The recollections, and the wise & spirited words of Harry Hopkins - part 2: Work vs. the Dole

(In this 1938 photograph, Harry Hopkins, head of the WPA, is urging Congress to increase the volume of federal work programs. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

During the New Deal, federal work programs for the unemployed (e.g., the CCC, CWA, and WPA) cost more money than direct cash relief; but Harry Hopkins, in 1936, highlighted one of the major advantages of these work programs over the so-called "dole":

"What would America have to show today for the millions it has spent on relief if that relief had been in the form of a non-productive dole? Nothing except an army of disheartened, disillusioned, and resentful unemployed people nursing their sense of frustration and despair" (June Hopkins, Harry Hopkins: Sudden Hero, Brash Reformer, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999, p. 193).

Indeed, America still has much to show--over three-quarters of a century later--from the New Deal's federal work programs, e.g., bridges, parks, athletic fields, public pools, tennis courts, water lines, artwork, schools, and airports (see the Living New Deal for a sampling of what we still use & enjoy today). 

In modern times, unfortunately, we have chosen the dole over work programs. We offer the jobless unemployment benefits for a certain period of time (along with insults to their work ethic, and constant threats to terminate those benefits) and then we throw them to the wolves (a.k.a. the "job creators"). Meanwhile, our infrastructure falls apart. We could offer them public jobs after their unemployment benefits expire, but the super-wealthy don't like that idea too much (they prefer to have a large pool of desperate, unemployed, and financially devastated workers who are willing to work for peanuts). And, since the super-wealthy are the ones calling the shots these days, thanks to their out-of-control & democracy-destroying political spending (lobbyists, campaign contributions, and Lord knows what else), well, there ya go. 

So, let's summarize the difference: New Deal = jobs for the unemployed and massive infrastructure work, but modern policy = insults for the unemployed and crumbling infrastructure. And millions of voters are perfectly fine with this. Isn't that amazing? 

The recollections, and the wise & spirited words of Harry Hopkins - part 1: The CWA Fraternity

(Photo courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.)

In his book Spending to Save (1936), New Deal administrator Harry Hopkins recalled the Civil Works Administration (CWA, one of the early New Deal programs to offer jobs to the unemployed):

"The speed and volume of the work done that winter [1933-1934] produced a momentum which jolted the community. I believe CWA will stand out even when WPA has become past history, like a precocious child in a family of slower-going but more substantial children. For its special quality of having come and gone so quickly, yet having let loose great forces, both economic and spiritual, it shares certain of the memorable qualities of special events. A fraternity grew up among those who had worked in it, like the fraternity of a dramatic recruiting period...its old officers often recall those few months in which the people of the United States were galvanized to an unprecedented task and accomplished it. American communities had had a taste of what could be accomplished under a government program for the unemployed" (pp. 123-124).

In less than half-a-year, millions of CWA workers built, repaired, or improved 250,000 miles of roads, 40,000 schools, 2,200 miles of sewer lines, 3,700 playgrounds, and much more (see, e.g., Hopkins' book, pp. 120-122).

New Deal Art: Poughkeepsie Mural

Above: "Scene near Poughkeepsie, 1690," an oil painting by Gerald Sargent Foster (1900-1987), created while he participated in the New Deal's Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture, ca. 1939. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: "Flop House"

Above: "Flop House," a tempera on fiberboard by Edward Millman (1907-1964), created while he participated in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1937. Flophouses provided cheap living accommodations for transients, low-wage workers, and the homeless. A recent article on Alternet highlights the persistent problem of homelessness in America today, in places like New York, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately, as long as millions of voters continue to vote for trickle-down economics (or don't vote at all) homelessness will never be solved. A few temporary improvements here and there, sure, but never a wide-scale, permanent solution. Corporate America has perfected the art of paying workers as little as possible, giving all the profits to owners, executives, and investors, and then describing the resulting mass income & wealth inequality as "freedom" and "entrepreneurship." And, by and large, the public has bought it. (See, "Number of Homeless Children in America Surges To All-Time High," Associated Press, Huffington Post, November 17, 2014). Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: "Indian Hunters and Rice Gatherers"

(Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.) 

Above: "Indian Hunters and Rice Gatherers," an oil painting by Margaret Martin, created while she participated in the New Deal's Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture, 1939. According to the Smithsonian's Luce Center, "Martin’s image reflects the sympathies of many WPA muralists, who openly expressed the need for images of Native Americans in their New Deal murals."

New Deal policymakers also had an interest in American Indians, using the CCC & WPA to offer them jobs, and passing the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 to halt the loss of their land, promote self-governance, and facilitate business opportunities. Compare that to today, where federal policymakers are doing very little to address the poverty, unemployment, and suicide occurring on reservations. As a former congressman said in 2014, "there is no sense of urgency by our country to do anything about it." During the New Deal, there was real action. Today, there are "hearings," "task force" investigations, and White House "challenges." In other words, hollow and low-cost gobbledygook that won't impinge on the tax breaks, tax loopholes, tax deductions, tax exemptions, tax shelters, tax havens, tax avoidance, tax evasion, tax gimmicks, and historically low tax rates enjoyed by our millionaires, billionaires, and multi-national corporations.

(See, "How Tax Evasion Is Fueling Inequality," New York Magazine, October 1, 2015, and "U.S. Missing Out to Corporate Tax Havens," CNN, November 10, 2015)

New Deal Art: "Low Tide"

Above: "Low Tide," a watercolor painting by Avery F. Johnson (1906-1990), created while he participated in the New Deal's Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture, ca. 1938. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: "Fish Cannery"

Above: "Fish Cannery," a water color and pencil on paper, by Carlus Dyer, created while he participated in the New Deal's Treasury Relief Art Project, 1937. Mr. Dyer was born in Springfield, Missouri, in 1917, and may still be alive today (see, e.g., here and here). If so, wouldn't it be great if someone did an oral history interview with him, focusing on his recollections of the New Deal art programs. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: "Miss Manchester's Musical Program for Homeless Men"

Above: "Miss Manchester's Musical Program for Homeless Men," a lithograph on paper by Elizabeth Olds (1896-1991), created while she participated in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1936. Interesting biographical information on Olds can be found here and here. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: "Leonardo da Vinci"

Above: "Leonardo da Vinci," an oil painting by Dane Chanase (1894-1975), created while he participated in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1936. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Veterans Day and the G.I. Bill

Above: The back of this postage stamp reads, "...the G.I. Bill helped approximately 2.25 million war veterans attend college. Millions of other GIs received job training; home, business, and farm loans; and unemployment benefits." Image from personal collection.

 

Above: Many women served during World War II, both in the armed forces and the national defense industries. Image from personal collection.

 

Above: President Roosevelt signs the G.I. Bill on June 22, 1944. When he signed it, Roosevelt reiterated a point he had made during an earlier speech: "What our servicemen and women want, more than anything else, is the assurance of satisfactory employment upon their return to civil life. The first task after the war is to provide employment for them..." After the war, the policies & infrastructure that had been created by FDR and his colleagues--such as the G.I. Bill--helped the economy expand, the middle-class prosper, and the unemployment rate to remain consistently low. In recent years, with unemployment and suicide disproportionately affecting younger veterans and their families, we have to ask ourselves: Are we maintaining (and strengthening) the commitment to our veterans that FDR and Congress started during World War II? Or, are we allowing many veterans to struggle needlessly, in compliance to those who constantly push for government shutdowns, a reduction in social assistance programs, and tax cuts for the wealthy? Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

New Deal Art: Nice, clean, and strong infrastructure vs. anti-infrastructure Republicans

(Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.) 

Not much is known about the painting above - not its title, not its maker, and not its exact year. However, the Smithsonian American Art Museum gives credit to the WPA's Federal Art Project in Iowa, and describes it as an "oil on canvas mounted on fiberboard." If it were up to me, I would simply call it "Infrastructure." The underpass, the perfectly paved road, the clean sidewalks & curbs, and the soft green hillsides all remind me of New Deal projects to improve and beautify America's infrastructure - infrastructure projects that numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and projects that we still use today (but, after 75 years of wear & tear, much of it needs repair or replacement). 

The painting is also somewhat sad, because it's a reminder of what we could have today, were it not for anti-infrastructure Republicans. Across the land, Republican and Tea Party politicians are decimating our infrastructure in service to right-wing millionaires & billionaires. In Congress, right-wing politicians have tried to use the highway bill to sic private debt collectors against us, to cut back on consumer protections, and to deregulate fraudulent banks. In Kansas, Republican Governor Sam Brownback has repeatedly dipped into his state's highway fund to subsidize tax breaks for the wealthy, thereby postponing or cancelling needed repairs. In South Carolina, Republican Governor Nikki Haley was too focused on trying to get poor people to pee into cups to be bothered with her state's infrastructure needs - a decision that ended up costing her state (and the rest of us, i.e., federal aid) billions of dollars in infrastructure damage (see here and here). Indeed, things are so bad that even a top Republican in Congress has scolded Republicans and Tea Partiers for not giving a damn about infrastructure.

And not giving a damn about infrastructure isn't just a matter of policy preferences, it's a matter of life and death. For example: "The federal Department of Transportation estimates that obsolete road designs and poor road conditions are a factor in about 14,000 highway deaths each year" ("Human Cost Rises as Old Bridges, Dams and Roads Go Unrepaired," New York Times, November 5, 2015). Yes, the Republican Party's neglect and hostility towards infrastructure spending is literally killing people - just like their hostility towards preventative health care for the poor is killing people. As one Harvard researcher noted, "Political decisions have consequences, some of them lethal." Yet, tens of millions of people still stand ready to vote for the likes of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, and other Republican presidential candidates who promise even more gargantuan tax cuts for the wealthy - candidates who have been described by a former Republican member of Congress as "nuts," "bonkers," "bizarre," and "out of their "f*cking minds."

Isn't that amazing? (Or is "horrifying" a better word?)

(A WPA road paving project on Loch Raven Boulevard in Baltimore, Maryland, 1936. New Deal policymakers & New Deal workers went to great effort to give us clean, smooth, and strong infrastructure. The WPA built, repaired, or improved 650,000 miles of roadway - enough roadwork to go around the planet 26 times. Photo courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.)

(Decades of Republican tax breaks for the rich have caused our infrastructure to crumble, earning us consistent "D" and "D+" letter grades from the American Society of Civil Engineers. Further, in a futile attempt to make up for declining federal contributions to infrastructure, the revenue burden is shifting downward, causing middle and low-income Americans to pay higher taxes, tolls, fees, fines, and utility rates at the state & local level. For example, the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy recently reported that "Virtually every state tax system is fundamentally unfair, taking a much greater share of income from low- and middle-income families than from wealthy families." Photo by Brent McKee.)

The U.S. Travel Bureau, FDR's "Travel America Year," and the right to adequate recreation

(WPA poster, courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

On July 19, 1940, President Roosevelt signed legislation creating the U.S. Travel Bureau. The office actually had its origin in 1937 as the "Tourism Bureau," an office created for the National Park Service by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. But the legislation signed by FDR made the Travel Bureau a more firm fixture within the Department of the Interior, and thus more able to receive regular funding. The Travel Bureau's mission was to promote recreational travel within the United States, by both citizens and foreign tourists.

Roosevelt also declared 1940 to be the "Travel America Year." And he certainly had been making travel more pleasant in America - with the CCC creating or improving hundreds of parks and the WPA creating or improving hundreds of airports, many thousands of bridges, and 650,000 miles of roadway.

Recreation was always important to Roosevelt; so much so, that in 1944, during his Second Bill of Rights speech, he advocated for the right of all Americans to earn enough money for adequate recreation. Today, of course, America is being overtaken by free market fanatics who would declare such a right to be "government overreach" or "the nanny state" or "communism!" To the Free Marketeers, one must constantly work, work, work, and try to curry favor with billionaire owners & investors. Vacation? Recreation?? Bah humbug, that's socialist European stuff! (Of course, that mentality could be one of the reasons America has such high rates of obesity, diabetes, heart problems, stress, and suicide.)

The U.S. Travel Bureau appears to have been terminated sometime during fiscal year 1943, a victim of the war. I'm not sure if it was later revived, but there were subsequent tourism and travel agencies in the federal government, and at least one seems to have lasted into the mid-1990s. Ironically, in January 2012, President Obama called for "a national strategy to promote domestic and international travel opportunities throughout the United States." Hmm... maybe we should bring back the U.S. Travel Bureau?

Sources: (1) Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Interior, fiscal years 1937 through 1943. (2) Perry H. Merrill, "Roosevelt's Forest Amy: A History of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942," 1981. (3) Federal Works Agency, "Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935-1943," 1946. 

New Deal Art: "Automobile Accident"

Above: "Automobile Accident," an oil painting by Howard Taft Lorenz (1906-1956), created while he participated in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1936. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: "CCC Camp Balboa Park"

Above: "CCC Camp Balboa Park," an idyllic oil painting by Josephine Joy (1869-1948), created while she participated in the WPA's Federal Art Project, ca. 1935-1937. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: An Enchanted Forest

Above: This oil painting doesn't have a title (or, its title has been forgotten), but it seems like an enchanted forest to me. It was painted by Gustavo Cenci (1897-1982), while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1936. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Art: "Artists on WPA"

Above: "Artists on WPA," an oil painting by Moses Soyer (1899-1974), created while he participated in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1935. You can read a brief biography of Soyer here. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.