trade practice provisions of codes covering barbers shops, bowling alleys and billiard halls, shoe repairers and rebuilders, cleaners and dyers, hotels, laundries, parking garages, lots and stations, advertising display installers and advertising literature distributors were suspended. The labor provisions of these codes, including maximum hours and minimum wage standards, the ban on child labor and the collective bargaining guarantees, remain fully operative, and an employer in one of the listed trades, complying with these provisions is eligible to display and use the individual Blue Eagle for his trade…” (Aug. 17, 1934, p.1)
“TRENTON, (AP) – The State Department of Agriculture reported today that, with the exception of dairymen, New Jersey farmers are now in the worst plight they have been in for 20 years. During June…New Jersey farmers received for their vegetables 29 per cent less than they did between 1910 and 1914, and at the same time had to pay for their “store” commodities 21 per cent more than the pre-war prices. This brought the “exchange value” of vegetables to 59 per cent of the pre-war level… and the disparity is causing unusual financial hardship to the farmers. The situation was described as being further complicated by the almost complete failure of the peach crop and hot July winds which did heavy damage to other crops….” (Aug. 18, 1934, p.1)
“…According to the old school economists, recovery from a depression must follow certain natural laws. There must be a deflation long enough and severe enough to readjust all the relationships of prices, wages, and debts, which were put out of line by the previous inflationary trend….Now the reason why people are refusing to wait for these natural processes to do their work is that a terrific price in human values must be paid. A fair expression of the orthodox viewpoint is contained in a bulletin recently issued by a New York business advice firm….”As long as the government continues to provide the unemployed, either through jobs on public enterprises or through direct relief, with sufficient funds to deprive them of the incentive to secure private work at any price,” says this bulletin, “the supply of labor will not be large enough to exert on private wage scales the pressure needed to force a quick adjustment. . . .A return to sound business prosperity will be postponed until the government voluntarily modifies its relief policy to a point where it will not interfere with the proper deflation of wage rates.” That does not make pleasant reading. During the last couple of years we saw examples of what happens when labor has “the incentive to secure private work at any price.” We saw men employed at $5 and $6 a week. We saw women glad to get jobs as household servants for no pay at all but their board. We saw college-trained engineers and skilled mechanics mowing lawns for 25 cents an hour. We saw, in brief, enough sights to make the heart sick, and we saw enough of them to last us a long, long time….” (editorial, August 18, 1934, p.4)
“DENVILLE—Efforts are being made to keep men in the Lakeland area at work at Picatinny Arsenal and Freeholder Fred S. Myers…detailed work of the Board of Freeholders to obtain federal funds for the purpose. The freeholders more than two months ago sought the aid of United States Senators Barbour and Kean, Governor Moore and others. Myers said he had conferred with army and naval officers regarding the impending layoffs and had been told the naval appropriations were exhausted….Myers said the freeholders would continue efforts to keep at work the hundreds whose layoff would mean additional burdens on relief agencies in the section from Morristown to Hackettstown and from Butler to Chester….” (Aug. 20, 1934, p.1) “The great scope of work done by government relief agencies is shown by recent statistics revealing that more than 500,000,000 pounds of foodstuffs have been distributed to the needy by Uncle Sam. A family subsisting on federal relief gets such things as beef, pork and veal roasts, bean, bread and butter, oranges, apples, and cheese. In addition, thousands of tons of coal have been distributed, and huge quantities of surplus cotton have been woven into blankets for the unemployed. Millions of bushels of wheat, corn, oats, and barley have been given to farmers in the drouth areas for starving livestock. Distributing all these things has been very costly, of course. But it must also have prevented an appalling amount of human misery.” (editorial, Aug. 20, 1934, p.4)
Daily Washington Letter, by Rodney Dutcher, Aug. 20, 1934, p.4: “The hazards of sickness and accident, constant threat of economic disaster to most of us, have become a concern of the New Deal. Inside information indicates that some federal program for sickness insurance is almost certain to be recommended to the next Congress. …Many New Dealers favor it….Sickness insurance means cash benefits for sickness to compensate for lost earning power and also medical care—at the expense of insurance funds. Its big aim is relief of poverty among low-income workers whose wages automatically stop when they’re incapacitated. FERA believes that at best there will be 12 to 15 million Americans for whom medical care must be provided from public funds in the next few years, so some socialized medicine is inevitable. But among the employed in normal times 2,250,000 workers are said to be constantly incapacitated by illness and 42,000,000 wage earners lose an average of eight days through illness and accident each year—something like 350,000,000 days. The government might undertake to stimulate either voluntary or compulsory insurance systems, but the tendency here is to hold that the latter is necessary to cover unorganized workers living on minimum subsistence incomes. One FERA official proposes to include group medical and hospital service in NRA codes, to be covered by fixed payroll deductions. Private systems, varying in merit, already are in effect in the railroad, coal, lumber, and metal mining industries. Some proposals before the social security committee would provide special medical centers with staffs of physicians and surgeons to be paid from insurance funds. The American Medical Association and the National Association of Manufacturers have always opposed anything but voluntary sickness insurance, though social workers, the American College of Physicians and Surgeons, and some state medical societies have favored the compulsory form. The opposition claims required sickness insurance develops a race of hypochondriacs and increases the morbidity rate, making physicians spend too much time on the less serious cases. The medical profession also objects to any form of lay control or the loss of the great essential of mutual confidence between patient and doctor.”
“WHARTON—In order to keep operating the schools, a bond issue of $75,000 to be retired at $5,000 annually was voted last night by the Borough Council….The officials, confronted with the difficulty of collecting taxes have issued tax anticipation notes until the banks and federal authorities have called a halt….heretofore 52 to 60 per cent of the gross expenses of the borough was derived from taxes on furnace property. This source of revenue has been eliminated by the tearing down of buildings on the property. The suggestion of Borough Collector Daniel G. Fichter that the borough cancel interest charges on all delinquents for an indefinite period to induce delinquents to make payments, met with opposition, especially from Borough Attorney Elmer S. Bray. He said the borough has borrowed against these unpaid taxes and the interest charged by the borough is to be used in paying the interest on the borrowed money. Those who have paid interest on their delinquent payments could bring court action against the borough, he said….” (Aug. 21, 1934, p.1)
“The regulations laid down by the new Federal Securities and Exchange Commission contain rules designed to check speculation by corporation officials who like to take little flyers in the securities of their own companies. Need of such rule was abundantly shown by disclosures made before the Senate’s famous stock markets committee. Case after case was cited in which corporation officials got more interested in making a stock market killing than in conducting the affairs of their corporation in the interests of its stockholders. This not only led to a wholesale milking of suckers in Wall Street; all too often it subordinated the rights of the genuine investor to the speed of the speculating official—to the investor’s direct financial loss….” (editorial, Aug. 21, 1934, p.4)
“…The Chinese drouth is one of the worst in living memory. So is the one that has hit the United States. Indeed, the weather seems to have been about the same in each nation—much heat, no rain, a steady depletion of all water supplies, a burning and blistering of all growing things. In the United States it has meant great financial loss for the farmers and higher prices for the city dwellers. In China it is meaning nothing less than wide-spread starvation—people dying by the scores of thousands because they cannot get food and water. The contrast is instructive. The disaster was the same, in each case; but in one land there was a social and economic organization capable of meeting the crisis, while in the other land there was not. In other words, these terrible natural catastrophes that come upon us every so often can be robbed of their worst terrors if society is organized to meet them properly….” (editorial, Aug. 21, 1934, p.4)
“WASHINGTON (AP)—Federal NRA officials worked with New Jersey Recovery leaders today to harmonize state and national codes along lines agreed upon by Gen. Hugh S. Johnson, national NRA administrator, and Gov. A. Harry Moore….”Our service codes, about which there has been so much discussion, are identical with those of the NRA and prices are fixed following approval of 85 per cent of an industry,” the acting state administrator declared. “There are but two exceptions to this and they are in formula only. Our formula for fixing retail code prices differs from the national method and in the retail grocery code instead of having cost or replacement, whichever is lower, as basis for price-fixing, we have selected the prevailing market price as being fairer. The state and national recovery code permits a two per cent mark-up of wholesale and six per cent mark-up of retail prices….” (Aug. 22, 1934, p.1)
“SOMETHING ELSE TO BE DAMMED” headlines the editorial cartoon on August 24, 1934, which depicts the good rowboat TAXPAYER approaching a waterfall, rower frantically trying to keep from going over the falls which, crashing down, with $ bills floating in the water, is labeled LOCAL, STATE, AND FEDERAL EXPENDITURES.” (August 24, 1934, p.4)
“If, as Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins once remarked, an outbreak of strikes is a sign of recovery, we must be heading back toward prosperity at a terrific clip. The strike vote which will call out half a million textile workers on Sept. 1, unless some speedy adjustment be made, is only the latest in a rapidly increasing list of bitter industrial disputes….” (editorial, Aug. 24, 1934, p.4)
“…We read that a great anti-radical campaign is to be launched early in September. The junior Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles will start the ball rolling…; other places are expected to take up the torch, and coordination of all anti-radical groups thru-out the land is expected to result….You may remember some of the disclosures made a few years ago when the Federal Trade Commission was investigating the propaganda efforts of the power trust. At that time it was revealed that one of the trust’s publicity advisers, writing to another adviser, frankly urged that they try to “pin the Bolshevik label” on people who were campaigning for lower electricity rates, public ownership, and so on. It’s an old gag, after all. Yell “Red” at a man long enough and you can persuade people to forget the man’s actual accomplishments and ignore his logic ….A campaign of this kind could be a cruel and tyrannical thing, if followed blindly. If there are people in America who are trying to bring about a bloody revolution, let’s get after them, by all means. But let’s not permit ourselves to be fooled into pinning that label on anybody and everybody who sponsors a movement or a cause that threatens nothing but some selfish vested interest.” (editorial, Aug. 24, 1934, p.4)
“SKELETONIZED STORY—This is Drouth ! In one severe camera study, Margaret
Bourke-White has described the catastrophe that befell the cattle country.” Included in the photo essay are starving cattle, and the rib cage of a perished cow. (Aug. 27, 1934, p.5)
“DENVILLE—A request by the Brotherhood of Unemployed, Denville Local No. 1 that hand labor be used in backfilling trenches on the Union section water improvement project here was refused by the Township Committee at a special meeting last night. Committee members pointed out the contract for the entire job has already been awarded and the plan of the unemployed would increase the cost of the job to the taxpayers. According to the plan submitted to the committee, the unemployed requested that the Township pay between the contract price of 35 cents per foot and 55 cents, a price which had previously been submitted to the unemployed. The group then planned on collecting a small sum from the contractor since his duties would be lessened. It was also brought out at the meeting that RFC application has already been made for funds for the project and that this plan would raise the cost of the entire project approximately $600. The committee reported, however, that plenty of ERA projects to keep the men working throughout the winter, are under consideration….” (Aug. 28, 1934, p.1)
“It is easy to be glib about the victims of the depression; easy to say airily that jobless men can live on their savings if they have been prudent, can get help from relatives, and can, all in all, “get along somehow.” But it is a little different when you take a close-up look at things. Such a look is provided in a study just completed by the U.S. Department of Labor. The department’s experts investigated the case of 1000 representative railway employes to see what happens to a wage earner when hard times come. These workers took a general 10 per cent wage cut in February, 1932; but short time and loss of overtime work had already reduced their pay very materially, so that during the four years of the depression half of them had lost as much as 30 per cent of their incomes….Meanwhile, many family burdens increased. Fully 200 of the 1000 workers took jobless friends or relatives into their homes. Many others made regular gifts of cash or groceries to needy families in their neighborhoods. So what happened? To begin with, savings vanished. Nearly all these 1000 families used up their bank accounts; half of them had to sacrifice their insurance policies. In 115 families, all with small children, the daily supply of milk was reduced. Thirty-two families cut off their milk entirely. Nearly all the families cut down drastically on their purchases of butter, meat, fresh fruits, and vegetables. Health was neglected. In nearly a third of the 1000 families one or more members required medical attention, but could not afford it. Teeth were badly neglected. Requests from school authorities for dental or medical attention for children were repeatedly ignored. Lodge, club, and church memberships were dropped. In 1335 families all subscriptions to newspapers and magazines had been canceled. Many of these people reported that they had not even seen a movie for years. As one man put it, “when Sunday comes, we just sit.” This, then, is a picture of the human cost of the depression. It is worth remembering that these 1000 families were far better prepared than most to meet the depression, and suffered much less than the average. But the picture is, nevertheless, an appalling one. It is, as the Labor Department experts remark, a picture of “a slow retreat from relative security toward destitution.” (editorial, Aug. 29, 1934, p.4)
“On September 1 certain municipalities in Morris County will start on the new cash relief plan. The cash relief plan is quite similar to the present form of relief, except that instead of receiving food orders all relief clients will receive cash in the amount of their present food orders, plus a 20% increase. This cash will be paid in the form of checks, which will be issued twice a month from some central distribution point in each municipality. Items such as milk, fuel, etc., will be given as heretofore on relief orders, and these items are not included in the amount of cash relief. It will, however, place upon each family the entire responsibility of purchasing its own food and other incidental needs, as no supplementary food orders will be issued during the 15 day period that the check is to cover. If a family through mismanagement of cash, foolish expenditures, payment of back bills, alcoholism, etc. is unable to make the check cover expenditures for the specified period, this family will be returned to the food order basis, less the 20% per cent. This will constitute a permanent return, with no second chance to enjoy the privileges of cash. Relief clients who refuse to work in return for cash relief they have received, or those who refuse to cooperate while working, will be placed back on the food order basis less the 20% increment, pending an investigation that the man is unable to give a legitimate reason, such as illness, or some other real cause for his actions, he will be immediately suspended from the relief list. The Work-for-Relief plan now being followed in the county will remain practically the same, except that projects will work on a 3-day basis of 8 hours, or 24 hours per week, instead of 5 days as heretofore. The amount of time which a man or woman will have to work will depend upon the amount of relief received. The ten cents per hour additional cash will be discontinued. It should be clearly understood that the new program of Work-for-Relief is purely and simply a relief measure, and is in no sense of the word a re-employment program on a wage paid basis. There is a great deal of confusion in the minds of people generally concerning relief and reemployment….” (Aug. 30, 1934, p.1)
“Nineteen municipalities will come under the provisions of the cash system of emergency relief announced yesterday by Judson P. Nesbitt, Deputy Morris County Director, it was learned today. These towns have previously been operating under a “modified A” relief grant system from the state administration….These municipalities are Boonton, Butler, Chester Township, Denville, Dover, Hanover, Lincoln Park, Mendham, Mine Hill, Morristown, Mt. Olive, Netcong, Parsippany-Troy Hills, Pequannock, Passaic Township, Riverdale, Rockaway Township, Roxbury and Wharton….” (Aug. 30, 1934, p.1)
“The Picatinny Arsenal, second largest of the five operated by the federal government, has far less employees than normal while all of the others have nearly twice their usual numbers, figures from a Washington correspondent today discloses, and the same dispatch indicates that no additional men will be taken on although there is a shortage of ammunition reserves….Between 1,100 and 1,200 persons will continue to be employed at Picatinny Arsenal—and no more— during the present period ending June 30, 1935, unless some effective effort is made to obtain additional funds outside the War Department….“Because Picatinny is only one of half a dozen manufacturing arsenals throughout the country, each of which is geared to the production of certain types of arms and ammunition, the army cannot jeopardize its essential munitions program for the sake of providing employment relief in any area that may be especially hard pressed at this time,” it was declared here today by Maj. Charles A. Walker, executive secretary of the Office of Chief of Ordinance. He indicated that any efforts which Morris county groups might attempt to make by way of inducing the War Department to spend more money at Picatinny would be futile. Major Walker did point out, however, that local interests might induce one of the federal emergency agencies to grant the department additional funds earmarked for payroll extensions at Picatinny. “If this is the outcome, the army will be only too glad to take on more workers at Picatinny,” he said….” (Aug. 31, 1931, p.1)
“FEDERAL EDEN; FREE BOARD; LITTLE WORK” headlines a photograph on p.2, August 31, 1934, showing two lines of tents in a field. “Typical of hobo “Edens” now established in several sections of the country under federal relief direction is the one shown above, a 1934 model “jungle” at Fairfield, O., its neat street lined with tents…. Instead of a tin can camp along a railroad track, the hoboes who tarry here find all the comforts of a home—electric lights, shower baths, barber shop. Cigarets are free and so is clothing. The only drawback is that residents must work four six-hour days a week in return for food, lodging and incidentals, but the labor is light. When the itinerants are ready to move on, they are transported in government trucks to their next port of call.”
“Harry L. Hopkins’ promise that the federal government must and will evolve a distinctively American method of dealing with the stupendous problem of unemployment relief, and will not be content to copy some European system, is a bright bit of good news. If anything has been made clear by post-war European experiences in this field, it is that just to keep the jobless men from starving is not enough….England’s long years of the dole illustrates the point….The dole keeps them from starvation and provides them with a few odd pennies for their recreation— football games, movies, a glass of beer now and then, and so on. In many, many cases these young men have lost the desire to work. They have never known anything but a life of pointless idleness; it has come to seem the normal thing to them, and the wish to get out and stand on their own feet has atrophied and died.…Even the return of full prosperity would leave them as a solid, more or less indigestible lump in the economic body….We cannot avoid the responsibility of keeping jobless men from starving—but unless we go beyond that, and give them a chance to support themselves, we shall build up a great deal of trouble for ourselves.” (editorial, August 31, 1934, p.4)