Evening Star Newspaper, June 18, 1933, Page 68

THE. SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, v JUNE 18, 1933. eanery, to people who don’t need relief? §s any considerable portion of the pop- ulation benefiting at the cost of the gen- uinely needy? In short, is our present enthusiasm for relief, with its generous appropriations, being accompanied by a careless supervision, resulting in great waste and wholesale fraud? Fortunately, the answer on the whole must be in the negative. Incidents such _as the one mentioned do occur with some frequency, but the very publicity given their discovery indicates that vigilance is exercised, and a careful study of relief cases makes it clear that fraudulent cases, though they exist, are compara- tively few in number. In fact, the theory that the great mass of people are essentially honest is finding considerable support in the present crisis. Time and again persons who have been receiving relief report voluntarily to the bureaus asking that relief be discontin- wued on the ground that they have found some way of shifting for themselwes. A somewhat unusual incident of this kind occurred recently in a large Eastern city. An old man walked into a home relief bureau one day and, after swear- ing one of the officials to deep secrecy, asked that food allotments to his home be discontinued. The old man lived with his son and daughter-in-law. The son had obtained employment which amply provided for the support of the family, but he contrived to keep that fact a se- cret in order to continue getting free food. “It’s a shame and it ain’t right,” said the old man to the official. “I talked to ’em, but it didn’t do any good. I finally got disgusted, and that’s why I'm here.” ‘The person who tries to get something he is not entitled to is, of course, a fa- miliar phenomenon, and every crisis pro- duces individuals eager to profit at tpe cost of others. To this gentry public re- lief, in the form of money or its equiva- lent, is an irresistible temptation. What is probably a classic example of an at- tempt at this type of grafting occurred in Brooklyn shortly after the first large appropriation for public relief was made by the city. TELEPHONE call was received at a district relief bureau saying that a family at a certain address was in des- perate want. There were eight children in the family, the mother was in poor health and the father was in a hospital. An investigator was immediately dis- patched to see what aid was needed. It was a neat, three-story house in a com- forable section of Flatbush, and it was so opulently furnished that the investi- “gator at first thought he had entered the wrong place. He was reassured, however, by one of the children, a young man of 18, that the family wanted home relief. At first answers to the investigator’s questions tended to confirm the information re- ceived over the telephone. But soon he became suspicious. The mother and the four children who were present all seemed exceptionally well dressed. The young man had on a pair of shiny new shoes, which closer inspection showed were of an expensive make. Then, with sudden inspiration, the investigator took one of the younger and less guileful chil- dren aside for questioning. The following facts were finally dis- elosed: Four of the eight children were employed. Part of the house was rented to a seamstress. From various sources the family income was $475 a month. The family had $11,000 in the bank. It was true that the father was in a hos- pital with a broken collarbone—receiving treatment in a charity ward to which he was not entitled. And it also was re- vealed that papa had sustained the in- jury when he fell while carrying a barrel of wine in the basement. Curious about the psychology of a fam- i1y so well situated asking for relief from public funds, the investigator probed further. Observing a valuable silver service in the dining room, he asked: “If .you feel that you need relief, why didn’t you first try to sell that silver to raise money?” The reply was as brazen as it was re- wealing: “Why should we sell anything as long as the city’s got money? We might as well get our share!” NEEDLES to say, no relief was granted this family, but the case illustrates the attitude of many persons who seek to profit by relief funds without being in genuine need of assistance. Most frauds are not so carelessly attempted as the above. The most common deception em- ployed is to conceal assets, usually a bank account. But every effort is made by re- lief bureaus to discover all possible assets before granting relief. All bank accounts must be listed in ap- plications, and if any large withdrawal was made shortly before an application for relief, an account must be given of the disposal of the funds. The larger banks are periodically canvassed and the investigator in charge of a district keeps a constant check on the neighborhood banks. Every anonymous “tip” and any inci- dent that excites the suspicion that a family is living beyond the allowance given by relief is promptly investigated, but it must be obvious that in a large city, such as New York, for instance, which gives relief to more than 200,000 families, infallible vigilance is humanly impossible. There no doubt are persons receiving relief who are successfully con- cealing their possession of a bank ac- count, often under an assumed name. All that can be said is that everything possible is being done to expose such cases. And when they are discovered they are prosecuted and the money ad- vanced is by due process of law reclaimed by the relief bureau from the discovered assets. Fear that a bank account might be discovered has caused some of the re- cipients to resort to other methods of concealing funds. Such ingenuity is particularly necessary in smaller com- munities, where the number of banks is limited and inspection of accounts com- paratively easy. In one of the smaller New Jersey cities there was a family that had been living on the town for a long time. Finally an investigator made a thorough inspection of the basement in which they were living, and found the place so filthy and vermin-ridden that an immediate cleaning of the premises was ordered. The mattress was so filthy that there was nothing to do but burn it up, and the wife gladly agreed to this on learn- ing that a new mattress would be pro- vided. Later in the day the husband came home, and when he learned what had happened he collapsed, and event- ually became insane. It developed that he had hidden $5,000 in paper currency in the mattress—a hoard of which his wife knew nothing. Almost every large community in the country has a social service exchange, where all applications for relief are cleared to prevent duplication. Last year this exchange in New York City cleared more than a million applicants for relief or other forms of social service, both public and private—sometimes as many as 10,000 in one day. Iun cities where this system is employed it is a rare ex- ception for a person to benefit from two public sources at one time. But there are communities where the system is used carelessly or not at all, and in such places onpe often finds persons receiving twice the aid to which they are entitled. IN one large city in Alabama, for in- stance, relief takes the form of “made” work. The needy head of a family is given a day’s work, and in return is given an allotment of food sufficient to sustain the family for a week. One man con- trived to get two such days of work and a week’s supply of food from each. One allotment he consumed, the other he sold at below market price, pocketing the pro- ceeds. Depletion of relief funds in that city provoked more stringent supervision. An investigator called at the man’s house one day, but no one was at home. The inspector returned again next day, and found the man at home, with his wife and two children. Everything seemed in order. As it was later revealed, the man was single and had hired the woman and her two children to pose as his family to satisfy the investigator. But he quar- reled with the woman over her payment, and thus it came to light that he had been getting the share of two families, whereas he had no family at all. Although New York City has one of the most efficient relief organizations functioning today, one of the most fla- grant cases of multiplied benefits received by a single family is now located just a few miles away from the metropolis. The family consists of a widow with four children. One of the children is mar- ried, one has a job, but does not live at home. There is a 17-year-old boy who does nothing and a 12-year-old girl who attends school. The mother of this fam- fly receives the following monthly in- come: State mother’s pension, $40; al- lowance from the County Community Chest, $30; allowance for home relief, $40; old age pension allowance for a father who lives with her only part of the time, $30. In addition to this, she does laundry work for one family that pays her $25 a month, and for another person who pays her $12 a month. She also picks up occa- sional odd jobs of house cleaning at $3.50 a day. Thus her minimum monthly in come is $177, of which $140 is paid from public funds. This' family has been known to attend the “movies” three or four times in a week, and, with prices low and a steady income, has been living much more comfortably during the de- pression than many families lived in days of prosperity. This, of course, is an extreme case, but it involves no violation of the law. There is no law against duplication of certain types of relief, but every efficient official guards against it, knowing that if one person gets more than his share of aid another will get less. Most States, how- ever, have passed a law making it a mis- demeanor punishable by fine and impris- onment to give false information when applying for relief, and where a relief official learns that a person is receiving help from one source he usually refuses to increase that allowance. But all officials aren’t capable, and in many of the smaller communities there is little systematic supervision. In one town in Illinois the overseer of the poor, who had charge of the distribution of re- lief funds, employed a simple and unique system—a coin from his pocket to needy persons who met him on the street. When asked for an acounting he could produce no record or account of poor re- lief funds in his control. At the last town meeting, however, indignant citizens voted to place the special poor relief levy they had passed in the hands of the mayor’s committee for spending. They ,could not do that within the law, but the law did not concern them so much as the notoriously wasteful habits of the super- visor. OW that the Government has as- sumed the major burden of provid- ing relief funds, it is probable that there will be a general improvement in relief methods, and many of the practices of some of the less carefully administered districts will be eliminated. In the past each State has dealt with the problem as it saw fit, and the efficiency of relief ad- ministration has varied with the meth- ods and laws of each. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration will not, of course, be able to dictate new laws and methods to the individual States. But it will be in a position to set the conditions on which its free grants of relief funds shall be made, and in that manner a greater uniformity in method and even greater efficiency in local ad- ministration may be achieved. While the taxpayer wants to know if relief funds are being properly spent, the student of social problems has another and equally important question to ask: To what extent is our lavish program of relief tending to pauperize our people—to destroy their desire for independent self- support? While admitting that relief is a necessary evil, many welfare workers take the practical position that the im- mediate need for relief is so great that other problems growing out of it are sec- ondary. One of these problems was sharply in- dicated by the following case. A young girl, the sole support of her family, worked in a shop and earned $8 a week. With relief being limited of necessity to families that had no income whatsoever, this girl was not eligible to receive relief. Next door was another family where no one was employed; this family was eligible for home relief and received it. The young girl with the job worked hard for a little salary that was barely enough to keep her family alive. The next-door family did no work, but was able to live on approximately the same scale out of public funds. The girl with the job asked herself a very natural question: If hav- ing a job keeps me from getting relief and living without doing anything, why should I keep my job? So she gave up her job to become eligible for relief—and now she lives without doing any work. In most cases the limited amount of relief available makes holding a job much the preferable choice. But a num- ber of cases similar to that just cited have come to the attention of officials, e ——— e e not to mention the cases not on record. If the choice lies between living on a lower standard, but without working, and living on a higher scale, but sweating for it, there’s no question that many people will make the first choice. In fact, this aspect of the problem has made itself acutely felt in certain agricultural dis- tricts in the South that are dependent on Negro labor. Many plantation owners in South Carolina have complained that they are having difficulty in getting hands to work for wages, because relief agencies are supplying the men with clothing and food. They would rather live poorly without working than work for wages that would enable them to live better. F course, many persons who have lived on relief have rehabilitated themselves sufficiently to become self- supporting. But the fact that between 20 and 30 per cent of the persons who have applied for relief in New York in the last six months are not considered entitled to it indicates a growing tend- ency to live at the public expense with- out working. There is a fairly large turnover in relief cases, and many peo- ple have gone off relief because they have found a way to shift for themselves. But there are also many who have remained on relief rolls for a year or longer and show no tendency or inclination to be- come self-supporting. This has led Joseph Brady, executive secretary of emergency home relief for New York City, to the opinion that a definite term should be set on direct relief. At the end of that period the family should become the object of a special study to determine if perhaps they are failing to make any effort for themselves and if their need for relief is not due to some special con- dition in the family itself rather than to conditions at large. This sort of treat- ment, he believes, might have a tendency to reduce the number of persons who would allow themselves to become con- tentedly adjusted to living on a low standard at public expense. Rehabilitation on any large scale will, of course, become possible only with in- creased opportunity for employment. But people are constantly making efforts to become independent, and one interesting case recently showed that the road to rehabilitation is sometimes blocked by unexpected obstacles. . For a number of years the widow of a war veteran had been supporting herself and her children on an allowance of $50 a month provided for such cases by the city and State of New York. One day she appeared at the Veterans’ Relief Bureau with a plan whereby she might become self-supporting. If the bureau would place her on an abandoned farm and pmavide her with necessary equipment to “nart, she felt that with the aid of her ¢hildren she could successfully establish a chicken farm. She wanted to work and be self-sustaining. The cost of such a venture was esti- mated at $500, not including the aban- doned farm, of which a number were available. If the city and State of New York would advance this money she would sign away all rights to any future claim. The woman’s sincerity and common sense impressed officials and the plan seemed to be sensible. But when they sought to put the plan in operation they found themselves balked. For, while mil- lions were being spent to provide relief for the needy, there was no authorization in the law to permit the initial expendi- ture of $500 from any of the funds. Thus the woman’s eagerness to support herself and her family had to be discouraged. That was eight months ago. Since then she has drawn $400 in monthly al- lowances. She is still a public charge, and probably will remain such for a number of years, during which she will have cost the city and State many times the $500 which couldn’t be spent to help her rehabilitate herself and her family. Te:t: for Bridges Tn:! great expansion of the highway develop= ment program under the public works program raises a problem concerning bridges which is answered in advance through research work of the Forest Products Laboratory of the Depart- ment of Agriculture. The Forest Products Laboratory's research demonstrates mathematically and by test that a single checked beam acts in part as two beams, one on top of the other, as a moving load ap- proaches a support. Hence the shearing stress at midheight of the beam is much smaller than formerly supposed, and beams 30 to 50 per cent “smaller in cross section than allowed by the old design may be used with entire safety.