Statement on Signing the Work Relief Bill.

The joint resolution making appropriations for relief purposes was finally passed last Friday. On Saturday and Sunday the resolution, including all the amendments finally agreed on, was examined by the departments and agencies concerned and sent to Jacksonville by plane and received by the President at 1 p.m.

While a number of new questions are presented by recent amendments, those who have studied the joint resolution have recommended its approval and the President has affixed his signature to it after further study at 4 p.m.

Immediately thereafter the President signed two allocations from the amount appropriated under the new law. The first allocated $125,000,000 to the administrator of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, in order that relief may not stop.

It should be noted that the long delay in the Senate has made necessary the transfer of many millions of dollars previously allocated to highly useful permanent projects to immediate emergency relief work. This money came from the Recovery Act appropriation of 1933.

Many of the projects which have been canceled because of this cannot now be continued under the terms of the new law.

The second allocation under the new law, for $30,000,000, is a continuation of the emergency conservation work; in other words, the maintenance of the Civilian Conservation Corps camps; also $842,000 for continuation of conservation and other work on tribal or other Indian reservation lands.

Further announcements in regard to additional allocations will be made from time to time.