Nothing to Fear by Adam Cohen

Author:Adam Cohen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

While she was putting her department in order, Perkins began moving forward on relief. There were about 15 million unemployed people, and the limited resources available to help them were running out fast. Community chests, which had been carrying much of the burden, were not able to keep up with demand. While the number of people who needed their help continued to climb, many private charities were missing their fund-raising goals because the incomes of their donors were declining. State and local governments, whose tax revenues were plummeting, were also short of funds. Hoover had long resisted any kind of federal relief program. When he did agree to support one, the Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932, the conditions he imposed rendered it ineffective. The small amount of money it sent out to the states, in the form of loans, did little to meet the enormous need for relief.14

Roosevelt was prepared to do more, though it was unclear how far he would go. He told progressive senators Robert La Follette, Jr., of Wisconsin and Bronson Cutting of New Mexico that he intended to have some kind of relief program, but he did not offer details. There was reason to believe that he would establish a national program along the lines of the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration that he had set up in New York, but there was also reason to believe that he might not. He was reluctant to make relief a federal responsibility, both because of his views on the role of the federal government, and because of his commitment to government economy. On March 6, Roosevelt had told the Governors’ Conference that when it came to unemployment relief “the primary duty is that of the locality, the city, county, town.” If the localities could not manage the burden, he said, “the next responsibility is on the States and they have to do all they can.” Only if localities and states could not meet the needs of their unemployed, he insisted, was it “the duty of the Federal Government to step in.”15

Perkins had always assumed when she joined the Cabinet that she would need to be the driving force pushing for a federal relief program. After her meeting with Roosevelt about Section 24 and the Garsson brothers, at which he had told her to “keep your eye” on relief and “try and help develop something,” she felt that this role was official. Perkins went into Cabinet meetings carefully monitoring where her colleagues stood, and she was on the lookout for a good relief plan to bring to Roosevelt. At the first Cabinet meeting, the only subject was the banking crisis, but at the second one, Perkins recalled, “the question of relief was discussed with considerable intensity.” She was pleased to see that when Roosevelt polled the Cabinet, all of them said “that relief and quick relief must be given.” Even the more conservative members, like Claude Swanson, the secretary of the navy, and Cordell Hull, supported relief. Vice

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