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Works Progress Administration

America's Unfinished Business
Publishing Information

by Florence Kerr
For Release on Delivery,
Saturday Afternoon, May 6, 1939
The following address was delivered by Mrs. Florence S. Kerr, Assistant Administrator
of the Works Progress Administration, at the closing session of the Regional
Conference of Democratic women of the Middle Western and Southwestern States in
St. Louis, Missouri, at the Jefferson Hotel, at 1:15 P.M., Saturday, May 6th, 1939.
(C.S.T.)
1. Six years ago today there was no Federal work relief program in the United States. But
there was one just about to be created by Congress. The legislation providing Federal
funds for both direct relief and work relief was then being speeded by Congress toward
final passage--which occurred on May 12, 1933. It was by this legislation that the
federal Emergency Relief Administration was established.
2. Now, as we all know, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration was the original
ancestor of Federal work relief. The FERA set up the first nationwide public work
program for the unemployed. It was the parent of the CWA program, which put four
million of the unemployed to work on public projects. And it was the grandparent of
the WPA, which now provides public employment to between two and three million of
the unemployed.
3. There are some people today who disapprove of our Federal work program and would
like to see it abolished, lock, stock and barrel. And there are more people who have
heard so much bitter criticism of the WPA that they think maybe the critics are right.
They wonder if maybe this "work relief business" is all a mistake.
4. It costs a lot of money. And it never seems to come to an end. It is true that we get a
great deal for the money we spend on work relief. It is true that we get hundreds of
thousands of miles of new and improved roads--thousands of schools, hospitals and
other public buildings built or repaired--thousands of bridges--hundreds of new
airports--thousands of parks, athletic fields, gymnasiums, swimming pools--thousands
of miles of new water mains and sewers hundreds of miles of levees--thousands of
dams--millions of new trees planted in our state and national forests. But maybe it is all
wrong--maybe we should get along without those roads and schools and hospitals and
sewers and parks.
5. Our communities seems to approve of the work program--they ask for more and more
WPA projects all the time and put up their own money to help pay for them. In the last
three years our American communities have contributed over a billion dollars of their
own to WPA projects for civic improvement. And the recent United States Community
Appraisals, undertaken by the American Engineering Council and nine other
independent national organizations, which report the views of nearly eight thousand

county and town officials in communities large and small all over the United States,
chows them overwhelming and almost unanimously in favor of the continuance of
work relief. But maybe they don't know what they are talking about. Maybe the critics
of the work program know better. Maybe it is a mistake to put our unemployed to work
for the benefit of the communities in which they live. Maybe they should be
maintained in enforced idleness on a starvation dole, losing their skills, losing their
morale, losing all hope for themselves and all faith in American democracy.
6. Those who wish to destroy the Federal work program used to assure the American
people that WPA workers were only a lot of bums and loafers--they didn't really work,
they just leaned on their shovels. Tales about WPA shovel-leaners have had an
immense circulation. But the publication of the inventory of accomplishments on WPA
projects has sort of taken the humor out of those jokes. Two hundred and eighty
thousand miles of roads and streets built and improved by the WPA--try to get a laugh
out of that. Nearly three thousand new schoolhouses for our children, and over 21,000
repaired and modernized--what is there so funny about that?
7. The shovel-leaning joke has proved to be a bit of a boomerang. The laugh now is on
the other side of the mouth. And so those who wish to destroy our work program have
now taken another tack. They keep still about the construction projects which
constitute 80 percent of the whole Federal works program. Instead they are
concentrating their criticism upon our white-collar projects.
8. Now it is one of the great virtues of our Federal work program that it does have whitecollar projects. An ordinary program for the construction of public works is all right as
far as it goes, but such a construction program provides work only for manual workers,
and no work at all for women,--or for professional workers of any kind.
Unemployment, however, is not restricted to manual workers or to men workers. We
know that many families are dependent upon women for their support. It is only
reasonable that these women when unemployed and in need should have an equal
chance with men for jobs on our public projects. And we know, too, that technical and
service workers of all kinds are to be found on the relief rolls--clerks, salesmen and
saleswomen, bookkeepers, stenographers, teachers, nurses, draughtsmen and
engineers, among others, These workers and their families can get just as hungry as
carpenters or hod carriers and their families, They need work and wages just as much
as manual laborers and skilled craftsmen do. We cannot let them starve, and it would
be a waste of their time and our money to put them at manual jobs for which they have
no training.
9. It has been one of the principles of our work program to provide work as far as
possible that makes use of every worker's skill and ability. We do not put a bricklayer
to digging ditches when there are schools and firehouses to be built. Why should we
not try to make use of the special abilities of unemployed teachers, nurses, artists,
engineers and other professional workers? This, too, we have done.
10. When I say that "we" have done this, I mean that the communities all over the United
States have requested such projects and put up their money to help pay for them. The
communities have found that they need and can make good use of the services of such
trained workers. How do they use them? In many ways. Adult education projects are in
great demand everywhere, and these projects give employment to a total of about
40,000 workers, more than half of whom are women. Communities are widely and
increasingly setting up public recreation programs with the help of WPA recreation
leaders, and this gives employment altogether to about 30,000 workers, of whom well
over a third are women. Many communities set up nursing projects, and household aid

projects, and nursing schools, all employing women. Many towns and counties have
library projects, employing chiefly women. Cities have survey projects of many kinds-traffic surveys, tax surveys, health surveys, employing both men and women.
Historical records of great value are being rescued from neglect and preserved and
indexed for the use of historians. In a few cities in which there are considerable
numbers of musicians, artists and actors, we have set up music, art and theatre projects.
And in every state some unemployed editors, reporters and other writers have been
getting out a State guide-book.
11. I do not think that anyone has ever criticized the assistance that the WPA has given to
our communities in public health work. Nor do I think that there has been any adverse
criticism of the work of our adult education program from those who have seen it in
operation and are in a position to judge its results. Our States and communities are glad
to have WPA assistance in this field, and they are as proud as we are of the work done
in reducing illiteracy, in teaching citizenship, in giving to adults a new chance to
improve themselves by academic or vocational education.
12. The plain truth is that the United States, for all its riches, has been sadly backward in
protecting the health of its population, and it has in many parts of the country been
unable to provide adequate education. As for the public provision of recreation, we
have only just waked up to the need for it. In all these fields, the WPA is helping our
communities to do what has long needed to be done. It is helping to do what must be
done if we are to boast of being a civilized country. And no person who has truly at
heart the interests of American civilization can wish undone what the WPA is doing.
13. Yet all this work would come to an end if the white-collar activities of the WPA were
abolished.
14. In the attack that is now being made in some quarters on the white-collar activities of
the Federal work program, nothing is said about these activities that I have mentioned.
Attention is being concentrated upon a very small part of the whole division of
professional and service work, a few projects the costs of which all together are
slightly more than a one-hundredth part of the cost of the whole work program. These
are the five arts projects. And what are they? One is the historical records survey.
Another is the music project. Another is the art project, another the theatre project, and
another the writers' project.
15. The music project seems to be universally and enthusiastically approved. The 28
splendid symphony orchestras that now give regular concerts in 35 or 40 of our large
cities have become familiar and well-loved institutions. I know how deeply the musiclovers of the Middle West would regret the loss of these orchestras. Like the other four
projects I have just named, they are sponsored by the Federal government itself, and
they would have to be disbanded if the Federal government were forbidden to sponsor
any projects.
16. The art project also has proved to be exceedingly popular, It is evident that the interest
in art, the pleasure in art, the desire for the enjoyment to be found in creative art
activities, is more widespread in America than any of us ever realized. The bare walls
of hundreds of schools, hospitals and other public buildings all over the country have
been decorated with paintings made by artists working for a regular WPA wage. The
cost is trifling, and the impetus given to this kind of civilized cultural enjoyment is
very great. Some art critics have seen in WPA art and the public response to it the
beginnings of a Renaissance of art in America.
17. Our WPA or Federal Theatre has been described by the distinguished dramatic critic,

Burns Mantle, as "The American People's Theatre." Many of it's productions have
received the highest praise from a great number of dramatic critics. It has again and
again had Broadway successes. It has created a new form of dramatic art in its "Living
Newspaper." It has presented its performances before 26 million people in the last
three years. It has been welcomed by the whole dramatic world as an influence that is
revitalizing the American theatre. Its light would be blown out like a lamp, if these
cultural projects had to be abandoned.
18. I should like to read a few opinions by experts in different fields on some of these other
cultural projects that are now sponsored by the Federal Government. Dr. Conyers
Read, of the American Historical Association, says of our Historical Records Survey:
"I know of no other survey of national records in the world to compare with this one."
19. Of the American Guide series now being brought out by the writers' project, the
distinguished literary critic Lewis Mumford has written: "These guide books are the
finest contribution to American patriotism that has been made in our generation."
20. Our belief in the work program has had to undergo a great many trials. No human
institution is perfect. The only question is whether our work program is something to
be improved, or something to be destroyed. I think that it should be improved and I
think that it is well worth defending as it stands, with all its human imperfections.
21. But some people think differently. They think it is all a mistake--the writers' project,
the government-sponsored cultural projects, the whole kit and caboodle of education
and health and other white-collar projects so eagerly sponsored by our communities,
and the construction projects and everything that they construct--the schools, the roads,
the sewers, the dams, the levies--yes, and the work done by WPA workers in times of
flood and hurricane--all a mistake.
22. Well, if it is a mistake, the mistake dates back to that time six years ago this month,
when Congress voted overwhelmingly to set up the Federal Emergency Relief
Administration and begin to give food to the starving and work to the willing and able
unemployed.
23. In order to understand the state of mind of Congress and the American people in
making that great decision in May 1933, it is necessary to go a little farther back. I
should like to take you back for a moment to the Golden Twenties--that glittering and
gorgeous era of post-war prosperity in the United States.
24. Everything if you remember, seemed perfectly wonderful. Europe might be having
economic troubles, but America stood secure and serene. American investors had been
lending Europe money with which to buy American goods, and our factory wheels
were turning at full speed. The stock market was rising, day after day, week after week,
month after month. Our American economists assured us that we had risen
permanently to a new lover of economic prosperity. And President Hoover defined our
American ideal for us in these soul-stirring words: "Two cars in every garage, and a
chicken in every pot."
25. It is true that there was a cloud in the sky of our prosperity--but it was only a tiny
cloud, no bigger than a man's hand. In March of that banner year, 1929, there was
estimated to be over a million unemployed in the United States--perhaps a million and
a half, or even two million. A million or two workers out of work and with no wages
with which to buy the goods that were pouring out of our factories in a golden flood.
26. But who cared about a little unemployment? The stock market was rising to

unprecedented heights. Our American prosperity was dazzling, stupendous,

unparalleled, supreme! Until late in October 1929, when there was a panic on the New
York stock exchange, and billions of dollars in values were wiped out in a few days.
27. But never mind--prosperity would be back in a few weeks, bigger than ever. So we
were told. In December 1929, unemployment had risen to three million. Conservative
business leaders rallied the public confidence. "Don't worry," they said, "the storm will
pass. Just grin, keep on working. Prosperity is just around the corner. All will be well
in the spring--in the fall--next year--"
28. Well--you here know the story for the next few years as well as I do. I shall not review
the distressing details. I'll skip those unhappy years and bring you up to May 1933,
when the newly elected Congress passed the new legislation providing Federal funds
for both direct relief for the destitute and work for the able-bodied unemployed. Was it
a mistake? The American people didn't think so then. When the new large program of
public works did not provide employment fast enough, the Civil Works Administration
was created to provide public employment in a hurry for four million workers.
29. Was that a mistake? We had eighteen million destitute people on the relief rolls. They
had to be given food, clothing and shelter. Many of them were too old or too young to
work or too sick or incapacitated. But millions of others were able and willing to work.
Should they not be given a chance to support themselves and their families by work?
30. The communities in which they lived were in need of their services. Roads were
everywhere in bad condition, public buildings were falling into disrepair, schools were
closing for lack of money to pay the teachers, public health services were suspended.
These unemployed workers would be glad to do that work. Why not let them?
31. And there was another reason. Business was at a standstill, because of lack of general
purchasing power. People out of work cannot buy automobiles or new clothes, they
cannot build now homes for themselves, they cannot pay the landlord or the grocer.
The more unemployment, the less business--and the less business, the more
unemployment. This vicious circle had run its course long enough. It was time to get
wages into the pockets of the unemployed--and that was one of the purposes of the
Federal work program.
32. The effect was immediate. There were wages in four million pockets. Business began
to revive. Factories reopened, wheels turned again, smoke began to pour out of the
chimneys. Recovery began, not by dreaming and wishing and hoping for prosperity to
come back, but by putting idle workers to work for the communities in which they live.
33. And now shall I tell you how to stop the process of recovery? How to throw the nation
back into the gloom and despair of 1932? How to create business failures in every
street? It can be done very simply--by abolishing our public work program as a few
short-sighted people now propose to do.
34. It has been said that the WPA dollar is the fastest moving dollar in the United States.
The wages paid to WPA workers are spent quickly on the other necessities of life-food, rent, clothing, and fuel. Those WPA dollars go swiftly back to the mill and the
mine and the farm. They keep the wheels of industry turning, because they represent an
amount of purchasing power that American industry simply cannot get along without.
Take those WPA dollars out of the stream of commerce today, and tomorrow that
stream will be stagnant and lifeless, First the corner grocery will fail. Then the landlord
will find himself unable to pay his debts. And so on through all the branches of
business and industry, Our factories cannot go on producing what people cannot afford

to buy, Abolish the WPA, deprive industry of the buying power of WPA wages, and we
shall quickly be back where we were in 1932. The happiness of America depends upon
the happiness of the least of its citizens. The great middle third to which most of us
belong is riding on the backs of the lower third. Submerge the low-income man
completely, and it will not be long before America's proportion of "ill-clothed, illhoused, and ill-fed" will be stretched to include many now above this level.
35. But--it may be asked--does this mean that the WPA or some similar large public work
agency must go on forever? I might try to dodge that question, but I am not going to.
Forever is too long a time to talk about but I think we must reconcile ourselves to the
continuance of a large public work agency of some kind for many years to come--as
many years as it takes to solve the great problem of unemployment.
36. Under this administration, seven million workers have been put into private jobs.
Seven million more private jobs exist than there were when this Administration began
its work. And seven million new jobs is a lot of jobs. But in the meantime half a
million young people every year grow up to become job-seekers. And every year,
human labor is more and more displaced by labor-saving machinery. It takes fewer
workers all the time to produce the same amount of goods or raise the same amount of
grain. Our machine age is creating unemployment much faster than business recovery
can provide new employment. That is not going to be an easy problem to solve. I
believe it can be solved, but it will take time. And while unemployment remains large,
we shall continue to need a large program of public work. We shall not let our
unemployed starve, nor, can we afford to let them rot in enforced idleness.
37. I should like to read to you one brief passage from the recent message of President
Roosevelt to Congress on the subject of unemployment and the Federal program of
work relief. He said:
In any consideration of the problem of unemployment it must be borne in
mind that the program adopted to meet it must be envisioned to extend
over a considerable period of time. The reason for this is that this nation,
in common with the entire world, is undergoing a process of economic
readjustment, particularly in connection with the production and
distribution of goods. Until our economic machinery can be realigned to
meet present-day conditions, the problem of unemployment will persist
and the measures adopted to deal with it must, therefore, be thought out
and their operation planned to extend well into the future.
38. Speaking for myself it is my own hope and belief that the economic readjustment of
which the President speaks, in connection with the production and distribution of
goods, can be accomplished by this present generation. I earnestly believe that we can
hand down to the youth of the coming generation a better America for them to live in-an America in which their young eyes can look out toward the world's future and their
own with undimmed ambition and boundless hope. We owe it to our youth to bequeath
them such an America.