Work Relief Administration Press Conferences
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Press Conference
Colonel Harrington
July 20, 1939
3:00 P.M.

Col. Harrington:	Well, I haven't any prepared story today. I am ready to be cross-examined. I have given you most everything as it came along in the last few days.
Query:	Are the strikes all over, Colonel?
Col. Harrington:	Practically.
Query:	Does that include the one in Minneapolis? Is it settled?
Col. Harrington:	The situation in Minneapolis is this—that we are prepared to reopen the program in Minneapolis as soon as we get Mayor Leach to accept two responsibilities. The first one is, as sponsor of the projects in Minneapolis that are sponsored by the city, and the second is to protect our people in reporting on the jobs to the extent to which the city can provide such protection. The Governor of Minnesota has informed the Mayor in a letter which was made public that if the resources of the city are not sufficient to provide such protection that he, the Governor, will use state resources for that purpose.
Query:	Does that mean troops?
Col. Harrington:	It means law enforcement agencies in the State of Minnesota.
Query:	Under this plan, Colonel Harrington, would Minneapolis be assured of its regular quota of jobs in Minnesota?
Col. Harrington:	Yes—perhaps not immediately at the opening. It will take a few days to set projects back in operation. In a relatively short period, it will have its regular quota of employment.
Query:	Are there any other bad spots, Colonel?
Col. Harrington:	No.
Query:	What is the total number out now?
Col. Harrington:	I have no report since Monday, which was given to you. That was 26,500. I am quite sure it is less than that. I do not know what it is. I have no further report. The general situation, I think, in that this thing is over, and it is over because people have realized what the conditions actually are—that this is a law passed by Congress and it cannot be changed except by Congress, and that stoppage of work isn't going to bring about any change in the law.
Query:	I understand in the City of Hartford, Connecticut, there are 1,500 WPA workers off the rolls because of the 18 months' provision. I also understand there are 350 on the waiting list. Congressman Miller, the Congressman from that district has addressed a letter to you asking whether you wouldn't use the stagger system. Instead of putting 1,500 off when there are only 350 waiting to go on, put off 100 or 200 at a time. Have you any comment on that?
Col. Harrington:	In the first place, I have not received the letter, at least it has not come to me. It may be in the office. In the second place, the State Administrator has full authority to stagger those lay-offs, in so far as possible. Now, in view of the fact that all of the lay-offs must be made prior to September first, which is a little less than six weeks, it could not be staggered to quite the extent you speak of there, 100 to 200 at a time.
Press:	I am using the language of his letter.
Col. Harrington:	Not having seen the letter, I don't know what is in it. All the State Administrators not only have authority to begin lay-offs now, but were directed to do so, the idea being that if all the lay-offs occurred on September first, that many sections of our program would be practically shut done, and therefore we want to begin them now.
Query:	Getting back to Hartford, with 1500 laid off and only 350 waiting on the rolls, that would you do in that situation?
Col. Harrington:	Well, we would take 350 or as many as we have jobs for—I mean that can do the jobs that we have—and assign them. The quota is assigned from here on a state basis, so if there weren't enough people available in Hartford to maintain the volume of employment, the State Administrator would probably shift the employment somewhere else in the State.
Query:	Have you decided on the plan of the United States Conference of Mayors yet?
Col. Harrington:	No, I have made no decision on it. I am asking an opinion on that from the Department of Justice.
Query:	That other provision is in that plan aside from restoring the prevailing wage on projects prior to July first?
Col. Harrington:	No other.
Query:	Have your investigations in Louisiana revealed any irregularities?
Col. Harrington:	Yes.
Query:	What are they, please, sir?
Col. Harrington:	In general, there was some diversion of WPA labor and materials from the purposes for which they were supposed to be used to improper purposes. In fact, those are the only irregularities we have found that affect the WPA.
Query:	Could you describe the improper purposes?
Col. Harrington:	Construction improvements of various kinds on private property.
Query:	Could you give the names of people?
Col. Harrington:	I haven't got them.
Query:	Do you have any comment to make on the action of the Appropriations Committee investigator in collecting names on the Workers Alliance demonstrations in New York?
Col. Harrington:	No.
Query:	Could you give us an idea of how much is involved in the way of materials and labor?
Col. Harrington:	I don't know, but I will tell you that to find out involves going back over a period of about three years and trying to find out as to cement that was stored in a common warehouse, part of which belonged to WPA and part to the State of Louisiana whether the cement was Federal or state property. The only way we can find out is to question laborers, most of whom are colored, and most of this happened over two years ago. It is a complicated problem. The present indication I get from there is that the total amount involved, so far as the WPA is concerned, is not relatively important. It may be $5,000. It may be even $10,000. I just don't know at this time.
Query:	What will be done about these irregularities?
Col. Harrington:	We already have one of our foremen under arrest. He will be tried, if he is indicted. It will be handled in the regular manner as any violation of the law.
Query:	Could you say who that is?
Col. Harrington:	Felt, do you know the name?
Mr. Hunter:	The name is Manget.
Col. Harrington:	No, there is another.
Mr. Felt:	I can get that.
Col. Harrington:	It is important to distinguish between those people that were involved at the Louisiana State University projects. Two of them were not employees of the WPA. Caldwell and one other man were employees of the State of Louisiana.
Query:	Colonel, I got in late. I suppose a lot of questions were asked about Minneapolis. I suppose everything is all right there except the Mayor. What is wrong with the Mayor?
Col. Harrington:	Well, as a condition of reopening the Minneapolis program, we are asking that the Mayor assume two responsibilities. One is the responsibility of the sponsoring of those projects which are sponsored by the city, and secondly, to protect the people who want to go to work if we reopen the program. When he does accept those responsibilities, we are ready to start opening up. In fact, we are ready to start opening up tomorrow.
Query:	If the Mayor will give proper assurance?
Col. Harrington:	That is right.
Query:	Is there anything, in the normal course of business, that he cannot do to provide protection?
Col. Harrington:	Well, on the question of protection, he has a letter from Governor Stassen stating that the Governor will provide protection if the resources of the City of Minneapolis are inadequate.
Query:	Can you tell us about the Writers' Project in Pennsylvania?
Col. Harrington:	I don't know anything about it.
Query:	Going back to Minneapolis, do you expect the word direct from the Mayor to you or through Governor Stassen?
Col. Harrington:	No, through the State Administrator.
Query:	Mr. Glotzbach?
Col. Harrington:	Yes. I an not dealing with Mayor Leach.
Query:	I believe Congressman Youngdahl wrote quite a lengthy letter the other day. Did you reply?
Col. Harrington:	I dictated a reply. The Congressman wrote me and asked that we do not close down the program in Minneapolis and shift the quota elsewhere in the state, and I withheld my reply a couple of days to see what would happen. I stated that we were ready to reopen as soon as conditions were complied with.
Query:	Would it be possible to get a copy of the reply?
Col. Harrington:	Do you want a verbatim copy? Yea, I think so—I have written it—if you will just wait until this is over.
Query:	Does that mean that people in Minneapolis that were out over five days will be reinstated?
Col. Harrington:	They wi11 be reinstated if they make an affidavit that they didn't violate the law, which means essentially that they did not participate in disturbances.
Query:	Have you any comment to make on the part taken by Governor Stassen and Mr. Glotzbach in this settlement?
Col. Harrington:	I have no comment to make about the Governor. As far as Mr. Glotzbach is concerned, I will say that what he worked out with the Governor had my full approval.
Query:	Just what do you mean about that first responsibility, as sponsor of the project sponsored by the state?
Col. Harrington:	Not by the state, the City of Minneapolis. If we are doing a street improvement project in the City of Minneapolis, we are doing it on a proposal made by the Mayor of Minneapolis which asks us to do certain work, and which pledges the city to furnish certain cooperation in the form of materials, and possibly certain labor. In other words, the program as carried on is a cooperative enterprise between the Federal Government and the City of Minneapolis, or any other city. It is not a completely federal operation. The Mayor of Minneapolis in one of his public statements on this matter said that the WPA program in Minneapolis was very much like conducting a post office, and if the post office is interfered with the Federal Government would move in to stop the disorder. The analogy is not at all correct.
Query:	That goes into the question of protection. I was wondering what the difference is between one and the other.
Col. Harrington:	The Mayor said he had nothing to do with the WPA.
Query:	It comes down to protection in both cases.
Col. Harrington:	Protection and cooperation.
Query:	Do you contemplate recommending to the next Congress that something be done about the prevailing wage?
Col. Harrington:	If I am here in December ask me that. (Laughter)
Query:	Do you feel that your Administrator in Louisiana was duly vigilant throughout?
Col. Harrington:	I do not want to comment on that.
Query:	Is there any possibility of a change?
Col. Harrington:	I am not contemplating any change.
Query:	What were the areas in which these irregularities were found?
Col. Harrington:	Principally in Baton Rouge.
Query:	What was the nature of the improvements?
Col. Harrington:	Construction of buildings—construction of sidewalks—fences—things of that kind.
Query:	No swimming pools? Laughter.
Col. Harrington:	Not that I know of. No swinging pools or cocktail bars.
Query:	Has uncovering of irregularities in Louisiana brought to light irregularities in other sections of the country? Has it started a wave of irregularities?
Col. Harrington:	No.
Query:	You said at the last meeting that you might have something later on the Missouri situation relative to Matt Murray. Has anything developed on that since two weeks ago today?
Col. Harrington:	No.
Query:	You had a report from the Department of Justice on the East St. Louis investigations?
Col. Harrington:	I discussed it informally. There was nothing of importance in East St. Louis.
Query:	The men who were dropped after 18 consecutive months, as I understand it, were dropped for a 30-day period. Can they go back automatically, or will they have to reestablish themselves and go on a waiting list7
Col. Harrington:	They cannot go back automatically. In other words, the press in calling this a 30-day furlough is using a term that is not accurate, although it may be convenient. Those people who are laid off, in the first place, have to be recertified. In the second place, they go back on the program only if there is a vacancy for them to do the work they are capable of doing. Even if that vacancy exists, in assigning people for that vacancy, we are now required by this Act to make the assignment on the basis of relative need, in so far as possible. Therefore, it may occur that a person going off, after 18 months, will be recertified and go on the waiting list. A vacancy occurs, and somebody else may have priority on the basis of relative need, so reinstatement is by no means automatic.
Query:	Let me ask you with respect to Minneapolis, these men who go back on WPA jobs, will they go back on the formula you have laid down?
Col. Harrington:	The situation is entirely different in Minneapolis. In connection with that other question, I would like to say that the report of the Appropriations Committee of the House, where that provision originated, shows very clearly that it was not intended that the 30-day lay-off was to be a furlough with automatic reinstatement. It describes in some detail what was intended to be done. It intends to get people on that have been waiting for a considerable period and have not been able to get on.
Query:	Will that cripple your program, as far as projects go?
Col. Harrington:	Oh, yes.
Query:	With regard to these strikes in general, do you look upon them as being Fascistic in character?
Col. Harrington:	No.
Query:	How many have been laid off so far under that furlough thing?
Col. Harrington:	I don't know. The total to be laid off was estimated as about 650,000, and we only started those lay-offs in the middle of the month of July, with the idea that roughly half of them could be made during the last two weeks in July.
Query:	What is the total waiting list?
Col. Harrington:	The total waiting list is probably 700,000.
Query:	Are there any parts of the country other than Minneapolis where people were dropped from the rolls because they were absent five days or more, that can be reinstated?
Col. Harrington:	Well, they will have to go back through the performance of being recertified.
Query:	They are not able to go back on the same basis as Minneapolis?
Col. Harrington:	The Minneapolis decision wee made on the particular situation in Minneapolis, which was different.
Query:	Isn't there a similar situation in Rochester, New York?
Col. Harrington:	No.
Query:	Wasn't there a shut down there too?
Col. Harrington:	We shut down there. In Minneapolis, people could not get on the jobs. In Rochester the State Administrator decided to close done. It isn't a question of reinstating it is a question of whether we will reopen at Rochester.
Query:	It isn't reopened yet?
Col. Harrington:	Not yet.
Query:	In New York, will the strikers be taken back?
Col. Harrington:	I have made no decision as to New York.
Query:	As a general rule, they will have to be recertified?
Col. Harrington:	Yes.
Query:	But if they were kept off the job through intimidation, you are not going to penalize the workers for that reason?
Col. Harrington:	No.
Query:	Are you planning to reopen shortly in Rochester?
Col. Harrington:	1 am leaving the matter in the hands of Mr. Herzog.
Query:	Those workers will not have to be recertified?
Col. Harrington:	No.
Query:	Going back to Minneapolis a minute about the five day thing. Suppose a person was out five days of his own free will as a protest would he go back if not engaged in any violence? Could he go back?
Col. Harrington:	Yes.
Query:	Did you make an effort out there to distinguish between those who were kept away from work and those who deliberately stayed away?
Col. Harrington:	How could we, as a practical matter?
Query:	Suppose you get a few bum affidavits, Colonel. What happens then?
Col. Harrington:	If we can prove that people make false affidavits, they wi11 be prosecuted. That is the whole purpose of getting the affidavits.
Query:	Do you anticipate that many people will say they resorted to violence during the five days off?
Col. Harrington:	I think it may run the other way. Some will say they didn't resort to violence that maybe did, but the purpose of the affidavit is that if somebody was involved in these disturbances and it could be proved that a false affidavit was made, the person would be liable to prosecution.
Query:	Then the affidavit does serve that purpose to some extent?
Col. Harrington:	Yes.
Query:	Will the grant jury be of any assistance?
Col. Harrington:	That I cannot say. The grand jury will only listen to specific instances which may be presented. As we have not even started to take affidavits yet, we haven't anything to present to the grand jury and the grand jury deliberations will be devoted to things that happened during the disturbances.
Query:	Is it your impression that there is a large or small number of WPA workers involved in the criminal aspects?
Col. Harrington:	I think it is small.
Query:	Those Louisiana improvements, were they on the property of the officials, or just whose?
Col. Harrington:	I do not want to say anything about that yet. It isn't definite. At this point the conference adjourned. Reported by: Mrs. Bonaventura Mrs. Bishop