Franklin D. Roosevelt

Remarks to Relief Administrators.

June 14, 1933

This is a very large and happy family party. I think we are going to get on top of this problem very soon with your help.

As you probably know, I go back quite a long way in this relief work. It was three years ago, very nearly, when I was Governor of New York, that we passed a perfectly unheard of relief bill—twenty-five million dollars for one year's expenditures-and Harry Hopkins took charge of it. We did a great deal and I learned a lot about relief from him in his work. That is the reason I brought him down here to Washington when we started this work.

All during the campaign I think both parties made it fairly clear, especially, I might add, the Democratic Party, that there was a certain principle involved that is just as sound today as it was last year. It is this: The first responsibility of taking care of people out of work who are lacking housing, clothing or food-the first charge is upon the locality; then, if the locality has done everything that it possibly can do, it is the duty of the State to step in and do all the State can possibly do; and, when the State can do no more, then it becomes the obligation of the Federal Government. That is why we have the present relief bill.

Now, of course, we are tackling this thing, as you know, on a great many fronts at the same time. We not only have this actual relief fund of the Federal Government, which is to supplement the work of the localities and of the States, but we are helping to improve things through three or four other measures that are going to count very greatly in giving people work.

You all know about the first one passed in March—that was the C.C.C. camps. We actually have 235,000 men enrolled in those camps at the present time. More are in the preliminary camps-not all out in the woods but they will be very shortly. By the fifteenth of July we shall have 275,000 people all actually at work in the woods. It is a pretty good record, one which I think can be compared with the mobilization carried on in 1917.

Then there is this bill which was passed yesterday and which gives us two very large measures of work relief. The first is the section of the bill relating to industrial control. We are going to get that started just as fast as we humanly can. Just to give you an illustration, it has been estimated by the cotton industry alone that the Code which they are going to propose to us for the cotton industry will put to work, through the shortening of hours alone, about 130,000 more people than are working at the present time. Now, that is just one industry, and that will be a big help. If all the major industries within the next month or two do the same thing, it means we will be able to put several million more people back to work.

Then the other part of the bill is the public works end of the bill, which carries with it the largest peacetime appropriation that has been passed in the history of any country in the world -$3,300,000,000 for public works of various kinds. Our object will be to spread those public works relatively in proportion to the need in the various parts of the country. We shall start on projects that will give the largest percentage of actual labor expenditures and the smallest percentage of expenditures that do not go into labor. That will get started in the next few months.

The result of these measures is that on your relief problem you are going to find that your task will get easier and easier as time goes on.

As to this relief money that the Federal Government is putting up, I think it should be made perfectly clear that it is only to be used where the localities have done everything that they can possibly be asked to do, both through private charity and public appropriation, and that the State Governments have done everything that they could possibly do within reason. If that is not sufficient and the Federal funds are needed, that is where these funds are to be used.

I prepared a little statement here for the Press which I will read to you more as a matter of record than anything else. It is very short.

The Emergency Relief Act is an expression of the Federal Government's determination to cooperate with the States and local communities with regard to financing emergency relief work. It means just that. It is essential that the States and local units of Government do their fair share. They must not expect the Federal Government to finance more than a reasonable proportion of the total. It should be borne in mind by the State authorities and by the five thousand local relief committees, now functioning throughout the land, that there are four million families in need of the necessities of life.

Obviously the Federal Relief Administrator should put as much responsibility as possible on the State Administration. This means a competent set-up in each State, preferably a commission of five or six well-known citizens, who will not only administer the relief in a business-like way but entirely apart from partisan politics. The only way relief officials can be assured that people are getting relief who need relief is to have competent administration.

We are not passing the buck to you but we are asking you to pull your own weight in the boat.

It is essential that there be effective coordination of relief and public works in all communities. While an important factor in setting up a public works program is speed, there is no intention of using the public works funds simply to build a lot of useless projects disguised as relief. It is the purpose to encourage real public works. One function of public works in an emergency is to provide a bridge by which people can pass from relief status over to normal self-support. Partisan politics must play no part in the carrying out of this work. The use of public works as a means of rational redistribution of population from congested centers to more wholesome surroundings where people can have a chance to lead normal life will be encouraged.

That is one of my pet children and has been for a great many years, and applies where we have the kind of congestion in industrial communities that will continue to be congestion and bring unemployment even in times of prosperity. We have to do something to get that particular burden out of the community, and to spread people around where they will have more elbow room and raise a large part of their own food supply.

It is a primary purpose of my Administration to cooperate with the States and with industry to secure work opportunities for as many of the unemployed as possible, by which they will find employment through normal channels. But until those jobs are available the Federal Government, States and every local community must provide relief for every genuinely needy unemployed person in America.

I know that I can count on your full and complete cooperation with the Federal Emergency Relief Administrator and I can assure you on his behalf of a sympathetic understanding of your problems and of decisive action when that is necessary.

And so all I can tell you now is, "Go to it, and God bless you." We will help you all we can.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Remarks to Relief Administrators. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/208225

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