Work Relief Administration Press Conferences
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Press Conference
Howard 0. Hunter
August 31, 1939
2.00 P.M.

Mr. Hunter:	We are starting the WPA in Puerto Rico, if that would make a news story for anybody.
Query:	Haven't they had one before?
Mr. Hunter:	They have had what is known as the Puerto Rican Reconstruction Corporation under the Department of the Interior. They got seven million dollars this year, which was used for farm rehabilitation and relief, but we are setting up a regular WPA down there.
Query:	Who is in charge?
Mr. Hunter:	We have asked Admiral Leahy to be Acting Administrator. He is the Governor. We are sending a small group of people from here next week with him. Gill to set up the organization.
Query:	What is Mr. Gill's first name?
Mr. Hunter:	Corrington. We are also Appointing Mr. Paul Edwards on the 15th of September as the new Administrator for the District.
Query:	To succeed whom?
Mr. Hunter:	George Allen. He resigned about a month or six weeks ago.
Query:	Who is Mr. Edwards?
Mr. Hunter:	Paul has been with the WPA ever since it started. Recently he has been in charge of Federal Art Projects in New York which are now under local sponsorship.
Query:	He is to be in charge of the whole WPA set-up in the District?
Mr. Hunter:	Yes.
Query:	When is it effective?
Mr. Hunter:	The 15th of September. In the meantime, Edwards is finishing turning over the New York projects to the local administration up there. Incidentally, between 90% and 95% of all four Federal projects — all of the places where we ran those projects — now have local sponsorship.
Query:	Do the art projects?
Mr. Hunter:	Art, Music, Historical Records, and Writers.
Query:	The Federal Art Program — is that the new language?
Mr. Hunter:	We don't call it the Federal Art Program any more.
Mr. Rauch:	Fine arts.
Mr. Hunter:	With the exception of the Theatre, of course.
Query:	This local sponsorship — does that mean local money?
Mr. Hunter:	No. As a matter of fact, we are getting on those projects on an average of between 12% and 15%. The 25% contribution — there are two points on that. It does not apply until January 1, and when it does apply, it applies as an average on all projects within any one state. It does not apply to individual projects.
Query:	To go back to the appointment of Mr. Edwards — what is going to happen to the man in charge now?
Mr. Hunter:	Parker?
Press:	Yes.
Mr. Hunter:	The present plan is that he goes back to Mississippi on the 15th of September. — I don't know whether or not you want to ask any questions on the two major portions of the Relief Act that go into effect tomorrow. One is the new wage scale — While the 18 months' discharge doesn't go into effect until tomorrow, it means we will have had to fire all the people by tonight.
Query:	How many are left on the rolls to date?
Mr. Hunter:	I can give you that by states as of last Wednesday, August 23. There 1,895,000. You can distribute those by states if you want to.
Query:	That sort of reaction have you had about the new wage scale? Have you had any letters from the South?
Mr. Hunter:	We have had very few letters of any kind. I think we have about twelve requests for adjustments on the wage scale, but they were for adjustments between counties.
Query:	None of the plantation people feel that?
Mr. Hunter:	Of course, it hasn't gone into effect yet, actually, but we have had practically no correspondence on the new wage scale from anybody vet.
Query:	How many people have been fired actually?
Mr. Hunter:	I cants tell you until next week, but I would be willing to estimate approximately 650,000 on the 18 months' clause.
Query:	That goes into effect tonight?
Mr. Hunter:	It has to be completed by tonight. You should know that if that continues in effect there will be a small number every week from now on. I am assuming that a large number of those will have been dropped this very week so that actual figures by states will not be ready for another week or two, but it is over 650,000. I am inclined to think — this is unofficial — employment on WPA as of today is something under 1,800,000.
Query:	You mean the average?
Mr. Hunter:	I mean the actual number as of today, and 1,800,000 is our proposed average of employment for September.
Query:	Have you had any more complaints about dropping the 650,000?
Mr. Hunter:	Thousands of them.
Query:	Mr. Hunter, have you completed your investigation in Louisiana?
Mr. Hunter:	No, only certain parts of it.
Query:	Are you in a position to announce any of your findings?
Mr. Hunter:	We have referred three or four cases to the Department of Justice, but we don't know what the answer will be until they tell us.
Query:	They were all rather minor infractions, Weren't they?
Mr. Hunter:	Minor as far as volume goes, and minor as far as the officials involved. The infractions, perhaps, may not turn out to be minor. I think four cases have been referred.
Query:	Could we have the names of the four or do you have to withhold them?
Mr. Hunter:	I don't think I could give them, because they have been referred to the Attorney General, and it is really officially his business now. In the main, they were all involved in that Louisiana State University.
Query:	There were none anywhere else in the state?
Mr. Hunter:	I think we have two investigations going on in southwest Louisiana at the moment.
Query:	To bring your total enrollment down to 1,800,000, would you have to drop others from the rolls besides the 650,000?
Mr. Hunter:	No. As a matter of fact, and this has been true all the way through the WPA, 100,000 people left the WPA this month to take other jobs. That is about our average every month now.
Query:	100,000?
Mr. Hunter:	Yes. Instead of having to fire other people, we have been replacing some of these people from the awaiting assignment list.
Query:	How long have the 100,000 been leaving the WPA to take private jobs?
Mr. Hunter:	It has never been less than that. Last January it was 150,000. As far as I know, it has never been less than 100,000. For a couple of weeks, I am inclined to think that state employment figures in WPA may look a little cock-eyed in relation to what we authorize them to employ for this reason: In states where the local welfare departments have not been certifying people to WPA, except where we were prepared to employ them, if we fire 10,000, it is going to take them two weeks to certify another 10,000 to take their place, whereas if there is a list available all the time, we can replace immediately. Until that is adjusted, in a certain number of states for the first type weeks in September, they will be well under the authorized employment, and at the same time have people in need because local welfare people have not certified people in advance to WPA.
Query:	Are there a large proportion of the 650,000 being laid off in Michigan?
Mr. Hunter:	About 23% in Michigan.
Query:	Won't this 18 months' rule hit the teachers pretty hard?
Mr. Hunter:	No — temporarily only. However, it is very bad on some of our projects. There is absolutely no relationship between the percentage of people dropped on the 18 months' clause between two different projects. On some projects we may have to fire such a large number of people that me may have to close them up for a short time.
Query:	Is it interfering with the technical direction of the work?
Mr. Hunter:	Very much. Most of our state people had some warning of this and as for as possible have made plans to shift people around from one project to another. Nevertheless, it will affect the efficiency of some of our projects for at least thirty days.
Query:	Do you know if Pennsylvania has enough approved projects on hand now to put its quota to work during September?
Mr. Hunter:	I am not sure they have. I would rather confirm that with the State Administrator. My own impression is that they haven't at the moment, but probably will have by the end of September.
Query:	Are you going to maintain the 150,000 quota during the winter?
Mr. Hunter:	I cannot predict any further than October.
Query:	Mr. Hunter, about the Theatre Projects — they are out as far as the Federal Government is concerned?
Mr. Hunter:	They are out entirely.
Query:	Yes, but what I mean is the Federal Government cannot prevent the state from taking it over.
Mr. Hunter:	They could prevent the state WPA from taking it over.
Query:	How could they?
Mr. Hunter:	Well, the law is specific.
Query:	The Federal Government can't dictate to the state what it chooses to do with its own money. Has there been to your knowledge any instance where a Theatre project was taken over or sponsored by either a state or local agency?
Mr. Hunter:	No. The "Swing Mikado" was taken over by private owners at the San Francisco Fair — not by any of our state agencies.
Query:	Mr. Hunter, how would a war affect the relief employment? Do you think that would cut down WPA rolls much further?
Mr. Hunter:	I will be glad to talk about that off the record. It is pure guess work. My own hunch could be that temporarily it would increase unemployment in some industries and decrease it in others. I think, offhand, the steel and iron industries would increase and other industries, at least temporarily, would decrease, and at the end of a certain period of time, if the Neutrality Act were in effect, it might level off. I think for about three to six months we might have to increase the rolls, end at the end of that time decrease them — but it is purely a personal opinion, backed up by statistics. I do have an idea that if war broke out we would have to switch our employment around and make it more flexible. We have a very good index of the people on the WPA as to their training and qualifications, and if any group of industries or any particular industry were in need of either skilled or unskilled workers, I think we could get our people off the rolls into those jobs. There must be several million people with special qualifications, training and experience, not only on the WPA, but those who have been on, and those now certified.
Query:	When do the new wages go into effect?
Mr. Hunter:	Tomorrow. That is, they go into effect September 1. The first check these people will get under the new wage scale will be split between the last part of August and the first part of September.
Query:	It will be split?
Mr. Hunter:	I mean the work they do up to today will be on the old scale. Very few of our payrolls end on the 31st of August. They won't receive the full pay check under the new wage scale until the last part of September.
Query:	Are they paid every two weeks or monthly?
Mr. Hunter:	Seven or eight states have two-week payrolls, and the rest have semi-monthly payrolls.
Query:	About how much difference will that make in your total payroll?
Mr. Hunter:	Slightly over $2.00 a month average increase per man over the entire country.
Query:	Do you know what the savings have been in administrative costs, reduction in personnel, etc?
Mr. Hunter:	No. Mr. Felt can get that for you as of August 1st. A larger reduction was made in August than in July. I cannot give you that figure for about a week, but you can get the dollar figure.
Query:	As of the end of July?
Mr. Hunter:	August and September budget for that matter.
Query:	How much more will be expended in the South under the new scale?
Mr. Hunter:	I haven't figured that out in dollars.
Query:	$50,000,000?
Mr. Hunter:	I would be glad to get it for you.
Rauch:	About $35,000,000.
Query:	Don't you think it will be more than that?
Rauch:	That is just a rough estimate.
Query:	Over what period — a year?
Rauch:	Yes.
Mr. Hunter:	The average increase is a little over $2.00 for the entire country. The increase is in the South. It affects about 500,000 people, so the total decrease in the North is much less than the increase in the South. If you want that figure you can get it.
Press:	I would like very much to have it.
Mr. Hunter:	Then I said that we didn't get any letters back on this, I didn't mean that we haven't gotten any at all.
Query:	Have you heard from David Lasser lately?
Mr. Hunter:	No.
Press:	A couple of weeks ago he was planning Labor Day riots or something.
Mr. Hunter:	I think Dave was a little confused. At the same time he was planning feasts of rejoicing in the South. (Laughter) I think we will get letters from both sides of the fence — some from the North where they were reduced —
Rauch:	Some places in the North were raised a little too.
Mr. Hunter:	Yes.
Query:	Will there be some tendency on the part of the people who come under the minimum Wages and Hours Act to give up private jobs and come on WPA at 32 cents rather than 25 cents?
Mr. Hunter:	In the South, there might be, I don't know. Our actual employment quotas control that pretty well.
Rauch:	The minimum wage under the Wages and Hours Act goes up in October.
Query:	Some time ago you had a figure here on some of these salaries in the South — a difference of $10.00 a month.
Rauch:	The extreme was $5.00. The minimum wage scale in the South goes from $26.00 to $31.20, which is a difference of $5.20.
Query:	When is the Colonel coming back?
Mr. Hunter:	I don't know. I talked to him today. He is supposed to be back by the 15th. — Incidentally, I suppose you have the story that we have the ruling from the Comptroller General that prohibits us from increasing or decreasing any administrative salaries. We have some interesting complications on that. For instance, if we had to fire a District Director and give him a job down the line, we couldn't lower his pay to what that job pays. Say we wanted to combine two districts with one District Director, and the other fellow is a good engineer and we put him in the Engineering Division, we couldn't cut his pay to what that job pays. On the other hand, if we want to promote a man and make him a District Director, we can't raise his pay.
Query:	What provision of the law is that?
Mr. Hunter:	It is in the Reorganization Act. We can change a man's job but not his pay.
Query:	Is that until January 1?
Mr. Hunter:	No — until July 1 of next year. — Mr. Rauch has a big file of letters from people who got fired on this 18 months provision, if anyone wants to write a story on them.
Mr. Rauch:	They would make a very good human interest story. One letter is from a fellow in Tennessee — a very simple letter. The individual has practically no education at all. He said he has no money, no job, and nothing to eat. All he has got is one poor starving baby to support.
Mr. Hunter:	We will have some statistical stories in about a month.
Query:	Have you had any Congressmen write you trying to run out from under their responsibilities? (Laughter) How many letters did you get on that radio speech?
Mr. Hunter:	Plenty of them. I didn't get any from any Congressmen.
Query:	How could we get hold of those letters you were telling us about?
Mr. Rauch:	I will be glad to make them available.
Mr. Hunter:	We will have an official story as to what happened to the people that were fired by the end of September. It is not complete, because practically every relief agency in the country makes a fellow wait until he has spent his last check from the WPA before taking his application. We can't get the facts until thirty days after the fellow is fired. The people we are trying to study now are the 150,000 fired in July on account of the 18 months' provision.
Query:	Would it be possible to sort out these letters by states?
Mr. Hunter:	Sure. Some of the State Administrators have made an informal check, but it is not official. Some State Administrators have told us that almost 100% have no job and no relief available. No state in the South gives relief to anybody that is fired from the WPA.
Query:	Going back a moment to Puerto Rico. The $7,000,000 made available to the Puerto Rican Reconstruction Corporation — was that an annual amount?
Mr. Hunter:	Yes.
Query:	How do you match that?
Mr. Hunter:	We don't have anything to do with that. We will start a project in Puerto Rico just like we would in the state of Texas. We have given them a maximum quota of 10,000 people to employ.
Query:	Do you happen to recall what Admiral Leahy's initials are?
Mr. Rauch:	William D.
Query:	Where did that $7,000,000 come from for the Puerto Rican Reconstruction Corporation?
Mr. Hunter:	They got a direct grant. They were appropriated $7,000,000 for rehabilitation and relief — under the Department of the Interior direct. At this point the conference adjourned. Reported by: Mrs. Bishop Mrs. Bonaventura