Mr. Hunter: | Gentlemen, I think that since Governor Leahy is in town and he is also the WPA Administrator in Puerto Rico, you might like to have him tell you a little about what the WPA is doing in Puerto Rico in national defense projects.
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Governor Leahy: | Would it be agreeable if I just made a general statement about the WPA work in Puerto Rico, and then submitted myself to cross questioning by the prosecuting attorney after I get through? We have in Puerto Rico now an allocation of 20,000 men of the WPA. We have just about that number employed at the present time. Of course, the number fluctuates from day to day and week to week, but we have exhausted our quota. I have made some notes in anticipation of your interests, and I have the total value of the projects approved by the end of September of this year. It is slightly over 15 million dollars. There are highway, road and street projects, airports, construction and rehabilitation work for the Army and Navy stations on the Island—for the municipalities, sewerage disposal, water supply, sanitary facilities and eradication of swamp areas under the public health program. I have a note here that the total employment on September 25 was 19,162. Of this number about 7,000 are on the road and street projects scattered about the Island for the purpose of distributing the relief work to those areas which are proportionately in the greatest need for relief. There are about five or six thousand employed now on the Army and Navy projects. The total payment of wages per month is about $300,000 which, of course, is an important addition to the purchasing power of the poor people of the Island. We have need under the National Defense Program, which has already received approval from headquarters in Washington, of about 10,000 more men and we expect to have by the middle of November about 30,000 total relief employees. Of course, you know that Puerto Ricans have no influence on the national election. (Laughter) They do not vote down there. We have one interesting project on the Island of Puerto Rico which will be constructed with WPA labor. It is a military highway connecting the western end of the Island, the Borinquen air base with San Juan, that is, with the military post called Fort Buchanan on the outskirts of the city. That project we have set up under WPA for $1,876,200 and that road is very much desired by the military commander on the Island.
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Query: | May I ask the name of that air base?
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Governor Leahy: | Borinquen. It is a big Army airport on the western end of the Island. There is extensive work at Borinquen going on now with WPA labor. We have been using our labor to assist the Army in the building of their Army air base and WPA labor has been used extensively on both of those projects up to the present time and on other national defense projects. Ten thousand additional men are needed to work on those projects.
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Query: | Will most of those 10,000 be on national defense exclusively?
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Governor Leahy: | The 10,000 additional will practically all be on national defense projects, and we expect by the middle of November to have 20,000 employed on national defense projects, leaving 10,000 for the remaining insular and municipal projects. We have projects for the Army and Navy airports approved in the amount of $3,207,000. Then we have also in prospect and approved by these headquarters the building of some auxiliary air fields for the Army which will run up to $1,700,000. We are building barracks, improving buildings, improving grounds and general facilities at Fort Buchanan which is the Army camp in Puerto Rico—the big one—in the amount of $1,600,000, and we are working now with about 500 men on the National Guard camp, which is being expanded to take care of this one year's training of the National Guard. That amounts to only $560,000. Sounds like chicken feed in these figures we are speaking of. In general, that is the program. If I have not touched on anything you would like to know—
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Query: | How much do you estimate this additional 10,000 men are going to cost in projects entailing the use of that man power total?
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Governor Leahy: | I don't know whether I have that.
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Mr. Hunter: | It is a little difficult to say, even in the states, because you have to figure on a monthly basis, but the actual figure, say of two million dollars cannot be taken, because the project completion of two million dollars may run beyond the end of the present WPA fiscal year. That doesn't mean you spend the two million in one year.
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Governor Leahy: | I think it is 30 some dollars average labor cost. If you multiply that by 10,000 you have the average figure.
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Mr. Hunter: | Three hundred thousand for labor would be another 100,000 or 400,000 a month for the extra men.
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Query: | I think the strategic importance of Puerto Rico at this particular time may be worthy of some comment.
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Governor Leahy: | I don't mind commenting. Of course, that hasn't much to do with WPA, and we are sitting in the WPA office now. I don't mind saying this—that the United States is making a very strong air base on the Island of Puerto Rico for both the Army and Navy, and because of the fact that Puerto Rico is the most easterly of territory under our sovereignty it is the best place in which to project a defensive strategy into the Atlantic. I could go further and say that, in my opinion, when the base on the Island of Puerto Rico is completed and when the bases in the Caribbean area that will be established as a result of our agreement with the British Government are established and provided with the necessary supporting airplanes and ships, that the Caribbean area, which, of course, includes the Panama Canal, will be practically secure against an attack from overseas.
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Query: | How many years will that take?
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Governor Leahy: | I am not informed with regard to the speed with which the other bases are to be established, but I would say that bases capable of operating airplanes could be prepared in the course of a few months. Of course, to make a complete base with work shops, barracks, and various things which are needed for a complete base requires considerable time. At Isla Grande in San Juan the base will be completed next July and it will have required one and one-half to two years to complete.
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Query: | Could we ask at this point from Mr. Hunter whether any consideration in this matter has been given to doing some of this work on some of these other bases?
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Mr. Hunter: | You mean off of the Continent?
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Press: | Yes.
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Mr. Hunter: | We can only do work in United States possessions.
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Query: | How about British?
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Mr. Hunter: | Legally, we cannot at the moment. No consideration has been given to that as yet. Of course, if we did that, we would have to transport people from the United States, because we could not put British subjects on the WPA. So far it has not come up. Our biggest comparable developments on Army and Navey air bases are Florida, Maine, Washington and California. There are a number of others of lesser importance in the center of the country.
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Governor Leahy: | The big Army field at Borenquin was originally used for growing sugar cane. No other fields have been built in the interior but they will be built. I do not know where the locations are yet.
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Query: | Governor, a great many people who followed your career in the Navy would like to know whether you think the United States can stay out of the present war> I wonder if you care to say anything?
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Governor Leahy: | I prefer not to say anything.
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Query: | Governor, can you tell us when these 10,000 additional men are employed and these men who I understand are going to Panama to work on the Canal—how close to a solution is the urgent unemployment problem?
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Governor Leahy: | The unemployment problem now is particularly difficult, because it is the off season in the sugar business and the people are not employed. With regard to the Panama project, it does not appear that the Canal is going to take many of our people. They have spoken of two or three thousand men.
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Mr. Hunter: | Some time in the next few days we expect to have quite a complete list from the Army, five or six categories of additional defense projects they want us to work on. Previous to this, we have been certifying those projects or having them certified by the Army as they would come in individually, but after talking with the Army representatives, we agreed to have them present to us all airports by name, which are most important where they want WPA to work so we can plan distribution of employment on that basis.
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Query: | Governor, do you have an estimate of the amount of WPA money that has already been spent on national defense in Puerto Rico?
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Governor Leahy: | I do not have it here.
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Mr. Hunter: | I can have someone get that for you.
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Query: | Governor, when do you expect to go back to Puerto Rico?
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Governor Leahy: | Very soon. I do not know how soon, but I am going as soon as I complete my work. It may be three or four days or five or six days—just a short visit.
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Query: | Will you see the President?
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Governor Leahy: | I have been informed that the President wants to see me.
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Query: | Do you know the day?
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Governor Leahy: | No.
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Query: | May I ask the purpose of your trip here—simply reporting and consultation?
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Governor Leahy: | The purpose is to bring up these urgent matters with the WPA and with some of the other agencies that have to do with Puerto Rico—urgent matters that we were unable to handle expeditiously by written communications, and I have already succeeded very largely in accomplishing what I came for in some of the matters.
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Query: | Does that include urgent matters of naval defense?
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Governor Leahy: | Well, only in so far as the relief projects are involved. I have had no discussion as yet with the Navy Department. However, I will talk with them before I leave.
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Query: | In your opinion, does the work you have done and are doing on the national defense projects—will that continue to make Puerto Rico the main business in our Caribbean defense, or will those other bases take the play away from Puerto Rico?
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Governor Leahy: | At the present time, it appears that Puerto Rico will remain the main United States defensive base in the Caribbean area, but, of course, what may happen in the future is a little beyond our view at the moment. I should think that Puerto Rico would remain the headquarters base of the defense in the Caribbean.
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Press: | Thank you very much. At this point the conference adjourned. Reported by: Mrs. Bonventura
Mrs. Bishop |