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As ill-starred a social project as ever drew howls from anti-New Deal columnists is Jersey Homesteads, a settlement of 200 flat-roofed, garage-like homes halfway between New York and Philadelphia and hard by the Revolutionary battlefield of Monmouth.* Designed for Manhattan garment workers, 120 of whom paid in $500 each for participation in a cooperative garment factory on the grounds, Jersey Homesteads was thoroughly snarled in Government red tape. Some $4,000,000 went into purchase of the land (1,275 acres), building of a factory and homes, equipping a communal farm. Thousands of dollars went out the window when Resettlement Administration officials took to prefabricating concrete slabs for the houses, then couldn't find a way to join them. More was lost when they switched to casting cinder block, later found these could be bought for one-third the cost on the open market. Four years after the project was begun (1933) the first families finally moved in and the garment factory began to give work to about 60 needlemen.

But the garment factory was a dismal flop, found no market for its coats and suits. Government loans of $200,000 fell due, and the Department of Agriculture, which had fallen heir to R. A.'s white elephant, finally foreclosed, sold some of the plant machinery for $1,811. Jersey Homesteaders who could find jobs commuted to Manhattan or Philadelphia, still counted themselves lucky to be living in the country at monthly rent of $14 to $17.

Last week, Jersey Homesteads' dead cooperative economy was buried. Rented for five years was Jersey Homesteads' factory. The renter: Manhattan's Kartiganer & Co., manufacturers of women's hats. Hopeful was many a member of Jersey Homesteads' 125 remaining families that private enterprise might provide jobs where their cooperative had failed.

* Where George Washington ordered General Charles Lee to advance, found him retreating, called him a "damned poltroon."

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