Work Relief Administration Press Conferences
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Press Conference
Colonel Harrington
March 9, 1939
4:00 P.M.

Col. Harrington:	I don't know whether I have very much in the way of news, but we have just sent out instructions to the field having to do with the provisions of Public Resolution Number One about what our employees may or may not do as concerns political activities. You have the release there which gives the gist of that. I would like to recall for the sake of accuracy that there are four provisions in the Public Resolution Number One bearing on that subject. Provision number one makes it a felony for anyone to offer a job as a political reward; provision number two makes it a felony for anyone to threaten to deprive anyone of a job for political reasons; provision number three make a it a felony to solicit contributions within the WPA for political purposes. And those three provisions all apply to persons within and without the Works Progress Administration organization, those being made criminal offenses. If we obtain evidence that any of them occur, we will of course turn that evidence over to the Department of Justice which is the department of Government set up to handle such matters. We won't endeavor to do anything administratively in the WPA on those three fronts. The fourth provision in that recent Act says that no one can be paid from our funds who engages in political activities or political management or endeavors to influence the results of a campaign. That in not made a criminal offense, but requires dismissal of persons who do those things. In consequence of the application of that, we are having to remove a number of persons who have been county chairmen, presidents of political groups or who have occupied other positions of that character, and were on our administrative and supervisory rolls. In some instances that is being called or described by the old over-worked word "purge". I can't attempt to dictate the phraseology that you gentlemen of the press use. I don't regard it as a purge, but only as carrying out a new piece of legislation recently enacted.
Query:	How many people are involved?
Col. Harrington:	I can't give you an estimate now. As soon as I can give you one I will be glad to do so. Howard, would you have any idea?
Mr. Hunter:	I don't think so.
Query:	Will it run into hundreds?
Col. Harrington:	It will run into hundreds. We have 35,000 administrative employees approximately. And on top of that we have supervisors on projects who are not included in that figure, but are actually under the provisions of those sections of the Act. It will run into the hundreds all right, but I would rather not give an estimate, I would rather give a figure when we really know,
Query:	Are there any names obtainable?
Col. Harrington:	No.
Query:	Can they be obtained?
Col. Harrington:	I will not give out names.
Query:	Are you bouncing those people, or are you offering them a chance to quit their political jobs?
Col. Harrington:	They can quit one or the other.
Query:	Then you are not actually firing them?
Col. Harrington:	No.
Query:	Will this affect organizations such as the Workers' Alliances, the Unemployed Council, or similar organizations?
Col. Harrington:	Only political organizations. I don't regard the Workers' Alliance as a political organization.
Query:	Well, don't you think the Workers' Alliance comes pretty close to the borderline as they act as a pressure group upon members of Congress, et cetera.
Col. Harrington:	I assume if and when Congress wants to apply that to the pressure groups, they will say so. There are other pressure groups besides the Workers' Alliance.
Query:	Of course, the Workers' Alliance does endorse persons for public offices, I have in mind a particular controversy over the vote of a certain Congressman.
Col. Harrington:	Most of our membership in the Workers' Alliance are project workers who are not included in this legislation. I doubt that any considerable number of our administrative or supervisory people are members of the Workers' Alliance.
Query:	Do you know how many?
Col. Harrington:	I don't think any.
Query:	That was that you said a moment ago about the supervisory personnel among the rank and file? How many are there?
Col. Harrington:	I have an idea, but I don't want to give a figure,
Query:	Does this rule against political activity apply to activity on the part of administrative personnel regarding legislation or votes of Congress?
Col. Harrington:	"Political activity or political management" are the words of the law.
Query:	What is that, Colonel. Define it.
Col. Harrington:	Now, listen, what do you want me to do. Do you want me to give an essay on politics? You will find the line drawn in the release that we gave you. In the future individual cases will come back in here for individual interpretation. As we get them, we will either interpret them or ask the General Accounting Office to interpret them. After all, that particular provision prohibits us from paying salaries to people who do certain things. The interpreting agency in that case will be the General Accounting Office rather than the Department of Justice,
Query:	I understood you to say that the supervisors or administrative personnel could not write a letter to a Congressman to vote for or against a certain bill. You were asked whether this barred administrative personnel from taking any action with regard to legislation in Congress.
Col. Harrington:	Certainly I do not think it bars them from writing their representatives in Congress.
Query:	My office got excited last night about an administrative order from you or one of your assistant administrators preventing your local and state administrators from giving out any more information on the investigation of the rolls and the dropping of aliens. They couldn't get information about how many had been dropped out there. It looked to them like a censorship.
Mr. Hunter:	The order didn't say not to give out anything on the investigations. The order said not to give out anything on figures until they were completed and tabulated. They were based on different values in different states and releases were going out which obviously were going to be very far off the final returns, which should be on March 25.
Col. Harrington:	We want to tell the story when we have it. That is the whole thing and I assure you I am going to tell it just as soon as I have it in here,
Query:	You are talking now about the aliens?
Col. Harrington:	I am talking about the investigation of the rolls for need, not about aliens. I will be willing to give you something on that very shortly, but at this juncture it is slightly misleading. But in this investigation of the rolls, the investigation is in different stages in different parts of the country and the results that are shown up to the present time are not typical, principally for the reason that the cases that are obviously in need are the ones that are finally disposed of first, and the doubtful cases disposed of last. Until we get through to the end of this investigation of the need, we won't have the picture and anything that is written on it in the meantime is likely to be misleading. Now on the alien thing. I estimate now, and I think this is reasonably accurate, that the loss in the alien provision will approximate 30,000. And that 30,000 incidentally will be aliens who have first papers because we were not employing any aliens who did not have first papers prior to the passage of the first legislation.
Query:	In that dispute in Cleveland on the local figures—I got the idea from talking to one of the gentlemen in the Press Section last night that in the end we may not be able to get those figures by county or city, but only by states.
Mr. Hunter:	You can get those by county.
Query:	Have you yet discussed the need for the appropriation of the $150,000,000 to carry on WPA?
Col. Harrington:	Yes,
Query:	In what terms?
Col. Harrington:	In terms of whether we need it or not.
Query:	Let me ask directly—do you need it?
Col. Harrington:	Yes.
Query:	How soon?
Col. Harrington:	Right now.
Query:	In other words, there is an immediate need for Congress to get into action to prevent curtailment in the near future?
Col. Harrington:	Yes. Otherwise, a week from today we will have to send out instructions to begin reducing our rolls.
Query:	How will that be done?
Col. Harrington:	The reductions will not begin before the first of April.
Query:	How large do you think the reduction will be?
Col. Harrington:	I don't want to give out anything on that plan. There are various ways in which it can be done, We are having a meeting of our regional directors on Monday to meet here to discuss that, and my decision is not yet final so that I don't want to give figures. You will find in my testimony before the Appropriations Committee the figure of the average number of persons that can be carried through the next three months of the current fiscal year will be two million us against the present total of three million.
Query:	That is on the basis of having had $875,000,000?
Col. Harrington:	On the bands of what is now appropriated.
Query:	Doesn't that mean you will have to cut off one million people!
Col. Harrington:	Or more.
Query:	For the rest of the fiscal year?
Col. Harrington:	Beginning at the first of April—in the months of April, May and June.
Query:	The only way you can avoid making more than one million then is to slice off one million people on the first day.
Col. Harrington:	We will have to make drastic cuts in the beginning.
Query:	At your present projection, the appropriation will be completely expended before June.
Col. Harrington:	There is always a certain carry-over at the end of June.
Query:	How much will that amount to?
Col. Harrington:	We can't get it much below 30 or 40 million dollars.
Query:	If you get the $150,000,000, it won't be necessary to cut to the two million figure?
Col. Harrington:	It will, however, be necessary to reduce. If we get the $150,000,000 we would still start the cut on the first of April which was contemplated in the President's original proposal to Congress—for the remaining three months of April, May and June.
Query:	Each and every month?
Col. Harrington:	All those three. That was contemplated in the original plan of the appropriation of $875,000,000.
Query:	And would be contemplated now!
Col. Harrington:	Yes.
Query:	Suppose Congress said to you on the basis of the 30 or 40 million carry-over, subtracting, that amount from the $150,000,000—or $120,000,000....
Col. Harrington:	I don't want to get into that. Not that I have anything to hide, but it goes into factors that could not be simply explained. I will say in a general way that you can't operate an organization spending millions a month and in the end run it up to midnight of the 30th of June and not have a dime left in the treasury.
Query:	It you have to make this big cut, will you distribute that through the states on the basis of population or on the basis of need?
Col. Harrington:	That whole plan will be given out at the time that our instructions come out, and after we have had the conference next week.
Query:	How many regional directors do you have now?
Col. Harrington:	Nine. That is where they live, on the map behind you.
Query:	What will the expenditures be on the basis of the $750,000,000 for the twelve months ending June 30 this year as compared to the twelve months of the previous year?
Col. Harrington:	I prefer to get that figure from the Finance Division and give it to you, Mr. Felt will give it to you if it is sufficiently important.
Query:	Are any state administrators or high state officers affected by your orders on the political activities?
Col. Harrington:	I can only think of one at the moment who is holding an office for which he is receiving no pay.
Query:	Do you have any method of going under the surface for a man holding no office but who is still known to be acting politically!
Col. Harrington:	The Act says "political activity".
Query:	Did you make an abatement at the Capitol about this today?
Col. Harrington:	No, I was testifying on the Senator Byrne at bill for the establishment of a Department of Public Works.
Query:	What do you think about the so-called script plan of the Department of Agriculture for the distribution of surplus commodities? And had will WPA be concerned with that?
Col. Harrington:	I think the plan is a very interesting one. I think so far as the WPA is concerned, that I would not be willing to go into it on anything other than an experimental basis at the outset, and on a very restricted basis, and see what would happen. I am a firm believer in walking before you run. The only thing so far as the WPA is concerned would be to try the third out in a few places and see what happens,
Query:	It is my understanding that they are going to try it in a few key cities. Will your Finance Office handle it?
Col. Harrington:	We haven't got it down to that.
Query:	In regard to the last paragraph in this release on the franchise—what would you do in states where paupers are not permitted to vote, and hold WPA workers to be paupers? Isn't there anything you could do?
Col. Harrington:	No. We can't change the states' election requirements.
Query:	How are you getting along on the report on the transient problem?
Col. Harrington:	I hope to make my report to the President by Monday.
Query:	Up on the Hill, some of the members of Congress have been talking—I don't know whether they were parroting your ideas—about expanding WPA projects in the states from which these floaters have come. Can you explain the apparent conflict between expanding projects in some states and getting rid of people by cutting down the rolls in others?
Col. Harrington:	They haven't been quoting me.
Query:	In Pennsylvania, has Mr. Smith jumped the gun on your political thing up there?
Col. Harrington:	A good many of our Administrators have already moved on that. We would have released this sooner only we had consulted the General Accounting Office and were waiting for a reply.
Query:	Then you have had a ruling from the General Accounting Office, on which this is the expression of your limits?
Col. Harrington:	It was quite obvious before we had that ruling that we couldn't have a man in a supervisory position who was a county chairman. We didn't have to have a General Accounting Office ruling on that.
Query:	Did Mr. Smith act on his own initiative or with your approval?
Col. Harrington:	With my approval.
Query:	Governor Benson is down here looking for a job. Is he going to get one with the WPA? (Laughter)
Query:	Did you any yes or no?
Col. Harrington:	I said nothing.
Query:	Smith has the title of Acting Director, I believe. Is that to be changed or is it a permanent title?
Col. Harrington:	"Acting" is obviously not a permanent title.
Query:	He is still Acting Director?
Col. Harrington:	That is right.
Query:	Do you expect to make him permanent Director?
Col. Harrington:	I have nothing to say about that.
Query:	The President said on Tuesday that he was going to talk to you about the $150,000,000. Did you confer about that?
Col. Harrington:	I can't answer. I went to the White House yesterday as you gentlemen of the press seem to know.
Query:	What may we assume is the President's attitude?
Col. Harrington:	I can't discuss my conversation with the President, as you very well know.
Query:	I don't want to pump anything out of you, but can you tell us anything about the results of the discussion on the transient problem? Is it possible to work out some plan or scheme that will be at all satisfactory?
Col. Harrington:	I don't cant you people to feel that I get you here on a wild goose chase and refuse to answer questions, but when I have a report to make to the President, I will not discuss it, and I will not discuss my conversations at the White House.
Query:	Well, Colonel, we are practically convinced that you yourself are not concerned with the $150,000,000, that you would have liked to have less than that; that you would like to get rid of these people. We just wonder whether you want to say anything about that.
Col. Harrington:	I can only refer you to my testimony before the House and Senate Committees. If you can draw any such interpretation as that out of my testimony, I don't see how. I put it on the line up there as clearly as I could use the English language, and there are reports on my testimony. The Press Section can give you copies.
Query:	Has the report in regard to the Philadelphia Airport come across your desk?
Col. Harrington:	In my previous capacity as Chief Engineer. I haven't followed it intimately since then.
Query:	Just recently the CAA lifted its objection to the Airport.
Col. Harrington:	I am very glad they have it worked out.
Query:	How soon will work begin?
Col. Harrington:	I think right away.
Query:	A matter of days?
Col. Harrington:	Yes.
Query:	Colonel, on the matter of approximately 30,000 aliens, did they find them to be distributed generally throughout the country?
Col. Harrington:	They are concentrated—in seaports.
Query:	Will Major McDonough, the New England Director, retain his status as Massachusetts Director also?
Col. Harrington:	Yes.
Query:	Right along that line, does Mr. Smith retain his job as Regional Director?
Col. Harrington:	He isn't Regional Director. He was Chief Regional Engineer. He is doing a full time job right now. He is not doing anything as Chief Regional Engineer at the moment.
Query:	That causes me to recur to my query—has your study of the politics in the various state set ups progressed far enough that you can tell us which states will be hardest hit?
Col. Harrington:	Not yet.
Query:	Isn't it obvious that Pennsylvania, just from reading the testimony of the Sheppard Committee, is one of the hardest hit?
Col. Harrington:	I don't want to discuss that. At this point the conference adjourned. Reported by: Mrs. Bonaventura Mr. McClain