Work Relief Administration Press Conferences
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Press Conference
Harry Hopkins
August 24, 1934
10:30 A.M.

Note:	Mr. Hopkins requested that his remarks concerning European political situations be considered as OFF THE RECORD and not for publication.
Query:	Have you an appointment with Pinchot or any of the Pennsylvania State relief people?
Mr. Hopkins:	No, I have not.
Query:	When will you see the President?
Mr. Hopkins:	Tomorrow.
Query:	What will you tell him?
Mr. Hopkins:	What I saw in Europe.
Query:	What did you see?
Mr. Hopkins:	Principally, two things, but one of them, really the interesting one, is something I should not discuss because it is not my business, and that is the political situation in Europe. I was in Germany, for example, right after that shooting. I had some close friends there and was in their homes. I saw the government crowd and the whole show.
Query:	What is the trend there? Are the people for Hitler?
Mr. Hopkins:	I suppose so, but their economic situation is very bad. They cannot buy materials unless we loan them the money, or someone does. As a matter of fact, the gold countries are in an awful fix. The pressure is driving trade out from under their nose. The price level in France is very high, unemployment is increasing, and foreign trade in Italy is falling off rapidly every month. They are trying to maintain their precious gold standard and the whole economic picture is a very bad one. Now, I must not be quoted on this stuff. Where I really got my information was from the newspaper crowd. We would meet and go out to dinner at night and really discuss everything, including the New Deal. I did not realize, until I got there, that I was the first of this crowd here who had been to Europe, and most of the newspaper people had not been back to this country and did not know anything really about it. They were keenly interested and, in turn, told me what they knew of the political and economic business over there. In other words, I had a very interesting and close look at Europe, and the European political business. I had a long talk with Mussolini and with the government crowds all over Europe also.
Query:	What do you think is going to happen?
Mr. Hopkins:	I do not see how some of those countries can stand the racket for very long. I do not see how they can stand it unless they change their monetary policy or inflate or make some drastic move. They put everyone to work, under the guise of some corporation or other device, but it is really our stuff all over again, and they have reduced whole populations to an economic level that we would not tolerate. For instance, seventy-five cents a day is what a worker gets, with a fairly high cost of living, and that would be like us paying a dollar a day in a place like New York. I think that the situation there, also, is getting worse all the time. They are all working, it is true, but they do not get anything for it and, of course, they tax the big fellows good. It is a sorry picture. The whole European picture is a sorry one. Everyone seems to be at each other's throat. They ask is there going to be a war in Europe two months from now and who is going to start it and what is going to force it, or a revolution. If you watch some of the foreign dispatches, if you have watched some of them lately, the AP and UP, you will see that they are beginning to say that such and such a thing is probably going to happen. The thing is bad. Every newspaperman I saw in Europe wanted to be here. They realize, of course, that anything is liable to break out there, a war or something that would be hot news, but they think that this is the greatest show in the world here. I would hate to tell you how many asked me about the possibility of getting a job in America. They are anxious to get back because they think the drama of this thing here supersedes anything in the world. It was an almost unanimous desire, except for the New York Times which does not hire any Americans there. One of the best things I saw, also, was housing. They are building houses everywhere you go and entirely by private funds, but the interest rate is about four per cent. There is nothing like that here. Over there, they have kept the costs down. Whenever the costs jump, they quit building and they hold that threat over the builders. That must happen here, if we are going to get into this house building in a big way. Housing is a most important internal political question in England, each party trying to develop a program which will appeal the most to the people. We have nothing like that in this country. The real issues there center on such things, as housing, insurance, the farmer, etc., and not the usual political issues. Issues there cover the social field. The labor crowd there is forcing the liberals far to the left and both are forcing the Tories further to the left.
Query:	How do they get private funds into housing?
Mr. Hopkins:	Capitalists in England have decided that to maintain a capitalistic system, they must have a low but sure interest return. No capitalist there talks about getting six or seven per cent. If they can get three and a half or four, they are satisfied. The question there is now will the housing program continue indefinitely building houses for artisans, as they have. The labor party there says that there is no great need for more houses for the middle classes, but for the causal workers who cannot and should not try to own houses. The labor party says that should be done by the government, so as labor gets control of the cities, they build houses with government funds and the Tory governments are afraid to abolish an old law requiring the government to contribute to such movements. An interesting thing in England is that everyone has a point of view and takes sides, and it is amazing the amount of newspaper publicity the whole thing gets. The political fights in Europe are all on the social surface and most of the capitalists believe, as I said, that the only way to maintain their system is to take a low rate of interest, and to take a substantial part of the national income and put it into such things as unemployment insurance and housing - in a broad sense, into social security. You just don't hear any opposition to a program like the one President Roosevelt is talking about. The business men there said it was amazing that anyone here should oppose that kind of a program, and I told them they would be surprised.
Query:	They have decided not to put the building costs down in this FHA thing here.
Mr. Hopkins:	Well, that is not my business.
Query:	Were you in England last?
Mr. Hopkins:	No, I was there first.
Query:	Was there any talk about the value of the pound and the French effort -
Mr. Hopkins:	Yes, there was plenty, but I thing the English will run along. They are not worrying much. They will let the French yell. The British were not born yesterday and they are the boys who know how to handle money matters. On the housing thing, I would like to see the private financing thing there given a run for the money. You cannot get housing done, though, at any nine per cent interest, but that is not in my department.
Query:	How about their unemployment insurance there?
Mr. Hopkins:	Every unemployment scheme in Europe went bankrupt and it was entirely natural that they should have. In the first place, you cannot really insure against unemployment, in the sense that you have any real, dependable actuarial figures to base it upon. You can insure against automobile accidents, sickness and the like, but no one can tell or figure on how many unemployed there will be during a time like this. There is no statistical evidence and you cannot build up an actuarial fund, so that they all went busted, which meant that the governments made appropriations for the funds, or made grants. On the other hand, you hear no one in Europe even considering abolishment of the unemployment insurance. Of course, in Italy, Mussolini wiped it out with the stroke of the pen and anyhow the maximum one could get, in twenty days there, was $3.40. No political party there would dare to suggest that unemployment insurance, where it exists, be abolished, so in spite of the fact that the funds did not stand up, I did not see anyone who was opposed to the principle of unemployment insurance. Obviously, unemployment insurance in some form or other is going to have some place in this American Scheme of ours. The details remain to be worked out. The President has a committee on it. I am a member of that committee, and we all have some ideas as to what should be included, but until we can get together and get up a report, I would rather not discuss the question.
Query:	Do you think we can work out a system for this country which will not go bankrupt?
Mr. Hopkins:	Not based on any European scheme, and trying to set up an insurance scheme which would protect fifteen million unemployed, like we have had in this depression, on an actuarial basis, would be unthinkable.
Query:	In other words, you are not enthusiastic about any European plan?
Mr. Hopkins:	I have come, rather reluctantly, to the belief that you have to have a cash benefit in the picture somewhere for a person who is involuntarily thrown out of work, and then if you get into a situation such as this one, all bets are off and you go outside of the insurance fund to provide the necessary benefits. I believe we will have to have some kind of device to give actual cash benefit, but I do not believe that is the whole story and that we must have something more comprehensive than that.
Query:	Do you think the Wagner-Lewis Bill should be revised?
Mr. Hopkins:	Yes, I would think so.
Query:	Along what line?
Mr. Hopkins:	Now, that gets into details and I have not had a chance to talk to anybody yet or to do anything. I have just returned.
Query:	Can you make such an insurance plan sound at all?
Mr. Hopkins:	Actuarially, I think not. You can take unemployment figures for ten years, say, from 1919 to 1929, and that would be alright, perhaps, as an actuarial basis, but you could not use that as a basis for 1929 to 1934, and no one could anticipate how many would be unemployed in a situation like we have had. Do you
Query:	have any ideas predicated on a social system which will not permit -
Mr. Hopkins:	Any ideas I might have are based on a capitalistic economy.
Query:	How is the unemployment situation in England?
Mr. Hopkins:	It is interesting to see the way the Tory press of America plays up England. As a matter of fact, England, at no time, had more than 3,000.000 unemployed and they still have 2,000,000 unemployed. They reduced it by a third. Well, we have reduced ours a third. The Tory press say England has done this without any New Deal. That is nonsense. In England, they are doing things, without any excuse, that they are trying to hamstring Wallace here for doing with good reason. The Tory government does for the farmer there, things which pass with enormous conservative majorities.
Query:	How do they balance their budget in England?
Mr. Hopkins:	Oh, that is for official purposes out of England. They say what they please there about balancing their budget. My impression, also, is that England has tried many more radical experiments that Roosevelt has, and I think some of them have worked, such as housing. But do not think that the English situation is settled. They still have two thirds of their unemployment, although they do not make such a fuss about it.
Query:	What were the effects of the dole there?
Mr. Hopkins:	The effect is that the unemployed worker gets a benefit that he knows he is going to get. They have a different situation there, but I think that over a long period of time, it has a bad effect. Give a man that cash for, say, fifty weeks, and it does something to him. Socially, his health is in his labor, and I would rather put him to work.
Query:	There was a report this morning that you had planned to improve the cooperation between the relief administration and the States.
Mr. Hopkins:	That was a generality. I have no thoughts at present on the matter.
Query:	The reports from abroad as to unemployment seem to be -
Mr. Hopkins:	You know, we speak frankly about relief and say it is relief. They do not do it that way. They beat the devil around the bush and call it by fancy names, but it is relief and they are using government funds. Moreover, they do not count, among their unemployed, the people to whom they give relief jobs, as being money paid to the unemployed, whereas we count them among the unemployed, so that you can't tell anything about their figures. In the main, the Italian public works program is very much like ours, except that they project it over a long period of time. Mussolini does not hesitate to project a plan ahead. In the Pontine marshes, they are constructing entire cities, churches, factories, community centers, and everything. It is a wonderful thing and will take several years, but apart from that, their projects are similar to ours. They do an enormous amount of road work and planting of trees. They have enormous numbers of men sweeping the roads and they are proud of it. No one there says that is useless work.
Query:	Will you have a CWA this Fall?
Mr. Hopkins:	We have nothing in mind except to meet whatever situation there is, on the merits of the case. You know our attitude towards work. WE feel that work is the best way, but we will meet whatever situation is to be met.
Query:	Do you think that the work relief projects will tide over a large enough number of people?
Mr. Hopkins:	If they need to, they will.
Query:	Will it be mainly work relief or direct relief?
Mr. Hopkins:	So far as I am concerned, it will be work.
Query:	Is there any one thing that you will recommend as a result of your trip?
Mr. Hopkins:	There are four or five things.
Query:	What are they?
Mr. Hopkins:	Now, I don't want to seem mysterious, but there is a committee, of which I am a member, and I want to discuss the matter with them and to report to the President.
Query:	But you found that it was profitable to go over there?
Mr. Hopkins:	Yes, I got some convictions, on negative and on positive grounds.
Query:	If all the nations are so bad off, and yet depend on each other -
Mr. Hopkins:	Now, don't quote me on any of this political business in Europe. Germany is trying to find a way out, but I do not think they can. They are all going in for national planned economy in a big way.
Query:	How will Germany pay for those two million bales of cotton unless someone loans them the money?
Mr. Hopkins:	I do not know. Everyone over there is up against the guns and everyone is talking world trade. But they are up against it and there is question as to how much food they have. I think they will have food tickets in Germany soon, if they do not have them already.
Query:	Is there any cursing of Russia?
Mr. Hopkins:	I did not go there, but I did not hear them cussing Russia - only the United States.
Query:	What about the drought in Germany?
Mr. Hopkins:	There was too much rain. It ruined potatoes. In Italy it rained so much it ruined a lot of wheat and they have been raising more wheat than Canada.
Query:	Do you think there should be a Federal census of unemployment?
Mr. Hopkins:	I am not interested in that particularly. I am interested in having a good plan for taking care of the unemployed.
Query:	What do you think of this new Liberty League?
Mr. Hopkins:	The right thinking people? They are certainly clear over to the right. I see Edward F. Hutton is in it and says all right thinking people should join. My hunch is that it is so far over to the right that no one will ever find it.
Query:	Do you regard it as the first step in an assault on the New Deal?
Mr. Hopkins:	The first step? Ever since I have been here, some of your papers have been whacking at us. If you want to get up and feel in good form when in Paris, read what the Herald and Tribune have to say about the New Deal there. But the American people are going to realize that this is a new era and that they cannot stop it and that all of these things are in their own interests. Some of my own friends do not think that we go far enough in this security thing. I do not know whether they will attack that or not, but I suppose they will.
Query:	Do you expect to see the President today?
Mr. Hopkins:	No. I have an appointment with the President tomorrow, at lunch.
Query:	Is there anything new in Pennsylvania?
Mr. Hopkins:	Not a thing. At this point, the conference adjourned. Frank J. Hartnett