$2.45 per Head

The Senate last week voted the equivalent of $2.45 each for every man, woman & child in the land, to help those who need it through the Depression. It was the first bill providing direct Federal relief for the destitute, passed by the overwhelming vote of 72-to-8. Public plight had triumphed over political principle. The cry of "Dole!" was muted. Even President Hoover approved.

Sponsor of the direct relief bill was New York's Democratic Senator Robert Ferdinand Wagner. Since the beginning of the Depression more than two years ago he has hammered away on the idea that the Federal Government must do something big about unemployment. His proposal to create a Federal Employment Service on a nationwide basis was vetoed by President Hoover in 1931. He repeatedly advocated a full-sized program of public works to make more jobs. His expert interest in the problem of relief made him the No. 1 Democratic spokes-man on this issue and, as such, he chair-manned a party committee that framed the bill passed last week.

Under its terms Reconstruction Finance Corp. was authorized to raise an additional $300,000,000 by debentures. This sum was to be lent States, at 3%, on the basis of population to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. States in turn could pass their borrowings along to municipalities to care for local distress. Repayments were provided for by deductions from Federal allowances for highway construction. Typical State allotments for relief: Illinois, $18,645,452; Oregon, $2,330,570; Texas, $14,232,652; Nevada, $222,500. The Wagner bill was forwarded to the House for action.

One of the eight opponents of the Wagner relief measure was Pennsylvania's Reed. Gloomed he: "When the historians of the future describe the decline and fall of the American Republic they will point to today as one of the milestones on the road of the disintegration of our country. . . . These are not loans to States. Not one penny will be paid back. We are lifting the lid of Pandora's box and we'll never be able to close it. It is a step toward making mendicants of our people."

Still to be acted on by the Senate were other Wagner proposals to: 1) authorize the R. F. C. to lend a billion dollars for self-amortizing public works by States; 2) float a $500,000,000 U. S. bond issue for a Federal program of public works. President Hoover favored No. 1, frowned on No. 2. Last week Secretary Mills, appearing before the Senate Banking & Currency Committee, vainly argued for the Hoover proposal of R. F, C. loans to private industry. This the Committee rejected on the ground that it would result in unfair competition between industrial concerns financed by R. F. C. and those not so aided. Secretary Mills mocked the Wagner direct relief plan thus: "When you're going to bust the Depression with a $300,000,000 appropriation it's like getting a ten-year old boy to lift up the Washington Monument and bring it here into this room.

Earlier in the week the House, gagged by a rigid rule against amendments, passed (216-to-182) the $2,290,000,000 relief bill which Speaker Garner sponsored and President Hoover denounced as "pork."* It provided $100,000,000 as "mercy money" for direct relief, $1,000,000,000 in R. F. C. loans, the balance for a gigantic public building program throughout the land financed by U. S. bonds. Typical of the Republican opposition to this measure was a jingle recited on the floor by New York's Clarke:

The odor of pork is in the air,

A Democratic Speaker is in the chair.

Hog callers, calling in despair. Pigsties, postoffices everywhere.

*Last week Speaker Garner was ordered to bed with influenza.

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