"I Don't Know"

Skewered on Political Columnist Frank Kent's agile pen, a WPA pressagent named Hugh Amick and his New Deal employers were roasted for three days last week in the Baltimore Sun. Into the hands of Pundit Kent, who mortally hates & fears the New Deal's spending policies, had fallen releases by Pressagent Amick describing three camps for girls established in Kansas with some of the 50,000,000 Work Relief dollars set aside by President Roosevelt "to do something for the nation's unemployed Youth" (TIME, July 8). Largely by quotation, Pundit Kent drew the following picture of National Youth Administration activities:

Camp Wood, for white girls, has a big recreation & dining room, electrically-lighted cabins, tennis courts, ping-pong tables, riding horses, a lake for swimming and boating. At Camp Washita girls live in a dormitory, have a piano, phonograph, radio and cement swimming pool. Camp Bide-a-Wee "is a cool, green spot shaded by huge trees situated beside a clear creek" where "colored women live in screened-in cabins, possess a beautifully furnished main room for recreation and study and have tennis courts, swings and a croquet ground for sports."

Arriving girls, all from families on relief, "gathered around a campfire while Mr. Hoiberg talked to them of the purpose of their camps. He stressed the fact that every person should study social and economic problems in these days; should attempt to discover the causes of our present plight, and then should help to combat the evils. An attempt will be made, Mr. Hoiberg said, to teach personal enrichment in leisure time."

Along this line, Alden Krider & wife, professional puppeteers, "plan to teach the women to do this kind of work and to have each camp write its own plays and make ten puppets." Miss Helen Olson offers expert vocational guidance. Miss Davida Olinger, just back from three years' teaching in Persia, "will give lectures on her experiences and knowledge of the Oriental world."

"Three girls left to go home after a day and a half in camp. The director said nothing--just let them go. That noon a delicious Sunday dinner was served, consisting of chicken and dumplings, potatoes, salad, hot rolls, green beans and ice cream and cake for dessert. About half an hour after dinner the three slipped back into the camp and came up to the director. 'Please, we want to come back. We think it's pretty swell here.' "

Concluded Pundit Kent: "No one can read Mr. Amick's account without wondering what is to happen when the $50,000,000 gives out; how, once started, the Government is ever to get out of this business of being the national nurse maid. . . ."

Columnist Kent offered no answers to his questions.

Looking at another side of the picture in Manhattan last week, the man in charge of spending the $50,000,000 for Youth, earnest Assistant Federal Relief Administrator Aubrey Williams, also left these questions unanswered. Between 5,000,000 and 8,000,000 U. S. boys & girls aged 16 to 25, he told an assembly of welfare workers, have absolutely nothing to do. Nearly 3,000,000 of them are on relief. They cannot afford school, cannot find jobs. Aubrey Williams knows that simple poverty can be overcome. He went to work at 6 in a torpedo factory, earned his own way to success. But for today's luckless youngsters grit and ambition are not enough. Fifty million dollars cannot begin to give all of them a chance to make something of their lives. What to do? In honest despair Aubrey Williams cried again & again to his sympathetic audience last week: "I don't know!"

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